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abstract:
This
research study examined the experience of seeking, receiving, and
following guidance from a perceived source of divine wisdom. Nine
advanced spiritual teachers (5 men and 4 women) from 7 spiritual
traditions participated as coresearchers in this study. Coresearchers
were North American or European born, predominantly Caucasian,
California (USA) residents between the ages of 52 and 74. Coresearcher
participation consisted of individual semistructured in-depth
interviews. The questions and topics of discussion used for the
interviews were developed through a process of researcher heuristic and
spiritual self-inquiry. The results
of a grounded-theory-based qualitative content analysis of the interview
transcripts suggested that the experience of divine guidance, as
measured in the current study, is characterized by a common structuring
of the experience that includes general categories, factors, and
patterns which appear to manifest into various particular and contextual
forms depending on the individual person, event, and circumstance. The
reported common structures of the experience included: The perception of
a divine source of guidance; the experience of seeking, receiving,
and following guidance from this perceived source; and various contributing,
impeding, developmental, and mediating factors. Additionally,
each coresearcher reported a unique metaphor of divine encounter
that appeared to give them an archetypal and visceral way of describing
and holding the experience. The researcher appeared to experience each
of the coresearcher’s metaphors of divine encounter through some kind
of resonant learning or mimicking process. A Guidance
Experience Template, Guidance Experience Evaluation Checklist, and
Synthesized Guidance Practice were developed as aids to counselors,
practitioners, and researchers exploring the experience of divine
guidance. The
findings of this study, and the development and implementation of
guidance-related applications in this research, may advance the
understanding of this common and historically significant human
experience, and offer a valuable contribution to the fields of
transpersonal psychology, spiritual guidance, and spiritual psychology.
A dissertation to be submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in Transpersonal Psychology
COMMITTEE:
Arthur Hastings, Ph.D., William Braud, Ph.D., and Genie Palmer, Ph.D.
Institute of Transpersonal Psychology
Palo Alto, California
© 2005
