EHE-Related FAQ

Aren't you starting a religion here?

There is nowhere one can go where the sacred is not. In a sense, ours is a secular approach that is rooted in the sacred or a way of involving everyone by enabling them to find their unique spiritual path in the process of which the entire universe becomes sacralized. It is true that by helping people to find their spiritual paths and live them, we are fostering spiritual activity, experiences, and knowings. But although ritual and singing and even meditation may become an aspect of living out one's experiences fully, every person will develop in their own unique way, and not at all in an institutional way, though they may practice it at times in conjunction with others. Moreover, EHEs do not take people out of the world but into its heart. These aims and practices are counter to any institutionalized religion. Also, although religions may be ecumenical, they are distinct and separate. The primary characteristic of EHEs is connection, or contacting the sameness that lies not only in our differences, but EHEs potentiate what is most unique about an experiencer, and in so doing puts us in touch with that level of human being where we are all one.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

Do you think that the mainstream perspective is changing?

Somewhat, yes. The large influx of women psychotherapists is making a difference because as caretakers women are more concerned with what actually happened and setting it right rather than applying and proving a pet theory. They also may be more comfortable with their own special EHEs and actively using them in their work. This makes them more sensitive to and aware of the importance of the client's exceptional experiences and the role they can play in life change. The media also is playing a large role in making people aware of EEs and EHEs. And, more people seem willing to admit that they have had EEs and to share them with others. This has a domino effect that can induce others to spontaneously share experiences they have never before told anyone.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

How are EHEs different from Projects of Transcendence?

An EHE is the culmination of a single experience. It can alter your whole life course, and it can change how you do everything. If one change it brings about is that you discover or participate in an ongoing activity, such as painting, or writing, or dancing, or a sports activity, or a new activity that grows out of your exceptional experience that enables you to spend a good portion of your recreational or even your work time expressing or performing your EHEs or a spin-off of them, this is a Project of Transcendence. It is a project that is not only based on one or more EHEs but partaking in it is conducive to additional EHEs so that you continue to grow because of them and they continue to grow because of you. An offshoot of a Project of Transcendence is that to an extent it (and you) can influence others and even society, if only in a small way, through products or services or through the creativity and contagion that is characteristic of EHEers.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

How can I become a member of the EHEN?

Choose "Join Us!" from the Navigation at the bottom of any website page to learn about how to become a member of the Network. Membership includes subscriptions to our journal Exceptional Human Experience (EHE), and its companion publication, EHE News, and a copy of Exceptional Human Experience: Background Papers I by Rhea A. White and an annual PsiLine Database search for every year you are a member.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

How can I fund some of your projects?

We are grateful for any contributions of any size. If you are interested in supporting a specific project, visit the Membership section of the website (click on "Join Us!" at the bottom of any page) and view the Projects Needing Support file. If you prefer, imply to give a sum to support our work in general, please make a check payable in U.S. funds to the EHE Network. We appreciate your generosity very much. Donors are usually listed by name (but not amount) in our newsletter once a year. If you do not wish your gift to be publicly acknowledged, please let us know when you send it.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

How do I learn more about my type of EHE?

If you know the name of the experience, you can search it on the Web, ask for information about it at the library and also ask the library if there are any special interest groups for that experience. If you don't know the name, read about the classes of EEs/EHEs to see where to look more closely to identify it. Then check the List of Potential EEs/EHEs. This list is evolving and expanding, so check back every now and then.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

How do I work with my NDE (precognitive dream, mystical vision)?

Eventually on our Website and in written form and in workshops we hope to provide examples and guidance for people requesting information about specific types of EEs and EHEs and some actual EHE autobiographies. If that is too big a jump, you can start by writing accounts of your experiences. We would be happy if you would share them with us, and if some important information is missing, we will point this out by way of teaching you how to do it. There of course would be no charge.

Your experience should lead you along the process of doing it. We will provide examples on the Website of how this worked for other people. See the pieces on writing an account and on writing an EHE autobiography and check the website for sections on the EHE Process and Projects of Transcendence.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

How is EHEN (and ehe.org) any different from all of these other human potential or spiritual growth WWW sites?

There are many human potential organizations today, several of which have a distinctive spiritual flavor. This fact in itself lends much to our understanding that there is a demand for combining the secular with the sacred in our lives. However, even casual browsing of the different offerings available on the Web will quickly show that most of these organizations are simply public sounding boards for personal opinion. Instead, EHEN is based on widely-based study and scholarship as well as findings gleaned from hundreds of narrative reports of experiencers from various backgrounds and ideologies. Nonetheless, EHEN is a human potential organization because the essence of an EHE is that it introduces us to our higher human potential, which lies at the transpersonal core of not only humans, but it appears, of all species.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

How is EHEN's perspective different from the mainstream?

Many psychologists, psychotherapists, and religionists have observed the important role that illness, abuse, and disaster--both physical and mental-- may play in a person's life by forcing him or her to reach a higher and deeper level of adjustment to life than he or she had formerly. However, what they do not seem to have observed is that the impetus for positive change inherent in these otherwise "negative" experiences is often provided by EEs or EHEs. Some examples are out-of-body experiences during physical abuse, or near-death experiences when life itself is threatened, or inner voices or apparitions or hallucinatory voices during disaster conditions that lead to life-saving choices and actions. In such cases, the preexisting condition, such as illness or abuse, is given due consideration, as are the "miracles" or "saving graces" that reverse a negative situation. However, if we consider the many forms that miracles and grace may take--each is a form of exceptional human experience, and should be honored and recognized as such.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

How will writing up and sharing my account/autobiography help me?

It will provide you with landmarks--peaks and valleys of experience that will help to sustain you along your path and will enable you to remember other key experiences so that you develop a repertoire of your own narratives, as it were, all eventually pointing to your path and to the end of all paths, which is knowledge of the oneness of all things. If you don't become aware of your EHE autobiography and work on it, let it grow into and out of yourself and your experiences, it will not be lived in the world. You have to know who you are to be who you are.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

What are EEs and EHEs and how do they differ?

An exceptional experience (EE) is an anomalous experience that affects the experiencer in a personal way so that he or she feels somehow called upon to understand some hidden, deeper meaning in the experience beyond the objective criteria of science, which attempts either to explain the experience away or explain it by known scientific principles, thus ignoring its numinous quality and the feeling of something more being involved than meets the eye. To the experiencer, however, they hint of something more, beyond the limits of science that potentially could be very meaningful. An EE becomes an exceptional human experience (EHE) when its hidden meaning potential has been consciously realized. Usually this realization on the part of the experiencer is not simply new knowledge, but it involves a new way of knowing. When an EHE occurs the person is changed in some way that involves his or her identity, way of life, and worldview.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

What bibliographic citations can you supply on EEs/EHEs?

Over 500 multi-indexed abstracts of books, articles, dissertations, and chapters are published each year in Part 2 of Exceptional Human Experience. They are arranged by subject category and there are author, title, and detailed subject indexes. You may request a Psiline Database search for a moderate price at any time. (Eventually we hope to allow people to do their own fee-based searches. The Network also sells a number of lengthy bibliographies primarily on parapsychological subjects.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

What counseling information and materials do you have to help me in my work with clients?

We encourage health-care practitioners and counselors to look at EEers/EHEers in a new light and carry these insights over into their practices. Of particular relevance are our flyers "The Experiential Paradigm," The EHE Process (both), "Concomitants of EHEs," and "After effects of EHEs." Also check out the EHE Counseling Annotated Bibliography that is published occasionally in EHE News. We recommend a subscription to EHE and EHE News to learn how others are viewing EEs/EHEs and working with them. "How to Write an EHE Autobiography" (both flyers) can be useful as a client tool.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

What coursework/syllabi do you have about EHEs that I could use in my college class?

Depending on your class orientation you can select from a variety of course materials from the List of EHEN Publications. A growing number of instructors are basing course curricula in part on EHE materials. Some suggestions include human potential development; clinical study and application; transcultural studies; philosophy of self, spirituality, and society; techniques of inducing and potentiating EEs into EHEs.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

What do organized religions have to say about EHEs?

Almost all the founders of the major religions were EHEers, and at least one of their major EHEs led to the founding of a specific religion, whether it be Moses and the burning bush or Jesus or Buddha. However, theologians who develop the dogma of a particular religion generally admit the existence of various EHEs, and even have specific terms for them, such as the siddhis of Hinduism, the barokas of Islam, and the gifts of the spirit of Christianity. However, many of these theologians, Eastern as well as Western, warn that special spiritual experiences and gifts can inhibit spiritual growth if viewed as ends in themselves. Also implied is the idea that these experiences are primarily of the life of the spirit and not of the secular world. Our view is that all exceptional and exceptional human experiences are indications that the entire universe is sacred. The divine and the secular are not separate. EHEs play an essential role in helping people to find and travel their unique spiritual paths. The wondrous qualities of the experience redounds not on the individual ego-selves but on the Self we all are, the Self that is all things.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

What do other cultures tell us about EHEs?

A cross-cultural study of EEs and EHEs is very much needed. First, anomalous or exceptional experiences depend on what a culture considers to be acceptable and normal. Many experiences that are considered anomalous in Western societies would be considered normal in many indigenous cultures. Second, the Experiential Paradigm, which is an outgrowth of Western EHEs, is similar in many respects to the worldviews of many nonwestern peoples. Westerners have much more to learn about EHEs from other cultures than they have, at this point, to teach. On the other hand, the extremes of individuality that Western culture promotes demands a corresponding deeper and higher consciousness of the import and significance of EHEs than may be possible in societies. In any case, if we in the West develop our EHEs so that they are an accepted part of our culture, this situation will change drastically. In fact, there may no longer be a need to point out cultural differences but only to share human exceptional experiences.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

What do psychologists/psychiatrists have to say about EHEs?

Many mainline psychologists and psychiatrists would classify EEs and EHEs as part of abnormal psychology/pathology. However, humanistic psychologists such as Abraham Maslow and Stanley Krippner and psychiatrists such as Carl Jung and Stanislav Grof have included observations of them in their studies and incorporated them in their theories of human psychology and view them as self-potentiating. The growing number of counselors and clinical groups who are beginning to help people work with their exceptional experiences encourages us. The EHE Network abstracts reports of their work in its journal.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

What do social scientists say about EHEs?

In effect, the approach we take to EHEs is similar to that taken by many anthropologists, sociologists, and other social scientists. The main interest is in human experiences rather than truth-claims for those experiences. They are considered "real" if they affect human lives. In this sense, EHEs are definitely "real." Social scientists have conducted surveys of various anomalous experiences, primarily to a number of demographic and other variables that do not involve the core of the experience.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

What does history tell us about EHEs?

History and biography are treasure troves of information about specific EHEs. EHEs have changed history, not only directly, as when Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt, but indirectly, through cultural changes. Some examples are the invention of the cotton gin and the sewing machine as well as many scientific and medical discoveries that had their origin in dreams and visions. All innovators are likely to have had EEs. However, although they may have developed them in their work, most do not often develop them in their own lives. Doing so calls for a far greater change of overall perspective and incorporates a new awareness. These people are much rarer to find in history, although it is likely that many anonymous first peoples the world over regularly cultivate EHEs, and have from the beginning.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

What if I don't want to become a member--may I just subscribe to Exceptional Human Experience and EHE News?

We welcome individual or institutional subscriptions. If individuals subscribe to both, the cost is the same as membership dues: $40, plus $6 for postage if outside the USA. Institutional subscriptions to the journal are $60 per year plus $4 if outside the U.S. The newsletter is $18 per year to institutions, plus $2 for postage.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

What proofs do you have that these EEs/EHEs really happened to the claimants?

Some scientists concentrate on the exceptional or anomalous quality of these experiences in order to "prove" that they actually happened. So far this approach, which has been used largely with UFOs and parapsychological phenomena, has not made significant advances. It seems more useful to use NDE researchers as a model. They admit they are working with narratives people tell of their experiences. They compare narratives and do content analyses and use other standard approaches, but they don't try to prove whether the experience "really" happened as the person describes it. That is, they may try to ascertain, if possible, how close the person was to actual death, but they do not try to prove that the NDEr really talked to Jesus or an angel. They simply let the person tell their story and try to learn from it. You start with the story, and you never claim it is more than a story.

NDE researchers have also studied the aftereffects of NDEs. Some of these aftereffects are so transformative and life-potentiating that they not only change the people involved but people who interact with them or even those who simply read or hear their stories. If this is fantasy and not reality, I'd say bring on the fantasy and let it take the place of what is supposed to be "reality." Obviously what we often call "reality" is too limited and suffers from tunnel vision. Moreover, the aftereffects can be publicly observed by others. You don't have to just take the NDErs word. If they were once criminals and now are law-abiding or even law-promoting citizens, this can be observed. If they once were cowering women who let their husbands abuse them and now will take none of it, this is pretty real. Even if EHE accounts are "just" narratives, they nonetheless often lead to observable changes which fall into patterns that can be observed by others. Of such stuff is reality made. On the other hand, the most that can be said when an EHE is explained away is that the status quo has been restored or strengthened. There is no change in the status quo.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

What suggestions do you have for conducting research on EHEs?

Almost any field of study, from the arts and humanities to the sciences can benefit from EHE research. You can find examples in our journal Exceptional Human Experience, both from the articles in Part 1. and the abstracts in Part 2. We also plan to mount a list of theses and dissertations relevant to EHEs but especially on parapsychology. Our own research cases a wide net, adopting a very different approach that emphasizes experience rather than experiment, connection rather than causality, patterns rather than proofs, and wholeness rather than separation. Researchers work from within the Experiential Paradigm and begin by asking different questions, which in turn can lead to fresh discoveries, and even whole new conceptual leaps of knowledge. Specifically, we are especially interested in investigating the physical, physiological, psychological, and spiritual components of experiences, in addition to their anomalous qualities. There is also scope for considerable research into the aftereffects of EHEs and for comparisons of concomitants and aftereffects associated with the different types and classes of EEs/EHEs. Much research also needs to be done on the Experiential Paradigm by type of experience and across various cultures. As comparison is also needed between the tenets of the Experiential Paradigm and those of the world's religions.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

Where are EHEs leading us?

It seems to us that EHEs are leading us first toward a more integrated sense of self. Second, they are leading us toward a sense of oneness with other humans, other life forms, and the Earth itself. Ultimately, I feel they are leading us to a sense of oneness with the universe and with the self that is all things. It's like finding your individual way, and when you arrive at your destination, everyone and everything is there to greet you as if your entrance were the most wonderful thing that ever happened.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

Why is it important for me to understand and follow-up on my EEs/EHEs?

From reading biographies and autobiographies of well-known people and also accounts of EHEs and EHE autobiographies, it appears that EHEs (many of which start as EEs) can play a role in self-actualization. If you are a person who wants to know the depths and heights of who you really are and who does not want to stop becoming more consciously aware of the nature of life and human reality, you need to pay attention to your EHEs in order to keep on growing. They provide an important impetus to reaching new levels of consciousness. Sometimes they can assist you by making important outer-world connections not otherwise available to logic and linear thinking.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown

Why is it important to study EHEs?

Accounts of EHEs have existed as long as the written word. Before that, experiences were shared with others and retold, as part of the oral tradition. Yet it is the rare parent who talks about them to his or her children; rarely are they taught in school; if they are mentioned, often it is to make light of them or explain them away. And yet they are behind some of the most important events in history and some of the most significant inventions, theories, and discoveries; and they have saved many lives and transformed others. They are among the most important experiences humans can have. Therefore it is important to study them in an unbiased manner and if justified, to honor them as important and possibly life-changing experiences so that they can be considered normal rather than strange or even abnormal and can be recognized and responded to in a life-potentiating way by future generations, even as they were before the Enlightenment.

-- R. A. White, S. V. Brown