A brief history of
The Science of Fundamental Wellbeing
The science of Fundamental Wellbeing (i.e.: the peace that passeth understanding, spiritual awakening, mystical union, haal, devekut, spiritual enlightenment, non-duality, etc.) has been advancing steadily for over 100 years, with significant progress being made in recent decades. Despite this, most in the public still mostly know about it from religion, spirituality, or philosophy.
The Varities of Religious Experience
In 1902, noted Harvard psychologist William James published his landmark book, The Varieties of Religious Experience and ignited the modern scientific interest in this field. In 1911, Evelyn Underhill added fuel to the early activity in this area with a book that seemed to add more detail to, and compliment James’ work, and which suggested that Fundamental Wellbeing was available to anyone who wanted it.
The interviening years saw this area of research contributing to the founding of Humanistic Psychology and Transpersonal Psychology, but it hasn’t been until the last 30 years or so that more meaningful research has been made in this direction.
The reasons for this were generally political within the scientific academy. A lot of speculation and work was done in this area relating to philosophy, but very little social or hard science. As a result, researchers who focused on areas like psychology and neuroscience typically examined practices that were thought to relate to Fundamental Wellbeing, such as meditation.
These practices were often highly specific and thus easy to replicate in laboratory environments. Research on things like self-transcendence was often minimized in favor of changes in emotion, relaxation, and so on.
This was complicated by an added political component, that many of the meditations were associated with religious or spiritual sects. Often these sects were interested in promoting their methods and ideas, hoping that scientific studies would lend additional validity in contemporary society and thus help them to grow.
For example, the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement, a Hindu/Vedic-based religious movement, has conducted a sizable number of studies beginning in the early 70’s and continuing to this day. Often, their scientific experiments show significant benefits from their practice. Despite this, there has been considerable criticism within the scientific academy from those who doubt the veracity and honesty of the results.
This has been the case even as evidence mounted with replications and even similar, but not identical methods, that seemed to validate many of the effects.
The tendency of the TM scientists to credit their movement’s “guru”, religious ideas, and so on for at least some of the benefits did not help. It was all a bit too much for mainstream science, which increasingly shunned them.
Similar political issues plagued other research in this area, limiting serious studies in Fundamental Wellbeing. Academics simply didn’t want to damage their careers in an unfavorable political climate. Those who did have an interest in this area often networked quietly with others, conducted studies in secret and didn’t attempt to publish them, and so on.
One notable standout from the last 50 years has been Ralph Hood from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dr. Hood rose over his career to become one of the most well known and highly awarded members of the psychology academy, and did so while primarily focusing his career on the scientific study of mysticism. Over time others joined him, and today this area of research is less politically charged, though still far from mainstream within the academy.
The reality is that many of the old tendencies still remain.
When Judson Brewer was an assistant professor at Brown University, for example, he undertook a study of so-called, “long-term meditators”. He has since publicly stated that many if not most of the people in his study experienced one or more forms of persistent Fundamental Wellbeing, and declared his interest in this area.
This type of thing remains common in the academy. To get good original research on Fundamental Wellbeing published in highly regarded journals, it can still be necessary to frame subjects as “long-term meditators” instead of people experiencing Fundamental Wellbeing.
The researchers in the space are a relatively small group who know each other, so this is less of an issue for them. They know what was studied, who, what the results were, and so on. However, others outside their world often do not. And, as the years roll by and these researchers pass away, how will future generations know and be able to build upon their work?
Mainstream neuroscience research pioneers like Richard Davidson (UW-M), Zoran Josipovic (NYU), and Judson Brewer (UMASS) are able to be more open about their work, and where they hope to take it in the future. Ivy League and other top universities have allowed some students to do PhD’s in this area. Professional societies and networks have formed that are friendly to this research area. Although still generally not funded by government agencies, which are the gold standard for career advancement for academics, more private money is flowing into this area to support research. And, of course, the psychedelic research area has been exploding in interest within the academy, been discussing self-transcendent experiences within their research, and generating a great deal of attention and excitement. The tide is changing, slowly.
- The first trans-cultural and pan-tradition map of the types of depths of Fundamental Wellbeing from a psychology and cognitive neuroscience perspective
- The first large scale pre/post research with people who transitioned to Fundamental Wellbeing
- The first reliable protocols that transition people to Fundamental Wellbeing (so that pre/post data can be collected) in from one day to four months, with 65-90% effectiveness
- The first longitudinal psychology and developmental research on a sizable population of Finders to see how they change over time.
You can learn more about all this in the keynote video below, which is from the leading scientific society in this area of research…
Although academic research in this space has been stifled for nearly the entire history of science, things are slowly changing.
We invite you to join with us to help accelerate this change by supporting organizations like the one above. You can learn more about this and other recent scientific efforts on our Science Page and learn about others on our Projects page.