TAKE SURVEY

Share Your Experience

Thank you for your willingness to help us with this project and share your experience. In this survey, “literature” includes any work of written creative fiction (novels, short stories, poetry, or fantasy). “Spiritual” is defined broadly as a basic human capacity for transcendence whose experience is marked by shifts in perception, affect, and/or cognition and oriented toward the horizon of ultimate value one perceives (Cf. Sandra Schneider, 2015; Yaden and Newburg, 2022).

You will describe a reading experience which you identify as spiritually significant by responding to the questions below to the best of your ability. All responses are voluntary, and you can stop at any time. Responses will be used for the refinement of future questionnaires and research into the spiritual dimension of literary engagement. If you wish to keep your response confidential, please indicate that in the biographical questionnaire below. Thank you for your time.

Name

If you wish to keep your response confidential, type Anonymous in each field.

First Name

Last Name

This will be kept confidential and used only to contact participants to request approval if and when their response is used in any publications. Names will never be used in publications.

Year of Birth

YYYY

I am

With what religion do you most identify?

With which of these categories do you most identify?

Has a work of literature elicited a sense of the numinous or divine in your life?

How has a work of literature expanded or altered your understanding of who God is and/or of what spirituality is?

How has the impact a work of literature has had upon your understanding of God and/or spirituality manifested itself in your life?

“The mind that responds to the intellectual and spiritual values that lie hidden in a poem, a painting, or a piece of music, discovers a spiritual vitality that lifts it above itself, takes it out of itself, and makes it present to itself on a level of being that it did not know it could ever achieve.”

TAKE SURVEY

Share Your Experience

-Thomas Merton