Consciousness, Spirituality, Well-Being, and Education

Dear Colleagues,

The intersection of personal spirituality, consciousness studies, and the science of well-being has grown richer and more informative each year. We are understanding more and more about the nature of the mind and states of consciousness and how they relate to elements of well-being such as resilience, happiness, flow, meaning, and mind-body wellness. Researchers in the science of consciousness are uncovering new clues about altered states of awareness—the kinds of experiences that have been reported worldwide for centuries, coming from devoted practitioners from all religious traditions. Moreover, in recent years, scholarship on teaching and learning has begun to demonstrate how insights from personal spirituality, consciousness studies, and the science of well-being can have a direct impact on students’ learning, and demonstrate the way we can structure learning opportunities in order to maximize students’ growth and development.

One illustration of this sort of convergence comes from a multiple-year research project conducted at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and its Center for Spirituality in Higher Education.  As documented in their book Cultivating the Spirit: How College Can Enhance Students’ Inner Lives (2011), Drs. Helen and Alexander Astin and their colleagues collected data from more than 100,000 students over a four-year project that involved dozens of colleges and universities.  Their published findings include a useful model of a five-part construct for how to understand “spirituality” (in contrast to “religion”): the search for meaning, equanimity, the ethics of caring, charitable involvement, and an ecumenical worldview.

In the last decade, the Gallup organization has combined its collection of international data regarding personal well-being with a campus commitment to the positive role played by personal strengths (as measured by their Clifton StrengthsFinder metric).  The model of the “well-being university” is a powerful image for how the science of well-being can inform the way instructional and administrative faculty create structures and methods to educate the whole person.  At other universities, mindfulness practice centers provide vital support for student mental health and well-being, such as the Koru meditation program, which was founded by Dr. Holly Rogers at Duke University and is now offered at dozens of other universities.

Universities have also played host to gatherings of instructional faculty, researchers, and practitioners devoted to understanding the multidisciplinary roots of consciousness.  Annual events such as the scholarly conference “Toward a Science of Consciousness” at the University of Arizona continue to lead the way in shaping conversations around religious and spiritual traditions, and across scientific disciplines.  Topics include neuroscience and the basis of consciousness, and altered states of consciousness including dreams, psychedelic experiences, and meditation.  Each year, we understand more and more about the basis of personal transformative experiences that have characterized religious experience for centuries.

Aim:

This Special Issue seeks to make a contribution to our emerging understanding of the nature of the mind and its role in supporting health, well-being, and personal spirituality.  We want to further shed light on how we may understand both religious and secular experiences of wholeness, peak potentials, and human connectedness.  In such an interdisciplinary exploration of our inner capacities for wholeness, we find clues about practical steps to face and navigate the troubled and confusing world in which we now live.

One practical step concerns the ways in which we provide higher education experiences to emerging adults.  The hope is that some of the articles in this Special Issue will include insights and perspectives on how higher education can promote the well-being of university students, especially as those students prepare themselves for careers within which they will impact our social institutions and the well-being of nations across the world.

Suggested Themes:

Suggested themes for submission include manuscripts focusing on

• The cultivation of personal spirituality;
• States of consciousness—including meditation, dreams, creative imagination, and intuition—and their role in promoting health and well-being;
• Understanding the history of religious experience through the lens of contemporary science;
• Relationships among various aspects of well-being: meaning, strengths and values, positivity, flow, mind–body wellness, and resilience;
• Frontiers in higher education for well-being and holistic learning.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Mark Thurston
Guest Editor

References:

Astin, A., Astin, H. & Lindholm, J. 2011. Cultivating the Spirit: How College Can Enhance Students’ Inner Lives. New York: Jossey-Bass.

Greeson, J., Juberg, M. & Rogers, H. 2014. A Randomized Controlled Trial of Koru: A Mindfulness Program for College Students and Other Emerging Adults. Journal of the American College of Health 62(4): 222–33.

Hameroff, S, Kaszniak, A. & Scott, A. (eds). 1996. Toward a Science of Consciousness: The First Tucson Discussions and Debates. Boston: MIT Press.

Hernandez-Torrano, D & Ibrayeva, E. 2020. Mental Health and Well-Being of University Students: A Bibliometric Mapping of the Literature. Frontiers of Psychology 11, 9 June.

Lindholm, J. & Astin, H. Spirituality and Pedagogy: Faculty's Spirituality and Use of Student-Centered Approaches to Undergraduate Teaching. Review of Higher Education 2008, 31, 185–207.

Shapiro, S. & Carlson, L. 2017. The Art and Science of Mindfulness. Washington, D.C.: American Psychology Association.

Shushok, F. & Matson, T. 2021. Why Higher Education Should Lead the Wellbeing Revolution. Available online: https://www.gallup.com/education/328961/why-higher-education-lead-wellbeing-revolution.aspx (accessed on 31 October 2023).

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• spirituality
• religious experience
• well-being
• higher education
• consciousness studies
• mindfulness meditation
• dreams
• resilience
• meaning
• positive psychology