Spiritual Intelligence

Spiritual intelligence is different from the broader concept of spirituality, which Emmons (2000) describes as a “search for the sacred,” nor does it represent adoption of specific religious or spiritual beliefs.

Importantly, spiritual intelligence confers the ability to support emergent psychospiritual development of clients such as existential meaning-making and familiarity with mystical states of consciousness, which are often encountered in psychedelic experiences, without imposing any religious or spiritual beliefs that health professionals may hold.

Justice, Equity, Dignity, and Inclusion

Health professionals consciously or unconsciously imposing personal religious or spiritual beliefs on their clients who are in highly suggestible states of consciousness before, during and after psychedelic-assisted therapy, is one of the great ethical dangers of psychedelic medicine and one of the reasons why defining this competency is important (Phelps, 2017; Johnson, 2020).

Health professionals who embody spiritual intelligence have the following as truth claims resulting from mystical experiences:

  • The primordial reality of the spiritual dimension of consciousness

  • The indestructible nature of this form of consciousness

  • Interrelatedness within the great unity of all human beings and perhaps all life forms

  • Agape as the ultimate energy at the core of reality

  • The incredible, awesome beauty of these states in design, visuals, wisdom, and meaning (Richards, 2014).

References

Emmons, R. A. (2000). Is spirituality an intelligence? Motivation, cognition, and the psychology of ultimate concern. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10(1), 3-26.

Johnson, M. W. (2020). Consciousness, religion, and gurus: Pitfalls of psychedelic medicine. ACS Pharmacological and Translational Science, 4(2), 578-581. DOI: 10.1021/acsptsci.0c00198

Phelps, J. (2017). Developing Guidelines and Competencies for the Training of Psychedelic Therapists. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 57(5), 450-487. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167817711304

Richards, (2014). Here and Now: Discovering the Sacred with Entheogens. Journal of Religion and Science, 49, 652–665.