Study finds that meditators are prone to "spiritual superiority"

I'm well acquainted with the notion of "spiritual superiority," since I fell prey to that myself back when I thought that being initiated by a guru who supposedly was God in Human Form meant that I was part of a relatively small group of chosen people who had a special relationship with God.

(Sorry Jews, there's a lot of competition in the chosen people contest.)

And it could be argued that I still feel spiritually superior now that I've become an atheist and consider that I'm aware of the drawbacks of being religious that religious believers are clueless about.

Below is a series of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, relating to spiritual superiority that I came across today. This fits  with my personal experience -- both of observing myself, and of observing other religiously-minded people. Not everybody, for sure, but a good share.

A 2020 story in the Daily Mail has interesting details about the study summarized in the X posts. It's called "The path to enlightenment is an ego trip: Meditation and mindfulness linked to narcissism and feelings of 'spiritual superiority', study finds."

Forms of spiritual enlightenment can 'boost feelings of superiority' by stoking the ego, a new study has found. 

Dutch experts studying questionnaires of nearly 4,000 people found a link between practising spiritual training, like meditation, and feelings of 'spiritual superiority'. 

Thy found that those who were engaged in the more bizarre 'energetic' therapies, such as aura reading, were the most smug. 

Forms of spiritual training – including mindfulness, meditation, self healing and reading auras – are supposed to distance people from their ego and any feelings of self-worth.  

But spiritual training appears to actually have the opposite effect, by enhancing people's need to feel 'more successful, more respected or loved', the experts say.  

'Spiritual training is assumed to reduce self‐enhancement, but may have the paradoxical effect of boosting superiority feelings,' say the authors, from Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

'It can, thus, operate like other self‐enhancement tools and contribute to a contingent self‐worth that depends on one's spiritual accomplishments.

'Self‐enhancement motive is powerful and deeply ingrained so that it can hijack methods intended to transcend the ego and, instead, adopt them to its own service.' 

According to lead study author Professor Roos Vonk, spiritual practices were associated with, but not necessarily the cause of, superior feelings. 

'We find evidence for spiritual superiority among both mindfulness and energetic students, but more strongly in the latter group, and in the former group we can't say for certain that it's illusory,' she said. 

'In theory, through spiritual training we become wise people who rise above their private interests, feel connected with others, do not judge, but in actuality it often turns out quite differently. 

'People who educate themselves in, for example, healing and reading of auras and chakras, invariably discover that they have remarkable psychic abilities allowing them to "see" things that others do not see. That makes them feel very special.' 

An important part of getting 'spiritual' is seeking to 'transcend one's current locus of centricity', extending one's perspective beyond the self, according to the team. 

Ironically, however, spiritual training may 'evoke psychological motives and responses that are not enlightened at all'. 

Researchers performed three studies to measure what they called spiritual superiority – defined as a feeling of superiority over those who lack 'the spiritual wisdom they ascribe to themselves'. 

They conducted three questionnaires, the first involving 533 people, the second 2,223 people and the third 965 people.  

The questionnaires asked people to respond on a scale of 1 to 7 to a series of statements, to test their 'spiritual superiority'.  

Example statements include 'I am more in touch with my senses than most others,' 'I am more aware of what is between heaven and earth than most people,' and 'the world would be a better place if others too had the insights that I have now'. 

The authors also created scales that they expected would correlate with spiritual superiority.

For example, the 'spiritual guidance' scale noted aspects of spiritual superiority, such as talking about one's insights, trying to help others acquire the same wisdom and aspiring to be another's spiritual coach or guru. 

It included statements such as 'I help others whenever possible on their path to greater wisdom and insight' and 'I am patient with others because I understand it takes time to gain the insights that I gained in my life and my education'. 

Another scale, 'supernatural overconfidence', assessed belief in 'one's own paranormal powers' and included some highly far-fetched statements. 

Examples included 'I can send positive energy to others from a distance,' 'I can get in touch with people who are deceased,' 'I can influence the world around me with my thoughts' and 'when I randomly open a book on a page number that is meaningful to me, this is no coincidence'.  

Researchers looked at several forms of spiritual training, such as meditation, aura reading/healing, haptotherapy and reiki. 

Energetic therapy generally covers skills that are classified as paranormal, such as reading auras and regressing to previous lives. 

Participants completed the questionnaires and answered questions about their age, sex, education, religion and spiritual training. 

Some of the respondents in the 3,700-strong pool had never undergone any form of spiritual training at all. 

Researchers found that those who had taken part in forms of meditation scored higher in the questionnaires than those who had no spiritual training. 

Specifically, there was a gradual increase in 'spiritual superiority' from people with no spiritual training, to those with 'mindfulness training and those engaged with energetic therapy.  

People who believed that they had been taught to see auras and regress to past lives (types of energetic therapy) were the most spiritually smug. 

Energetic therapy participants scored around 67 per cent more than people with no training, while those who had undergone mindfulness sessions scored about 50 per cent higher than those with no spiritual training at all.  

'People may aim to become more successful, more respected or loved because of their spiritual development,' the researchers conclude.

'Even if these are not their initial motives, they may discover these benefits along the way. 

'They may get a sense of excitement, or wisdom and serenity, and embrace the ideology that brought them this delight, hence becoming less open-minded towards other schools of thought. 

'In sum, the road to spiritual enlightenment may yield the exact same mundane distortions that are all too familiar in social psychology, such as self-enhancement, illusory superiority, closed-mindedness, and hedonism (clinging to positive experiences) under the guise of alleged "higher" values.'  

Researchers had been inspired to apply insights from social psychology to the work of Chögyam Trungpa (1939-1987), a Tibetan Buddhist meditation master.  

According to Trungpa, ‘there are numerous sidetracks which lead to a distorted, ego-centred version of spirituality.

'We can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques,' he said.   

The study has been published in the European Journal of Social Psychology. 

Comments

[Eric Robinson]

Just makes me think (again !) just how ‘scientific’ these ‘studies’ and all this ‘research’ really is.
“Some of the respondents in the 3,700-strong pool had never undergone any form of spiritual training at all. “

When you attempt the meditation you are seeking something very mysterious inside your own head. You are not thinking how you compare with others.
And where did she get this 3700 pool of meditators from ?
What about all the unheard of meditators who, even if they were asked “how do you compare with others” would refuse to answer such a question.

Once something gets the title “Research has shown” it is done with the intention of making a lot of us think it is true. It is not true.
Publicising is done with a motive.

What’s your motive here Brian ?

[um]

@ Eric

Sometimes when I was fined when younger by a police officer, for making a simple traffic violation, I had the gut feeling that he used that fact and the legislation related to it just for his own pleasure of exercising power..

These days I have that same feeling towards many people that are operating in the field of rights that are not theirs, animal rights, eco-rights, klimate rights ..you name it.

The leader in parliament for the political paty by the name of "Party for the animals" makes me even think she hates animals or is afraid of them ...she her self is so full of frustration and anger that it seems to come out of her ears like steam .. hahaha

But Eric ... as grandma taught me at early age:
Little fellow you can see human heads, you will never been able to look inside them.

Is it it possible that humans miss-use their legal power for selfish reasons .. i guess they do, some knowingly and intentionally and others thinking they are serving a greater good.

Naturally Brian is selective in what he publishes here,

[777]

Again the word Love doesn't t appear
"Who is more in Love . . . . . :

Charan answered once :
Who can be proud in the presence of such a tremendous Lovely Energy!
U see that in everybody except yourself.

Real spirituality / meditation can happen
by switching off our "Inner Dialogue' TOTALLY during LET S SAY 20 seconds
OR 3
What s happening then is. humbling, experiencing to NOT EXIST

777

[sant64]

"Fortunately, most Democrats aren't like most Republicans. We think for ourselves. We enjoy the oft-heard metaphor that getting Democrats to agree on something is like herding cats. We don't want to be sheep all placidly moving in the same direction."

By inexplicable coincidence, it's only the day a f t e r the presidential debate on June 27th, 2024 that it dawns on the author that all those people were right who'd for at least 3 years that Biden was senile.

Before then, the obvious senility of the guy allegedly running the country and leading the free world senility was never mentioned in his blog. This means he either didn't see it, or, probably more likely, saw it along with everyone else but didn't want to admit it until he read that the coterie of dem politicos (i.e, the people really running the country, some elected, some Hollywood movie stars such as George Clooney) issued their directives that the democratically elected president of the US must heed their authority and step down. A directive that President Biden was forced to accept. What a nice coup it was.

There's that dem independence & love of democracy I keep hearing about.

[Um]

@777

Not all are chosen.
Was it in YOUR hands what happened to you?

[sant64]

Popular sovereignty is the principle that the leaders of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, who are the source of all political legitimacy. Benjamin Franklin expressed the concept when he wrote that "In free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns". Franklin's views came before the Clooney Amendment.

[Jim]

Meditation is only the gateway to the inner worlds. Jurgen Ziewe has a new video out called-WILD - The power of Hypnogogia. It is truly staggering and will rock your world to see what is possible.

[Ron E.]

‘Feelings of Spiritual superiority!!’ Now why doesn’t this surprise me? Perhaps because firstly, I have noticed in myself and secondly, I have met many practitioners and teachers who do feel or believe that they are either special, have arrived and feel, well, sorry for others (not necessarily compassion).

I guess the issue is that we are pretty much run by our egos much of the time and by ego I would also include the term self. Either way, both seem to be aspects of the mind – the information that comprises one’s identity. And, from what I understand of these mental processes an ego/self is a necessary and natural survival function.

But, as the Trungpa quote points out ‘there are numerous sidetracks which lead to a distorted, ego-centred version of spirituality.” So, I can only surmise that the counter to the ego issue is one of being aware enough to see when the ego/self is taking the credit for whatever ‘spiritual’ practice one is engaged in – of anything else in life actually.

Perhaps it is pertinent to inquire into the ego/self in order to discover how this phenomenon has be-come overly dominant and how we continually identify with – what is after all – just our particular sets of information – and all in order to maintain the fragile structure of the ego/self.

[um]

@ Ron

Once a young lad came to me complaining about his laziness. To his surprise I told him that he indeed wqas lazy and even worse that he thought. He started to weep upon which I asked: "Why do you weep? Is laziness in invention of You? Did ypou bring laziness into being? You want to be laizy buit do not accept its consequences.

Is ego an human invention?
Is the use of it in anybodies hand?
Is anybody to blame for having an ego and using it?

Is survival, material and mental, possible without ego?

Is not the identification with ego the problem for those that want to understand the source of beingness?

[Ron E.]

um. You seem to have grasped the issues regarding the ego/self structure particularly as your last sentence describes it.

And, no harm in being lazy - as long as the lad doesn't make a habit of it - a good kick now and again could help.

[777]

UM

Yes that is the Greatness of it

YOU are the Doer of ALL . . of everything
Sometimes I ask myself : " IS NOBODY SEEING THIS?"
People , believers in terms they think of is 'MILLANIA
C Q 100 lives maxi

Sorry for most of us it s 10 to the power of 99999
You were very Wholy when this started and had free will
It s ONE Package

There is only One mordial SIN : "YOU Think U exist" ) Pls stop it

777