A Toolkit to Measure the Spiritual
Music is the most spiritual of the arts
The history of Christian worship suggests that music has a unique link to spirituality. Those who study music and theology often sense a special connection between the two, but can this link be demonstrated empirically? The challenge for neuroscientists is to pinpoint spiritual experience as something distinct from mere emotions. The difficulty of these questions need to be embraced, while acknowledging the limitations of the various methods of quantification.
The spiritual pull of music
Music has a certain spiritual pull, which is particularly important at a time when the world is becoming more secular. In this research, “spiritual realities” is understood to mean a plane of existence beyond the material. Music seems to sit at a boundary point between the spiritual and physical. What is it about the human experience of the divine that compels expression through music?
A toolkit to measure the spiritual
The goal of this research is to build a toolkit for measuring the spiritual dimensions of music. Leading scholars from many disciplines will be invited to collaborate on the challenge of empirically studying how music affects us spiritually. One of the first challenges is differentiating spiritual experience from simple emotional responses. Beyond that, the question will be approached from many angles, leading to a rich methodological toolkit.
We’re inviting scholars from many different fields – including theology, musicology, but also psychology, neuroscience, and other empirical sciences – to address our core question: how would you, with your own area of expertise, your own research experience, and your own research methodologies, address or seek to demonstrate the commonly-perceived connection between music and spiritual realities?
If you are interested in contributing to our international workshop, please see our call for papers. If you are interested in pariticpating in some other way, please email [email protected].