ABSTRACT

This chapter summarizes contemporary research on the psychological traits of those who identify as being “Spiritual but Not Religious” (SBNR). Individuals who identify as SBNR are overall higher than others in intelligence, openness to experience, the capacity for both self-forgetfulness and transpersonal identification, and a strong valuation of personal intuitions and subjective experience. The chapter suggests that the psychological traits characteristic of the SBNR sensibility are often elicited by positive emotions, specific neurochemical differences that have at least some genetic basis, and altered states of consciousness.