If you’re one of the thousands of people who have experienced the unexplainable – a near death experience, an out of body moment, a vision, or other extraordinary phenomena that has changed your life – then you know that it can be difficult to share that experience with others, or even fully understand it your self. Fortunately, there are resources now that can help. One of the best is ACISTE, the American Center for the Integration of Spiritually Transformative Experiences.

This website, established in 2009, offers articles, research, and access to counselors as well as several forums for answering questions and receiving support from others who have had similar experiences.

From their website we read: “Our mission is to address the integration needs and further the well-being of those who have had near-death or similar spiritually transformative experiences through research, education and support. Our vision is to create safe, readily accessible programs that facilitate experiencers on their paths to deeper understanding, greater clarity of purpose and greater sense of well-being while supporting them through their dramatic changes and integration phases.”

Dr. Paul Bernstein, one of the advisory board members for ACISTE, has written extensively about the value of STEs and their importance for science.  He is a researcher, writer and activist in two pathways: extending formal science to include realities of transcendental experience, and uncovering and applying humane and democratic forms of politics. Dr. Bernstein has personally explored spiritually transformative experiences through meditation, training in mediumship, the Findhorn spiritual community, est, the Silva program, yoga, Tai Chi, transpersonal psychology, and dolphin-interaction programs. With other scientists his ongoing work is to help expand science’s understanding of the relationships between consciousness and matter, and between ‘subjective’ experience and ‘objective’ events. He is a researcher, writer and activist extending formal science to include realities of transcendental experience.

See also: The Archive of Scientists’ Transcendental Experiences