An Empirical Exploration of the Relationship Between Spirituality and Psi, and Fasting and Vegetarianism

Many spiritual traditions include accounts of miraculous and supernormal events and are associated with fasting and vegetarianism. A number of authors have related these practices to spirituality and psi, and various theories have been proposed for why such a relationship may be present. Despite this literature, there appears to have been little previous empirical research on this topic, and so this thesis aims to address an apparent gap in knowledge, using a mixed methods design incorporating interview, survey, and experimental approaches. A critical review of the literature revealed a number of common threads regarding explanations for a purported link between spirituality and psi, and fasting, including purification, health benefits, and mental clarity. Corresponding explanations for vegetarian diets included health benefits, subtle qualities within food, the interconnectedness of all life, and mental clarity. In order to investigate the phenomenology of the current use of fasting and vegetarianism, the first study comprises a Thematic Analysis of interviews with seven self-identified professional psychics to examine their understanding of how fasting and vegetarianism, and other dietary practices, are perceived to affect their sensitivity to psi. Emergent themes demonstrated that participants regard fasting as facilitating psi through purification and its effects on the digestive system; that vegetarianism facilitates psi through enhanced mental clarity, health benefits, and purported subtle energies within food; and that a wholefoods diet and supplements are also beneficial to psi. It was not clear whether associations found in this interview study obtained only for particular elite practitioners or whether they might apply to more general populations. Therefore, in order to build on findings from this first study, I conducted online questionnaire-based surveys of two separate samples recruited through Facebook groups consisting of vegans and vegetarians (N = 804) and those who practise fasting (N = 154) to see if these associations could be confirmed. Findings indicated that significantly higher levels of self-reported anomalous experiences and abilities were reported by those who: fast; engage in longer fasts; practise vegan or vegetarian over meat-eating diets; have been vegan for longer; have increased adherence to a wholefood diet; avoid added sugars; and habitually abstain from alcohol. There was tentative support for this relationship in variables associated with a longer history of fasting and those who follow a vegan against a vegetarian diet. These results were consistent with outcomes from both the literature review and interview study suggesting that dietary practices play a role in anomalous experiences. Whilst this survey study allowed statistical comparisons between samples, it relied upon self-reported phenomena that may or may not have objective validity. Therefore, in order to build on findings from these first two studies, an experiment was conducted, the purpose of which was to subject participants to an objective test of psi and hence explore whether associations related to dietary practices that were found in the survey data might persist under controlled laboratory conditions. This study employed a precognitive ganzfeld remote viewing quasi-experimental design comparing the performance of meat eaters (n = 20) with vegans and vegetarians (n = 20). The overall performance of all participants with respect to hit rate was only slightly better than the mean chance expectation of 25% at 28%. However, vegans and vegetarians showed a higher 40% hit rate than the 15% result from meat eaters, with vegans (n = 15) scoring 47%. In terms of a sum of ranks analysis, vegans and vegetarians again performed better than meat eaters and the result was suggestive (two-tailed p = .058). None of the findings relating to wholefoods, added sugar, alcohol, fasting, and time of last eating approached any level of significance. None of the individual characteristics hypothesised to be important to performance such as extraversion, creativity, and belief in psi showed any effect. Apart from minor findings within previous research, this project represents, apparently for the first time in the history of the disciplines of transpersonal psychology and parapsychology, measurable statistical associations between dietary practices and spiritual and psi experiences similar to accounts reported in historical and other literature. The implications of this research include the potential for the use of dietary practices to enhance spiritual and/or psi development, more effective and targeted dietary interventions for those suffering spiritual emergencies, the selection of participants based on dietary practices in parapsychological experiments, dietary recommendations to improve the health of those practising psi, particularly in a professional capacity, and contributions to neurobiological theories of spirituality, psi, and consciousness. Suggestions for future research (which would ideally include participants beyond those from Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic countries) include further qualitative studies of spiritual and psi practitioners and their use of dietary practices, examination of the effects of changes in dietary practices to mitigate spiritual emergencies, further interrogation of associations between dietary practices and anomalous experiences beyond those who fast or who are vegan or vegetarian, the role of dietary practices in the health of those practising psi, confirmatory and further exploratory experimental research related to psi and dietary practices, and research to determine to what extent different potential mechanisms for dietary practices play in mediating spirituality and psi.