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Dr Marianne Rankin is the author of An Introduction to Religious and Spiritual Experience (Continuum/ Bloomsbury, 2008) and was for many years Director of Communications for the Alister Hardy Trust. She has a Masters in the Study of Religion from Oxford University and in 2022 was awarded a PhD from Warwick University.
This article is based on the annual Alister Hardy Memorial Lecture which Marianne gave in 2022, later reproduced in the peer reviewed Journal for the Study of Religious Experience, entitled Is Altruism a Principal Fruit of Spiritual Experience? An Exploration of the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre Archive.1 This was in turn based on her PhD, which considered the fruits of religious and spiritual experiences (RSEs) and altruism.
The Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre Archive
The Archive on which my research was based, contains about 6,600 accounts of a huge range of experiences, which people considered religious or spiritual and which were sent to Sir Alister Hardy in response to an appeal he published in the press in the late 1960s. Hardy (1896-1985) was a highly respected professor of zoology, knighted for his services to marine biology.
As Linacre Professor of Zoology at Oxford, he taught the atheist biologist Richard Dawkins. But he also had a life- long interest in spirituality. In 1963-4 he gave the Gifford Lectures, later published as The Living Stream: A Restatement of Evolution Theory and its Relation to the Spirit of Man2, and The Divine Flame: An Essay Towards a Natural History of Religion3. He was ultimately awarded the Templeton Prize for his work on religious experience. TheRERC Archive, available online, contains anonymous, self-referred accounts, each numbered [123] when quoted.
Hardy thought of humans as spiritual animals, and of religious experience as a natural phenomenon of evolutionary value. He felt that in exploring their environment, humans had become aware of something beyond it, a transcendent presence which met them in a different way from their everyday experience. In other words, he believed that spirituality was a natural part of consciousness.
In order to acquire data in support of his theory, Hardy began a collection of the experiences of ordinary people, which he obtained first through a press agency. He collected experiences related to the spiritual aspects of life but not to formal religion. He then placed adverts in the religious press, but met with a disappointing lack of response. So he turned to the secular newspapers, the Guardian, Observer, Times and Daily Mail, where, after a short article or example of a spiritual experience, he posed what is now known as ‘The Hardy Question’:
Have you ever been aware of or influenced by a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday self?
In a pamphlet, he explained more clearly what he sought, giving a subtler understanding of the nature of the experience, as inner and outer, where he also mentioned the consequences:
All those who feel that they have been conscious of, and perhaps influenced by, some Power, whether they call it God or not, which may either appear to be beyond their individual selves or partly, or even entirely, within their being, are asked to write a simple account of these feelings and their effects.4 (Hardy, 1971, p. 2)
There was an overwhelming response to his appeals, resulting in a flood of letters with descriptions of all kinds of experiences which had meant a lot to people, but which they often found difficult to understand. Many people sent accounts of experiences they had never dared share with anyone before, for fear of being thought abnormal. The results of Hardy’s research and analysis of the first 3000 accounts were published in The Spiritual Nature of Man in 19795.
Fruits of Experience
Many researchers have focused on different types of experience – of angels, voices, visions of light, feelings of love, and experiences around death, as well as negative experiences. But I have always been fascinated by how people were changed and their lives altered by these experiences of whatever type.
I began by considering the fruits of Religious and Spiritual Experiences (RSEs) in terms of inner transformation and outward behaviour.
As each experience was embedded within a personal story, I found an enormous range of consequences, giving a great variety of individual fruits: comfort, guidance, relief of depression and lessening of the fear of death. I wanted to draw out a common theme, or underlying pattern, so I explored the hypothesis that a turn from self-centredness to altruism was the dominant category underlying the variety of fruits of experience found in the RERC Archive.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus links the love of God and the love of others from the two great Hebrew commandments, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’ (Deuteronomy 6.5, & Matthew 22:37) and ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18, & Matthew 22:39).6 I wanted to find out whether that link is borne out by the fruits of experience found in the RERC Archive, whether an experience of a higher dimension, or power beyond the self would lead to altruism.
Rather than just use the term consequence, I decided on the metaphor of fruits. This arose quite naturally as it is widely used – by Jesus and St Paul in Christian scripture, and in scholarship, notably by the American philosopher and psychologist, William James – as the criterion for evaluating whether or not an RSE is genuine. As such, experiences are subjective and open to doubt by third party observers. Jesus, Paul and William James stress that it is by their fruits that they are to be judged. My focus is less on fruits as proof of genuineness, more an exploration of the range of effects of RSEs in the lives of the experiencers and specifically on whether altruism is a principal fruit.
A metaphorical view of the outcomes of RSEs as fruits in contrast to their roots, opens new avenues of thought. Fruits grow, develop, ripen and can be shared and nurtured, but they may also be left, ignored and even rot. Fruits contain seeds, which are an important part of the metaphor, as fruits depend on how the seeds germinate. Some RSEs lead to prolific fruit whereas other experiencers maintain that they were not much affected.
The exploration of RSEs as seeds put me in mind of Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, which illustrates that not every seed bears fruit. Much depends on how the seeds respond to different types of soil. Some fall on the path, where they cannot not take root; oth- ers on stony ground where their roots are shallow; some spring up but quickly wither or are choked by weeds; where- as others grow, spread and multiply. I linked the types of soil to religious or secular responses to the experiences and explored just how that affected the fruit, whether the effects remained with the experiencer or whether they spread more widely, affecting others. This led to an appraisal of the links to altruism.
Research
I decided to record and analyse the fruits of 2,000 accounts from the RERC Archive – the first and the final thousand accounts in the Archive.
This was to enable comparisons between accounts submitted in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many in response to Sir Alister Hardy’s original appeal, with those of the 21st century, particularly in respect of religious background. I expected the increasingly secular nature of society to be reflected and wanted to know how that affected religious attitudes following the RSEs.
Each account told a personal story, many of which were very moving and so often had not been shared before – particularly in the early letters. It was Hardy’s standing as a respected scientist undertaking research into spirituality which encouraged people to send those precious accounts to him.
I chose a mixed methods approach to my data – quantitative and qualitative. I offered a quantitative, numerical analysis of a range of consequences of experience, giving percentages of different fruits of RSEs found in the first and final accounts, and an overview of secular, religious and spiritual responses.
My qualitative research involved a careful reading and close analysis of individual accounts, with attention paid to the triggers or antecedents, the expe- rience itself, its interpretation and the fruits. Some correspondents included a clear account of the consequences of the experience, but in fact many correspondents do not mention any effects at all, making research problematic as Hardy noted:
While one person will devotea couple of pages to the ways in which his or her life has been transformed, another will merely say, ‘I have never been the same person since.’ (Hardy, 1979/2006. p. 99)
In many cases, the fruits had to be searched for and extrapolated from the account. Changes are found to be inner, in terms of religious and spiritual beliefs and attitudes to self and others; and outer, in terms of behaviour relating to religious practice, relationships with others and often choice of profession. Here is an unusually concise example:
My experiences have had a pro- found influence on my life. I now live with a refined purpose to uplift myself and in doing so to help uplift others where I can. [005505].
I found that often experiences are forgotten until something triggers the memory – frequently just when it is needed – and it is often then that people reflect on whether or not there have been fruits from the RSE.
Categories Of Consequences
Hardy’s categories of the consequences of experience were:
a sense of purpose or new meaning in life;
change in religious belief;
change in attitude to others (Hardy, 1979/2006, p. 29)
The categories I looked at in my study were: religious background; change to spiritual but not religious; change to religious; change to religious and spiritual; change to neither religious nor spiritual; no change; strengthened convictions; sense of purpose or new meaning in life; feeling loved; loving attitude; sense of comfort; sense of guidance; sense of assurance of survival of death; awareness of unity and interconnectedness; supports the hypothesis of altruism; opposes the hypothesis; and negative consequences. I applied these categories to the two thousand accounts and recorded the percentages of the first and final thousand separately.
I expanded Hardy’s second category of consequences: the changes in religious beliefs. I recorded the religious background as given in the form – almost always answered and mostly Christian – 87% in the early accounts but down to 57% in the later years, although I noted other religions too. I then focused on the subsequent changes. I considered the variations within religious, spiritual and non-religious responses to RSEs, the equivalent of the different locations where the seed falls.
I explored whether there was a difference in the fruits, depending on whether or not they were spiritually nurtured. Some people find support in religious or spiritual practice or in groups of like-minded folk, enabling them to build on their experiences, whereas others go it alone.
Many people changed to ‘spiritual but not religious’ – 36% and 34% because their experiences did not seem to tie in with what their religion taught. They felt led to a more open, spiritual approach to life. However, in the early years 30% did find their convictions strengthened but this was down to 16% in more modern times, with 10% and 4% showing no change.
Some correspondents under- took a spiritual search, but very few changed religion – 2% and 1% finding Christianity and 5% and 3% finding other religions. Even fewer (less than 1%) decided against any kind of religious or spiritual response.
Quite a number of correspondents became both religious and spiritual – 12% in the early years although only 6% in more recent times. Those people found their faith deepened. It seemed also that that a more in-depth engagement with life – and often death – was evident, whether this was overtly considered as spiritual or not.
As regards changes in religious attitude, in a more qualitative approach, I explored whether or not correspondents received understanding or support from their religion after their experiences. Like seeds in the Parable of the Sower, all types of soil are evident in the Archive, and people reacted in a number of ways to integrating their experiences with their religious beliefs.
Sometimes regret at the lack of fruits was expressed, a recognition that more could have been made of an experience, the seeds falling on the wayside.
Some people found immediate solace from their experiences, but then did not explore further, they are stony ground, where roots are shallow.
Others intended to respond more fully to their experiences, but the duties and cares of life – or life’s more enticing distractions – took over, the seeds falling among thorns.
But it is evident that the fruits are best nurtured where the experiences take place within a religious tradition or where a deeper development of spiritual practice or awareness is found. That is the good soil, where the seeds produced grain, growing and yielding fruit thirty- fold or even a hundredfold.
Continuing my empirical research, I explored Hardy’s sense of purpose or new meaning in life. Where he found 18.5% (Hardy, 1979/2006, p. 29) I recorded 25%/24%.
This often involved a change from depression or unexplained lack of direction – to a new vision. It is significant that Hardy recorded 18.4% of RSEs being triggered by depression or despair (p. 28) as such times of trial do seem to lead to a re-evaluation of the purpose of life.
Other fruits I recorded were:
• Feeling loved – 22%/19%, with a number of people finding this moved them to a Loving attitude – 20%/12%.
My results showed that almost everyone who featured in the ‘loving attitude’ category was also in the ‘feeling loved’ category, although not vice versa. This seemed to point to a link between an awareness of love, however experienced or analysed, and altruism. Once again, a slight fall in these percentages is recorded in the more recent accounts, possibly reflecting a more secular outlook.
Sense of Comfort – 44%/40%
Sense of Guidance – 43%/30%
High percentages of people felt a sense of comfort and guidance. Correspondents
told of being lifted out of depression, having their fears calmed, their problems solved, of being sustained in bereavement or being aided in a spiritual search. Many seemed to be shown a path in life, and to receive assistance in taking it.
People felt changed in unexpected ways, in terms of their own inner attitudes and in how they responded to outer reality. Those changes seemed significant, and I detected an underly- ing pattern of receiving help to cope with life leading to a change of perspec- tive, from looking inward to outward. Putting these two changes together, I decided that rather than focus on comfort or on guidance per se, I would explore the direction of that guidance, which seemed to be towards universal love and compassion.
In order to include mystical experiences in my research, I decided to record an awareness of unity and interconnectedness – which is often a consequence of Near-death Experiences too, and I recorded 21%/15%.
This was a long- lasting, new way of experiencing the world, often fundamentally altering the experiencer’s perspective – their views on life, death and consciousness. They were transformed and became aware of a deep connection with the natural world and with other people.
I also undertook an exploration of a darker side of RSEs, as not all are pleasant. As my focus was on fruits rather than the experiences themselves, I recorded negative consequences of experience. I found 0.8% rising to 4% in the final thousand. However, further exploration led me to consider that although it would be unrealistic to imagine that all spiritual experiences are positive, it does seem to be the case, as Caroline Franks Davis found in her Evidential Force of Religious Experience (1986, p. 17), that many negative experiences, especially those where we face our own shortcomings, do eventually lead to a positive outcome and spiritual fruits.
Altruism
Hardy’s third consequence of experience was changes in attitude to others, which he recorded at 7.7%. This was related to my hypothesis – the turn from self-centredness to altruism – a definition of which I took from the Buddhist scholar, Matthieu Ricard:
Altruistic love is characterized by unconditional kindness toward all beings .... It permeates the mind and is expressed appropriately, according to the circumstances, to answer the needs of all. 7
I found 34% in support of a turn to altruism in the first thousand accounts with 0.5% opposing it, and in the final thousand 23%, with only 0.1% opposing it. The higher percentage in the early accounts seems to reflect a greater acknowledgement of the need to help others than is perhaps evident today. About a third of correspondents illustrated this turn to altruism in the early accounts but just under a quarter in the later sample. This may be linked to the higher percentages of Christian background in the early years, where the commandments to love God and neighbour were taken as the norm, or possibly linked to an increase in social services being available for the vulnerable and elderly today, lessening the need for individual help.
The fruits of the profound experiences ... seem to encourage a change of focus from ‘I’ to ‘We’.
I found that some accounts exhibit a clear transformation from self-centredness to altruism, as in the following account, the second in the Archive:
I think it may be relevant to say that from 1957 to 1966 I was almost all the time very unhappy indeed. I suffered from acute pain in the back, lived in poverty, in a state of sorrow and a good deal of loneliness.I experienced unhappy relationships with relatives and neighbours and suffered from doubt in God or after life and many other troubles. In 1966, I was one day alone in the house when quite suddenly I became aware of my own attitude to life. I realised that I was wrapped up in deep self-pity, that my thoughts were all for myself and my own sorrows, that I had not thought of others. I thought how others in the world suffered too. I was rather shocked at my selfish attitude and was filled with compassion for others; then, as if without thinking I knelt down in the room and made a vow to God that from then on for the rest of my life I would love and serve mankind. The following morning when I awoke I had a sudden experience, for into my mind poured knowledge (which knowledge has remained with me ever since). I knew that the love and service of mankind was the will of God for mankind. ... To explain my experience figuratively, it was as if all my lifeI had been in a darkened room and then I had suddenly walked out of it into the sunlight of day. ... [000002]
This extract offers a clear example of how the correspondent’s recognition that the root of her misery, both physical and psychological, was self-pity, led to an RSE and to altruism. She was comforted and received help and guidance for the rest of her life. The fruit of the experience was not only a lifting of her own unhappiness but an abrupt and lasting change, expressed in love for all.
There were moving experiences of correspondents feeling filled with love, which led them to love others and to help those in need. Other accounts, particularly those of experiences of unity and interconnectedness, altered people’s view of the world, linking them to everyone and everything as in this example:
Fruits: This was experienced almost twenty years ago butI have never forgotten it. It changed my life, giving me a strong feeling of empathy for all the people around me and even all those I have never met. ... it made me much more aware of the feelings and needs of other people. It made me realize that we were all part of one great whole. [004764]
I did not find any accounts in the Archive which led to self-centredness, nor any which elicited malevolent attitudes towards others. It may be that such negative attitudes preclude response to the Hardy Question, so that the Archive does not reflect the more selfish, even evil side of human nature. I recorded some who mentioned that there was no turn towards altruism as a result of their experiences. But closer inspection of those accounts showed that they did not record opposition to the principle that RSEs should lead to altruism, but contained an admission that despite an RSE, there had been no change in their own attitudes or behaviour.
Conclusion
At the end of my research, I evaluated my findings regarding the fruits of RSEs. It was evident that trust in a transcendent power, however conceived, whether within or beyond the individual self, helps to nurture the wide range of fruits of experience.
Prayers uttered in extremis, often without faith in whatever or whoever was appealed to, were answered – often to the surprise of the correspondent. Handing over to a higher power, with or without any certainty of a response seems to work, and frequently leads to a re-evaluation of the meaning of life.
One way of changing direction from self-centredness to altruism is through having the humility to recognise that one needs help oneself, in order to help others. People often find that by handing over their problems to a higher power, they are able to cope in ways beyond what they feel they could manage alone. Hardy suggested an experimental faith, sincerely placing trust in a power beyond the self. He explained that:
On so many occasions men and women have achieved, by what they call divine help or grace, that which they, and others who knew them, would have regarded as being beyond their normal capabilities. (Hardy, 1966/1978, p. 26).
The data from this study support the assumption in the literature, scholarly and religious, that altruism is an expected fruit of RSEs and in the Archive there is evidence of a turn from a focus on the self, to a concern for others.
I also wanted to explore whether or not people are by nature altruistic and co-operative. Although few described themselves as being self-centred before their experience, many were in personal difficulties. In those cases, the RSE seemed to liberate them.
In my research I have found that humans seem to be compassionate by nature or at least aware of a seed of goodness within them, but that this is often hidden, submerged through force of circumstance or personal problems.
RSEs often help to resolve these issues, allowing innate altruism to emerge. So often the focus in the media and in scholarship is on the negative, reinforcing an underlying assumption that everyone is ultimately out for themselves. But I have not found this to be the case in the Archive accounts. The seeds of RSEs, even if dormant, are able to germinate in time and bear fruit.
My research indicates that some of the most profound, life-changing experiences that people have, lead them to become more loving and altruistic. These fruits of experience are significant, particularly in today’s secular, sceptical, often selfish society, where instances of isolation and depression seem to be on the increase.
The fruits of the profound experiences collected in the RERC Archive seem to encourage a change of focus from ‘I’ to ‘We’. The importance of this on a personal level and for society as a whole is encapsulated by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and I will leave the last words to him:
I believe that our strong focus on material development and accumulating wealth has led us to neglect our basic human need for kindness and care.
Reinstating a commitment to the oneness of humanity and altruism toward our brothers and sisters is fundamental for societies and organizations and their individuals to thrive in the long run.
(Dalai Lama, Facebook post, February 25th, 2020).
Dr Marianne Rankin
NOTES
1 Marianne Rankin, ‘Is Altruism a Principal Fruit of Spiritual Experience?An Exploration of the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre Archive’, Journal for the Study of Religious Experience, Vol. 9, No 1, 2023.
2 Alister Hardy, The Living Stream: A restatement of evolution theory and its
relation to the spirit of man, London: Collins, 1965.
3 Alister Hardy, The Divine Flame: An essay towards a natural history of reli- gion, Oxford: RERU, 1978. Original work, published 1966.
4 Alister Hardy, ‘Researchinto Religious Experience, how you can take part: An appeal for accounts of per- sonal experience to help in the work of the Religious Experience Research Unit, Manchester College, Oxford’, Faith & Freedom, Summer Number, 1971.
5 Alister Hardy, The Spiritual Nature of Man: A study of contemporary religious experience, Lampeter: RERC, 2006, Original work published 1979.
6 Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Versio n, Oxford: OUP, 1995. Original work pub- lished 1989.
7 Matthieu Ricard, Altruism: The Science and Psychology of Kindness, London: Atlantic Books, 2018, pp. 25-26, Original work published in English 2015; in French 2013.
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