Self-Transformative Research: Effects on Researchers of a Holistic Collaborative Study of Spiritual Exemplars

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Published by the Journal of Contemplative Studies
© 2025 Amir Freimann et al. (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0)
March 7, 2025, Issue #02, pp. 1–31.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.57010/TIWG2652
Website: https://contemplativejournal.org/
SELF-TRANSFORMATIVE RESEARCH
Effects on Researchers of a Holistic Collaborative Study of
Spiritual Exemplars
Amir Freimann, University of Haifa
Ofra Mayseless, University of Haifa
Tobin Hart, University of West Georgia
Aostre Johnson, Saint Michael’s College
Keywords: organic inquiry, intuitive inquiry, collaborative analysis, heuristic research, self-transformative
research, spiritual exemplars
Abstract: What happens to researchers interested in spirituality, as they engage with a large number of spiritual
exemplars? This question is explored, based on the experience of 14 research collaborators in a qualitative
phenomenological study of spiritual exemplars (individuals perceived by others as exemplifying the spiritual life) of
different traditions, paths, and cultures. Over 5.5 months, two groups of research collaborators watched video
recordings of interviews with 20 spiritual exemplars, analyzed their transcripts, wrote down their impressions of
each exemplar, and discussed them in biweekly meetings. At the end of that period, the effects of the process on the
collaborators were explored through individual interviews and group discussions. The data collected suggests that
the collaborators both formed and experienced the process as holistic and self-transformative in different ways.
Three main effects were described: “self-reflection and insight,” “opening and broadening,” and “fostering
spiritual self-reliance.” In choosing their “most exemplary exemplars,” the collaborators relied mainly on their
somatic-intuitive impressions—and there was great diversity in their choices. These findings suggest that spiritual
exemplarity is determined by “sympathetic resonance” between the exemplar and the person perceiving them as
such. The conditions that contributed to the effects of the process and the potential of its application to facilitate
interreligious dialogue and personal growth are discussed.
INTRODUCTION
What happens to researchers interested in spirituality, as they engage as researchers with a large
number of spiritual exemplars—individuals perceived by others as exemplifying the spiritual life?
This question and the answers it yielded were not intended to be a subject of research when I (the
first author) invited people to join me as research collaborators. It became one in the course of the
research process. The answers it yielded seem pertinent to both the nature of spiritual exemplarity
and possibly exemplarity in general and to the self-transformative impact of the research process,
which the collaborators cocreated and in which they participated.
To contextualize this research process and its outcomes, I begin by reviewing the extant
scientific literature on the two main topics of this research and its lacunas: the first is exemplars
and their effects on others, and the second is transformation through research.

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Exemplars and Their Effects on Others
In almost every area in which human aspiration for virtue or excellence is expressed, a special
place is reserved for exemplars of that area—individuals who are perceived as embodying the
highest human potential or the “vertex of maturity” in that area.1 For aspirants or practitioners who
aspire to cultivate and develop any virtue or skill, exemplars of that virtue or skill have been
hypothesized to serve several functions. Social learning theory posits that “the power of example
to activate and channel behavior has been abundantly documented.”2 Exemplars’ example “seems
to be a very effective way to remind ourselves of the kind of persons we wish to be.”3 Exemplars
attract, inspire, and give confidence that success might be achievable also for others, and
admiration of exemplars has been theorized to motivate “imitation of the value-being of the
exemplary person”4 or emulation.5
In the religious-spiritual domain, a special place is reserved in many traditions for those who
exemplify “the ideal of the tradition in its concrete manifestations in the lives of humans.”6
Learning from spiritual exemplars was named “spiritual modeling” by Oman and Thoresen,7 and
Oman et al. argued that “regularly exposing students to spiritual models (both religious and
nonreligious) can help them absorb and emulate the models’ character strengths.”8
Exemplar study was said to be necessary for providing “a complete account that applies to the
full variety of human functioning” in the study of any psychological phenomenon.9 Examples of
early studies of exemplars include Bucke’s study of exemplars of “cosmic consciousness,” James’s
study of “mystics” and “saints,” and Maslow’s study of “self-actualizers” and “self-
transcenders.”10 In the last four decades, numerous studies were conducted on exemplars of
leadership, morality, altruism, care, bravery, wisdom, spirituality, and other virtues.11 Exemplar
methodology, defined as “a sample selection technique that involves the intentional selection of
individuals, groups, or entities that exemplify the construct of interest in a highly developed
manner,” was developed and refined to identify and study exemplars.12
The effects of exemplars on others have so far been studied only on exemplars’ students,
followers, apprentices, trainees, employees, coworkers, peers, or community members.13 In these
studies, the informants referred to their perceptions of and/or relationships with one person or a
few at most, whom they had already chosen as their exemplar(s), and to the effects of the
exemplar(s) on them. The question of what happens to people as they are exposed to a large number
of individuals, nominated by others as exemplars of a specific virtue or construct, has not been
studied to date.
Transformation through Research
Transformation through research has been described mainly in relation to so-called transformative
research, auto/ethnography,14 first-person action research,15 and transpersonal research. In the
context of transformative research, defined as research whose aim is to catalyze processes of
change on a societal level,16 personal transformation is transformation of the research participants
and is usually referred to as “a necessary component of research that is designed to support change
at the societal level.”17 In auto/ethnography and first-person action research, the researcher may
undergo a transformative experience alongside and as a result of the ethnographic immersion and

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engagement with the research participants and when “our taken-for-granted assumptions,
strategies, and habits are appropriately challenged.”18
In the context of transpersonal research,19 “a research project can be accompanied by increased
self-awareness, enhance psycho-spiritual growth and development, and other personal changes of
great consequence to the individuals involved,”20 participants and researchers included. Sohmer
posits that in such a context, “transformative outcomes . . . are considered as important as, if not
more important than, the informational or conceptual outcomes.”21
As far as I am aware, the scientific literature includes no explicit reference to self-
transformation (in the sense of both “transformation of the self” and “self-induced
transformation”) of the researcher as the main outcome of a research.
CURRENT STUDY
By aiming to answer the question, “What happens to researchers interested in spirituality as they
engage with a large number of spiritual exemplars?,” the current study sheds light on the lacunas
of the above two topics. In this context of this study, the “researchers” referred to in the question
were people who participated as collaborators in the research, “engaged” means “engaged as
researchers with video-recorded interviews,” and “spiritual exemplars” means “individuals
nominated as spiritual exemplars by others.”
As mentioned above, however, this question was not intended to be a subject of research when
I invited people to join me as research collaborators. My intention was only to receive help with
the qualitative analysis of interviews I conducted as part of another study.22 The title of the other
study was “Living Transcendence: A Phenomenological Study of Spiritual Exemplars.” “Living
Transcendence” is a term I coined, which refers to a relatively stabilized elevated spiritual state;
spiritual exemplars are individuals presumably having and evincing that experience. The method
used in the study was exemplar methodology. In that study, I asked 300 experts in the religious-
spiritual field from different traditions to nominate and describe spiritual exemplars they knew
“specifically indicating what it is that makes each of them exemplary.”
Descriptions of 180 spiritual exemplars were provided by 77 expert informants. Next, I
conducted multiple in-depth phenomenological interviews with 32 of these spiritual exemplars, in
which I asked the interviewees to describe their experience of Living Transcendence, and then
video-recorded and transcribed their responses. The interviewees were from different traditions
and paths and included, for example, an American Roman Catholic nun, pagan priestess, and
Tibetan lama; an Uzbekistani teacher of Kashmiri Shaivism; an Iraqi Sufi sheik; an Egyptian
Coptic bishop; a Zimbabwean healer; a Greenlander shaman; a British New Age teacher; and an
Israeli Jewish rabbi.
Prior to this research, I studied for several decades under the tutelage of a Japanese Zen master
and then a Western Advaita teacher, exploring the spiritual teacher-student relationship.23 My
approach to the study of Living Transcendence was influenced by my interest in personally making
the shift from transient “peak experiences” of transcendence to a more stabilized experience of
Living Transcendence. Aware that my biases were toward monotheism and transcendence over
polytheism and immanence, I knew that conducting both the interviews and the analysis on my
own would greatly weaken the rigor of the research. To counter that effect, after interviewing the
first 15 spiritual exemplars I decided to create a small group of research collaborators (hereinafter

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4
referred to as “collaborators”), who would help me in the analysis process. The method I decided
to use for the process was collaborative analysis with some elements taken from the focus groups
method.
Collaborative analysis is a process “in which there is joint focus and dialogue among two or
more researchers regarding a shared body of data, to produce an agreed interpretation.”24 Usually,
researchers from different disciplines, countries, or theoretical traditions—or with different levels
of expertise—collaborate in such a process, bringing “a diversity of perspectives to the project,
embodied in different people.” Collaborative analysis is thought to yield “researcher
triangulation”25 and thus enhance trustworthiness, counteract individual biases,26 and achieve
“perspective-transcending knowledge.”27 Considering my biases and the fact that I was studying
the experience of spiritual exemplars of different traditions and cultural backgrounds, applying
this process seemed suitable.
For the process of collaborative analysis to be truly collaborative and integrative, rather than
reflective of multiple analysts working in isolation (a concern expressed by Moran-Ellis and
colleagues),28 I decided that the collaborators would meet every second week to discuss their
impressions and refine their analysis method. In so doing, I relied on the research technique of
focus groups, the purpose of which is “to identify a range of perspectives on a research topic, and
to gain an understanding of the issues from the perspective of the participants themselves.”29 From
the focus group technique I also adopted the principle that in the group discussions the researcher
takes a peripheral role as a facilitator or moderator, with the power balance favoring participants.30
As it turned out, the collaborators’ biweekly meetings were significant also in enabling the
collaborators to give words to their subjective impressions, hear other impressions and points of
view, and explore together their experiences.
Recruitment and Process Initiation
In December 2020 I posted the following post on my Facebook page, inviting people to join me
as research collaborators. I also forwarded the post to several people who I thought might be
interested in the invitation. The post said:
Join me in Living Transcendence
I’m looking for a few people who would like to join a small team of “research
collaborators,” that would accompany me in my PhD study of Living Transcendence: A
phenomenological study of spiritual exemplars.
The idea is that the team members will watch the interviews I conducted with spiritual
exemplars (on their own), write down their impressions, what stood out for them, what they
found especially interesting and maybe surprising regarding each interviewee, and what
follow-up questions they’d like to ask the interviewee. The team will convene by Zoom
every other week to discuss our different impressions and questions.
Suitable candidates should have experience in the psychological/spiritual field and
preferably in qualitative research, who can commit (after a trial period) to six hours a week
for the next two months.

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The benefits to the team members would be their very participation in an interesting and
enjoyable learning process; getting to know spiritual exemplars of different traditions;
clarification of questions about spirituality and spiritual exemplars; and my gratitude for
their help in my PhD research. No financial compensation will be offered.
Setting the relatively high bar of six hours a week was meant to make sure that only people who
are deeply interested in the subject would apply, and I expected only a few people to respond. To
my surprise, about two dozen people from around the world responded to the invitation, about half
of them unsolicited and half solicited.
Through email exchanges with each of the applicants, I confirmed their availability and
willingness to commit to six hours a week (some tried to negotiate) and the times they could join
group meetings (some could join only at my nighttime). At the end of this screening process, 14
people enrolled to participate as collaborators in the research. These people signed an informed
consent, approved by the institutional ethics committee of the University of Haifa. The informed
consent specified the voluntary nature of their participation and their right to stop participating in
the research at any time, and assured their confidentiality and anonymity (for which they were
given pseudonyms in this paper). It also asked for their assurance that they would not share with
others the study materials they received access to.
Based on a survey of the most convenient meeting times for each collaborator, the collaborators
were divided into two groups: a six-person group met on Saturday, and an eight-person group met
on Sunday every second week. At my request, a member in each group with qualifications and
experience as a group facilitator agreed to facilitate their group meetings. The two (Harriet and
Sigrid) facilitated all the group meetings throughout the process.
The 14 collaborators represented diverse disciplines (e.g., law, psychology, education,
business management, and art), academic statuses (five had BAs, six MAs, and three PhDs or an
equivalent title), personal attributes (nine women and five men between 46 and 72 years old, with
an average age of 58), and geographical location (five were from Asia, five from North America,
three from Europe, and one from Africa). The groups embraced no cultural diversity (all were
affiliated mainly with Western culture) or diversity in religious-spiritual affiliation—all identified
as more spiritual than religious, and their approach to spirituality was more pluralistic than
exclusivist.
Prior to the introductory meetings of the groups, I created an online shared document and asked
the collaborators to introduce themselves, especially their spiritual or religious background.
Excerpts from the collaborators’ self-descriptions included the following: “Although raised in the
Muslim tradition I am more aligned to the Advaita and Stoic approaches to meaning making”
(Nazim); “As a child I found myself drawn to the mystery, inwardly practicing what I called
‘walking in greenfields’ when I was supposed to be saying my prayers and declaring myself ‘not
a Christian’ when I was fifteen” (Annalie); “I have Masters in Jewish Studies and Rabbinic
Ordination, certified in Pastoral Care, Chaplain (APC), Spiritual Care Practitioner (CASC),
Iyengar Yoga, Reiki, Johrei . . . I work as a Chaplain at a major trauma and teaching hospital”
(Kendrick); “I was born into a Catholic family that went to church weekly . . . My spiritual roots
are both in anthroposophy (36 years) and Sufism (22 years)” (Harriet); “I come from an orthodox
Jewish background and have been exposed to yoga, meditation, Sufism and Buddhism” (Peggie);

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and “Understanding our connection to the Universal and the Divine has become more front and
center for me at this point, as I ‘write the last chapter’ of my life” (Burt).
In preparation for the introductory meetings, I asked the collaborators to think of questions that
would be of special interest for them during their participation in the research. The introductory
group meetings were dedicated to exploring the collaborators’ questions. Examples of the
questions are: “What makes someone a spiritual exemplar? Why are exemplars motivated to share
their experience?” (Peggie); “How do the exemplars relate to the unexplored or unintegrated
aspects of their being? To what extent is the separate sense of self important to them?” (Fred);
“What is the process of going from peak experiences to a plateau state? What is the process by
which one embodies love?” (Annalie); “What can they tell us about their lived experience that can
help me in my journey? What is their relationship to death?” (Kendrick); “I’m interested in the
movement between unity consciousness and the day-to-day life. What determines their
authenticity?” (Orit); and “Did the spiritual awakening process require a language transformation,
to represent a new emerging reality? If so, was it accompanied with a sense of loneliness?” (Yvie).
Following the introductory meetings, the collaborators participated in the first part of the
process, which consisted of five meetings over 2.5 months.
First Period of the Process
At the beginning of the process, I sent the members of each group links to video recordings and
transcripts of three interviews with two different exemplars each (two interviews with one
exemplar and one interview with the other). The interviews were between 75 and 100 minutes
each, and the transcripts of those interviews were broken down into sentences. I asked the
collaborators to apply codes to the sentences that seemed meaningful to them, and then to do the
following:
Please write down your impressions of the interviewee; how he or she thinks, feels, reflects,
responds, interacts; whatever you find particularly significant, interesting, authentic and
revealing; themes that emerge in the interview that are of particular interest to you; what
impact (if any) they had on you; and follow-up questions you would have liked to ask them.
i. For the discussion of our impressions of each interviewee, consider mainly:
a. What did you especially enjoy/appreciate in the interviews with them and what
didn’t you like? What deeply resonated with you and what fell flat?
b. How would you describe the interviewee’s spiritual experience, state, depth,
essence, or insight?
c. What impressed you and what you felt was lacking in who they are as a human
being and a spiritual exemplar?
ii. Please think if there are parts of the interview that it’s important for you that we talk
about.

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iii. Please prepare follow-up questions that you would have liked to ask the interviewee.
Over the following two weeks, the collaborators sent me the transcripts highlighted with codes,
such as those listed in table 1, and their impressions of each exemplar. Based on the codes they
used and thematic analysis of their impressions, I created an initial coding system. The second
meeting of each group lasted two hours and consisted of two main parts: in the first, the
collaborators went over the coding system I proposed, discussing and refining it; and in the second,
each collaborator spoke about their impression of each of the exemplars. Some of the impressions
were discussed by all, and questions for future interviews were proposed.
The following four meetings of each group followed a similar pattern. In the two weeks
between the meetings, the collaborators watched two or three video recordings and coded
transcripts of interviews with two different exemplars each and wrote down their subjective
impressions and felt impact of the exemplars. The biweekly two-hour meetings consisted of three
parts: (1) discussion of the coding system, which was ongoingly refined from one meeting to
another; (2) sharing of each collaborator’s impression of each exemplar and discussion of specific
impressions; and (3) group exploration of specific topics, brought up by one of the collaborators.
These included, for example, authenticity, humility, morality, and psycho-spiritual integration in
exemplars. A topic that was of special interest to me was the diversity in the collaborators’
impressions of different exemplars. I had assumed that there would be significant agreement
among the collaborators on who the most impressive or “exemplary” exemplars were, and that it
would match my impressions. This turned out not to be the case. Different collaborators were
impressed by or felt resonance with different exemplars, and there was considerable diversity
among them (and between them and me) on this issue.
At the end of the agreed-upon 2.5 months and after the sixth meeting, I sent an email to each
of the collaborators, cautiously asking if they were interested in continuing to participate in the
process for a second period of 2.5 additional months (with a two-week gap before the second
period began). Aware of how intensive and time-consuming their involvement in the research had
been, I also indicated that the weekly workload in that period would be reduced to three to four
hours a week. I expected some or most of them to end their participation at that point. To my
surprise, all 14 collaborators responded that they wanted to continue. Many of them indicated in
their responses that, while they welcomed the reduced weekly workload, their involvement in the
research was interesting, fulfilling, and important to them.
It was then that I became more aware of how significant the process was for the collaborators
and considered that it might be worth studying and writing about. I decided that the research
question would be, “What happens to researchers interested in spirituality, as they engage with a
large number of spiritual exemplars?” From that point on, I started paying closer attention to the
collaborators’ comments about the effects of the process on them and planned on interviewing
them about it at the end of the process.

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Second Period of the Process
At the beginning of the second period of the process I also finalized and sent the collaborators a
“Themes Document” (table 1), which listed the themes (on the left) and codes that were developed
up to that point. I asked the collaborators to use, from that point on, the list of themes in two ways:
• While reading the transcript of an interview, if there is a section of an interview that
strikes you as relevant to one of the themes, code it with that theme.
• When writing your impressions, write something under each theme, if applicable.
Table 1: List of Themes and Codes Developed and Used by the Collaborators in Analyzing and
Writing Down Their Impressions and Felt Impact of Each Exemplar
Living Transcendence (according to the interviewee)
Embodiment:
Senses, sexuality, physicality, “down-to-earth”-ness
Emotions:
Love, compassion, bliss, depression, anxiety, anger, etc.
Inner compass:
Higher guidance, sense of their path, alignment with spirit
Supernatural
perception:
Energies/immaterial entities/subtle realms, communication with
nature, channeling, intuition, esoteric knowledge
Relationships:
With significant others, own teachers, role models, peers,
students
Volition:
Surrender, free will, wanting to serve, responding to a calling
Unity:
Expansion/dissolution of self, infinity, absolute, timelessness,
unity consciousness
Spiritual life (according to the interviewee)
Challenges:
Crises, struggles, difficulties, suffering, self-doubt, “dark nights
of the soul”
Development:
Stages, milestones, current development, growing edge
Early life:
Childhood/adolescence experiences, formative events
Inner life:
Inquiry, internal processes not shared with others
Integration:
Shadow/psychological work, wholeness, unification of
personality/life
Motivation:
Drive, intentionality in own journey/development/teaching
Peak experiences:
Transient spiritual/transformative experiences
Practice:
Type of practice, relationship to practice, practice past and
present
Being a teacher/leader (according to the interviewee)
Activism:
Social-political awareness/involvement, intention to have an
effect
Conceptualization:
Of knowledge, articulation, understanding, metaphors, stories
Ethics:
Position in the community, ethical conduct, peer supervision,
response to criticism, sense of responsibility

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Guiding:
Recognizing and responding to student’s level of understanding,
facilitating student’s understanding, guiding through stages
Teaching:
Becoming/being a teacher, motivation/reluctance to teach,
leading others (groups, close community, wider followership)
Tradition:
Relationship to tradition, reliance on tradition
Impressions (your impressions)
Authenticity:
Vulnerability, humility, transparency
Ego:
Self-promotion, self-importance, specialness, pride, putting
down others, “full of themselves”
Introspection:
Their reflection ability, attention to felt sense, intuition
Interaction:
Dialogicity, openness, care, attentiveness
Humor:
Ease of being, lightness, self-irony
Quirks:
Idiosyncrasies, “nonspiritual” activities, inconsistencies
Spiritual exemplarity (your assessment)
Essence(s):
Of spiritual exemplarity felt by you, transmitted by them
Roundedness:
Fullness of being—or what is lacking
Why considered:
Or what makes them a spiritual exemplar for some people
Your general impressions of them (free text)
Their impact on you (free text)
Self-assessment of your positionality (free text)
The two collaborator groups continued to watch video recordings and analyze transcripts of
interviews with two spiritual exemplars every two weeks. They also continued to meet and discuss
their impressions every second week. This second period of the process lasted two more months.
By the end of the 5.5-month process, each group watched and analyzed interviews with 20 spiritual
exemplars, which included the same 15 exemplars as the other group and five additional
exemplars.
At the end of the second period and the entire process, I conducted by Zoom short interviews
with each of the collaborators about how the process was for them. The last meeting of each group
was also dedicated to exploring the same. The procedures of the individual interviews and the last
meetings are described in the methods section, and data from the interviews and meetings are used
in the findings section.
METHODS
Two methods relevant to the process that the collaborators underwent—heuristic research and
organic/intuitive inquiry—are first described in the following section, on methodological

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foundations. The procedure used in this research for data collection and the process of its analysis,
using the hermeneutic-phenomenological approach, are then described.
Methodological Foundations
The research process, which the collaborators participated in, was originally designed based on the
methods of collaborative analysis and focus groups. In discussing the process that the
collaborators actually underwent, however, we (the four authors) realized that these two methods
were insufficient to delineate the theoretical foundations of the research method. The reason for
this insufficiency was that the collaborators, whom I initially recruited as “assistant coders” to co-
analyze data about spiritual exemplars, became in the process of the research also “self-inquirers”
and “self-transformers.” By entering an internal dialogue with the videotaped exemplars and an
external dialogue with their peers, and by allowing themselves to be impacted and transformed by
both, the collaborators became involved in the research in different ways than originally intended
and thereby reconfigured the research method.
In light of this reconfiguration, we found that the methods of heuristic research and
organic/intuitive inquiry provided better methodological foundations for the method actually used
in this research. This method organically and collaboratively developed during the research,
however, rather than being intentionally designed based on these methods. Nevertheless, they
helped us better understand it and situate it in relation to well-established methods.
Heuristic Research
Heuristic research has been described as “a way of self-inquiry and dialogue with others” in which
“attention is focused inward on feeling responses of the researcher to the outward situation.”31 It
is said to be suitable for “any research endeavor where the inquiry is on the cutting edge of new
territory being explored.”32 The researcher in heuristic research “must have had a direct, personal
encounter with the phenomenon being investigated,”33 and the research “begins with a question or
problem which the researcher seeks to illuminate or answer”34 and progresses by processes of
“reflective learning.”
In this study, the requirements set for people to join as research collaborators ensured that they
all had personal affinity to and deep interest in the study subject. These were foundational for the
process that transpired. They were reinforced by the exploration of the questions, which were of
special interest for the collaborators, in the introductory meetings of the groups. The process that
followed provided the collaborators with an opportunity to follow their personal questions and to
incorporate their felt sense35 and “reflective learning” into the collaborative research process.
Organic/Intuitive Inquiry
Organic inquiry36 is an emerging research approach that incorporates feeling, intuitive, and body-
based information into data collection and analysis in order to “more fully appreciate . . . the nature
of the types of complex, rich, and meaningful experiences that are of great interest to the human
sciences and humanities.”37 Closely related to it is a research method called “intuitive inquiry,”
which “seeks to engage our full humanity, including our aesthetic, imaginal, and transformational
capacities, in the conduct of qualitative research . . . Transformation of the researcher’s

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understanding of the topic under study and breakthrough insights are actively sought.”38 As
suggested by Churchill and Wertz, “to engage in phenomenological reflection on a given
phenomenon, an intuitive relationship is needed between the researchers and the research
participant—direct existential contact. Intuitive means that the phenomenon is directly accessible
to the researcher’s own consciousness.”39 (Both organic and intuitive inquiry relate to the concept
of “empathetic identification,” which means that the researcher “looks around from inside the
experience and witnesses the essential qualities of the other coming to life as the researcher’s own
experience.”40) Participants in organic inquiry should be individuals “who have had meaningful
experience with the topic of study, who have an open-minded understanding of it, and who have
both willingness and ability to articulate their experience.”41
Organic/intuitive research is said to be “ideally suited to topics related to psycho-spiritual
growth,” where “the psyche of the researcher becomes the instrument of the research, working in
partnership with the experiences of participants and guided by liminal and spiritual influences.”42
As such, it was especially suitable for this study. This research approach also provides an
opportunity for transformational change, defined as the “restructuring of one’s worldview that
provides some discrete degree of movement along one’s lifetime path toward further transpersonal
development.”43
Procedure
At the end of the collaborative analysis process and before the last meeting of each group, I
conducted by Zoom interviews with each of the collaborators. Each interview lasted between 25
and 35 minutes and was recorded and later transcribed. Each interview began with an open-ended,
nondirective question: “How was the research process for you?” I invited the collaborator to
respond to this question as freely as possible and asked follow-up questions only based on things
they had already said. After the collaborator’s response to this question was exhausted, I asked
two additional questions: “How did you work with the study materials? Did the process affect you
in some way?” Also with these questions, I used follow-up questions, if needed, only to encourage
the collaborator to elaborate on and clarify things they had already said.
After all the collaborators were individually interviewed, the last meeting of each group was
conducted by Zoom. Unlike all the previous group meetings, I facilitated those last meetings. Each
of the two-hour meetings was divided into two parts. In the first part, which lasted between 30 and
40 minutes, I asked the collaborators to each choose their two or three “most exemplary exemplars”
of the exemplars they saw. After they did that, I asked them to “please reflect on and describe how
you chose your ‘most exemplary exemplars.’” Each of the collaborators was invited to freely
describe, in their own words, the internal, subjective process they underwent in choosing their
exemplars. Follow-up questions were asked by me and other collaborators if further clarification
felt needed. In the second part, which lasted between 80 and 90 minutes, I asked the collaborators
to describe and discuss the effect that the process had on them. The meetings were recorded and
later transcribed.

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Data Analysis
To deeply and intimately understand the collaborators’ experiences of the process and its effects
on them, I analyzed the transcripts of the individual interviews and the last group meetings using
the hermeneutic-phenomenological approach. The phenomenological approach aims at
understanding how individuals experience, interpret, and give meaning to a given phenomenon.
Husserl, who developed this approach, called for a return “to the things themselves” by the
researcher holding in abeyance their preconceptions and prior knowledge (a process referred to as
epoche or bracketing). The hermeneutic-phenomenological approach, proposed by Heidegger,44
on the other hand, recognizes that the analysis process is invariably and inevitably influenced by
the researcher’s preconceptions. The Heideggerian hermeneutic-phenomenological approach
includes, therefore, both a description of the phenomenon by the respondent and the researcher’s
reflection on and interpretation of the respondent’s description.
I used Dedoose qualitative data analysis application to analyze the data from the collaborators’
interviews and group meetings. I started the analysis process by watching several times the
recordings of the interviews and group meetings while reading and annotating their transcripts
with initial ideas related to the research question. At the next stage, I documented topics that
emerged out of my notes. These topics were at a higher level of abstraction than the original notes,
yet they remained grounded in my notes. Finally, the other three authors reviewed the topics and
their connections to the raw data, and together we clustered the topics into the themes, presented
in the findings section.
FINDINGS
In our analysis of the collaborators’ interviews and group meetings we identified five themes. The
first theme, Holistic Inquiry Process, presents the collaborators’ experience working with the video
recordings and transcripts of the interviews and with the combination between individual and
group inquiry. The second theme, Choosing the Most Exemplary Exemplars, presents the
collaborators’ reflections on how they chose the exemplars that touched or impressed them the
most. The next three themes—Self-Reflection and Insight, Opening and Broadening, and Fostering
Spiritual Self-Reliance—concern the effects that participation in the research process had on the
collaborators.
Holistic Inquiry Process: “Bringing Forth Your Energy and Experience and All of Your
Capacities”
The process that the collaborators participated in consisted of several elements: watching video
recordings of the interviews, coding their transcripts, writing down impressions, and discussing
them in group meetings. The collaborators used this multimodal design to engage with the
exemplars and with their peers not only on a cognitive-analytic level but also emotionally and
relationally, in embodied-intuitive and transpersonal-spiritual ways. For example, Fred referred to
it as “spiritual practice” and explained:
First of all, you have an opportunity to engage with deep thinkers. Then you’re bringing
your cognitive and somatic perceptions and discrimination to the process with the intention

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of engaging with others on the issue. So you’re actually bringing forth your energy and
experience and all of your capacities and try to come up with an accurate description of
your impressions. I mean, you really have to do all of those things in order to do a good
job and you can’t be sloppy doing it, right? So that’s a spiritual practice.
Yaris described how the combination of watching the video recording and “allowing for certain
processes to take place in me, understanding things about myself,” then analyzing the transcript
and writing down her impressions, and finally discussing these in the group meeting had a powerful
integrative or unifying effect on her. She commented that she experienced this integrative process
as gradual, and that “shifting from the pre-verbal experience of the initial meeting with the
exemplar and putting it into words was not easy, but important. . . . This was more difficult for me
at the beginning and gradually became easier.”
Some of the collaborators indicated that their engagement with the interviews sometimes left
a “vibrational” or “resonant” impression on them, which extended beyond the time of their
engagement with the task. Jama commented that “I have dreams and insights and I can feel the
words of certain exemplars reverberating in the background when I have those insights.” Annalie
mentioned that “often the interviewees walked with me while I was with them. And I would refer
back to things that they said, maybe go back and find again that, yeah, that’s why that resonated
with me. They became part of my life.”
The collaborators were not given specific recommendations on how to work with and
incorporate the different modes of engagement, and they experimented with different ways on their
own. Whatever method each of the collaborators developed, it was one that enabled them to bring
together their intuitive/embodied impressions and their analytic-cognitive faculties. Yvie, for
example, said that “I used to watch the interview and then give it a few days for the impressions
to sink in, without writing. Then I would write my impressions free style, whatever stayed with
me.” Only after “digesting” her initial impressions in this way she started the analytic coding
process. Other collaborators chose to watch the video recording of an interview while reading its
transcript and coding it at the same time. Sigrid, for example, described that “I was watching,
reading and self-noticing how my body is responding, what images are arising, what’s happening
in my heart, when am I getting goosebumps, what’s happening to me in this encounter with this
person, when is there a qualitative change in what’s going on, what I call ‘grace moments’ or
‘transmission.’” Kendrick said that he used to watch the video recording in order to “get the energy
and the feeling of the person” while coding the transcript, and commented:
Part of the process for me was learning to open more of my senses, in perceiving what I
call the subtle realms of my awareness. I was then able to articulate my preferences more
precisely as the process continued, and I became more acutely aware of what turns me on,
what turns me off and why . . . And eventually I was able to [discern]: Does this person
speak from their heart? What type of energy are they expounding? Do I get the
transmission? For some there was a point you just put the paper down and you’re so
engrossed and all of a sudden you start to get it on a different level.
The combination of individual and collective inquiry also contributed to the integration of the
collaborators’ experience by helping them to make conscious and verbalize impressions that had

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not been consciously aware of. Angelique, for example, said that the group meetings “helped me
to pick out those jewels that actually had hit me while watching the interview but I wasn’t
conscious of. Then in the group somebody would give it words and I’d go, ‘Oh, yes, indeed!’”
The descriptions of the process by many of the collaborators suggest that they used their
engagement and experienced it as integrative-holistic, that is, as bringing together and unifying
their cognitive-analytic, emotional, relational, embodied-intuitive, and transpersonal-spiritual
ways of knowing, feeling, and communicating. The multimodality of the study design and the
freedom they had to combine the different modalities in ways that deepened their engagement
supported their integrative-holistic experience. However, it was the collaborators’ deep interest in
and “empathetic identification” with the phenomenon they were studying that seemed to be the
motivating force behind their holistic engagement and experience.
Choosing the Most Exemplary Exemplars: “I Intuitively Moved toward the Ones That Shifted
My Consciousness”
In discussing the process, they went through in choosing specific interviewees as their “most
exemplary exemplars,” most collaborators indicated that their choice relied more on their somatic-
intuitive impressions than on preformulated criteria. Some collaborators did mention
preformulated criteria—such as ethical behavior, absence of a sense of superiority, independence,
and authenticity—but those criteria were necessary rather than sufficient conditions for their
choices. For example, Kendrick provided a list of criteria that led him to choose his three
exemplars, but when asked about another exemplar, who also matched all those criteria, he replied,
“Yes, but I just didn’t connect with her.” When explaining her choices, Angelique said:
Many interviewees I watched over the last months “fit the bill” of what makes one a
spiritual exemplar, but there is also such a thing as a more personal preference to specific
exemplars, which has to do with particular qualities of their personality that appeal to me
personally and literally make me feel happy and more attracted to their message. So they
seem to be a more direct conduit of spirit and seem to have more impact, or maybe because
they are personally more attractive they are easier for me to listen to and therefore seem to
have more impact on me.
Some collaborators indicated that the determining factor for them was a “felt sense,” a certain
“vibration” or an “internal shift” that they experienced with some of the exemplars and not with
others. For example, Orit said:
I felt different sensations and had different experiences throughout the interviews, but at
times I sensed something altering in my perception—the vividness with which I experience
the interviewee, their words touching me intensely. I experience a deepening of focused
awareness around what the interviewee is expressing, I feel I am drawn into a different
realm, with a different vibration to it. I feel touched and greatly drawn to the person when
he or she allows me into the core of their experience. I feel they are not talking “about it”
but “being it” as they speak. I guess that will be the experience of spiritual transmission.
In those cases I experienced the interviewee as a spiritual exemplar.

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And Annalie said:
I found exemplary aspects of each interviewee. But this did not necessarily correlate with
how deeply each moved me. For example, I think that the living sense of divine love and
forgiveness of the Christian mystic you interviewed is how he lives in the material world—
he embodies that place which I respect and appreciate—but he didn’t move or inspire me.
So where would I seek? I intuitively moved toward the ones with whom I had a felt sense
that shifted my consciousness. That made me leave my role as outside observer and become
one who was invited inside, an experience that resulted in an upliftment or expansion in
my conscious awareness.
Harriet referred to her experience with some of the exemplars as “transcendence,” and said that
such an experience was for her an indication of the exemplar’s spiritual state:
Feeling transcendence is like being transferred into a wider space that is at the same time
spaceless. The polarity between inner and outer starts disappearing, as my inner space and
subtle body open and widen. With some exemplars it starts more in the head, with others
in the heart region . . . What I mean is that I’m able to not just hear the words but sense and
resonate with the inner state or space from which they are spoken. This leads to a direct
knowing or understanding of what is being said . . . Sometimes it feels like a sudden inner
energetic shift, like a switch being turned on, sometimes it is a gradual growing awareness
that I have been invited and find myself in another space than where I usually reside.
Sometimes it is overwhelming, which my body tends to downregulate by allowing tears to
well up.
The collaborators’ reliance on their somatic-intuitive impressions seems related to the fact that
there was little agreement among them on who the most impressive or “the most exemplary
exemplars” were among the interviewees. Interviewees that impressed some of the collaborators
did not impress at all or were even unappealing to others. Orit, one of the collaborators, commented
that “in the group discussion it was interesting for me to see . . . the very different reactions some
of us had to the same exemplar, and that how someone would be drawn to or repelled by an
exemplar had to do with differences in our personalities.” The combination of these two findings—
that the collaborators relied mainly on their somatic-intuitive impressions and that there was
diversity among them in choosing “the most exemplary exemplars”—suggests that the
collaborators’ impressions were significantly determined by their personal characteristics.
Self-Reflection and Insight: “I Have Found Greater Understanding and Acceptance of Who I
Am”
All the collaborators indicated that they found the process insightful and transformative. For
example, Kendrick said, “I was challenged, evolved and transformed through this process. I feel I
have gained greater awareness, deeper insight, sharper intellect, deeper practice and a more solid
footing on my spiritual path.” Angelique said that “during the process, two things stood out for
me. One was how to live life more fully and the other was how to be less engaged in drama in my

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life. Pondering these really helped me to deepen my understanding.” For Orit, participation in the
process helped clarify a question that she had been carrying for many years. She said:
I’ve had unity consciousness experiences before, but they scared me. Something in me
would say, “How am I going to live with my family and keep doing my art if I’m without
boundaries?” And that would take me away from there. Hearing some of the exemplars
assured me that it was possible. That I’m not going to lose who I am on this physical plane.
I will remain who I am but with an expanded consciousness. That was a gift for me. It
opened the path to go forward without fear.
Fred told how the process helped him better understand his own life story and unify disparate
aspects of his life:
It was significant hearing that many of these exemplars experienced the mystery from very
young ages . . . It enabled me to contextualize my own experience as a young child, having
these out-of-the-blue experiences where I would just be overcome with the sense of eternity
and tears would come to my eyes. I didn’t know how to deal with it at six or seven years
old, when all my peers were rough and tumbling on the playground and I was feeling this
love for the universe. To just hear so many others who’ve had similar experiences gave me
a sense of “this is really important for us to be out there with these narratives, that don’t
make a lot of sense in the context of secular culture. This is important for us culturally to
have a place for the ‘freaks,’ in a positive sense. To have this be a recognized human
phenomenon.” And that gave me a little more courage to get out there myself and not be
so secretive about my life. I mean, I’m an attorney and a mediator and I’ve been living a
life of spiritual pursuit and practice, and I’ve always been keeping them separate. So by
watching these exemplars and reflecting on how important it is that they’re out there, I felt
like I also needed to come out a little more. So after years I finally consented to do an
interview about my life with an organization of mediators that I’m part of, and felt so
liberated. It just came out and in it I speak about synthesizing disparate interests. Maybe
this will have significance also for others.
In an unsolicited email from Burt, which he sent me four months after the last group meetings, he
wrote:
What I want to express is how much of a profound effect participating in the research has
had and how it changed in many ways the very core of who I am, how I see the world and
my experience in it. I have found greater understanding and acceptance of who I am, and
after this research experience I more readily see the good in others and feel more
compassion for others than I ever have. I’ve never felt more prepared to go back to being
a therapist. It’s hard to put into words the profundity of this whole thing.
Most of the collaborators’ descriptions of this effect suggested that they attributed it to the overall,
cumulative effect of engaging with a large number of spiritual exemplars over several months,
rather than to the effect of any specific exemplar. While none of them attributed it to the

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multimodal study design alone, some indicated that this design deepened and amplified the effect
of their engagement with the exemplars.
Opening and Broadening: “I Learned to Appreciate the Differences”
The collaborators engaged in self-reflection, reinforced by their engagement with the exemplars
and their peers, throughout the process. To some of them, this self-reflection revealed that their
preconceptions were getting in the way of opening themselves up to the exemplars and “meeting”
them directly. For example, Nazim said:
What I kept finding was my own frame of reference when I’m listening to someone. So I
got a little worried that I wasn’t able to really do justice to whoever these people were,
because I was always seeing them through my own reference and my past experience. It
was quite challenging, to be honest. I could see that was a very strong drive, and that it was
limiting me.
For Fred, the combined effect of self-reflection and the engagement with the different exemplars
produced a process of opening and deepening, described by him as follows:
When I was first viewing the exemplars I was coming from—as it seems to me now—a
more fragmented place in myself. And as I learned more about the individual expressions
of different exemplars, my judgments in certain ways softened or my preconceptions
dissolved. And that had an effect on me of like seeing through a different lens and having
a more spacious appreciation for the infinite expressions of spirit that can come through
the human being . . . The diversity of experiences and expressions of that which is beyond
the mind has broadened and deepened my experience and has given rise to a sense of
wonder . . . It’s not intellectual, because intellectually I’d known that, but it was really an
extraordinary experience. It gives a sense of humility and wonder about what it means to
be an awakened human being.
Some of the collaborators related to how their engagement with the different conceptual and
experiential frameworks, embodied and transmitted by the different exemplars, affected them. For
example, Annalie said: “I learned to appreciate the differences. We all know that there are many
paths to the mountaintop, but to get to walk with these different people and experience through
them the truth of that made it an actual experience.” Yvie commented: “With some exemplars I
had a feeling of ‘I recognize this,’ with others I felt ‘this is interesting, let me check this.’ This had
an effect of expansion on me, it widened the range of possibilities of how spirit can manifest.”
In addition to engaging with the different frameworks, embodied and transmitted by the
different interviewees, the collaborators were also exposed to the different perspectives, embodied
by their peers. Angelique, for example, said the following about the way that the group exploration
enriched her learning experience:
Being part of this group has enriched my understandings by listening to you all. I really
appreciated how we each have been able to be authentic in our participation. I never felt
anybody had to compromise anything about their understanding or impressions of an

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exemplar. And I have learned from listening to you all. I think that together we did
something that added to the richness and wealth that was brought by each of the exemplars.
Referring to her experience of the group meetings, Peggie said:
I think that what we’re doing as a group has a great value. Because as a group, we are all
transcending our self and trying to enable a form of collaboration, of sharing, of openness
. . . Obviously, it derives from a deep sense of interest, commitment, and different
understandings and realizations that we all have, different life experiences we all have . . .
None of us is able to comprehend the whole thing from A to Z, but the more we open to
other experiences and minds, the better the understanding.
The descriptions of this effect by many of the collaborators indicate that they not only accepted
that there are different prisms and perspectives but also, more importantly, found it conducive to
their own opening and broadening and appreciated this effect on them. It seems that the effect was
self-induced—the collaborators enabled it by engaging in self-reflection while opening themselves
up to the exemplars and their peers—as well as transformative.
Fostering Spiritual Self-Reliance: “Stop Looking Without and to Start Going Deep Within”
Another effect of the process on collaborators was the fostering and cultivation of greater self-
reliance, independence, and trust in their own ability to guide themselves on their spiritual paths.
For example, Orit said: “This process brought me to a deep understanding and acceptance that my
way is my way and that’s it. It’s a path that is specific, individualistic and important for me. And
accepting it is a big deal.” Annalie indicated that her engagement with the spiritual exemplars
helped her acknowledge, appreciate, and honor experiences she had had in her life, and said: “I
took something of value from each exemplar, but I think that the change in me is more about
trusting myself and respecting my experiences, not comparing them with anyone else’s. That was
the most important thing that I learned and that I value a lot.”
Some of the collaborators indicated that this effect on them was produced by their engagement
with a large number of exemplars. Nazim, for example, said: “We experienced so many exemplars
that are all completely different, but the one thing that unites them is their authenticity to
themselves. This gives you more courage to live from your own experience.” Kendrick referred to
why he thought that the effect of engaging with a large number of exemplars was significantly
different from the effect of engaging with just one exemplar:
These are the things you normally get from your teacher, and it really helped me that it
came from twenty different directions or through twenty different prisms. This makes it a
very different experience because with one teacher you only get one prism, only their
experience. And going through this process and seeing people from all these different
traditions showed me that we each have to find our own portal and we have to find our own
path that’s unique to us.
Peggie, who had studied and practiced different religious-spiritual traditions, indicated that her
engagement with a large number of exemplars had a dramatic effect on her:

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As a result of this intensive journey, meeting so many people, I realized that there were
countless pointers. And a sense of discomfort started brewing in me, that is related to this
enormous variety. It comes out of an understanding, that I can spend my entire life
examining fingers pointing at the moon. Each of these fingers deserves attention, but my
discomfort says, “but how many more fingers am I going to look at until I make it to the
moon? When will the shift occur—the shift of stopping to look at fingers? When will I
realize that, as impressive a finger may be, it is not the moon?” And as a result, I decided
to leave it all—to stop reading spiritual books, to stop doing all the practices I’ve been
doing, simply to stop! And turn inwards. To stop looking without and to start going deep
within—without structures, without guidance, without props. Just me as I am—and find
out what happens when I let go of all that. So I bought a piece of land far away from
everything and I’m going to spend time there on retreat, without any plans, and just see
what happens.
It seems that, as with the other two effects of self-reflection and insight and of opening and
broadening, the fostering of spiritual self-reliance was also produced by the collaborators’
engagement with a large number of spiritual exemplars, amplified by their holistic experience.
While engagement with a single spiritual exemplar is often associated with projection of perfection
on the exemplar, imitation, and dependency, engagement with a large number of spiritual
exemplars appears to be associated with the opposite effect.45 The reason for this may be that,
when someone engages with a single spiritual exemplar, it is difficult for them to distinguish
between the spiritual essence that the exemplar embodies and exemplifies and the exemplar’s
personal attributes. Engagement with a large number of spiritual exemplars, on the other hand,
enabled the collaborators to make such a distinction and distill the spiritual essence from the
exemplars’ different personalities and cultural and traditional conditionings.
DISCUSSION
The effects of exemplars in general and of spiritual exemplars in particular on others, and the ways
in which such effects are produced, have so far been studied only on people who engaged with
their self-chosen exemplar or a few exemplars at most. The question of what happens to people as
they are exposed to a large number of individuals, nominated by others as exemplars of a specific
virtue or construct, has not been studied to date. In this paper we attempt to fill this lacuna by
exploring what happens to researchers interested in spirituality as they engage with a large number
of spiritual exemplars.
Our analysis of the transcripts of the collaborators’ individual interviews and of the last
collaborator group meetings, in light of this question, revealed the themes of the findings section:
Holistic Inquiry Process, Choosing the Most Exemplary Exemplars, Self-Reflection and Insight,
Opening and Broadening, and Fostering Spiritual Self-Reliance. In further reflection on these
themes, we found that the self-transformation that many of the collaborators attested to, the
conditions which contributed to it, and the nature of spiritual exemplarity merited further
elaboration and elucidation. Here we will discuss these and their possible implications for further
research and application.

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Self-Transformative Effect
Participation in the research process had significant and even transformative effects on many of
the collaborators. One effect that many of the collaborators described (under Self-Reflection and
Insight) was that of gaining insights about themselves, their life story, issues, and unresolved
questions they had been struggling with. This effect brings to mind Moustakas’s characterization
of heuristic processes as processes in which “while understanding the phenomenon with increasing
depth, the researcher also experiences growing self-awareness and self-knowledge.”46 Another
effect (described under Opening and Broadening) was that of seeing through existing limiting or
rigid preconceived ideas and judgements and “widen[ing] the range of possibilities of how spirit
can manifest” by opening themselves up to the different exemplars. Yet another effect (described
under Fostering Spiritual Self-Reliance) was the fostering and cultivation of greater trust of the
collaborators in their individuality and of self-reliance on their ability to independently navigate
their unique spiritual paths.
The effects can be regarded as self-transformative, in the sense that they were induced by the
collaborators’ interest in and willingness to open themselves up to the spiritual exemplars they
engaged with, and that they involved transformation of the collaborators’ “self.” The “self” that
we refer to here as the subject of transformation is “the set of a person’s core commitments, traits,
aspirations and ideals: the characteristics that are most central to him or her.”47 Considering the
high bar set for participation as a collaborator in the research (a commitment to six hours a week
for several months), it can be assumed that spirituality was among the characteristics most central
to the collaborators. The term “religious self,” defined as “a self which is focused on her own
transformation in order to become a perfected version of herself,”48 may be replaced, in the context
of this study, with “spiritual self.” As spiritual selves, the collaborators sought and induced their
own self-transformation by joining this study and by forming and participating in the process of
the study.
Contributing Conditions
As suggested above, one factor that seemed to contribute to the self-transformative effect of the
collaborators’ participation in the process is their affinity to and personal interest in the research
subject. These match Moustakas’s words that “the heuristic researcher is not only intimately and
autobiographically related to the question but learns to love the question.”49 The high bar set for
participation as a collaborator in the research ensured that only people with a strong personal
interest in spiritual development and therefore in the subject of spiritual exemplars would join the
collaborators’ group. Their personal interest also made them likely to resonate with and be
impacted by the exemplars’ descriptions of their experiences, which Anderson and Braud50
suggested made them ideal candidates for this kind of research.
Another factor is the research method, which invited the collaborators “to engage in a greater
variety of ways of knowing than usually is the case.”51 In this study, the collaborators participated
in a relatively extended, multimodal process of inquiry. They used their cognitive-analytical
faculties for analyzing the interview transcripts, their embodied felt sense52 for sensing their
impressions of each exemplar, their contemplative-reflective ability for describing these in writing
and speech, and their interpersonal intelligence53 in the group meetings. Although in the individual

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interviews and the last group meetings the collaborators mainly described their embodied-intuitive
experience and hardly referred to the analytical-cognitive aspect of their engagement with the
exemplars, we believe that this aspect was instrumental in the process. The fact that they were
taking part in academic research, which required diligence (and time) in coding the transcripts of
the exemplars’ interviews and analyzing their qualities as spiritual exemplars, contributed to their
engagement with the exemplars. The different items in the form that they filled out for each
exemplar (table 1) required that they use all their faculties in conjunction with each other, and
some of them described that they watched the video recordings of the interviews and coded their
transcripts simultaneously. The process may be defined, therefore, as a multimodal-turned-holistic
process, where “modality” refers to “the way in which something happens or is experienced,”54
and “holistic” means “relating to or concerned with wholes or with complete systems.”55
The collaborators were also given relative freedom in choosing their preferred ways of
engaging with the study materials, which allowed them to gravitate toward holistic engagement,
which also produced the greatest impact on them. It seems that such a multimodal and holistic
process of inquiry is more likely to have an impact on researchers than processes involving only
one or two modes of engagement with the subject.
Yet another factor is the invitation to the collaborators to reflect on their embodied and felt
impressions of the exemplars and to express them in writing and speech. As pointed out by
Etherington, reflexivity “opens up a space between subjectivity and objectivity where the
distinctions between content and process become blurred.”56
Spiritual Exemplarity
The effects of the process on the collaborators may also be attributed to, and therefore indicative
of, unique characteristics of spiritual exemplarity. The effect described under Self-Reflection and
Insight may suggest that spiritual exemplars are reflective and insightful, and that engagement with
them inspired the same. The effect of Opening and Broadening was suggested by some
collaborators to be a result of their engagement with different “expressions of spirit,” embodied
and transmitted by different exemplars. And the effect of Fostering Spiritual Self-Reliance may
suggest that spiritual exemplarity is characterized by independence, self-reliance, and “authenticity
to oneself.”
These effects were attributed by the collaborators mainly to their engagement with a large
number of spiritual exemplars. This observation is supported by the fact (described under
Choosing “the Most Exemplary Exemplars”) that different collaborators resonated to different
degrees with different exemplars. It seems that, in choosing their “most exemplary exemplars,”
the collaborators relied mainly on what can be called “sympathetic resonance.”57 “Sympathetic
resonance” is a psychological principle akin to the physical resonance principle. Its essential
feature is that if two structures are very similar in nature, such as two similar guitars, the activation
of one will be mirrored in the other. Likewise, if certain characteristics or experiences of a person
also apply to another person, the latter would resonate with or mirror the former’s description of
their experience. In this study, different collaborators resonated, did not resonate, or anti-resonated
with different exemplars, presumably in the same way that differently calibrated guitars respond
differently to the same guitar.

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This diversity among the collaborators suggests that “spiritual exemplarity” is a relational
construct, dependent on a “sympathetic resonance” between an exemplar and the collaborators
impacted by him or her. It is also possible that, just like “the effects of moral exemplars on
observers may differ according to their stage of moral development,”58 each collaborator’s
resonance with different exemplars depended on their psychological and spiritual profile or stage
of development or maturity.
FUTURE RESEARCH AND APPLICATION
The question of whether or to what extent the above effects are attributable to the relatively
extended, multimodal, and holistic process of inquiry or to the unique characteristics of spiritual
exemplarity cannot be answered based on this study alone. Additional studies, in which the same
or a similar method will be applied to other types of exemplarities, may help to clarify this point.
For example, research collaborators could engage with a large number of moral, courage, or
wisdom exemplars (who are, as posited by Bronk, King, and Matsuba,59 likely to be “typical or
even deficient” with regard to other virtues). If it turns out that such engagement yields different
effects than in this study, this would suggest that the above effects are, indeed, attributable
specifically to spiritual exemplarity and indicative of its characteristics.
The effects are likely to vary also with different backgrounds of the collaborators. In this study,
the collaborators were affiliated mainly with Western culture, and all identified as more spiritual
than religious. The effects may be different with groups of collaborators that are more diversified
in terms of cultural backgrounds and degrees of affiliation with religious traditions, or with
homogenous groups consisting of practitioners of a specific religion, such as students in Christian
or Muslim seminaries, rabbinical colleges, or schools for Buddhist, Hindu, or Daoist priests.
Exposure of students or graduates of such religious institutions—as well as college and
university students of Philosophy, Theology, Religious Studies, Comparative Religion,
Psychology, and Anthropology of Religion and Spirituality—to a large number of spiritual
exemplars of different traditions may also be a way of facilitating interreligious dialogue. The
theoretical foundation for such application had already been laid out by Harrison in her method of
“exemplar reasoning.” Exemplar reasoning is a method of thinking with others who possess
different religious, moral, or political commitments about our and their exemplars. It is based on
the understanding that interpersonal and intercultural understanding can be better cultivated by
focusing on exemplary persons and their experience rather than on abstract ideological,
philosophical, or religious ideas.60 Harrison applied this method as a tool for interreligious
dialogue in one or a few interreligious meetings. The method used in this study and variations
thereof can be applied for a more extended, multimodal, and holistic process, which may yield
more profound and lasting effects on its participants.
The principles of this method can be applied, however, also in various other contexts and for
other purposes than the facilitation of interreligious dialogue. As suggested by Harrison and Gayle,
reflection upon exemplars can help a person “to bridge the gap between the actual self as it is in
the present and the ideal self . . . [and] provide cognitive access to a conception of an ideal future
self that is adequate to act upon.” Self-transformative effects such as those described by the
research collaborators, of self-reflection and insight, opening and broadening, and fostering of
spiritual self-reliance are desirable psychological, moral, and existential effects in general. The

SELF-TRANSFORMATIVE RESEARCH
23
study suggests that such effects are likely to be achieved by holistic processes of engagement with
different types of virtue exemplars.

JOURNAL OF CONTEMPLATIVE STUDIES
24
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NOTES
1 Jean Piaget, Structuralism (New York: Harper & Row, 1970).
2 A. Bandura, Social Foundation of Thought and Action (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1986), 206.
3 Michel Croce and Silvia Vaccarezza, “Educating through Exemplars: Alternative Paths to Virtue,” Theory
and Research in Education 15, no. 1 (2017): 6, https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878517695903.
4 John White, “Exemplary Persons and Ethics: The Place of St. Francis in the Philosophy of Max Scheler,”
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 79, no. 1 (2005): 66.
5 Linda Zagzebski, Exemplarist Moral Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).
6 Alon Goshen-Gottstein, Religious Genius: Appreciating Inspiring Individuals across Traditions (Cham, CH:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
7 Doug Oman and Carl E. Thoresen, “Spiritual Modeling: A Key to Spiritual and Religious Growth?,”
International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 13, no. 3 (July 2003): 149–165,
https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327582IJPR1303_01.
8 Oman and Thoresen, “Spiritual Modeling,” 82; Doug T. Oman, T. Flinders, and Carl E. Thoresen,
“Integrating Spiritual Modeling into Education: A College Course for Stress Management and Spiritual
Growth,” The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 18, no. 2 (2008): 79–107.
9 William Damon and Anne Colby, “Why a True Account of Human Development Requires Exemplar
Research,” in Exemplar Methods and Research: Strategies for Investigation, ed. M. Kyle Matsuba, Pamela
Ebstyne King, and Kendall Cotton Bronk (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013), 14.
10 R. M. Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind (Innes & Sons, 1901);
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York: Mentor, 1958);
Abraham H. Maslow, “Lessons from the Peak-Experiences,” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 2, no. 1
(January 22, 1962): 9–18, https://doi.org/10.1177/002216786200200102; and Abraham H. Maslow, The
Farther Reaches of the Human Nature (New York: Viking, 1971).
11 S. W. Becker and A. H. Eagly, “The Heroism of Women and Men,” American Psychologist 59, no. 3
(2004): 163–178; William L. Dunlop, Lawrence J. Walker, and M. Kyle Matsuba, “The Distinctive Moral
Personality of Care Exemplars,” Journal of Positive Psychology 7, no. 2 (2012): 131–143,
https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2012.662994; Kyle M. Matsuba and Lawrence J. Walker, “Extraordinary
Moral Commitment: Young Adults Involved in Social Organizations,” Journal of Personality 72, no. 2 (2004):
413–436, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00267.x; Lawrence J. Walker and Jeremy A. Frimer,
“Moral Personality Exemplified,” in Personality, Identity, and Character (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2010), 232–255, https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511627125.011; S. P. Oliner and P. M. Oliner, The
Altruistic Personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe (New York: Free Press, 1988); Anne Colby and
William Damon, Some Do Care: Contemporary Lives of Moral Commitment (New York: Free Press, 1992);
Pamela Ebstyne King, Casey E. Clardy, and Jenel Sánchez Ramos, “Adolescent Spiritual Exemplars:
Exploring Spirituality in the Lives of Diverse Youth,” Journal of Adolescent Research 29, no. 2 (2014): 186–
212, https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558413502534.
12 Kendall Cotton Bronk, “The Exemplar Methodology: An Approach to Studying the Leading Edge of
Development,” Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2, no. 1 (2012): 5,
https://doi.org/10.1186/2211-1522-2-5.
13 Erik Bojerud, Ramina Younadam, and Sabina Čehajić‐Clancy, “Testing a Moral Exemplar Intervention in a
Non‐conflict Context: The Effects of Moral Exemplars on Key Dimensions of Outgroup Evaluations,” Conflict
Resolution Quarterly 41, no. 1 (June 28, 2023): 93–108, https://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21403; Dongqing Hu,
Qinxuan Gu, and Yinxuan Zhang, “Role Modeling Effects: How Leader’s Job Involvement Affects Follower
Creativity,” Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 61, no. 1 (January 19, 2023): 101–123,
https://doi.org/10.1111/1744-7941.12332; Niels van de Ven, Alfred T. M. Archer, and Bart Engelen, “More
Important and Surprising Actions of a Moral Exemplar Trigger Stronger Admiration and Inspiration,” Journal
of Social Psychology 159, no. 4 (2019): 383–397, https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2018.1498317; Hyemin
Han and Kelsie J. Dawson, “Relatable and Attainable Moral Exemplars as Sources for Moral Elevation and

JOURNAL OF CONTEMPLATIVE STUDIES
30
Pleasantness,” Journal of Moral Education 53, no. 1 (February 8, 2023): 1–17,
https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2023.2173158.
14 Dwayne Custer, “Auto/Ethnography as a Transformative Research Method,” The Qualitative Report 19, no.
37 (2014): 1–13; Treena Orchard, “To Change and Be Changed: Transformative Research Experiences,” in
Remembering the Body: Ethical Issues in Body Mapping Research (Berlin: Springer, 2017), 65–83,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49861-4.
15 Peter Reason and William Torbert, “The Action Turn: Toward a Transformational Social Science,”
Concepts and Transformation 6, no. 1 (2001): 1–37.
16 Maja Göpel, The Great Mindshift, vol. 2 (Cham, CH: Springer, 2016), https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-
43766-8.
17 Donna M. Mertens, “Transformative Research: Personal and Societal,” International Journal for
Transformative Research 4, no. 1 (December 20, 2017): 18, https://doi.org/10.1515/ijtr-2017-0001.
18 Reason and Torbert, “The Action Turn.”
19 Rosemarie Anderson, “Transformative Research Methods: Research to Nourish the Spirit,” Journal for the
Study of Spirituality 10, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 95–103, https://doi.org/10.1080/20440243.2020.1726056;
Rosemarie Anderson, “Intuitive Inquiry: A Transpersonal Approach,” in Transpersonal Research Methods for
the Social Sciences: Honoring Human Experience, ed. William Braud and Rosemarie Anderson (Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998), 69–94; Rosemarie Anderson, “Intuitive Inquiry: Inviting Transformation and
Breakthrough Insights in Qualitative Research,” Qualitative Psychology 6, no. 3 (2019): 312–319,
https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000144; Rosemarie Anderson, “Toward a Sacred Science—Reflecting Forward,”
The Humanistic Psychologist 46, no. 1 (2018): 1–5; Rosemarie Anderson and William Braud, Transforming
Self and Others through Research: Transpersonal Research Methods and Skills for the Human Sciences and
Humanities (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011).
20 Anderson and Braud, Transforming Self.
21 Olga R. Sohmer, “The Experience of the Authentic Self: A Cooperative Inquiry,” Journal of Humanistic
Psychology (August 28, 2020): 18, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167820952339.
22 A. Freimann, O. Mayseless, T. Hart, and A. Johnson, “Living Transcendence: A Phenomenological Study of
Spiritual Exemplars,” The Humanistic Psychologist, advance online publication,
https://doi.org/10.1037/hum0000359.
23 Amir Freimann, Spiritual Transmission: Paradoxes and Dilemmas on the Spiritual Path (Rhinebeck, NY:
Monkfish, 2018).
24 Flora Cornish, Alex Gillespie, and Zittoun Tania, “Collaborative Analysis of Qualitative Data,” in The Sage
Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis, ed. Uwe Flick (London: Sage, 2014),
https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446282243.
25 Y. S. Lincoln and E. Guba, Naturalistic Inquiry (New York: Sage, 1985).
26 K. Andrew, R. Richards, and Michael A. Hemphill, “A Practical Guide to Collaborative Qualitative Data
Analysis,” Journal of Teaching in Physical Education 37, no. 2 (April 2018): 225–231,
https://doi.org/10.1123/jtpe.2017-0084.
27 Cornish, Gillespie, and Tania, “Collaborative Analysis.”
28 Jo Moran-Ellis et al., “Triangulation and Integration: Processes, Claims and Implications,” Qualitative
Research 6, no. 1 (February 15, 2006): 45–59, https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794106058870.
29 Monique M. Hennink and Patricia Leavy, Understanding Focus Group Discussions (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2014), 2, https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199856169.001.0001.
30 Sharon Moloney, “Focus Groups as Transformative Spiritual Encounters,” International Journal of
Qualitative Methods 10, no. 1 (2011): 58–72, https://doi.org/10.1177/160940691101000105.
31 Clark Moustakas, Heuristic Research: Design, Methodology, and Applications (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,
1990), 59, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412995641.
32 Sandy Sela-Smith, “Heuristic Research: A Review and Critique of Moustakas’s Method,” Journal of
Humanistic Psychology 42, no. 3 (2002): 58, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167802423004.
33 Moustakas, Heuristic Research, 14.

SELF-TRANSFORMATIVE RESEARCH
31
34 Moustakas, Heuristic Research, 15.
35 Eugene Gendlin, Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press,
1962); Eugene T. Gendlin, Focusing (New York: Bantam Books, 1981).
36 Jennifer Clements, “Organic Inquiry: Toward Research in Partnership with Spirit,” The Journal of
Transpersonal Psychology 36, no. 1 (January 1, 2004): 26–49.
37 Anderson and Braud, Transforming Self, 282.
38 Anderson, “Intuitive Inquiry: Inviting Transformation,” 312.
39 Scott D. Churchill and Frederick J. Wertz, “An Introduction to Phenomenological Research in Psychology:
Historical, Conceptual, and Methodological Foundations,” in An Introduction to Phenomenological Research
in Psychology: Historical, Conceptual, and Methodological Foundations, 2nd ed., ed. K. J. Schneider, J. F.
Pierson, and J. F. T. Bugental (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2015), 281.
40 Anderson and Braud, Transforming Self.
41 Clements, “Organic Inquiry,” 28.
42 Clements, “Organic Inquiry,” 26.
43 Clements, “Organic Inquiry,” 26.
44 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, ed. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Malden, MA: Blackwell,
1962).
45 Freimann, Spiritual Transmission.
46 Moustakas, Heuristic Research, 9.
47 Kristján Kristjánsson, The Self and Its Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 5.
48 Victoria S. Harrison and Rhett Gayle, “Self-Transformation and Spiritual Exemplars,” European Journal for
Philosophy of Religion 12, no. 4 (2020): 2, https://doi.org/10.24204/EJPR.V12I4.3520.
49 Moustakas, Heuristic Research, 46.
50 Anderson and Braud, Transforming Self.
51Anderson and Braud, Transforming Self.
52 Gendlin, Focusing.
53 Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (New York: Basic Books, 1983).
54 Tadas Baltrusaitis, Chaitanya Ahuja, and Louis Philippe Morency, “Multimodal Machine Learning: A
Survey and Taxonomy,” IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, IEEE Computer
Society, February 1, 2019, 423, https://doi.org/10.1109/TPAMI.2018.2798607.
55 “Holistic,” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/holistic, accessed December 13, 2024.
56 Kim Etherington, “Becoming a Narrative Inquirer,” in Enjoying Research in Counselling and
Psychotherapy, ed. Sofie Bager-Charleson and Alistair McBeath (Cham, CH: Springer, 2020), 78,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55127-8_5.
57 Anderson, “Intuitive Inquiry: Inviting Transformation.”
58 Dennis J. Moberg, “Role Models and Moral Exemplars: How Do Employees Acquire Virtues by Observing
Others?,” Business Ethics Quarterly 10, no. 3 (July 23, 2000): 684. https://doi.org/10.2307/3857898.
59 Kendall Cotton Bronk, Pamela Ebstyne King, and M. Kyle Matsuba, “An Introduction to Exemplar
Research: A Definition, Rationale, and Conceptual Issues,” New Directions for Child and Adolescent
Development 2013, no. 142 (December 2013): 1–12, https://doi.org/10.1002/cad.20045.
60 Victoria S. Harrison, “Embodied Values and Muslim-Christian Dialogue: ‘Exemplar Reasoning’ as a Model
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