Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that goes beyond our present understanding of the world, such as a night sky, a great tree, a piece of music, an act of extraordinary courage or kindness. It seems to be good for us in body and mind, quieting the self-absorbed voice in our heads and helping us feel connected to something bigger. For Therapeutic Shamanism, awe is close to the animist way of experiencing the world, as alive and sacred.
What is awe? #
The psychologist Dacher Keltner, of the University of California, Berkeley, has spent much of his career studying it. In his book Awe (2023) he defines it as “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.”1 The vastness can be physical, like standing beside a very tall tree, but it can also be vast in time, or vast in meaning, like a big idea that suddenly makes sense of a lot. What makes it awe, and not simply surprise at something big, is that our usual picture of the world is not big enough to hold it, and has to stretch.
Awe is not always pleasant. Keltner notes that the word itself comes from old words for fear and dread. In a review of the research, he and the psychologist Maria Monroy report that about a quarter of awe experiences come with a sense of threat, and they leave those out of their claims about the benefits.2 A study of 280 adults in Madrid by Lisbeth Bethelmy and José Corraliza found two strands that often go together. One is fear, vulnerability and respect for something vast and powerful; the other is vitality, joy and a feeling of oneness.3
Where do people find awe? #
In many more places than we might expect. Keltner and his colleagues gathered 2,600 stories of awe from people in twenty-six countries, of many faiths and none. What most often moved people to awe was not nature, music or religion, but “other people’s courage, kindness, strength, or overcoming.” From the stories they drew up eight ‘wonders of life’: “moral beauty, collective effervescence, nature, music, visual design, spirituality and religion, life and death, and epiphany.”4 Collective effervescence is the feeling of being swept up together with others, as in a crowd singing, a ceremony or a dance.
Nature is a doorway for many people. People generally find it easier to experience aliveness “in things like mountains, boulders, waterfalls and the wind than they do in things like chairs, shoes, cookers and so on”, and “spending even short periods of time in nature has significantly positive benefits for our mental health and well-being.”5
Why is awe good for us? #
The research points in several directions at once, and much of it is still young.
It makes the self smaller, in a good way. Keltner calls this the ‘small self’. In awe, the nagging, self-focused voice in our heads goes quiet, and our own concerns take their proper size. In one study, people drew themselves smaller after visiting a famous viewpoint in Yosemite than at a cheerful tourist spot in San Francisco. Keltner and the researcher Yang Bai found the effect across all eight wonders, not only in vast nature.6
It seems to be good for the body. Monroy and Keltner report that awe is linked with a calmer nervous system and with lower levels of inflammation, though they say that the full pathways “have only recently begun to be tested”.7
It helps with stress and low mood. Awe in nature has been found to reduce rumination, the going round and round of anxious thoughts. In one study, teenagers from deprived inner-city schools and military veterans who went white-water rafting together reported less stress and better well-being afterwards.8 In another, older people who took a weekly ‘awe walk’ for eight weeks felt more awe as the weeks went by, and less anxiety and depression. As Keltner puts it, “The more we practice awe, the richer it gets.”9
It may make us kinder. Several studies link awe with generosity. In one, people who had just gazed up into a grove of very tall eucalyptus trees were more helpful afterwards, and felt less entitled. A large survey of students in China found that people who often feel awe also tend to act more generously, partly through a wider sense of self and a longer view of time.10 Not every study has found the same, and Monroy and Keltner note this themselves, so the link is best held as likely, not proven.
Has the modern world lost its sense of awe? #
Keltner thinks so, especially for children. He writes that “One of the most alarming trends in the lives of children today is the disappearance of awe”, with art, music, free play and the natural world all being squeezed out, and that children are “awe-deprived.”11
Therapeutic Shamanism sees this as part of a much older story. The symptoms of soul-loss and Power-loss have become everyday life for so many people, “a sense that something is missing or lacking in life”, boredom, “a disconnection from the sacred and the spiritual, loneliness, and so on”: “diseases of ‘civilisation’, of the FallThe Fall. The catastrophe at the root of the whole diagnosis: the shift from animist, egalitarian hunter-gatherer life to owning, agricultural Taker culture. In domesticating other species we domesticated ourselves, cutting ourselves off from Mother Earth (Power-loss) and from parts of our own nature (soul-loss). When dated precisely, the Fall begins with the first city-state cultures, around 4000 BCE (Domestication begins earlier, with the Neolithic). A sickness, not our true nature. ‘Fallen culture’ is used interchangeably with Taker culture; the Great Rupture is a looser alternate name. Read the full answer.”12 When we live too much in the left half of the brain, we cut ourselves off “from being able to appreciate the beauty of a sunset, or the perfume of a flower.”13 A people who no longer experience the world as alive and sacred will find awe harder to come by. See What is the Fall? and What does domestication do to us?
How does awe fit with Therapeutic Shamanism? #
Awe is not taught as a subject in its own right, but much of what the research describes sits close to the heart of animism. “Animists experience the world, and everything in it, as being alive, conscious and sacred. It is not a belief so much as an experience.” “Shamanism gives us a deep sense of the sacredness and interconnectedness of all life.”14
The ‘small self’ of the research has a cousin in animist humility. Humans are “the youngest and least wise of the PeoplesThe Peoples. The Animal People, Plant People, Standing People (the Trees) and Stone People: our elder kin, of whom the Human People are the youngest and least wise. A family, not a hierarchy. Read the full answer”, and “our animist ancestors lived with humility, respect and gratitude”.15 “This is not about hierarchy, but about family.”
Therapeutic Shamanism speaks of awe directly, too, in connection with the Stone People, whom hunter-gatherers saw as “the oldest and wisest of the Peoples by far”.16 There are few things that can really generate a sense of awe in us more than the Stone PeopleStone People. All physical matter: mountains, sea, rivers, clouds, sun and stars: the oldest and widest of the Peoples. As some animist cultures put it, ‘we are just the Stone People, dancing for a while’. Read the full answer, and there is a lot of really interesting scientific research about the positive effects of awe on us. See Who are the Animal, Plant and Stone People?
Awe is also part of the Upper-WorldUpper-World. The realm of Father Sky and of Spirit: spacious, rarefied and clear, layered in tiers, offering not escape but perspective. Not better than the Lower-World: we ascend rooted, and bring the gifts back down. Read the full answer, the realm of Spirit met in shamanic journeys: “There is a palpable sense of majesty and awe.” The cathedrals and temples we build can be seen as “a deliberate attempt to recreate the Upper-World here on earth”.17
There is one difference. The research mostly treats awe as an emotion that happens inside a person, set off by something out there. For an animist, the great tree or the mountain is not just a trigger for a feeling; it is someone, a being in its own right. Awe then becomes part of a relationship, and the natural response to it includes respect and gratitude. See What does it mean to say the world is alive and full of persons?
Is awe the same as a peak experience? #
They overlap. A peak experience, in the words of the writer Joseph Campbell, is a time when “my mind disappeared and I became completely in the moment, and part of something bigger that was flowing through me.” The point is not the thrill of such moments but their message, and a life shaped around Soul brings “a quieter but more constant and grounded feeling of rightness.”18 Seen this way, awe would be a doorway, not an aim in itself. See What are moments of awakening?
Can awe be cultivated? #
The research suggests it can. Keltner and the neuroscientist Virginia Sturm developed the ‘awe walk’, a regular walk taken with a child’s fresh eyes, ideally somewhere new, pausing to take in both the vastness of things and the small detail of a leaf or a flower.19 Spending time in nature, with music, with other people at their best, and in ceremony all open the same door.
From an animist point of view, a natural way in is to allow the possibility that the world around us is alive. One exercise of this kind in Finding Your Deep Soul, offered to help readers think more like an animist, is done outside in nature and in human-made places, noticing the difference between the two.20
