Awe

Definition

Awe refers to an intense emotional response people may have when they encounter an object, event, or person that is extraordinary. Things that elicit awe are typically vast in size, significance, or both. Frequent elicitors of awe include nature, natural disasters, grand architecture and historical ruins, supernatural or spiritual experiences, scientific or technological marvels, childbirth, and being in the presence of powerful or celebrated individuals.

Awe involves some degree of surprise, disbelief, or disorientation as one strives to assimilate the presence of the extraordinary and make it conform to one's expectations, prior experiences, and beliefs about what is possible. Quite often, awe results in the need to alter existing belief structures—sometimes in profound and life-changing ways—to accommodate the experience and its implications. This process of change and reorientation may take moments or days and can range in tone from pleasant to terrifying, depending on the situation and the individual's personality.

The roots of the word awe lie in Germanic words for fear and terror, and early religious uses of awe almost always involve fear (as the result of interactions with the Divine). In modern times, however, the word awe is used most often to describe experiences that are positive.

History and Context

Awe has long been associated with religious traditions, which typically emphasize the life-transforming aspects of awe. Numerous religious texts tell stories that center around a moment of awe in the transformation of an ordinary person into a saint, prophet, or hero (e.g., St. Paul in the New Testament, Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita). Upon recovery from the experience, the awe-inspired individuals then go forth and spread word of it, often performing great deeds or miracles that induce awe (and awe-inspired changes) in those who witness or (more typically) hear about them. In modern times, a central moment of awe appears frequently in the religious conversion narratives analyzed by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience. Indeed, the experience of awe is often so transformative that many people find it fitting to speak of having been “born again” into a new and more harmonious configuration of self.

Some 60 years after William James, Abraham Maslow made major contributions to the literature on awe. Maslow spent years analyzing people's reports of their encounters with the extraordinary. Maslow used the term peak experience to refer to these moments of deep insight and awe, during which new perspectives are revealed to people. Maslow maintained that all humans are capable of having peak experiences, although some appear to be more prone to them than others. He referred to such people as Peakers (as opposed to non-Peakers) and speculated that they were likely to have greater well-being, deeper relationships, and more meaning in life—predictions that continue to be of great interest to contemporary research psychologists. Maslow also maintained that non-Peakers could learn to become more like Peakers.

[Page 95]Maslow compiled a list of 25 of the most common aftereffects of peak experiences. Included are lack of concern about the self, decreased materialism, feelings of overwhelming positivity (including feelings that the world is good and desirable), transcendence of dichotomies, and increased receptivity to change.

...