This study tested (1) the prevalence of subjectively perceived life-changing spiritual experiences in a sample of Hungarian adult volunteers; (2) the differences in spiritual/religious attitudes and practices between those who had a significant life-changing spiritual experience and those who did not; (3) the relationship between having a life-changing spiritual experience and spirituality/religiousness and the differences between the two; and (4) the age at which a life-changing experience occurred in connection to current spiritual/religious practices.

Prevalence of perceived life-changing spiritual experiences

In the current sample, the rate of perceived life-changing spiritual experiences was relatively high in that more than two-thirds of the respondents reported having had such an experience. Indeed, this rate exceeds the highest rate we are aware of, which is 54% in people with alcohol problems (Robinson et al., 2003). The figure also exceeds the prevalence rate (43%) reported by Gutierrez et al. (2018) in 970 Americans, an earlier Gallup poll reporting 41% (Gallup, 2003), and another more recent large American study reporting 49%. While the explanation might be related to cultural differences, they also may reflect a biased sample showing interest in spirituality/religiousness. Indeed, the fact that we could only gather 77 valid responses in five months, despite intensive posting and re-posting of the call for volunteers, suggests that mainly spiritually oriented people were interested in participating.

Furthermore, although 27.3% of the respondents did not disclose their religious affiliation, we found no statistically significant difference between those who did and did not report their religion. Thus, it is possible that the latter group also had some spiritual/religious affiliation. Indeed, the two-thirds (66.7%) prevalence rate of life-changing spiritual experiences in this group supports this explanation.

Differences in spirituality/religiousness based on life-changing experiences

Despite the small sample size and significant difference in group sizes, the results yielded statistically significant differences in all dependent measures (Table 2) between those reporting a life-changing spiritual experience and those not claiming to have had such an experience. An a posteriori power analysis showed that the results of this test had sufficient power despite the small sample size. To our knowledge, no studies examined perceived life-changing experiences in connection to daily spiritual experiences, life meaning, forgiveness, religious practices, or religious/spiritual coping. However, regular spiritual experiences were linked to increased life satisfaction, compared to a baseline, in cancer survivors (Rudaz et al., 2019).

Similarly, an earlier study found that people with near-death experiences reported more daily spiritual experiences than those without such an experience (Khanna & Greyson, 2014). Consequently, our findings on this measure align with the results in the literature. However, the life-changing spiritual experiences cannot be linked to an objective experience (i.e., illness or recovery) in this study. Thus, our findings are limited to nonspecific perceived experiences.

Our results agree with earlier research showing that a significant life change could be associated with enhanced life meaning. However, past research established this connection to specific life changes such as congestive heart failure (Park et al., 2007) and trauma (Triplett et al., 2012). In contrast, our study looked at perceived life-changing experiences associated with spirituality, the objectivity of which cannot be established. There appears to be a discrepancy between actual (objective events) and perceived experiences and spiritual/religious practices (Trevino et al., 2016) in that the perceived are slightly inflated compared to the actual. Overall, the higher meaning observed in the current study in people reporting a significant life-changing experience could be related more to their spiritual connection to the life-changing experience rather than to the change (event) itself.

Concerning forgiveness and life changes, our results, again, align with previous research. For example, emotional changes have been linked to spirituality and forgiveness (Levenson et al., 2006). While personally favorable life-changing experiences, acting as a reward, associated with spiritual/religious attitudes can foster the enhancement of spirituality, which might be the case in the current study, forgiveness therapy can also be used in dealing with traumatic life experiences (Song et al., 2020). Despite being considered independent constructs (Fetzer Institute & National Institute on Aging Working Group, 2003), religious practices and spiritual coping, like the other domains of the BMMRS, correlate. They predict the outcomes of major adverse life experiences (Pargament et al., 1990). A positive development has a reinforcing effect, so the differences in BMMRS measures in this study could be partially attributed to a (perceived) favorable life-changing experience in the majority group reporting such changes. The positive nature of the reported life-changing experiences can be deduced from our results that revealed a strong positive correlation between the age at which the life-changing spiritual experience occurred and the age when the substantial strengthening in religious/spiritual practice occurred. Based on the r2 we obtained, nearly half of the variance (49%) in the latter variable can be accounted for by the former.

Relationship between life-changing experiences and religious/spiritual identity

The results revealed statistically significant positive correlations between the extent to which participants identified themselves with religiousness and spirituality and life-changing experiences. However, the correlation with religiosity was half that obtained with spirituality. Hence, the shared variance was only 5.5% with religious identity and 18.5% with spirituality. These findings underpin the already-known surmise that spirituality is a broader concept than religiousness. However, apart from this explanation, research suggests that nowadays people tend to identify with a broader and more socially fitting spirituality than with a particular religion (Niemelä, 2006).

Our results also agree with the findings of Rippentrop et al. (2006), who reported that spirituality accounted for more than three times the variance in quality of life compared to religion. In this study, spirituality and religiousness were not assessed in terms of quality of life, but their correlation with the perception of life-changing experiences is similar. Moreover, respondents who reported a life-changing experience differed from the others in terms of the extent to which they considered themselves spiritual or religious. Again, as in the results of the correlation tests, the gamma (γ) was smaller for religious than for spiritual identity.

Life-changing experience under the age of 18

Close to half (43%) of respondents who reported a spirituality-related significant life-changing experience were 18 or under when the perceived experience occurred. These individuals, compared to those who had a significant life-changing experience later in life, reported attending religious services once or more weekly (83.3% vs. 43.8%). However, the difference was statistically not significant. Future studies may wish to replicate these findings because no research has connected age, perceived spiritually related significant life-changing experiences, and later life spirituality/religiousness. Nevertheless, our findings concerning the age when a significant life-changing experience occurred may imply that spiritual/religious upbringings can favor the spiritual interpretation of life experiences, reinforcing spirituality or religiousness.

In the group that had a life-changing spiritual experience, the mean age at which such an experience occurred ranged from 6 to 58 years. Still, the mean and the median ages were suggestive of occurrence in young adulthood. As expected, the age when a life-changing spiritual experience occurred and the age when the person noticed a strengthening in their religious/spiritual practices were strongly correlated. This positive correlation, accounting for nearly half (49%) of the variance between the two measures, suggests that the reported experiences were primarily positive and acted as reinforces of spirituality/religiousness. As we are unaware of similar studies, we cannot compare these results to past research. Thus, these findings should motivate future research testing the relationship between early-age life-changing spiritual events and spirituality/religiousness in later life.

Limitations

There are several limitations associated with this pilot work that call for caution in interpreting and generalizing the findings. The first is the general limitation in psychology research involving volunteer participants and a cross-sectional research methodology. The second is the relatively low number of respondents and the female majority, which is characteristic of online surveys. Third, the national homogeneity of the sample prevents cultural or cross-national inferences from the current results. Finally, the a posteriori grouping resulted in highly different subsample sizes, which might have affected the results.