The Exceptional Human Experience Network (EHEN) is an educational,
research and information resource organization dedicated to the study of
all types of psychical, mystical, encounter, death-related, and enhanced
experiences. These experiences are typically considered anomalous,
improbable, remarkable, or even unbelievable within the current
Euro-American worldview. Because this worldview and scientific
paradigm offer little explanation and insight into the nature of these
experiences, we have taken a wholly different approach. We call
these anomalous experiences "exceptional."
They are "exceptional experiences" (EEs) because they do not
fit the Western scientific paradigm.
They are exceptional because the individual can neither explain them nor
explain them away. We are different in that we don't see that as a
stopping point but as a starting point. We do not view these
experiences as events that happened in the course of a few seconds or
minutes and then were over. Instead, we view them as potential
seeds of personal and spiritual growth and transformation. The
experience is just the beginning. The end is the higher human
potential of the person who has the experience.
Our provisional hypothesis is that these exceptional experiences can be
worked with, by the individual and others, in such a way that increased
knowledge and insightful interpretation can lead the experiencer to
important moments of inspiration and growth. As these insights add
up, more exceptional experiences tend to occur, especially
transformational dreams and synchronicities. Eventually people
begin to feel that they are on a meaningful path, both in the events
that happen outside of themselves and on the inner experiences they
have.
When an experiencer is able to see how an EE potentiates his or her
personal and spiritual growth, it becomes an exceptional human experience
(EHE). And when they experience a synergy between inner and outer
worlds, they have entered the EHE Process. We also
hypothesize that EHEs have a cumulative effect and that there will come
a culminating EHE in which the experiencer sees him or herself and the
whole world in an entirely different way, one in which everything is one
and all things are interconnected.
When this happens, we say the person is seeing the world from within the
Experiential Paradigm (EP). Once one begins to sense the EHE
process at work, and especially once an EHE has taken the person inside
the EP, their lives begin to change. Life-potentiating events and
experiences begin to happen. For this reason we are also different
in that we emphasize the positive aftereffects of EHEs. (We also
are mindful that some experiences have negative aftereffects and we are
looking for ways of understanding these as well.)
Our approach is also unique in that we value the individual experiencer
and his or her unique experience. We emphasize meaning rather than
evidence. We are not out to explain an experience away, although
all normal explanations should be taken into account. If the
experience is still inexplicable or even not sufficiently explained away
as far as the experiencer is concerned, our aim is to work with the
person to elucidate its meaning. In doing so, we draw on a large
multidisciplinary network of people and information resources.
We are different in that we study the entire wide range of exceptional
experiences, looking into what they may be showing us as a whole and in
individual types of EEs or groupings of them. We note the
similarities and emerging patterns, meaningful insights, developing
challenges and discoveries described by the experiencers
themselves. We observe the differences between experiencers who
choose to potentiate and question their experiences versus those who
choose to diminish the value of their experiences and in effect,
depotentiate them. We honor the positive, self-actualizing, and
potentially transformative capacities of these experiences to enhance
lives.
Overall, the EHEN is investigating, developing, defining, and sharing a
new Experiential Paradigm that the experiences themselves reveal to the
experiencer and that can be shared with others. The glimpses of
the new reality these experiences provide have short- and
long-term effects upon individuals, their sense of who they are, and the
nature of the world they/we live in.
We are collating and looking for patterns and connections in these
aftereffects. Rather than demanding independent proof to
substantiate these experiences, rationalizing them to fit some
preconceived ideology, or sensationalizing them for vapid media
consumption, we create an accepting and confidential environment in
which EHEers may submit personal written accounts, share insights, and
gain information. In this endeavor, we have learned that what our
culture considers to be "anomalous" experiences ... can
develop and mature into Exceptional Human Experiences (EHEs), which have
the capacity to shift perspectives, which benefits not only the
individual but also society and the environment.
We trust that by providing a safe, accepting, and nonideological venue
for experiencers to share their accounts; by offering quality
information across a rich variety of resources, scholarship, and
research; and by looking at the overall pattern of what these many types
of experience may be showing us as a whole, we can assist experiencers,
and they can assist us, in revealing the meaning of their experiences
and of the new worldview that is the Experiential Paradigm. Thus
we:
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value
the individual experiencer and his/her unique experience
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emphasize
personal meaning rather than evidence or proof
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keep
confidentialities when requested
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do
not sensationalize the experiences
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emphasize
the potentiating results and aftereffects of the experience
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we
work with people to understand the meaning of their experience
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create
an accepting and nonideological haven for experiencers
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draw
on a wide network of people, experiencers, and study
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seek
to discover and share overall patterns of these experiences
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value
inductive research methods as well as analysis
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are
not locked into pre-existing paradigms, methods or categories
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provide
quality documentation covering a wide range of scholarship
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appreciate
the benefits of applying what we have learned to the "real
world"
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Any noticeable change in color of the main text is the emphasis
of R. Rocamora.
