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SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES IN ADVENTURE THERAPY
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ZSUZSANNA KÔVI, LEVENTE FOGARASSY, ZSUZSANNA MIRNICS,
ANNA MERSDORE, ZOLTAN VASS
ABSTRACT
Religious mysticism has three forms: nature mysticism, theistic mysticism,
and monist mysticism. In nature mysticism, the subject feels the whole of
nature, in a sort of oceanic feeling, as if its ego were connected to something
greater than their ego, i.e. as if it were connected with all living beings.
In this essay, we analyse the mystical-spiritual experiences of adventure
therapy. We present our research findings on how hill and cave tours can
prompt mystical experiences and how these experiences can be studied
through a questionnaire and a projective drawing technique.
We organized hill and cave tours for more than 100 psychology students
with adventure therapeutic exercises. The exercises included relaxation,
spiritual singing and other music therapy exercises, and challenging climbing
and crawling exercises (measures were always taken to assure the safety of
respondents).
Our measurement techniques include Spiritual Health and Life Orientation
Measurement (Fisher, 2009) and free drawing. Our research shows that
adventure therapeutic exercises, especially in caves, offer mystical experiences
which increase spiritual well-being.
Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 157 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:18