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SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES IN ADVENTURE THERAPY ee 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
