Fostering Spiritual Intelligence: Undergraduates’
Growth in a CourseAbout Consciousness
William N. Green and Kathleen D. Noble
William Green graduated from the University of Washington - Seattle in
2008 with Bachelor’s degrees in Geography and the Comparative History
of Ideas. He is currently a Peace Corps volunteer serving in Cambodia.
Kathleen D. Noble is Professor of Science and Technology at the
University of Washington-Bothell, and a licensed clinical and counseling
psychologist. From 2000-2008 she directed the Robinson Center for Young
Scholars at the University of Washington-Seattle and, until 2009, was
Professor of Women Studies there. She is the author of several books and
research articles about the psychological development of gifted women,
spiritual intelligence, the ways in which intelligence and talent shape female
lives in ways that are distinct from males, and the efficacy of early entrance
to college and university. Her current research focuses on spirituality
and psychological health, and the evolution of beliefs about consciousness
and reality.
____________________________________________________________
ABSTRACT: Despite a growing interest among college and university
students in exploring questions about spirituality through higher education,
few are provided with opportunities to do so. An integral approach to the
study of consciousness addresses this gap by examining theories of
consciousness and spirituality from diverse epistemological perspectives,
includingWestern science and non-Western wisdom traditions. This study
explored the intellectual and personal effects of this approach for
undergraduate students who were enrolled in an Honors course about
consciousness at the University ofWashington duringWinter Quarter 2008.
Results indicated that students became more open to diverse ideas about
consciousness, more self-aware, and more committed to meditation and
self-reflection. Implications for the growing discourse about spirituality
in higher education and the development of spiritual intelligence are
discussed.
____________________________________________________________
In 2004 we began an exciting and unexpected collaboration.
William Green, who was then a freshman at the University of
Washington in Seattle (UW), enrolled in an elective course offered
through the UWHonors Program entitled “The Farther Reaches of
(Human) Nature (“Farther Reaches”). The course was taught by
Kathleen Noble, a professor of women studies at UWwho is also a
licensed psychologist trained in neuroscience and experienced in
meditation. The title of the course was drawn from the pioneering
work ofAbraham Maslow (1971) which was compiled in a
posthumous book, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. For the
purposes of the course, however, the word “human” was placed in
parentheses to incorporate more recent research by Rupert Sheldrake
(1999) and Jeremy Narby (1998) into animal and biospheric
awareness.
Advanced Development Journal 26
Prior to taking “Farther Reaches,” Green had been completely
unfamiliar with the questions raised by the study of consciousness;
yet over the ten weeks of the quarter he became fascinated by them.
He realized that no single academic discipline could answer them
completely and that each discipline approached the same questions
from different perspectives and arrived at unique answers. Further,
the questions forced him to draw upon personal life experiences and
examine beliefs and hidden assumptions that he had long held
unquestioned. Green found that his relationship to and interpretation
of the natural environment changed dramatically as a result of
participating in “Farther Reaches”; he developed a passion for
environmentalism that later led him to study sustainability in India
and Greece. He also found that the course opened his eyes to the many
blind spots in his own knowledge and fostered an insatiable curiosity
to explore still further the myriad mysteries of consciousness.
At the conclusion of the course, Green wanted to continue
studying consciousness and asked Noble to create an opportunity to
do so.As a result, we conducted a year long reading group with six
other students from Green’s 2004 class that delved deeper into the
philosophies, theories, and relevance of consciousness to spirituality.
In Spring Quarter 2005, Green served as a teaching assistant for
another “Farther Reaches” course and inAutumn Quarter 2005 he
organized a focus group, modeled after the previous year’s reading
group, so that interested students could continue this exploration.
He also continued to pursue his personal interest in consciousness
through philosophy and contemplative practices.
Throughout these courses and reading groups we observed that
many students were affected in similarly personal and powerful
ways. This observation led us to wonder how and why studying
consciousness from an integral perspective brought about such positive
responses and whether we were witnessing the growth of students’
spiritual intelligence. These questions led to the study that we report
in this article.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Spirituality and Spiritual Intelligence
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
There is a strong and growing interest among college and
university students in exploring spirituality in academic settings.
Recent surveys of more than 112,000 first year students at 236 colleges
and universities, conducted byAlexanderAstin and his colleagues at
the University of California, LosAngeles, found “a high level of
spiritual engagement and commitment among college students, with
more than half placing a high value on ‘integrating spirituality’ in their
lives” (Astin,A.,Astin, H., Lindholm, Bryant, Calderone, & Szelenyi,
2004, p. 2). Respondents wanted to investigate the subject and content
of spirituality through academic curricula and endorsed as “essential”
27 Volume 12, 2010
William N. Green and Kathleen D. Noble
or “very important” life goals that included attaining wisdom,
becoming a more loving person, improving the human condition, and
developing a meaningful philosophy of life. However, “more than half
(56%) say that their professors never provide opportunities to discuss
the meaning and purpose of life….or encourage discussions of
spiritual or religious matters” (p. 6, emphasis in original).
These findings are intriguing in light of a burgeoning conversation
among psychologists, religious scholars, advanced meditators, and
scientists about the role of spirituality in human evolution. Questions
about the definition of spirituality, the range of experiences considered
to be spiritual, neurological sites of spiritual activity, and the
possibility of spirituality as a form of intelligence are at the heart of
this multidisciplinary exploration. One has only to reflect on the
unprecedented dialogue that took place at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) in September 2003 among His Holiness the
Dalai Lama, Buddhist monks and scholars, and neuroscientists (with
a capacity audience of 1200 academics, scientists, students, and
journalists and more than 2000 people on the waiting list) to appreciate
the enormity of this interest (Harrington & Zazonc, 2006).
This conversation has significant roots in the pioneering work
ofAbraham Maslow, an architect of the fields of Humanistic
and Transpersonal Psychology. Maslow coined the term
“self-actualization” in 1950 to describe individuals who he believed
demonstrated exceptional psychological health. “Self-actualization
means experiencing fully, vividly, selflessly, with full concentration
and total absorption…At the moment of experiencing, the person is
wholly and fully human” (1971, p. 44). Maslow called this moment a
“peak experience” characterized by a sense of the deep authenticity
of one’s being as well as the perception of transcendent or unitary
consciousness.After further study Maslow added to his theory of
self-actualization the concept of “plateau experience” (a deeper and
more sustained spiritual awareness) and identified two types of
self-actualizing people: “those who were clearly healthy, but with little
or no experiences of transcendence, and those in whom transcendent
experiencing was important and even central” (p. 270). Transcending
self-actualizers were those for whom the illusion between personal
and ultimate reality was forever shattered.According to Maslow, these
individuals were more than ‘merely healthy.” For them, peak and
plateau experiences were the most important experiences of their lives.
They readily perceived the unity and sacredness in all Being, they
were more consciously and deliberately motivated by values such as
truth, beauty, goodness, and integrity, and they showed a strong
positive correlation between increasing knowledge and an increasing
capacity for awe. For transcending self-actualizers, the mysteries of
the universe were “attractive and challenging rather than frightening”
(p. 280) and inspired a deep sense of humility as well as sustained
engagement with the spiritual questions of life.
Advanced Development Journal 28
Fostering Spiritual Intelligence
As Maslow and others (e.g., Emmons, 2000; Noble, 1987,
2000, 2001) have articulated, spirituality defies easy definition or
explanation. The experiences encompassed by this concept are
complex phenomena with cognitive, emotional, biological, religious,
and cultural components. They are extremely diverse, and have been
reported in every culture and era. They are also unavoidably subject to
individual interpretation. Some experiences involve contact between
individuals and the sacred, or what they perceive to be God, the
Creator, or ultimate reality. Others are more prosaic, and include
extrasensory perceptions, dreams, and altered states of consciousness,
such as shamanic and out-of-body experiences. Spiritual phenomena
arise in a plethora of ways a
Fostering Spiritual Intelligence: Undergraduates’
Growth in a CourseAbout Consciousness
William N. Green and Kathleen D. Noble
William Green graduated from the University of Washington - Seattle in
2008 with Bachelor’s degrees in Geography and the Comparative History
of Ideas. He is currently a Peace Corps volunteer serving in Cambodia.
Kathleen D. Noble is Professor of Science and Technology at the
University of Washington-Bothell, and a licensed clinical and counseling
psychologist. From 2000-2008 she directed the Robinson Center for Young
Scholars at the University of Washington-Seattle and, until 2009, was
Professor of Women Studies there. She is the author of several books and
research articles about the psychological development of gifted women,
spiritual intelligence, the ways in which intelligence and talent shape female
lives in ways that are distinct from males, and the efficacy of early entrance
to college and university. Her current research focuses on spirituality
and psychological health, and the evolution of beliefs about consciousness
and reality.
____________________________________________________________
ABSTRACT: Despite a growing interest among college and university
students in exploring questions about spirituality through higher education,
few are provided with opportunities to do so. An integral approach to the
study of consciousness addresses this gap by examining theories of
consciousness and spirituality from diverse epistemological perspectives,
includingWestern science and non-Western wisdom traditions. This study
explored the intellectual and personal effects of this approach for
undergraduate students who were enrolled in an Honors course about
consciousness at the University ofWashington duringWinter Quarter 2008.
Results indicated that students became more open to diverse ideas about
consciousness, more self-aware, and more committed to meditation and
self-reflection. Implications for the growing discourse about spirituality
in higher education and the development of spiritual intelligence are
discussed.
____________________________________________________________
In 2004 we began an exciting and unexpected collaboration.
William Green, who was then a freshman at the University of
Washington in Seattle (UW), enrolled in an elective course offered
through the UWHonors Program entitled “The Farther Reaches of
(Human) Nature (“Farther Reaches”). The course was taught by
Kathleen Noble, a professor of women studies at UWwho is also a
licensed psychologist trained in neuroscience and experienced in
meditation. The title of the course was drawn from the pioneering
work ofAbraham Maslow (1971) which was compiled in a
posthumous book, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. For the
purposes of the course, however, the word “human” was placed in
parentheses to incorporate more recent research by Rupert Sheldrake
(1999) and Jeremy Narby (1998) into animal and biospheric
awareness.
Advanced Development Journal 26
Prior to taking “Farther Reaches,” Green had been completely
unfamiliar with the questions raised by the study of consciousness;
yet over the ten weeks of the quarter he became fascinated by them.
He realized that no single academic discipline could answer them
completely and that each discipline approached the same questions
from different perspectives and arrived at unique answers. Further,
the questions forced him to draw upon personal life experiences and
examine beliefs and hidden assumptions that he had long held
unquestioned. Green found that his relationship to and interpretation
of the natural environment changed dramatically as a result of
participating in “Farther Reaches”; he developed a passion for
environmentalism that later led him to study sustainability in India
and Greece. He also found that the course opened his eyes to the many
blind spots in his own knowledge and fostered an insatiable curiosity
to explore still further the myriad mysteries of consciousness.
At the conclusion of the course, Green wanted to continue
studying consciousness and asked Noble to create an opportunity to
do so.As a result, we conducted a year long reading group with six
other students from Green’s 2004 class that delved deeper into the
philosophies, theories, and relevance of consciousness to spirituality.
In Spring Quarter 2005, Green served as a teaching assistant for
another “Farther Reaches” course and inAutumn Quarter 2005 he
organized a focus group, modeled after the previous year’s reading
group, so that interested students could continue this exploration.
He also continued to pursue his personal interest in consciousness
through philosophy and contemplative practices.
Throughout these courses and reading groups we observed that
many students were affected in similarly personal and powerful
ways. This observation led us to wonder how and why studying
consciousness from an integral perspective brought about such positive
responses and whether we were witnessing the growth of students’
spiritual intelligence. These questions led to the study that we report
in this article.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Spirituality and Spiritual Intelligence
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
There is a strong and growing interest among college and
university students in exploring spirituality in academic settings.
Recent surveys of more than 112,000 first year students at 236 colleges
and universities, conducted byAlexanderAstin and his colleagues at
the University of California, LosAngeles, found “a high level of
spiritual engagement and commitment among college students, with
more than half placing a high value on ‘integrating spirituality’ in their
lives” (Astin,A.,Astin, H., Lindholm, Bryant, Calderone, & Szelenyi,
2004, p. 2). Respondents wanted to investigate the subject and content
of spirituality through academic curricula and endorsed as “essential”
27 Volume 12, 2010
William N. Green and Kathleen D. Noble
or “very important” life goals that included attaining wisdom,
becoming a more loving person, improving the human condition, and
developing a meaningful philosophy of life. However, “more than half
(56%) say that their professors never provide opportunities to discuss
the meaning and purpose of life….or encourage discussions of
spiritual or religious matters” (p. 6, emphasis in original).
These findings are intriguing in light of a burgeoning conversation
among psychologists, religious scholars, advanced meditators, and
scientists about the role of spirituality in human evolution. Questions
about the definition of spirituality, the range of experiences considered
to be spiritual, neurological sites of spiritual activity, and the
possibility of spirituality as a form of intelligence are at the heart of
this multidisciplinary exploration. One has only to reflect on the
unprecedented dialogue that took place at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) in September 2003 among His Holiness the
Dalai Lama, Buddhist monks and scholars, and neuroscientists (with
a capacity audience of 1200 academics, scientists, students, and
journalists and more than 2000 people on the waiting list) to appreciate
the enormity of this interest (Harrington & Zazonc, 2006).
This conversation has significant roots in the pioneering work
ofAbraham Maslow, an architect of the fields of Humanistic
and Transpersonal Psychology. Maslow coined the term
“self-actualization” in 1950 to describe individuals who he believed
demonstrated exceptional psychological health. “Self-actualization
means experiencing fully, vividly, selflessly, with full concentration
and total absorption…At the moment of experiencing, the person is
wholly and fully human” (1971, p. 44). Maslow called this moment a
“peak experience” characterized by a sense of the deep authenticity
of one’s being as well as the perception of transcendent or unitary
consciousness.After further study Maslow added to his theory of
self-actualization the concept of “plateau experience” (a deeper and
more sustained spiritual awareness) and identified two types of
self-actualizing people: “those who were clearly healthy, but with little
or no experiences of transcendence, and those in whom transcendent
experiencing was important and even central” (p. 270). Transcending
self-actualizers were those for whom the illusion between personal
and ultimate reality was forever shattered.According to Maslow, these
individuals were more than ‘merely healthy.” For them, peak and
plateau experiences were the most important experiences of their lives.
They readily perceived the unity and sacredness in all Being, they
were more consciously and deliberately motivated by values such as
truth, beauty, goodness, and integrity, and they showed a strong
positive correlation between increasing knowledge and an increasing
capacity for awe. For transcending self-actualizers, the mysteries of
the universe were “attractive and challenging rather than frightening”
(p. 280) and inspired a deep sense of humility as well as sustained
engagement with the spiritual questions of life.
Advanced Development Journal 28
Fostering Spiritual Intelligence
As Maslow and others (e.g., Emmons, 2000; Noble, 1987,
2000, 2001) have articulated, spirituality defies easy definition or
explanation. The experiences encompassed by this concept are
complex phenomena with cognitive, emotional, biological, religious,
and cultural components. They are extremely diverse, and have been
reported in every culture and era. They are also unavoidably subject to
individual interpretation. Some experiences involve contact between
individuals and the sacred, or what they perceive to be God, the
Creator, or ultimate reality. Others are more prosaic, and include
extrasensory perceptions, dreams, and altered states of consciousness,
such as shamanic and out-of-body experiences. Spiritual phenomena
arise in a plethora of ways a
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