21 examples of spiritual experiences, from childhood to adulthood (2023)

introduction

At Uplift, we integrate the best of ancient wisdom and modern science as part ofour approach to spirituality. This site contains examples of spiritual experiences collected by a number of individuals and researchers.

define spirituality

The wordspiritualityis impossible to define precisely as it points to moments that cannot be fully put into words. Some people have said these moments are like a"sea feeling"because the experience feels as big as an ocean. Others call it "summit experience"or a"religious experience".

Regardless of what a person calls it, it's clear that people all over the world have these experiences.

Here are some definitions worth considering.

Brene Brown, author ofDaring
“Spirituality means recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably linked by a force greater than all of us, and that our connection to that force and to each other is based on love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning and purpose to our lives.”

Stephen Covey, author ofThe 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
“Spiritual intelligence represents our drive for meaning and connection with the infinite. Spiritual intelligence also helps us discern true principles that are part of our conscience and are symbolized by the compass. The compass is an excellent physical metaphor for principles because it always points north.”

Lisa Miller, author ofThe spirit child
“Spirituality is an inner sense of relationship with a higher power that is loving and guiding. The word we give to this higher power could be God, nature, spirit, the universe, the Creator, or other words that represent a divine presence. But the important point is that spirituality encompasses our relationship and dialogue with that higher presence.”

Above all, spirituality points to connection, reverence, purpose and meaning.

Here's a partial list of the experiences we've gathered. Read more inThe diversity of religious experienceby William James or viaThe institute for mystical experience research and education.

Spiritual experiences in childhood

These experiences come from adults reflecting on experiences they had in childhood.

Stefan, a neuroscientist in his forties
“As I sat on this rock, I watched the pretty trees that surrounded me. After a few minutes I felt connected to the rock and the trees. Then it seemed to me that the rock, the trees and myself were part of a much larger whole than "Little Stefan". After this experience, my purpose in life became clear: I would later become a scientist to show that the essence of man is not found in the brain.”
- Quoted inThe spirit child

Mary Austin, author, 1937
“I must have been between 7 and 8 when this experience happened to me. It was a summer morning and the child that I was had gone down alone through the orchard and come out on the crest of a sloping hill where there was grass and the wind blew and a tall tree reached into the infinite expanses of the blue. All of a sudden, after a moment of stillness there, earth and sky and tree and windblown grass and the child in their midst, came alive together with a pulsing light of awareness. At the child's feet lay a wild foxglove and a bee dozed around. And to this day, I remember each individual's rapid encompassing awareness of the whole—me within them and them within me, and all of us encased in a warm, luminous bubble of aliveness.”
- Quoted inThe golden thread

Anonymous woman, from the archives of the Religious Experience Research Center
“My father would take the whole family for a walk on Sunday evenings. On one such walk we walked along a narrow path through a field of tall, ripe corn. I stayed behind and found myself alone. Suddenly the sky lit up above me. I was enveloped in golden light, aware of a presence so kind, so loving, so bright, so comforting, so commanding, that existed separate from me, but so close. I didn't hear a sound. But the words came to me very clearly: “Everything is fine. Everyone will be fine.'”
- Quoted inThe Middle Way to God

Anonymer Mann, aus „An Introduction to Religious Experience“
"It was a hot summer Sunday afternoon and I was lying on my back in a [small stand of trees], lost in reverie. I really thought of nothing, and then my mind went blank - suddenly I found myself surrounded, embraced by a white light that seemed to come from both within and without, a very bright light but very different from any ordinary physical light I was filled with an overwhelming feeling of love, warmth, peace and joy - a love far, far greater than any human love could be - total acceptance, surrender, compassionate, total love."

Kaitlin, fromThe spirit child:
Kaitlin developed major depressive disorder (MDD) after descending into philosophical nihilism in college. Then: “I was walking along the sea, walking along the dock and saw the light twinkle on the water. … Suddenly everything became clear to me. … The world is bright and full of love – there is spirituality in everything!”
- Quoted inThe spirit child

Spiritual experiences in adulthood

John Trevor, writer
Trevor had been separated from his wife and sons for a period of time and was beginning to feel depressed. Then he went for a walk with his dog in the mountains. He writes, "In the loveliness of the morning and the beauty of the hills and valleys, I soon lost my sense of sadness and regret." Then something profound happened to John Trevor. He says: "On the way back I suddenly and without warning felt like I was in heaven - an inner state of peace and joy and confidence of indescribable intensity, accompanied by a feeling as if I had been bathed in a warm glow of light. The outer condition outweighed the inner." Effect works – a feeling of having transcended the body even though the scene around me was clearer and closer to me than before.”
- Quoted inmy search for god(Trevor's 1897 autobiography)

Anonymous British
“In 1956, aged 23, my husband and I hiked the cliff top path from St Ives in Cornwall to Zennot. It was a bright, sunny September day, bright but not the harsh midsummer sun. My husband went ahead his usual forty yards and disappeared over the bow of a slope, so I was basically all alone. Even though there was no fog, the light suddenly seemed white and diffuse and I experienced the most incredible sense of oneness... The experience was incredibly beautiful.”
— Cited in the Alister Hardy Trust archives

Anonymous British
"On that occasion, I found instead that I felt an intense sense of affection and oneness with everyone around me as they ran to the bus, took kids shopping, or happily met their friends. The feeling was so strong that I wanted to leave my silent watch and join them in their urgent lives. This sense of "oneness" is fundamental to what I understand by religion. I don't think I've ever found it so irresistible with a few people before - sometimes with my children or in love. The effect of the experience, I believe, was a lasting increase in my awareness that we are 'members of another', a consequent greater openness to everyone, and an expanded concern for others.”
— Cited in the Alister Hardy Trust archives

Andre Comte-Sponville, philosophyrend
"When it first happened, I was in a forest in northern France. I must have been twenty-five or twenty-six. . . . That evening some friends and I were walking in the forest that we loved so much. Night had fallen. We went. Gradually our laughter died down and the conversation died down. Nothing remained but our friendship, our mutual trust and our common presence. …I simply took in the world around me—the darkness of the undergrowth, the incredible luminosity of the sky, the faint sounds of the forest (cracking branches, an occasional animal call, our own muffled footsteps) made the stillness all the more palpable. And suddenly. . . . What? Nothing: everything! No words, no meaning, no questions, just - a surprise. Only that. A seemingly infinite happiness. A seemingly eternal feeling of peace. Above me the starry sky was vast, luminous and unfathomable, and within me was nothing but the sky that I was a part of, and the stillness and the light, like a warm hum, and a sense of joy... yes, in the dark that night I contained only the dazzling presence of space. Peace. Infinite Peace! Simplicity, serenity, joy.”
- Quoted inThe Little Book of Atheistic Spirituality

Marius Favre
"Had I been absorbed by the universe, or had the universe invaded me? Those expressions had become practically meaningless since the boundary between my body and the world had disappeared - or rather, seemed to have been neither more nor less than a hallucination of my sanity, now melting in the flame of truth. ... Everything was there, more present than ever.”
- Quoted inThe Little Book of Atheistic Spirituality

Richard Jeffries, British nature writer
"It's eternity now. I'm in the thick of it. It's about me in the sunshine; I am in it like the butterfly soaring in the light laden air. Nothing has to come; is that now Now is eternity; now is the immortal life. Here at this moment, by this tumulus, on earth, now; I exist in it. The years, the centuries, the cycles are absolutely nothing; it has only been a moment since this tumulus was erected; in a thousand years it will still be just a moment. For the soul there is no past and no future; everything is and always will be, in the now. For artificial purposes, the time is mutually agreed upon, but actually it is not such. The shadow continues on the dial, the index moves around on the watch, and what's the difference? none. If the clock had never started, what would have been the difference? There may be time for the clock, the clock may take its time; for me there is none.

I dip my hand in the creek and feel the flow; In a moment, the water particles that first touched me are swept meters away in the current, my hand stays there. I take my hand away and the flow - the time - of the creek does not exist for me. The great clock of the firmament, the sun and the stars, the crescent moon, the earth turning two thousand times, is no more to me than the flowing of the brook when my hand is withdrawn.”
- Quoted inThe story of my heart, published in 1883

Margaret Montague, Autorin
"It happened to me about two years ago, the day my bed was first pushed out onto the hospital's open gallery. I was just recovering from an operation. … For the first time in my life I caught a glimpse of the ecstatic beauty of reality.

I can't remember now if the revelation came suddenly or gradually; I only remember being in the midst of those wonderful moments, seeing life for the first time in all its young rush of loveliness, in its unspeakable joy, beauty and meaning. I can't say exactly what the mysterious change was. I didn't see anything new, but I saw all the usual things in a wondrous new light - in what I believe is their true light. For the first time I saw how wildly beautiful and joyful life is, which I could not describe with my words. Every human that moved across that porch, every sparrow that flew, every twig that swayed in the wind was caught and part of the whole insane ecstasy of loveliness, joy, importance, intoxication of life.

It wasn't that, for a few hyper-hyped moments, I imagined all existence to be beautiful, but that my inner vision for the truth was clarified, so that I saw the actual loveliness that is always there but that we so seldom notice; and I knew that every man, woman, bird and tree, every living thing before me was exuberantly beautiful and supremely important. And when I saw that, my heart melted out of me with love and delight.”
- Quoted inTwenty minutes of reality

Oprah Winfrey, TV presenter
“My friend Bob Greene and I went for a hike. The sun had set, leaving wisps of lavender ribbons in the sky. Clouds rolling down from the mountain spread out over the ocean with only a small opening through which we could see the moon. ...

As we continued our walk, Bob turned to me and said, "Hold on for a moment."

I stopped.

"Can you hear that?" he whispered.

I could - and it took my breath away. "It" was the sound of silence. Absolute and complete silence. So I could still hear my own heart beating. I wanted to hold my breath because even the inhalation and exhalation was like a cacophony. There was absolutely no movement, no breeze, not even the perception of air; it was the sound of nothing and everything. It felt like all of life...and death...and beyond was contained in one room, and I wasn't just standing in it, I was a part of "him." This was the most peaceful, coherent and knowledgeable moment I have ever experienced.”
— Quoted on Oprah.com

J.C. Penney, business owner
Penney was hospitalized due to severe anxiety. One night he became so ill that he wrote his wife and son suicide notes because he was sure he was going to die.

However, he survived the night and awoke the next morning to hear singing in the nearby hospital chapel. He went in and listened. Then he said: “Suddenly something happened. I can not explain. I can only call it a miracle. I felt as if I had been lifted instantly from the darkness of a dungeon into warm, bright sunlight. I felt like I had been transported from hell to paradise. … It was then that I realized that I alone was responsible for all my problems. … From that day until now my life has been carefree. I am 71 years old and the most dramatic and glorious 20 minutes of my life were the ones I spent that morning in that chapel.”

Here is another experience, that of a man listening to music.
"I was sitting there one evening listening to a Brahms symphony," he says. "My eyes were closed and I must have been totally relaxed because I felt a sense of 'expansion', I seemed to be beyond the confines of my physical self. Then an intense feeling of "light" and "love" rose and enveloped me. It was so wonderful and gave me such an emotional release that tears rolled down my cheeks. For several days I seemed to bathe in its luster, and when it wore off I was free of my fears. ... I can truly say that it was life changing and the years that followed have not tarnished the experience."
- Quoted inIntroduction to the religious and spiritual experience

Tony Hsieh, CEO of shoe company Zappos
Hsiehdescribes experiencing a deep spiritual connection at a dance party in a warehouse the size of ten football fields. The place was packed with people dancing to electronic dance music while smoke machines and green laser beams created a surreal atmosphere. He spoke of a strong sense of awe. He says, "I was surprised to feel overwhelmed by an overwhelming sense of spirituality - not in the religious sense, but by a sense of deep connection with all who are there, as well as with the rest of the universe."
- Quoted indeliver happiness

Ken Vincent, Professor an der University of Houston
“I was in the Astrodome at a soccer game and was waiting in line for drinks. Suddenly I felt like I was inside the heads of everyone around me and I could feel what they were feeling. I could feel her happiness, her love for her friends and family, and her joy to be together. Although it only lasted a few moments, it was like tapping into the Spirit of God.”
- Quoted inThe golden thread

Jim Carrey, actor
"I asked myself, 'Who is aware that I'm thinking?'

"And suddenly I was thrown into this vast, amazing sense of freedom - from myself, from my problems. I saw that I was bigger than what I do; I was bigger than my body.”
- Quoted froma speechCarrey gab

Jill Bolte Taylor, neuroscientist
Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor felt this unity deeply one day when she woke up and experienced the symptoms of a stroke. In the midst of the experience, she felt something transcendent. She says: “I was immediately mesmerized by the magnificence of the energy around me. And because I could no longer see the limits of my body, I felt huge and expansive. I felt one with all the energy that was there and it was beautiful there.”
- Quoted by herTED talk

Black Elk, Native American medicine man
"I saw that the sacred circlet of my people was one of many circlets forming a circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the midst grew a mighty flowering tree to protect all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy... but everywhere is the center of the world.”

Black Elk added: "The first peace that is most important comes in people's souls when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center the universe dwells Wakan- Taka (the Great Spirit), and that this center is really everywhere, it is in each one of us.”
— Cited in Black Elk's accounts of the seven rites

Edgar Mitchell, Astronaut
Edgar Mitchell had a spiritual experience while viewing the earth from space. He says: “What I experienced during this three-day journey home was nothing short of an overwhelming feeling of universal connectedness. . . . I perceived the universe as conscious in a way.”
- Quoted inhis obituary

Estlin Carpenter, educator and physiologist
“One afternoon I went for a walk alone. I was in that vacant, thoughtless state in which one strolls down country lanes and simply indulges in the casual glimpses of the surroundings that bring such intense joy to a city-dweller with rural longings. Suddenly, I became aware of someone else's presence. I can't describe it, but I found myself perceiving the essence of God all around me as directly as I do with you when we are together. It was no longer a matter of conclusions, it was an immediate act of spiritual (or whatever adjective you may use) concern. It came unsought, totally unexpected. I remember the wondrous transformation of the distant forests and hills as they seemed to blend with the infinite being I was so associated with. This experience didn't last long. But it was enough to change my whole feeling.
- Quoted inA middle way to God

Jane Goodall, researcher
“Lost in awe of the beauty around me, I must have slipped into a heightened state of awareness. It is difficult - actually impossible - to put into words the moment of truth that suddenly came over me at the time. Even the mystics are unable to describe their brief flashes of spiritual ecstasy. Thereafter, as I struggled to recall the experience, it seemed to me that the Self was totally absent: I and the chimpanzees, the earth and the trees and the air seemed to merge, becoming one with the spiritual force of life itself. The air was filled with a feathered symphony, the evening song of the birds. I heard new frequencies in their music and also in singing insect voices - sounds so high and sweet that I was amazed. I had never been so aware of the shape, the color of the individual leaves, the varied grain that made each leaf unique. The smells, too, were clear and easily recognizable: fermenting, overripe fruit; wet earth; cold, wet bark; the damp smell of chimpanzee hair, and yes, my own too. And the aromatic scent of young, crushed leaves was almost overpowering….

That afternoon it had been as if an invisible hand had pulled back a curtain, and I had seen through one such window for a brief moment. In a flash of Outsight, I had felt timelessness and quiet ecstasy, a truth of which mainstream scholarship is but a small fraction. And I knew the revelation would be with me for the rest of my life, imperfectly remembered but always within me. A source of strength to draw from when life seemed hard or cruel or desperate.”
- Quoted inJane Goodall's Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey

Paul Simon, Singer/Songwriter
In an interview with Charlie Rose, songwriter Paul Simon spoke about how he sometimes experiences deep beauty during the writing process. I love this exchange because it suggests that the experience is universal - available to all of humanity - if we seek it.

Simon: "[The experience is] so pleasurable that it releases a kind of serotonin flush through your brain. They just want to do it again; you really want to do it again..."

Rose: "And when do you feel that?"

Simon: Well, you never know when you're going to feel it. It doesn't happen often in my experience, but there have been times when I've written a line I didn't know I was going to write that just made me stop and catch my breath or cry. And I didn't know why, and I don't want to say that like I'm bragging about how good it was, because most of the time I was really like, "How did this happen?"

The first time I can remember it... was when I was writing "Bridge Over Troubled Water" - not the whole song, just the melody line: "Like a bridge over troubled water I'll lay me down." For a second existed it not . It was there for the next six seconds. And I was just shocked. And I was like, 'This is so much better than I usually write. I wonder where that came from.” Of course, I was 27 or 28, so I hadn't really thought about how sometimes you get plugged into a big, big power and you're a channel — that's what it feels like. It's nothing to brag about; it is something to be thankful for.”

Rose: "Do you feel that? That there is a greater power and when it comes you will take it and celebrate the fact that it gave you the power to do what you just did?

Simon: “Yes I do, but I don't want to go to the next step and say that I think that greater power is God. Nor do I want to say that it is not so. But I want to acknowledge that there are times when something comes to you and you don't know why, and then there it is and you feel very satisfied. You get this feeling that's very close to bliss.”