The antecedents of ‘kensho’ spiritual awakenings: A mixed methods approach
The purpose of this research is to understand:
(1) the categories and themes that emerge in interviews with individuals who have experienced ‘kensho’ spiritual awakenings and
(2) the various combinations of antecedents that can lead to kensho spiritual awakenings.
In the first phase of this research, I use a qualitative methodology to assess the themes that emerge in conversations with 13 individuals who have experienced a kensho spiritual awakening at a retreat centre located in Canada. The main categories that emerged from my interviews include: dark night of the soul, prior awakenings, childhood spiritual experiences, constantly seeking something greater, trauma, and the role of the ego. From these results, I conducted a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and found that the input variables that were the most important antecedents to kensho spiritual awakenings were: prior awakenings, childhood spiritual experiences, and a career in spiritual healing. The main contribution to knowledge of this research is providing a preliminary model for kensho spiritual awakenings.
Bio
Dr. Jeffrey Overall is a professor of conscious economics and entrepreneurship. He studies the link between consciousness and: mental health, optimum performance, increased productivity, sustainability, business ethics, financial performance, wakefulness, mysticism, and spirituality. With his expertise in strategic management, he has also studied the causes of entrepreneurial and organizational success and failure. He has nearly 50 publications with 25 of these in peer-reviewed academic journals. He is the author of the recently published Capitalist Buddha: Waking up to Conscious Economics that is available through Amazon. He has 25 years of experience working directly with entrepreneurs within start-ups, incubators, and SMEs across various sectors and countries. He is the president and co-founder of the Global Institute for Conscious Economics – a forum dedicated to awakening business leaders to the benefits of consciousness. He has consulted on various research projects including: the Government of Canada through the Ministry of Women and Gender Equality, the National Health Service in Britain, The Boston Consulting Group, the Samadhi Centre, among others. Combined with his expert knowledge of entrepreneurship, strategic management, and modern mysticism, Dr. Overall is an intuitive business practitioner providing entrepreneurs and corporations with traditional consulting services combined with metaphysical healing modalities, like: palmistry, cardology, astrology, energetic analyses, and intuition to recognize opportunities and solve problems. He heals and transforms businesses to optimize their performance using a variety of medicines. Dr. Overall has been an academic for over a decade. He was a tenured professor at Ontario Tech University in Canada. Before that, he held professorships at Nipissing University in Canada, Ryerson University in Canada, and Leibniz Universität Hannover in Germany. He taught at the St. Petersburg Polytechinical University in Russia and the University of Bradford School of Management in Britain.
