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Transcendent experience

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Photo of a person silhouetted against the Milky Way galaxy in a starry night sky, with a faint horizon glow.

Wonder and the sublime

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The ‘panzoic effect’: the benefits of thinking about alien life

Reflecting on the potential for extraterrestrial life can inspire awe and have a profound effect on your worldview

by Graham Lau

Black and white photo of a child watching large fish in an aquarium tank with rocks and smaller fish in the background.

Transcendent experience

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To thrive, children need to experience awe – and you can help

Alongside love, sleep and play, awe is precious for children. There are small, everyday ways to make it a part of their lives

by Artemisia O’bi & Fan Yang

Photo of a person walking on a log bridge in a dense forest with tall trees and lush green foliage.

Transcendent experience

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Do you find the 21st century overstimulating? Try ‘longstorming’

As the treadmill of life speeds up, sublime outdoor spaces help us tap into timescales that are longer, slower, planetary

by Vincent Ialenti

Black and white photo of a man with a ball on a littered street, graffiti and a fire escape visible on a brick building.

Transcendent experience

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Our days are both rough and slippery. Hope brings traction

I want to defend and buoy hope – it’s a fragile, quirky thing, but it has the power to help us act in the face of finitude

by John Lysaker

Black and white photo of a hand holding a small portrait of a smiling girl wearing a polka dot dress with braided hair.

Change and self-development

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What can we learn from those who have a moral change of heart?

Stories of sharp adjustments in moral perspective show the potential of unusual experiences to open people’s minds

by Joshua May

Painting of a stormy sea with a shipwreck, dramatic waves and a dark sky, conveying intense motion and chaos.

Transcendent experience

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Your consciousness has been completely transformed. Now what?

Awakening experiences are spiritual states often believed to unlock life’s mysteries – but sacred knowledge comes at a cost

by Kevin Berryman

Photo of a person riding a donkey on a rocky hill at sunset with a wide, expansive sky and distant rolling hills.

Spirituality and religion

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Why religion without belief can still make perfect sense

Meet the practising agnostic and the religious fictionalist: people for whom religion can work well without sure belief

by Philip Goff

Photo of a person sitting in a train gazing out a window at blurred trees under sunlight.

The self

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The question therapy doesn’t answer: who are we really, really?

Therapy is a valuable tool for self-understanding. But spiritual practices can unlock a more expansive view of the self

by Eric Jannazzo

Painting of three nude women indoors with a park scene outside the window. Pointillist style with muted pastel colours.

Artists and art history

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The vibrating beingness of Seurat’s pointillist paintings

The pointillist paintings of Georges Seurat have a blurred, vibrating beingness that is a visual manifestation of emotion

by Summer Brennan

Ancient painting of two figures under a pine tree with mountains in the background, in traditional East Asian style.

Transcendent experience

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To experience Zen-like awakening, try going the headless way

Try to point to your true self as you’d point to a brick wall, and other experiments in Zen-like awakening

by Brentyn J Ramm

Painting of hunters and dogs in snowy landscape with a village and ice skaters in the background, trees and hills visible.

Philosophy of art

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When art transports us, where do we actually go?

Artworks have the capacity to transport us into other worlds. But where exactly do we go when we are immersed in art?

by Harri Mäcklin

Photo of a park in autumn with large trees and children playing among fallen leaves wearing colourful clothes.

Nature and the environment

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Look past the woods – each tree is an individual to be cherished

Try to look past the woods and see the trees: there’s nothing as elemental as the human relationship with an individual tree

by Sarah Boon