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PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION
IN A PETRI DISH?
John Templeton Foundation Issues RFP to Examine Spiritual Phenomenon
RADNOR, Penn., March 11-What is a spiritual transformation? Can
scientists swab samples into a test tube? Measure or weigh it? Do
Hindus and Baptists have the same experience? Why does it happen
in all religions, and outside religions, but not for everyone?
Today, the John Templeton Foundation issues an RFP - request for
proposals - for scientists and religionists to join the first-ever
interdisciplinary study of spiritual transformation. Ten recipients
of the approximately $150,000 grants will form an unprecedented
and highly creative study that unites anthropology, sociology, psychology,
psychiatry, pharmacology, neurology, biology, and more. As with
the foundation's recent groundbreaking forgiveness study - and particularly
post 9/11 - results will bring important new understanding to personal
spiritual phenomena. The two-year, $2.5 million project will also
lead to an October 2005 public colloquium. RFP project timeline
and other details appear on spiritualtransformationresearch.org,
also launched today.
"Many people everywhere undergo the fundamental human experience,
but we really don't know what underlies it," explained Dr.
Solomon Katz, principal investigator of Templeton's Spiritual Transformation
Scientific Research Program. Dr. Katz is an anthropologist, board
president of the Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science, and
a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Is it possible to objectify religion, faith…personal transformation?
"It can't be bottled - that's an important issue," Dr.
Katz said. "What's more, we can only take pieces at a time.
We can't reproduce the original phenomenon. But when we emerge,
we hope and expect to have important insights no one has understood
before."
Long term, the research team's wide-ranging investigators will
continue close exchange of emerging knowledge. "There is a
tremendous interest throughout the world in spiritual issues. Many
of the people transformed have insights for their own lives and
much to share with us," said Dr. Katz, who sees the contributions
two-way. In this month's Zygon Journal of Religion and Science,
Dr. Katz also asks what religion can contribute to science.
The Templeton study identifies spiritual transformation as a dramatic
and permeating shift in one's world and self view, in purposes and
beliefs, attitudes, and behavior. But individual examples are varied
and broad. "Transformation can result in intensified devotion
within the same religious structure, or shift from no commitment
to intense devotion. Or from one faith tradition to another,"
Dr. Katz said. "We will also ask if the connection is only
religious and spiritual, or something broader."
TEMPLETON FOUNDATION RFP ADD ONE
One hundred years ago, in his classic, "The Varieties of Religious
Experience," William James's first explored the scientific
study of religious and spiritual phenomena. The John Templeton Foundation
passes James's baton far beyond the medical field into broad interdisciplinary
expertise. "The most exciting thing for me is to enable scientists
around the world, in essence, to have rare new understanding through
interconnections in the field," Dr. Katz said.
Since 1987, the John Templeton Foundation has existed to reinvigorate
appreciation of life's all-important moral and spiritual dimensions
- to advance human potential in the context of its ultimate purpose.
The Foundation currently funds more than 250 projects, studies,
award programs, and publications worldwide.
Editors: Principal investigator, Dr.
Solomon Katz, is available for interview.
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