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“Spirituality” and Mysticism

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Semantics and Psychology of Spirituality

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship between the self-rating as “spiritual” and mysticism as measured by Hood’s Mysticism Scale. The introduction provides an overview of recent attempts to measure “spirituality” psychometrically, of the theoretical and empirical approaches to mysticism and already empirically observed relations between mysticism and “spirituality.” Many scales trying to operationalize “spirituality” lack a solid conceptual background and convincing empirical validity. Citing the work of Stace and James , Hood constructed a scale that provides detailed and measurable descriptions of mystical experiences , the Mysticism Scale. Since the Mysticism Scale measures varieties of personal experiences of unity with some kind of transcendence, it proves to be an excellent measure for what many people today call “spirituality.” This can be shown empirically by utilizing the three factor solution of the M-Scale , identified as introvertive, extrovertive, and interpretive mysticism, in structural equation models exploring the relationships between mysticism and self-rated “spirituality” as well as self-rated “religion.” This chapter concludes by arguing that “spirituality” may be the product of experiences that can be described in terms of mysticism.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany

    Constantin Klein & Heinz Streib

  2. University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, TN, USA

    Christopher F. Silver, Ralph W. Hood Jr. & Thomas J. Coleman III

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  1. Constantin Klein
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  2. Christopher F. Silver
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  3. Heinz Streib
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  4. Ralph W. Hood Jr.
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  5. Thomas J. Coleman III
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Correspondence to Constantin Klein .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bielefeld Professor of Religious Education, Bielefeld, Germany

    Heinz Streib

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA

    Ralph W. Hood, Jr.

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Klein, C., Silver, C.F., Streib, H., Hood, R.W., Coleman III, T.J. (2016). “Spirituality” and Mysticism. In: Streib, H., Hood, Jr., R. (eds) Semantics and Psychology of Spirituality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21245-6_11

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