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[Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences (Compass)] [By: Maslow, Abraham H.] [April, 1994]
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About the author
Abraham H. Maslow
69 books767 followersAmerican psychologist Abraham Harold Maslow developed the theory of a hierarchy of needs and contended that satisfying basic physiological needs afterward motivates people to attain affection, then esteem, and finally self-actualization.
The first of seven children to Russian immigrant Jewish parents, he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1930, his Magister Artium in 1931 and his Philosophiae Doctor in 1934 in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Maslow taught full time at Brooklyn college, then at Brandeis, where he was named chair of psychology in 1951. People know humanist-based Maslow, for proposing for an individual to meet to achieve ably. Maslow analyzed and found reality-centered achievers.
Among many books of Maslow, Religion, Values, and Peak-Experiences , not a free-thought treatise, neither limited "peak experiences" to the religious nor necessarily ascribe such phenomena to supernaturalism. In the introduction to the book, Maslow warned that perhaps "not only selfish but also evil" mystics single-mindedly pursue personal salvation, often at the expense of other persons. The American humanist association named Maslow humanist of the year in 1967.
Later in life, questions, such as, "Why don't more people self-actualize if their basic needs are met? How can we humanistically understand the problem of evil?," concerned Maslow.
In the spring of 1961, Maslow and Tony Sutich founded the Journal of Humanistic Psychology with Miles Vich as editor until 1971. The journal printed its first issue in early 1961 and continues to publish academic papers.
Maslow attended the founding meeting of the association for humanistic psychology in 1963 and declined nomination as its president but argued that the new organization develop an intellectual movement without a leader; this development resulted in useful strategy during the early years of the field.
Maslow, an atheist, viewed religion.
While jogging, Maslow suffered a severe heart attack and died on June 8, 1970 at the age of 62 in Menlo Park, California.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_...
http://www.maslow.com/
http://psychology.about.com/od/profil...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/...
http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslo...
The first of seven children to Russian immigrant Jewish parents, he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1930, his Magister Artium in 1931 and his Philosophiae Doctor in 1934 in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Maslow taught full time at Brooklyn college, then at Brandeis, where he was named chair of psychology in 1951. People know humanist-based Maslow, for proposing for an individual to meet to achieve ably. Maslow analyzed and found reality-centered achievers.
Among many books of Maslow, Religion, Values, and Peak-Experiences , not a free-thought treatise, neither limited "peak experiences" to the religious nor necessarily ascribe such phenomena to supernaturalism. In the introduction to the book, Maslow warned that perhaps "not only selfish but also evil" mystics single-mindedly pursue personal salvation, often at the expense of other persons. The American humanist association named Maslow humanist of the year in 1967.
Later in life, questions, such as, "Why don't more people self-actualize if their basic needs are met? How can we humanistically understand the problem of evil?," concerned Maslow.
In the spring of 1961, Maslow and Tony Sutich founded the Journal of Humanistic Psychology with Miles Vich as editor until 1971. The journal printed its first issue in early 1961 and continues to publish academic papers.
Maslow attended the founding meeting of the association for humanistic psychology in 1963 and declined nomination as its president but argued that the new organization develop an intellectual movement without a leader; this development resulted in useful strategy during the early years of the field.
Maslow, an atheist, viewed religion.
While jogging, Maslow suffered a severe heart attack and died on June 8, 1970 at the age of 62 in Menlo Park, California.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_...
http://www.maslow.com/
http://psychology.about.com/od/profil...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/...
http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslo...
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October 9, 2025
MASLOW LISTS CHARACTERISTICS OF PEAK-EXPERIENCES (INCLUDING ‘RELIGIOUS’ ONES)
Abraham Harold Maslow (1908-1970) was an American psychologist. He wrote in the Preface to the 2nd edition (1970) of this 1964 book, “Most people lose or forget the subjectively religious experience, and redefine ‘Religion’ as a set of habits, behaviors, dogmas, forms, which at the extreme becomes entirely legalistic and bureaucratic, conventional, empty, and in the truest meaning of the word, anti-religious. The mystic experience, the illumination, the great awakening, along with the charismatic seer who started the whole thing, are forgotten, lost, or transformed into their opposites. Organized Religion, the churches, finally may become the major enemies of the religious experience and the religious experiencer. This is a main thesis of this book.” (Pg. vii-viii)
He says in the Introduction, “It must be said to Freud’s credit that, though he was at his poorest with all the questions of transcendence, he is still to be preferred to the behaviorists who not only have no answers but who also deny the very questions themselves.” (Pg. 8)
He explains, “My thesis is, in general, that new developments in psychology are forcing a profound change in our philosophy of science, a change so extensive that we may be able to accept the basic religious questions as a proper part of the jurisdiction of science, once science is broadened and redefined.” (Pg. 11)
He suggests, “we can study today what happened in the past and was then explainable in supernatural terms only. By so doing, we are enabled to examine religion in all its facets and in all its meanings in a way that makes it a part of science rather than something outside and exclusive of it. Also this kind of study leads us to another very plausible hypothesis: to the extent that all mystical or peak experiences are the same in their essence and have always been the same, all religions are the same in their essence and have always been the same. They should, therefore, come to agree in principle on teaching that which is common to all of them, i.e., whatever it is that peak-experiences teach in common… This something common… which is left over after we peel away all the localisms, all the accidents of particular language or particular philosophies, all the ethnocentric phrasings, all those elements which are not common, we may call the ‘core -religious experience’ or the ‘transcendent experience.’” (Pg. 20)
He summarizes, “from this point of view, the two religions of mankind tend to be the peakers and the non-peakers, that is to say, those who have private, personal, transcendent, core-religious experiences easily and often and who accept them and make use of them, and, on the other hand, those who have never had them or who repress or suppress them and who, therefore, cannot make use of them for their personal therapy, personal growth, or personal fulfillment.” (Pg. 29) Later, he adds, ‘Conventional religions may even be used as defenses against and resistances to the shaking experiences of transcendence.” (Pg. 33)
He argues, “As we look back through the religious conceptions of human nature---and indeed we need not look back so very far because the same doctrine can be found in Freud---it becomes crystal clear that any doctrine of the innate depravity of man or any maligning of his animal nature very easily leads to some extra-human interpretation of goodness, saintliness, virtue, self-sacrifice, altruism, etc. If they can’t be explained from within human nature---and explained they must be---then they must be explained from outside of human nature. The worse man is, the poorer a thing he is conceived to be, the more necessary becomes a god.” (Pg. 36-37)
He asserts, “the big lesson that must be learned here, not only by the non-theists and liberal religionists, but also by the supernaturalists, and by the scientists and the humanists, is that mystery, ambiguity, illogic, contradiction, mystic and transcendent experiences may now be considered to lie well within the realm of nature. These phenomena need not drive us to postulate additional supernatural variables and determinants. Even the unexplained and the presently unexplainable, ESP for instance, need not. And it is no longer accurate to accept them only as morbidities. The study of self-actualizing people has taught us differently.” (Pg. 45)
He observes, “What is the practical upshot for education of all these considerations? We wind up with a rather startling conclusion, namely, that the teaching of spiritual values of ethical and moral values definitely does (in principle) have a place in education, perhaps ultimately a very basic and essential place, and that this in no way needs to controvert the American separation between church and state for the simple reason that spiritual, ethical and moral values need have nothing to do with any church. Or perhaps, better said, they are the common core of all churches, all religions, even the non-theistic ones.” (Pg. 57)
He says of ‘peak experiences’: “1. … it is quite characteristic in peak experiences that the whole universe is perceived as an integrated and unified whole… 2. In the cognition that comes in peak-experiences… there is tremendous concentration of a kind which does not normally occur… 3. The cognition of being (b-cognition) that occurs in peak-experiences tends to perceive external objects, the world, and individual people are more detached from human concerns… 4. …perception in the peak-experiences can be relatively ego-transcending, egoless, unselfish… 5. The peak-experience is felt as a self-validating, self-justifying moment which carries its own intrinsic value… 6. … it proves to the experiencer that there are ends in the world, that there are things or objects or experiences to yearn for which are worthwhile in themselves… 7. … there is a very characteristic disorientation of time and space, or even the lack of consciousness of time and space… 8. The world… is seen only as beautiful, good, desirable, worthwhile… and is never experienced as evil or undesirable… 9. … this is another way of becoming ‘god-like.’ … 10. Perhaps my most important finding was that discovery of what I am calling B-values or the intrinsic values of Being…
“11. B-cognition… is much more passive and receptive, much more humble, than normal perception is… 12. … such emotions as wonder, awe, reverence, humility, surrender, and even worship before the greatness of the experience are often reported… 13. … the dichotomies, polarities, and conflicts of life tend to be transcended or resolved… 14. … there tends to be a loss … of fear, anxiety, inhibition, of defense and control, of perplexity, confusion, conflict, of delay and restraint… 15. Peak-experiences sometime have immediate effects or aftereffects upon the person… 16. I have likened the peak-experience in a metaphor to a visit to a personally defined heaven from which the person then returns to earth… 17. … there is a tendency to move more closely to a perfect identity, or uniqueness… to have become more of a real person.
“18. The person feels himself to be … responsible, active, the creative center of his own perceptions… with more ‘free will’… 19…. Precisely those persons who have the clearest and strongest identity are exactly the ones who are most able to transcend the ego or the self and become selfless… 20. The peak-experiencer becomes more loving and more accepting… 21. He becomes less an object… less a thing of the world living under the laws of the physical world… 22. … he becomes more … non-striving… he asks less for himself in such moments… 23. … [experiencers] characteristically feel lucky, fortunate, graced… 24. The dichotomy or polarity between humility and pride tends to be resolved… 25. What has been called the ‘unitive consciousness’ is often given in peak-experiences; i.e., a sense of the sacred glimpsed IN and THROUGH … the secular, the worldly.” (Pg. 59-68)
He notes, “peak-knowledge DOES need external, independent validation… This history of science and invention is full of instances of validated peak-insights and also of ‘insights’ that failed. At any rate, there are enough of the former to support the proposition that the knowledge obtained in peak-insight-experiences can be validated and valuable.” (Pg. 77)
He concludes, “We must remember, after all, that all these happenings are in truth mysteries. Even though they happen a million times, they are still mysteries. If we lose our sense of the mysterious, the numinous, if we lose our sense of awe, of humility, of being struck dumb, if we lose our sense of good fortune, then we have lost a very real and basic human capacity and are diminished thereby.” (Pg. 113)
This book will be ‘must reading’ for anyone studying Humanistic Psychology, religious experience, and peak experiences.
Abraham Harold Maslow (1908-1970) was an American psychologist. He wrote in the Preface to the 2nd edition (1970) of this 1964 book, “Most people lose or forget the subjectively religious experience, and redefine ‘Religion’ as a set of habits, behaviors, dogmas, forms, which at the extreme becomes entirely legalistic and bureaucratic, conventional, empty, and in the truest meaning of the word, anti-religious. The mystic experience, the illumination, the great awakening, along with the charismatic seer who started the whole thing, are forgotten, lost, or transformed into their opposites. Organized Religion, the churches, finally may become the major enemies of the religious experience and the religious experiencer. This is a main thesis of this book.” (Pg. vii-viii)
He says in the Introduction, “It must be said to Freud’s credit that, though he was at his poorest with all the questions of transcendence, he is still to be preferred to the behaviorists who not only have no answers but who also deny the very questions themselves.” (Pg. 8)
He explains, “My thesis is, in general, that new developments in psychology are forcing a profound change in our philosophy of science, a change so extensive that we may be able to accept the basic religious questions as a proper part of the jurisdiction of science, once science is broadened and redefined.” (Pg. 11)
He suggests, “we can study today what happened in the past and was then explainable in supernatural terms only. By so doing, we are enabled to examine religion in all its facets and in all its meanings in a way that makes it a part of science rather than something outside and exclusive of it. Also this kind of study leads us to another very plausible hypothesis: to the extent that all mystical or peak experiences are the same in their essence and have always been the same, all religions are the same in their essence and have always been the same. They should, therefore, come to agree in principle on teaching that which is common to all of them, i.e., whatever it is that peak-experiences teach in common… This something common… which is left over after we peel away all the localisms, all the accidents of particular language or particular philosophies, all the ethnocentric phrasings, all those elements which are not common, we may call the ‘core -religious experience’ or the ‘transcendent experience.’” (Pg. 20)
He summarizes, “from this point of view, the two religions of mankind tend to be the peakers and the non-peakers, that is to say, those who have private, personal, transcendent, core-religious experiences easily and often and who accept them and make use of them, and, on the other hand, those who have never had them or who repress or suppress them and who, therefore, cannot make use of them for their personal therapy, personal growth, or personal fulfillment.” (Pg. 29) Later, he adds, ‘Conventional religions may even be used as defenses against and resistances to the shaking experiences of transcendence.” (Pg. 33)
He argues, “As we look back through the religious conceptions of human nature---and indeed we need not look back so very far because the same doctrine can be found in Freud---it becomes crystal clear that any doctrine of the innate depravity of man or any maligning of his animal nature very easily leads to some extra-human interpretation of goodness, saintliness, virtue, self-sacrifice, altruism, etc. If they can’t be explained from within human nature---and explained they must be---then they must be explained from outside of human nature. The worse man is, the poorer a thing he is conceived to be, the more necessary becomes a god.” (Pg. 36-37)
He asserts, “the big lesson that must be learned here, not only by the non-theists and liberal religionists, but also by the supernaturalists, and by the scientists and the humanists, is that mystery, ambiguity, illogic, contradiction, mystic and transcendent experiences may now be considered to lie well within the realm of nature. These phenomena need not drive us to postulate additional supernatural variables and determinants. Even the unexplained and the presently unexplainable, ESP for instance, need not. And it is no longer accurate to accept them only as morbidities. The study of self-actualizing people has taught us differently.” (Pg. 45)
He observes, “What is the practical upshot for education of all these considerations? We wind up with a rather startling conclusion, namely, that the teaching of spiritual values of ethical and moral values definitely does (in principle) have a place in education, perhaps ultimately a very basic and essential place, and that this in no way needs to controvert the American separation between church and state for the simple reason that spiritual, ethical and moral values need have nothing to do with any church. Or perhaps, better said, they are the common core of all churches, all religions, even the non-theistic ones.” (Pg. 57)
He says of ‘peak experiences’: “1. … it is quite characteristic in peak experiences that the whole universe is perceived as an integrated and unified whole… 2. In the cognition that comes in peak-experiences… there is tremendous concentration of a kind which does not normally occur… 3. The cognition of being (b-cognition) that occurs in peak-experiences tends to perceive external objects, the world, and individual people are more detached from human concerns… 4. …perception in the peak-experiences can be relatively ego-transcending, egoless, unselfish… 5. The peak-experience is felt as a self-validating, self-justifying moment which carries its own intrinsic value… 6. … it proves to the experiencer that there are ends in the world, that there are things or objects or experiences to yearn for which are worthwhile in themselves… 7. … there is a very characteristic disorientation of time and space, or even the lack of consciousness of time and space… 8. The world… is seen only as beautiful, good, desirable, worthwhile… and is never experienced as evil or undesirable… 9. … this is another way of becoming ‘god-like.’ … 10. Perhaps my most important finding was that discovery of what I am calling B-values or the intrinsic values of Being…
“11. B-cognition… is much more passive and receptive, much more humble, than normal perception is… 12. … such emotions as wonder, awe, reverence, humility, surrender, and even worship before the greatness of the experience are often reported… 13. … the dichotomies, polarities, and conflicts of life tend to be transcended or resolved… 14. … there tends to be a loss … of fear, anxiety, inhibition, of defense and control, of perplexity, confusion, conflict, of delay and restraint… 15. Peak-experiences sometime have immediate effects or aftereffects upon the person… 16. I have likened the peak-experience in a metaphor to a visit to a personally defined heaven from which the person then returns to earth… 17. … there is a tendency to move more closely to a perfect identity, or uniqueness… to have become more of a real person.
“18. The person feels himself to be … responsible, active, the creative center of his own perceptions… with more ‘free will’… 19…. Precisely those persons who have the clearest and strongest identity are exactly the ones who are most able to transcend the ego or the self and become selfless… 20. The peak-experiencer becomes more loving and more accepting… 21. He becomes less an object… less a thing of the world living under the laws of the physical world… 22. … he becomes more … non-striving… he asks less for himself in such moments… 23. … [experiencers] characteristically feel lucky, fortunate, graced… 24. The dichotomy or polarity between humility and pride tends to be resolved… 25. What has been called the ‘unitive consciousness’ is often given in peak-experiences; i.e., a sense of the sacred glimpsed IN and THROUGH … the secular, the worldly.” (Pg. 59-68)
He notes, “peak-knowledge DOES need external, independent validation… This history of science and invention is full of instances of validated peak-insights and also of ‘insights’ that failed. At any rate, there are enough of the former to support the proposition that the knowledge obtained in peak-insight-experiences can be validated and valuable.” (Pg. 77)
He concludes, “We must remember, after all, that all these happenings are in truth mysteries. Even though they happen a million times, they are still mysteries. If we lose our sense of the mysterious, the numinous, if we lose our sense of awe, of humility, of being struck dumb, if we lose our sense of good fortune, then we have lost a very real and basic human capacity and are diminished thereby.” (Pg. 113)
This book will be ‘must reading’ for anyone studying Humanistic Psychology, religious experience, and peak experiences.
Displaying 1 of 1 review