Spirituality Studies 9-1 Spring 2023 95 Oleksandr Zubariev “clamps”, “blocks”, etc., are being worked on; c) corroboration of the reality of the supernatural, such as “energy”, “chakras”, “other worlds”; d) corroboration of the reality of contactless diagnostics, the possibility to feel human “energy” and “biofield” from a distance; e) corroboration of achieving a certain level in “spiritual practice” and “spiritual development” [4]. Here is how one of our informants describes her transpersonal experiences, which became proof of the existence of “energy” and one of the reasons for her to turn to Eastern spiritual practices: For the first time in my life I felt these energies, that our Universe consist of a certain type of substance. Transcendent energy, energy of light, energy of fog can be used to influence the [note: body] [5]. The essence of this practice was to imagine a shining ball in the area of the head over the third eye and to pull this ball of energy inside… This is the most harmless practice proposed by Mantak Chia… I felt energy, I realized that it exists. And the energy passed through the head, filled the head, the state was very good… I feel the heart filling to the fullest, and I say ‘I have enough’. I understand that I cannot stop this flow. I fainted, fell, hit with my head against door handle heavily. Afterwards I laid a while, a few moments later I got up, I was so happy that my family did not notice this incident because they were watching TV. I closed the book and said: ‘I realized that this exists and I am waiting for the teacher.’ – Mariia, 50 years old, Kharkiv Organization Zhong Yuan Qigong [6]. Several issues attract attention in this passage. Firstly, the informant tells us about her transpersonal experience, which she received at the beginning of her turning to Eastern spiritual practices. She uses the concept of the worldview, which she internalized significantly later. Mantak Chia has not disclosed the idea of three types of “energy” noted in the narrative; this is an element of the doctrinal nucleus of the cultural form of Zhong Yuan Qigong, an Eastern spiritual practice that the informant has been practicing when we took the interview. Therefore, we have reinterpreted previous experience given the probability structure, which is significant at present [7]. Secondly, transpersonal experiences are described as experiences at the border of the everyday life-world and its structures. The informant recalls that when she was practicing, her family watched TV, representing the fragment’s routine and cognitive style. Thirdly, the informant highlights several times that the experience made her understand that these energies exist. Here, transpersonal experiences act as symptoms of another reality. Suppose we understand the symptoms as the object or a situation, which presence points at the presence of other objects and situations. In contrast, assurance in the existence of the former is understood as a reason for the latter’s existence (Schütz 2004, 829). In that case, transpersonal experiences can be considered symptoms of another reality. Therefore, all the fragments of narrative within interviews in which the informants understand transpersonal experiences as reasons for assurance in something else usually in the presence of some “other reality,” (whatever it may be and howsoever it should be represented) are attributed to the first ideal-typical model of understanding transpersonal experience – the reasoning meaningful context. The second ideal-typical model of understanding transpersonal experience unifies narrative fragments in which this experience is described as an adventure. Within the framework of this model, we have identified the following subcategories: а) vision of other worlds; b) meetings with teachers; c) meetings with supernatural creatures. According to Peter Berger, the world that opens in the supernatural experience is often an inhabited world, and meeting its “inhabitants” becomes an essential aspect of this experience (Berger 1979, 218). The differentiated subcategories seem to be a good example of this. According to Stanislav Grof, such experiences can be classified as a widening of experiences beyond “objective reality”. One of our informants describes such an experience: On day three to four, we started practicing silence, we didn’t talk to each other. It wase a bit difficult on the first day, but on day two and three we entered this silence, that we could understand what we want from each other at first sight. We sit and eat nuts. Suddenly, I see a small leshy looking at us. Then we resumed talking, it was at the end of our visit. I tell T., ‘Can you see it?’, she answers, ‘I can’t see anything’. In a couple of minutes, I can see that that small creature brings another one. They stood a while looking at us and left. It brought the whole family: grandmother, grandfather etc. I could see it. All were standing and looking. I told ‘T., we should have come to an agreement with the forest dwellers. I don’t know how to come to agreement.’ It was so that I watched their reaction and T. was coming to agreement with them. In the end, we arranged that we don’t make a fire and sit in silence. – Bohdan, 40 years old, Kharkiv Center of Indian School of Reiki, Zhong Yuan Qigong. This is a narrative within a narrative, where the protagonist narrates about life and its characters while an eventful and complete story about the world of Eastern spiritual practice
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