Taking spiritual experiences seriously in the religious education classroom: a transrational approach

ABSTRACT

Spiritual experiences are common across religious and non-religious faiths, but schoolchildren are often afraid to share these because they fear ridicule from peers who are convinced religion is irrational. The need to speak about spirituality in religious education is increasingly recognised. Signposts suggests that intercultural understanding implies recognising religious students’ perception of reality and helping others understand it. Religious education in Norway now includes exploration of existential questions as a core element, and in England, making sense of religious, spiritual and mystical experiences has been suggested as a big idea. In this paper, we discuss how the dualistic paradigm of modern science makes it difficult to take spirituality seriously as lived experience and empirical phenomenon. Instead we suggest a transrational approach to explore our multidimensional reality in an intercultural dialogue where insiders and outsiders learn from each other. We also explore examples of transrational research on spiritual phenomena.

KEYWORDS:

• Spiritual experiences
• intercultural understanding
• transrational paradigm
• education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mira Cataya Rodriguez

Mira Cataya Rodriguez is a PhD Research Fellow in Religious Education. Her research focuses on pedagogical practices for intercultural understanding, exploring existential questions, life skills and transpersonal psychology. She teaches cultural diversity and religious education in teacher education.

Christian Stokke

Christian Stokke is an Associate Professor in Anthropology. His research interests include multiculturalism, intercultural understanding, religious education, spirituality and transpersonal psychology. He leads a research group in religious education, co-edits the Human Rights Education Review, and teaches cultural diversity and religious education in teacher education.