[excerpted from, 9 Keys to Mystical Experience: Transpersonal Psychology ©2023]

We begin at the peak.

Some achieve peak experience once in a lifetime – the birth of a baby, an exquisite sunset, a moment of sheer joy in which we feel that the top has been lifted off of our head, our heart has burst open in song, something within us has changed forever – while others never have such a moment, and for yet others, it occurs with some regularity. The more one seeks self-actualization or advanced psychological development, the more likely these transcendent moments are, though never common.

Having pursued this sort of endeavor for more than 40 years now, I have been delighted by quite a few such moments. The most profound such, in addition to those in nature which I regularly seek, have occurred when I’ve been in the presence of someone in their dying moments as they transition. This first occurred when, at just 16 years of age, I began work as a nurse’s aide in a geriatric facility; over the course of 4 years, I had quite a few experiences of sitting with people in their dying moments, gently washing their bodies as a way of caring for them even after death. Later in my 30s, I volunteered in hospice care with similar experiences. As with birth, witnessing someone’s death is a profoundly transforming experience.

In this era of active psychedelic research, some would substitute ‘mystical experience’ with this construct of peak experience, rejecting the former as religious or paranormal and therefore not scientific, or at the least unable to be adequately measured. While both are transcendent in their impact, they simply aren’t the same, however; reaching the mountaintop and being overcome by the beauty one finds there is quite different from encountering entities or hearing the voice of a god – or a rock. Peak experience can surely facilitate mystical experience, which is why we begin with this key – but it is the means, not the mystical itself.

Psychologist Dr Abraham Maslow (yes, he of that pyramid-shaped ‘hierarchy of human needs’), who first established humanistic psychology and was one of the founders of transpersonal psychology as well, gave us this concept of ‘peak experiences’, events that engender awe and bliss, and are transcendent. The concept of ‘flow’, or complete absorption while working toward some goal, especially when involving creativity or innovation, is one type of peak experience (Csikszentmihalyi & Nakamura, 2018).

The associated emotion of awe, or wonder coupled with a sense of reverence, a vastness of feeling often ineffable, is especially transcendent (Chen & Mongrain, 2020; Lin et al., 2020). It has been correlated with a myriad of psychological benefits and inspired various therapeutic approaches (Tanhan et al, 2022) and scales of measurement (Yaden et al., 2019), and is a key focus in both transpersonal and positive psychology.

Related to awe, and surely elements of the peak experience, are the emotions of euphoria or bliss, and ecstasy, similar terms but varying degrees of transcendence. Euphoria and bliss focus on ultimate happiness or pure joy, while ecstasy is a sense of immense pleasure and includes an element of self-transcendence – the feeling of being ‘beside oneself’, overcome by positive emotion with some loss of self-awareness. Divine ecstasy in particular is closely associated with mystical experience, revelatory in nature and long aligned with transcendent religious phenomena. In fact, many early practices of worship were ecstatic in nature, from worship in ancient Greece and Phrygia to shamanism that spread from the steppe region of Siberia.

A primary source of peak experience is the natural world. We’re coming to that as our second key to mystical experience, in fact, but suffice it to say, it’s easy to find oneself overcome by the sheer beauty of nature. Moral beauty is another such, and the appreciation of beauty and excellence (aka moral beauty) is one of the character traits in positive psychology, a relatively new approach. Moral beauty as a source of awe, for example, may be seen in courage, profound kindness, or self-sacrifice. We can also achieve peak experience in witnessing other forms of beauty – music, visual or performance art, spirituality itself – and so much more.

Electronic dance music, particularly the trance genre, is focused specifically on engendering peak experience (Solberg and Dibben, 2019), as are augmented reality video games (Molnár and Szűts, 2019). Meditation is another means to this state, especially among experienced meditators on long and intensive retreats; as such directly engages the unconscious, these peak experiences may also be in the form of negative memories or overwhelming emotion, but are ultimately seen as more beneficial than adverse (Hadash et al., 2023).

It’s been argued that research of peak experience and its subcategory of flow has been inconsistent, the terms too widely applied including general task absorption (Abuhamdeh, 2020), with which I surely agree. The peak experience is an optimal state of consciousness, the ‘highest’ we can go, transcendent as the selfhood recedes into the background and we are overcome with pure joy, happiness, or pleasure by the beauty and excellence before us.

So – how to achieve peak experience?

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Exercises:

We can’t directly facilitate peak experiences as they occur spontaneously, but we can create environments conducive to same.

One such is to immerse yourself in nature on a regular basis. The natural environment is one of the most common for peak experiences, as we marvel at the beauty around us, happen across something unexpected, or find ourselves interacting in some way with the wildlife. Often, peak experience is the result of a combination of factors; as you gaze out at the vista before you, hearing birdsong and the nearby stream, feeling sunlight on your face and a breeze ruffling your hair, you may find that a feeling of bliss descends over you and this moment suddenly seems sacred, in its own bubble outside of space and time.

Engage in creativity regularly. When we are drawing, painting, writing, cooking, composing, sculpting, or any other form, having minimized all distractions, we may find ourselves slipping into ‘the zone’ or a flow state of complete absorption, filled with contentment and joy.

If you do like to write, keeping a journal can sometimes engender peak experience. This is most likely when you carve out a special place and time for writing, perhaps while sitting beneath your favorite tree or at the shore, or curled up in your favorite nook at home with a candle lit, soft music playing, and minimal interruption; as the writing flows, spontaneous and uncontrolled, almost as if separate from your direct input, you may find yourself in liminal space – and peak experience.

A regular practice of mindfulness, both meditation and lifestyle, helps to encourage this phenomenon. As we begin to notice and to cherish even the small details of our day, we may find ourselves occasionally overcome by the wonder and beauty that is all around us.

Reminiscence concerning previous peak experiences can also help, reminding our brains of the sensations and emotions attached. You can encourage this by quieting your mind, shutting out all distraction much as you would for meditation, closing your eyes and slowing your breathing, and recalling in as much detail as possible a prior peak experience. You may even find yourself having the experience all over again, this time stimulated by your memory of it.

If you enjoy adventure, the exhilaration of a bungee jump or whitewater rafting for example, then you are already familiar with peak experience; the bliss that can accompany such moments is precisely what we seek, along with the sense that everything has coalesced into this one, perfect moment.

Encountering truly exquisite beauty and excellence can also trigger peak experience; if you are a lover of art, you may already be aware of this. Attending art shows and symphonies, sports events or expert presentations, may all help. Similarly, you can listen to a symphony at home, with headphones, eyes closed, and your complete attention.

Embrace novelty, travel to new and unusual places, witness a birth if possible (animals too), or get up each day to witness the sunrise. Bliss. Mystical.

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References:

Abuhamdeh S (2020). Investigating the “Flow” Experience: Key Conceptual and Operational Issues. Frontiers in Psychology 11:158. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00158

Chen SK and Mongrain M (2021). Awe and the interconnected self. Journal of Positive Psychology 16:6, 770-778. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2020.1818808

Csikszentmihalyi M and Nakamura J (2018). Flow, Altered States of Consciousness, and Human Evolution. Journal of Consciousness Studies 25:11-12, 102-14.

Hadash Y, Veksler T, Dar O et al. (2023). Peak Experiences During Mindfulness Meditation Retreats and Their Salutary and Adverse Impact: A Prospective Matched-Controlled Intervention Study. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/k782g

Lin RM, Hong YJ, Xiao HW et al. (2020). Dispositional awe and prosocial tendency: The mediating roles of self-transcendent meaning in life and spiritual self-transcendence. Social Behavior and Personality 48:12, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.9665

Molnár G and Szűts Z (2019). Augmented Reality, Games and Art: Immersion and Flow. In: Geroimenko V (ed), Augmented Reality Games I. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15616-9_5

Solberg RT and Dibben N (2019). Peak experiences with electronic dance music: Subjective experiences, physiological responses, and musical characteristics of the break routine. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal 36:4, 371-89. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2019.36.4.371

Tanhan F, Deniz ME, and Akgün GE (2022). Awe Therapy: Fundamentals, Formulation and Usage Area. Turkish Psychological Counseling and Guidance Journal 12:65, 300-319. https://doi.org/10.17066/tpdrd.1138530

Yaden DB, Kaufman SB, Hyde E et al. (2019). The development of the Awe Experience Scale (AWE-S): A multifactorial measure for a complex emotion. Journal of Positive Psychology 14:4, 474-488. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2018.1484940