Communication Between Human and Non-Corporeal Entities: A Comparison Between Lived Experience and Cultural Expectation
This study examines human communicative experiences with non-corporeal entities, focusing on the relationship between lived experiences and the expectations established within three spiritual traditions: Shamanism, Spiritualism, and New Age. While these traditions differ in historical origin, cultural framework, and modes of ritual expression, each provides sanctioned avenues and methodologies through which practitioners engage with beings perceived as existing beyond the mundane material realm. The research aim was to determine whether individual experiences align with, diverge from, or expand upon these traditional frameworks, thereby illuminating both continuity and innovation in contemporary spiritual practice. Drawing on a combination of literature review and qualitative accounts, key themes within each tradition and between Participants' experiences were identified. These themes were then compared across traditions and between lived experience to assess both distinctiveness and overlap, including the methodology of communication, content of said communication, long-term responses, and factors for contradictory thematic results. The findings show significant thematic convergences, suggesting that human experiences of non-corporeal communication transcend cultural categories, even while being influenced by them. Although cultural interpretation shapes the language and context of communicative events, the underlying experiential structures -such as the type of immediate response, the sense of liminality, the perception of an external communicative source, and the transformative impact of encounters are strikingly consistent. This consistency remains stable despite the forms of engagement varying from ritualized formal ceremonies to informal practices to unintentional communicative experiences. Despite this consistency, wider legitimacy is negotiated within a social framework, though this aspect held little interest for most Participants, especially when contrasted with the impact effected by the experience itself. This indicates that while traditions provide interpretive scaffolding, individuals often navigate beyond formal boundaries, adjusting their own paradigms to align with their personal experiences. Thus, this study's final conclusion is that regardless of culturally-mandated interpretations and the social pressure they represent, the experiences of practitioners likely exert an equal, if perhaps more subtle, influence on the traditions themselves.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations