Comparing Transformative Religious Experiences across Religions and National Contexts

Religious experiences are ubiquitous and many would argue they can alter a person’s life. Regrettably, there are few studies of transformative religious experiences (TREs) outside of the US or that compare different religious groups. There is, however, more comparative research about conversions and about ‘paranormal’ experiences, e.g., telepathy, clairvoyance, and contact with spirits of dead people. However, the correlates of TREs and paranormal experiences are distinct, suggesting we cannot extrapolate between them. This article examines TREs across 22 nationally-representative samples from religiously diverse countries from all six inhabited continents. It also serves as the foundation for future longitudinal studies assessing the potential causal impact of TREs. We discuss the complexities of measuring TRE across religious traditions, how demographic factors associated with TRE vary between countries, and consider implications for secularization theory. If we compare the prevalence of TREs between countries, wealthier European countries report these least frequently and poorer countries most frequently. However, the individual-level patterns are not consistent with secularization. For example, younger people do not consistently have fewer TREs than older people. Rather, TREs are higher in age groups that were students during political movements in which religion played an important role, such as the fall of the Iron Curtain and democracy movements in Hong Kong.