A Psychic and a Skeptic Walk Into a Vortex
On a trip to Sedona, Ariz., a writer tries to understand her mystically inclined mother’s beliefs with the help of crystals, meditation and visits to the area’s supposed celestial portals.
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In his 2023 book “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life,” Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, defines the feeling as “being in the presence of something vast that transcends our understanding of the world.” Although awe is an emotion, it can also act as the connective tissue that stitches together the everyday enigmas that inform — or challenge — our philosophies. In this way, it’s not unlike empathy.
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Experiencing awe in nature, according to the researcher Dacher Keltner, means acknowledging vastness and the unknown it holds, feeling a vanishing sense of self and recognizing we could be related to something much larger, which then opens the mind.
Read the whole story (subscription may be required): The New York Times
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