The Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ-25)
Written by Kirsti Formoso, MSc. Transpersonal Psychology, BSc. Psychology
If you’ve had a profound spiritual experience and you’re trying to find out more about it, you’re in the right place. Doing the Mystical Experience Questionnaire can help you reflect on your experience, and understand it as an important altered state of consciousness on your spiritual journey.
The MEQ-25 is the latest version of the Mystical Experience Questionnaire in the MEQ family. It was designed to measure mystical experiences outside the context of psychedelic substances.
If your experience happened during a psychedelic experience, you can still do this questionnaire. But you might like to read more about the differences on my page Which Mystical Experience Questionnaire Is Best for You?
The MEQ-25
The MEQ-25 is a revised edition of the MEQ30. The MEQ-30 was designed and validated for psychedelic mystical experiences, whereas the MEQ-25 was designed for non-psychedelic mystical experiences. So, if you had an altered state of consciousness that you are trying to understand, but you were not under the influence of psychedelics at the time, the MEQ-25 is the questionnaire for you.
Mystical Experiences
Mystical experiences are a special type of altered state of consciousness and most often happen under the influence of psychedelics, in nature, and during various spiritual practices, from reading spiritual literature to doing breathwork and meditation and all sorts of other practices.
The triggers for a mystical experience are far and wide and not limited to those mentioned above.
For more about mystical experience, see my main page on mystical experiences.
Development of the MEQ-25
Despite the MEQ-30 being developed for psychedelic experiences, it was frequently used for researching non-psychedelic mystical experiences and even comparing both psychedelic and non-psychedelic experiences. But no one really knew if it was appropriate for measuring non-psychedelic experiences; they just assumed it was.
So, I did the research and discovered that it wasn’t the best measure for non-psychedelic experiences, so I developed the MEQ-25 and published it in 2023 in the peer-reviewed journal Consciousness, Spirituality, and Transpersonal Psychology. You can read my research here.
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