A survey of more than 4,000 people worldwide who claim to have had some experience meeting the “ultimate reality” or God tend to be healthier, even decades down the line. The research, carried out by Johns Hopkins University, found that an experience in feeling you have met God can lead to positive changes. Experts believes the feeling could leave people feeling they have more satisfaction, meaning and purpose if they have a Godly experience, which would explain why there is an upturn in health following the ‘meeting’.
The study, published in the journal PLOS One, surveyed 4,285 people worldwide, more than 2,500 of whom had taken psychedelics in the build up to their experience, some 75 percent of respondents said their meeting was the most meaningful and spiritually significant in their lifetime.
Two-thirds of respondents who had identified as atheists shook off that label after their experiences, so powerful was it.
Lead researcher Roland Griffiths, professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Johns Hopkins’ School of Medicine, said: “Experiences that people describe as encounters with God or a representative of God have been reported for thousands of years, and they likely form the basis of many of the world’s religions.
“Although modern Western medicine doesn’t typically consider ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ experiences as one of the tools in the arsenal against sickness, our findings suggest that these encounters often lead to improvements in mental health.”
However, the researchers were keen to emphasise the research does not necessarily prove the existence of God, and it would be impossible to reach that conclusion.
Prof Griffiths added: “We want to be clear that our study looks at personal experiences and says nothing about the existence, or nonexistence of God.
“We doubt that any science can definitively settle this point either way.”
