Kylie P. Harris

• PhD
• Founding Board Director at Australian Centre for Consciousness Studies

There is growing evidence that the spiritual/religious (S/R) beliefs of war veterans change, even years after the war. Researchers need to explore these changes in different cultures and religions. This study therefore identified S/R changes in Iranian war veterans after three decades of war between Iran and Iraq. The participants were veterans (n...

Spiritual emergency (SEY) refers to a process of spiritual emergence (SE) or awakening that becomes traumatic for an individual, leading to a state of psychological crisis. There is evidence that SE(Y) is associated with both psychotic symptomatology and personality traits. This study examined the relationship between SE(Y), psychotic symptoms, and...

Studies have shown that paranormal belief is correlated with numerous variables, including schizotypy and transliminality. The current study aimed to examine (a) the role of transliminality in understanding variability in paranormal belief and (b) whether transpersonal self-expansiveness improved the prediction of paranormal belief after accounting...

The principal aim of this article is to explore the relationship between depression and mystical experiences. The paper begins with a discussion of definitional issues, inquiring into the meaning and interrelationship of terms such as peak experience, mystical experience, awakening experience, satori, and so forth. The case of a 68-year-old woman w...

Spiritual emergency (SEY) is a process of spiritual emergence (SE) or awakening that becomes traumatic for an individual, leading to a state of psychological crisis. The current study aimed to operationalize and empirically validate a definition of SEY. Twenty expert participants (i.e., academic, clinical and experiential) completed two rounds of a...

Spiritual emergency (SEY) is a type of religious or spiritual struggle that has been associated with physical and psychological health problems as well as providing a unique opportunity for growth. The SEY construct provided the impetus for the development of a diagnostic v-code that exists within the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Me...

Spiritual emergency (SEY) is a process of spiritual emergence (SE) or awakening (i.e., a gradual unfolding of spiritual awareness) that becomes traumatic for an individual, leading to a state of psychological crisis. Collectively referred to as SE(Y), these experiences may contribute to both physical and mental health problems, while providing a un...

In this paper, we present the case of a 40-year-old woman who—after a considerable delay, of some 3 or more years—was eventually diagnosed by a psychiatrist as suffering from the physio-kundalini syndrome. After a presentation of the facts of the case, the paper will go on to explore the possible reasons for the delay in diagnosis. Although the cla...

It is a long-standing assumption that holotropic breathwork (HB) induces an altered state of consciousness. However, this assumption has not been empirically tested. Consequently, 32 participants were recruited for the present study, which aimed to use the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI) to quantify the pattern of phenomenological su...

Spiritual emergency (SE) is a process of spiritual emergence that becomes a psychological crisis and may appear identical to clinical psychosis. This study attempted to validate Goretzki, Thalbourne and Storm’s (2009) Spiritual Emergency Subscales (SES), and Experiences of Psychotic Symptoms Scale (EPSS) as measures of SE and psychosis, respectivel...

A reliable and valid assessment instrument would aid clinicians in their diagnosis of spiritual crisis, or emergency. The current study investigated the structural validity and personality correlates of the 30-item Spiritual Emergency Scale (SES) (Goretzki, Thalbourne, & Storm, 2013). Participants (N 5 162) were recruited via email and social media...

Storm and Rock’s imagery cultivation (IC) model regards shamanic-like techniques as being psi-conducive, with the alleged psi signal being somehow embedded in the cultivated imagery. In the first replication study, hit rates were above chance (not significantly) in all three shamanic-like conditions, and below chance in the control condition. In th...

It is pertinent to explore stimulus conditions that might produce psi effects at least as strong as those elicited in the ganzfeld condition, particularly if those stimulus conditions are less complex than the ganzfeld. Consequently, Storm and Rock developed an imagery cultivation (IC) model, which considers shamaniclike techniques to be psi-conduc...