Symposia
Sessions
1. Spiritual Transformation
and Radical Empathy: Essential Ingredients of Healing?
The goal of this symposium
is to explore the proposition that spiritual transformation and
a capacity for radical empathy that emerges from it are essential
aspects of effective healing process in most healing/medical systems.
The anthropological literature contains abundant cases of how local,
indigenous healers and shamans are initiated into their healing
roles via a life threatening illness that resolves when an extra-ordinary
being(s) (usually a spirit or a god, including God) enters into
their life world and becomes an integral part of their being. This
bodily and/or psychic incorporation of spirit leads to the assumption
of the healer role and extensive changes in self and world view.
Further, openness to confront one's own wounded-ness linked to spiritual
communion becomes the foundation for the healer’s capacity
for radical empathy. Radical empathy in the healing relationship,
as defined here, refers to intersubjective space where intra- and
inter-individual differences are melded into one field of feeling
and experience.
2. Development of
Spiritual Transformation Through the Life Course
This symposium will
present new perspectives on the expression of spiritual transformation
over the human life cycle. How do experiences of spiritual transformation
differ among the various stages and/or developmental sequences of
the human life cycle? How do children experience spiritual transformation?
Are there times during the life cycle when there are sensitive periods
that are likely to alter the potential for spiritual transformation
to occur and are there qualitative differences in the kinds of experiences
spiritual transformation people report at various stages of the
life cycle?
3. Neuroscientific
Studies of Spiritual Transformation
Over the last decade,
there have been major advances in the techniques used for investigating
in-vivo brain imaging and neurochemistry. This symposium will explore
the potential for using these new technologies to advance the neuroscientific
bases of spiritual transformation.
Workshops
1. Working Definitions
of Spiritual Transformation
Currently there is a
diversity of ways to define spiritual transformation. This workshop
will explore the multiple religious and non religious contexts that
are associated with the definition of spiritual transformation.
2. Measures of Spiritual
Transformation
There are a variety
of approaches being developed to measure spiritual transformation.
This workshop will present and discuss the critical issues underlying
the development and limitations of the various measures being proposed.
3. Systematic Qualitative
Analyses of Spiritual Transformation
There are several developments
in the use of computer assisted methods to analyze qualitative data.
This workshop will focus on the use of one of the most common programs
for the qualitative analyses of spiritual transformation data.
Roundtables
Topics
For information about
participating on Roundtables click here.
1. Spiritual Transformation
and Religious Traditions: How does spiritual transformation
impact tradition, ritual, and spiritual development within religions?
2. Religious Conversion:
What are the interrelationships between religious conversion
and spiritual transformation?
3. Phenomenology
of Spiritual Transformation across cultures: How do people
experience spiritual transformation?
4. Costs of Spiritual
Transformation: Does spiritual transformation have harmful
outcomes to individuals or societies?
5. Benefits of Spiritual
Transformation: Does spiritual transformation relate to well-being
on individual and social levels?
6. Illness and Spiritual
Transformation: How does spiritual transformation influence
health outcomes in illnesses that are chronic, severe, terminal,
or mental?
7. Addiction and
Spiritual Transformation: Does spiritual transformation have
a role in treatment of and recovery from addiction?
8. Deviant behavior
and Criminality: Does spiritual transformation have a role
in modifying deviance and criminal behavior?
9. Charismatic movements:
What is the role of the spiritual transformation in charismatic
movements?
10. Spiritual Transformation
and Society: What are the correlates and consequences of spiritual transformation at various social levels, from community to nation?
11. Spiritual Transformation
and the Workplace: What role does spiritual transformation
play in corporate cultures, faith-based and other non-profit organizations,
and governmental and non-governmental organizations?
For more information,
please send us an email.
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