Spirituality is a broad, personal sense of connection to something larger than oneself, often involving feelings of transcendence, purpose, and meaning that shape how a person relates to the world. Unlike religion, which typically involves organized doctrine, communal worship, and institutional structures, spirituality can flourish entirely outside those frameworks. The number of people worldwide who identify as “spiritual but not religious” has been growing steadily, and researchers now study spirituality as a distinct dimension of human experience with measurable effects on personality, brain function, mental health, and even longevity.
How Spirituality Differs from Religion
People often use “spiritual” and “religious” interchangeably, but in research and in everyday life the two concepts pull apart in meaningful ways. Religion generally refers to shared beliefs, rituals, sacred texts, and communities organized around a particular tradition. Spirituality, by contrast, centers on an individual’s inner experience of the sacred or transcendent, regardless of whether that experience happens inside a church, on a hiking trail, or during quiet reflection at home. A person can be both religious and spiritual, one but not the other, or neither.
This split has accelerated in recent decades. More and more people describe themselves as spiritual without belonging to any organized tradition, and researchers now treat the two as overlapping but separable constructs.
Some scholars push back on drawing the line too sharply. A critical review applying conceptual-history methods argued that the religion-versus-spirituality opposition is largely a product of humanistic psychology and post-secular sociology rather than a clean reflection of how people actually live. Contemporary religious studies increasingly favor a continuum model that emphasizes how much the spiritual and the religious overlap in practice. Still, the distinction has proven useful for studying the many people whose inner lives do not map neatly onto any single tradition.
The Personality Profile of Spiritual People
One consistent finding in the psychology of spirituality is its link to the personality trait known as openness to experience, which captures curiosity, imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, and willingness to entertain unconventional ideas. Across multiple studies, people who identify as spiritual score higher on openness than those who identify as strictly religious or as neither religious nor spiritual. Religious fundamentalism, by contrast, tends to show the opposite pattern.
A study that classified women and men into religious, spiritual, both, or neither groups found that spiritual individuals of both sexes reported the highest openness scores, while those who identified as religious without a spiritual dimension reported the lowest.1PubMed. Five-Factor Model Personality Traits and Self-Classified Religiousness and Spirituality A broader review of personality and religiousness research confirmed that spirituality and religious fundamentalism diverge on openness, with spirituality positively associated and fundamentalism negatively associated with this trait.2PubMed. A review of personality/religiousness associations
This matters because openness is one of the more stable personality dimensions in adulthood. It rarely shifts much after early adulthood under ordinary circumstances. Yet certain intense spiritual experiences, including those triggered by psychedelics in controlled settings, have been shown to produce lasting increases in openness, a point we will return to later.
What Happens in the Brain During Spiritual Experiences
Neuroscience has spent the past two decades scanning people’s brains while they meditate, pray, chant, or recall deeply spiritual moments. A systematic review of this literature found that spiritual and religious practices consistently engage a handful of brain regions: the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate, the default mode network, the insula, the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the temporoparietal junction. Neurochemically, the dopamine and serotonin systems show up repeatedly.3PubMed Central. The Neuroscience of Religious and Spiritual Practices: A Systematic Review of Neurotheological Evidence
Different practices leave different fingerprints. Meditation tends to quiet the default mode network while boosting prefrontal activity. Prayer activates social-cognition areas, probably because it often involves an imagined dialogue with a divine other. Chanting and recitation calm the limbic system and enhance certain brainwave patterns. Mystical states, the full-blown experiences of unity and ego dissolution, produce the most widespread activation across the brain.4PubMed Central. The Neuroscience of Religious and Spiritual Practices: A Systematic Review of Neurotheological Evidence
The serotonin system deserves special mention. A study using brain imaging in healthy men found that the density of a particular serotonin receptor varied several-fold between individuals, and that variation tracked with self-reported spiritual experiences. The researchers suggested this receptor density could help explain why some people are naturally more inclined toward spiritual feeling than others.5PubMed. The serotonin system and spiritual experiences
The Parietal Cortex and the Boundaries of Self
One of the more striking findings in the neuroscience of spirituality involves a region called the inferior parietal lobule, or IPL. This area helps you locate your body in space and maintain the boundary between self and everything else. During spiritual experiences, activity in the IPL drops. When people recalled personalized spiritual moments in a brain scanner, the left IPL showed reduced activation compared to a neutral relaxation condition, suggesting that spiritual states may involve a softening of the usual sense of where “you” end and the world begins.6PubMed Central. Neural Correlates of Personalized Spiritual Experiences
Even more dramatic evidence comes from neurosurgery patients. Researchers measured self-transcendence in people undergoing brain tumor removal and found that damage to specific spots in the left and right parietal cortex caused significant increases in self-transcendence scores, an effect that held even after controlling for the size of the lesion and the patient’s education level.7Neuron. Damage to the parietal cortex increases self-transcendence This does not mean spirituality is just a parietal glitch. But it does suggest that the brain region most responsible for keeping your sense of self bounded plays a gatekeeping role in transcendent experience.
There is also an intriguing connection to depression risk. In people at high familial risk for major depression, placing high importance on religion or spirituality was associated with decreased connectivity in the default mode network. This effect was specific to the high-risk group and was not seen in people without a family history of depression, hinting that spirituality may interact with neural vulnerability in ways we do not yet fully understand.8PubMed Central. Religious and Spiritual Importance Moderate Relation between Default Mode Network Connectivity and Familial Risk for Depression
Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and Involuntary Spiritual Experiences
Not all spiritual-seeming experiences are welcome or voluntary. A small but well-documented subset of people with temporal lobe epilepsy report intense religious or spiritual feelings during, after, or between seizures. Between roughly half a percent and three percent of people with partial epilepsy report ictal religious experiences, and the rate is higher when researchers ask directly rather than waiting for patients to volunteer the information.9PubMed. Spirituality and religion in epilepsy
These experiences tend to cluster in patients with seizures originating in the right temporal lobe. The limbic system, which sits deep in the temporal lobe and governs emotion and memory, is the leading suspect for why seizure activity can produce profound spiritual feelings. Some patients develop a lasting pattern of heightened religiosity between seizures, a phenomenon sometimes called hyperreligiosity. Case reports describe patients whose entire worldview shifted after the onset of seizures, developing fervent spiritual beliefs they had never held before.10PubMed Central. Isolated Hyperreligiosity in a Patient with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
This does not mean spirituality is simply a brain malfunction. But it does illustrate that the neural hardware involved in spiritual experience can be activated involuntarily, and that the line between a profound mystical moment and a neurological event is not always clear from the inside.
Spirituality, Health, and Longevity
A large body of epidemiological research links spirituality and religiosity to better health outcomes, though the picture has some important wrinkles. A meta-analysis that pooled data from studies tracking initially healthy populations found that higher levels of spirituality or religiosity were associated with roughly an 18 percent reduction in mortality risk. That association held even after the researchers accounted for smoking, drinking, exercise, socioeconomic status, negative emotions, and social support.11Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. Religiosity/Spirituality and Mortality: A Systematic Quantitative Review
The catch: in studies of people who were already sick, the mortality benefit disappeared. The combined data from diseased populations showed no significant link between spirituality and survival.12Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. Religiosity/Spirituality and Mortality: A Systematic Quantitative Review This suggests that whatever protective effect spirituality offers may work through long-term health behaviors and stress regulation rather than through some acute healing power during illness.
On the mental health side, the evidence is strong for certain conditions. Reviews find solid support for a protective relationship between spirituality and depression, suicidal ideation, and substance use. Results for anxiety, PTSD, and psychosis are more mixed but promising.13PubMed Central. Spirituality, religiousness, and mental health: A review of the current scientific evidence One mechanism that has gained traction is resilience. Research on earthquake survivors in Turkey found that spirituality acted as a mediator between psychological distress and resilience, helping people cope with depression, anxiety, and stress in the aftermath of catastrophe.14International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. Mediating role of spirituality in the relationship of anxiety, stress and depression with resilience in individuals exposed to earthquakes in Türkiye
When Spirituality Becomes a Source of Distress
The relationship between spirituality and mental health is not always positive. Researchers use the term “spiritual struggles” for experiences like feeling abandoned by God, crushed by guilt over moral failures, or judged harshly by one’s religious community. Longitudinal evidence from psychotherapy clients indicates that these struggles can actively drive depression, anxiety, and other symptoms over the course of treatment, rather than merely accompanying them.15PubMed. Spiritual struggles drive psychological distress in psychotherapy: Replication of findings using a practice-research network
The broader review literature confirms this bidirectional pattern. Spirituality can be a powerful coping resource, but the way someone uses their beliefs matters enormously. Positive spiritual coping, such as feeling supported by a higher power or finding meaning in suffering, tends to improve outcomes. Negative spiritual coping, such as interpreting illness as divine punishment, can make things worse.16PubMed Central. Spirituality, religiousness, and mental health: A review of the current scientific evidence This nuance often gets lost in popular discussions, which tend to portray spirituality as uniformly beneficial.
Spiritual Care in Medicine
In hospice and palliative care, spiritual care has moved from the margins to a recognized component of treatment. Patients dealing with terminal illness who felt supported in their faith by family and chaplains reported better spiritual well-being, greater peace, and stronger motivation to engage with life despite a limited prognosis.17PubMed Central. Spiritual Care for Cancer Patients at the End-of-Life
What does spiritual care actually look like in practice? Much of it is simpler than people expect. Being fully present, listening attentively to a patient’s story, and witnessing the deeply personal work of making meaning at the end of life are interventions that any member of a care team can provide. More structured approaches, such as meaning-focused psychotherapy and dignity therapy, have been tested in clinical settings and shown to help patients manage uncertainty and maintain hope.18Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care. Spiritual Care in Hospice and Palliative Care The key insight from this literature is that spiritual care is not about imposing a worldview. It begins with assessment: finding out what practices, beliefs, and rituals matter to the patient and working within that framework.
Psychedelics, Mystical Experience, and Lasting Change
Some of the most vivid evidence for how spiritual experiences reshape people comes from research on psilocybin, the active compound in psychedelic mushrooms. In controlled laboratory studies, a single high dose of psilocybin produced mystical-type experiences that led to lasting increases in the personality trait of openness. Other personality factors remained stable, suggesting the change was specific to the dimension most closely linked to spiritual sensitivity.19PubMed Central. Mystical Experiences Occasioned by the Hallucinogen Psilocybin Lead to Increases in the Personality Domain of Openness
When psilocybin was combined with a program of meditation and other spiritual practices, the effects were even broader. At a six-month follow-up, participants showed large positive changes in interpersonal closeness, gratitude, sense of life purpose, forgiveness, and daily spiritual experiences. The depth of the mystical experience during the session, along with the rate of ongoing spiritual practice afterward, were the strongest predictors of who maintained those changes.20PubMed Central. Psilocybin-occasioned mystical-type experience in combination with meditation and other spiritual practices produces enduring positive changes in psychological functioning and in trait measures of prosocial attitudes and behaviors
A systematic review of psychedelic experiences and long-term spiritual growth confirmed these patterns across a wider body of research. Psychedelic use was consistently linked to a stronger perceived connection with the divine, greater sense of meaning, increased feelings of unity and self-transcendence, positive shifts in worldview, and reduced fear of death. These facets tended to co-occur, suggesting they are interrelated dimensions of a single type of transformative experience.21Current Psychology. Psychedelic experiences and long-term spiritual growth: a systematic review
Near-Death Experiences and the Edges of Consciousness
Near-death experiences occupy a controversial space where spirituality meets neuroscience at its most puzzling. People who survive cardiac arrest sometimes report vivid experiences: a sense of leaving the body, moving through a tunnel, encountering deceased relatives, or feeling overwhelming peace. These reports have been documented across cultures and across centuries.
Recent evidence has added some physiological grounding. Increased gamma oscillations and heightened functional connectivity have been observed in brain recordings during the first minutes after cardiac arrest, which could correspond to the heightened consciousness and lucid thought that survivors describe.22PubMed Central. Near-death experiences after cardiac arrest: a scoping review However, interpretation remains deeply contested. A narrative review argued that because near-death experiences appear to occur precisely when the brain is most compromised, and because no subjective reports have been directly linked to measured cortical electrical activity in dying patients, these findings could be read as evidence that consciousness persists beyond normal brain function.23PubMed. Near-death experience during cardiac arrest and consciousness beyond the brain: a narrative review
Whether you find that argument persuasive likely depends on assumptions you bring to the question. What is less debatable is that near-death experiences profoundly alter the people who have them. Survivors frequently report lasting decreases in fear of death, increased compassion, and a deepened sense of spiritual meaning, changes that look remarkably similar to the outcomes of psilocybin-occasioned mystical experiences.
Spirituality as a Feeling of Smallness
One of the more elegant findings in the psychology of spirituality is the connection between spiritual experience and the feeling of awe. Awe is the emotion you feel when confronted with something vast that challenges your existing frame of reference: a mountain range, a cathedral ceiling, a piece of music that seems to speak to something beyond itself. Research has found that spiritual experiences reliably induce awe, and that the key ingredient is what psychologists call the “small self,” the sense that you are a tiny part of something much larger. Appraisals of small self were the mechanism through which spirituality produced feelings of awe, and this held for both religious and nonreligious people.24Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Spiritual experiences evoke awe through the small self in both religious and non-religious individuals
This finding helps explain why spirituality can thrive without religion. You do not need a church or a creed to feel small under a clear night sky. The psychological machinery is the same: a momentary dissolution of the self’s usual boundaries and a recognition that the world is bigger than your everyday concerns. It maps neatly onto the neuroscience of parietal cortex quieting described earlier, and onto the self-transcendence that psychedelic research keeps documenting. Across very different methodologies, the thread running through spiritual experience is a temporary loosening of the boundary between self and world.
Indigenous and Relational Understandings
Western research tends to frame spirituality as an individual, interior phenomenon. But many cultural traditions see it very differently. For Indigenous Australians, spirituality is fundamentally about connection: to ancestors, to family, to country (the land itself, understood as a living entity), and to God or a higher power. In a qualitative study of Indigenous Australian perspectives, these four forms of connection emerged as primary themes, and “healing through meaning” was inseparable from them.25AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples. Healing through meaning as an aspect of spirituality for Indigenous Australians: a qualitative study
Cultural evolution research frames spirituality similarly, as a fundamentally relational phenomenon that facilitates healthy connections among individuals, communities, and ecosystems. Whereas religion, in this framework, helps solve cooperation problems through group identification and enforcement of norms, spirituality engages a broader, more holistic form of communal awareness.26KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie. Cultural Evolution of Religion, Spirituality and Ritual: Impacts On Human Cooperation These perspectives are a useful corrective to the tendency in Western psychology to treat spirituality as something that happens entirely inside one person’s head. For much of the world, it is first and foremost something that happens between people, and between people and place.