Reflections on Museums and Transcendence

Lois H. Silverman

For more than three decades, I have enjoyed a rewarding career as a museologist engaged in the scientific study of museums.  I specialize in the use of social science methods to describe and understand people’s experiences in museums, which are more varied than mainstream science might suggest. Learning of my research, people often ask me which museums I think are “the best.” I always answer by describing museums in which I have had what I now call a transcendent experience: where I interacted with a museum space, object, and/or other people in a deep way that moved me past my concerns of the day, no matter how big they were, to a very different state of mind. And somehow, mysteriously, I felt changed.

For example, I often rave about the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore because my first time there, I was reeling from the loss of someone I loved – and viewing an exhibit of otherworldly works by self-taught artists coping with addiction reminded me that it is human to struggle and strive toward healing. I often rave about the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History in Vilnius, Lithuania. Not just because I had ancestors who perished in the Holocaust and this museum, in essence tells their story, but because there I gained a deep appreciation for the elderly Holocaust survivors and the young Lithuanian activists who, despite differences, worked side by side.  Other times, I’m back in the dark exhibit halls of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. There, as a child on a school trip, the intense lighting on the brilliant gems and meteorites transported me to a world of awe and sparked a host of new questions about the universe that I asked my teacher and my parents.

To be sure, I couldn’t agree more with anthropologist Nelson Graburn’s observation, made back in 1977, that a museum can meet the human need for “a personal experience with something higher, more sacred, and out-of-the-ordinary than home and work are able to supply” (p. 3). Surprisingly, museologists tend to consider these to be anomalous museum experiences, at least in comparison to far more typical museum visit outcomes, like acquiring new knowledge or enjoying quality time with family or friends. For years,  I’ve been trying to explain this other potential of museums, and why it matters so much. In my early research, I wrote about visitor meaning-making and, in 2002, called it “magic”—museum “moments [that] just seem to defy explanation, as if something unseen is truly at work” (p. 7).  In 2015, I was inspired when The American Alliance of Museums  introduced  their annual conference theme, “The Social Value of Museums: Inspiring Change,” with the bold statement that “from their origins, museums have continually evolved to nurture and sustain the human spirit.” Since then, I’ve turned my attention to substantiating that claim. To my mind, the concept of transcendence offers invaluable lenses.

Museums, like human beings, have two sides –  factual and
emotional, rational and non-rational, scientific and magical

Why on earth am I talking about things like “transcendence” and “the human spirit” in relation to museums’ social value? I see at least three major reasons. First, the seemingly personal phenomenon called transcendence, in fact, relates in concrete and profound ways to our social selves, our relationships, and the state of our world.  Secondly, as museums increasingly aim to promote social justice (e.g., Sandell, 2002) and support human diversity (e.g., Betsch et al., 2019), spiritual diversity must be part of their efforts. Third, museums, like human beings, have two sides –  factual and emotional, rational and non-rational, scientific and magical –and I believe the museum field is long overdue for a more integrated approach in its work.  So, in this short meditation, I’d like to do two things: 1) present three views on transcendence gleaned from various fields; and 2) reflect a bit on where museums are realizing, as well as falling short of their remarkable potential to understand, engage, and serve “the human spirit.”

What is Transcendence? 

In popular use, transcendence generally refers to “going beyond” usual limits or ordinary experience; it is a state of being and a human ability.  In The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint of the Human Spirit, Joseph Chilton Pearce defines transcendence as both a biological fact and a human need (2004). Our brains are hard-wired to reach beyond the limitations and challenges we face, to outgrow our former selves, and to even get beyond ourselves by connecting with others.  So, for example, individual or self–transcendence can happen in an art museum when a person struggling with grief views an exhibit of work by others coping with their challenges, and it inspires her to pick up the pieces and carry on.

Secondly, transcendence is also a social issue: it often requires interaction with others and has consequences for the groups in which we live, including society itself.  For example, as the media shows us –  all too often these days – transcendence is what we do, especially following natural or human-made disaster. Facing collective challenges, people rally and act together, we help each other, and we work to rebuild.  According to social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, transcendence involves a deeply good feeling of losing your sense of separateness as you become part of something much larger (2012).  Even our options for transcendence involve and affect society.  Some people find transcendence in playing or watching sports, or doing service, or as Haidt points out, in religion, war, or terrorism.  So, for example, collective or social transcendence is what’s supported in a cultural history museum when it offers people of different backgrounds a chance to work together on a shared challenge, like how to tell a difficult chapter in a country’s history to future generations.

Last but not least, transcendence involves the metaphysical. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines this as “of or relating to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses” (2023), from states of consciousness to spiritual beings.  Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl saw transcendence as the deepest meaning-making, of humanity’s biggest mysteries, like the purpose of life, human existence, and God (1985).  Others view this as spirituality, or the different beliefs and practices about the unseen found in nearly every culture.  And so, for example, what we might call material transcendence, or going beyond the visible and physical, happens in a natural history museum when those beautiful gems and meteorites prompt a young child to consider her place in the universe and discuss this with others.

In sum, there are three kinds of transcendence that museums can foster:  self-transcendence, collective transcendence, and material transcendence. Can museums really do all this? If transcendence is a biological fact and a human need; a social issue; and a source of deepest meaning, then this is how museums can “nurture and sustain the human spirit.”  How are museums doing at it? Let’s take stock.

Museums and Transcendence: Taking Stock

Museums have long been focused on and effective at fostering visitors’ self-transcendence, through their educational missions and their growing engagement with people in a variety of life circumstances. As research demonstrates, museums can change individuals’ skills, knowledge,  attitudes, behavior, condition, and life status (Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2023).  And, as museums have increasingly turned to more intentionally social agendas (e.g. Silverman, 2010), they’re finding they can help people transcend egotism, practice empathy, and connect meaningfully with others. Some good examples are art tours for people with dementia and their caregivers, like those pioneered at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and educational  programs that bring so-called enemies together, like the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Ireland uniting Catholic and Protestant children.  Museums also help people evolve new selves through skill-building and career development initiatives, like those for teens at the Cleveland Botanical Garden and for veterans seeking to re-engage in civilian life offered by the Rubin Museum in New York.

Fueled by pressing social issues and political divides both before and throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the museum field has turned much attention to visitors’ collective transcendence. Places like the Missouri History Museum and the Anacostia Community Museum in Washington, DC, work to build and sustain group engagement around social problems, offer safe spaces, and respond to urgent needs. Institutions like the National Museum of African American History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have become important models of collaboration with community, legal, and judicial institutions to help foster change in societal systems.  Still, other museums, like those that constitute the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, work across continents to confront global issues. While it is challenging to document visitors’ collective transcendence, smart evaluation experts are making important inroads. 

To be sure, I’m most intrigued by the third realm, material transcendence. Are museums doing this, too? Well, they’ve always been places where people may contemplate, imagine, and question things that can’t be perceived with the five senses, including the past and the future. This happens naturally for many visitors, while others are inspired to wonder and awe by impressive museum architecture or exhibit design. Clearly, some objects and entire museums easily evoke life’s big questions, like those of great beauty or deplorable injustice.

Global studies by the Pew Research Center document that many people worldwide view spirituality and religion as two very different things, and some describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious” (e.g., Lipka and Gecewicz, 2017; Pew Research Center, 2018). According to research by the Fetzer Institute, many people are seeking transcendence outside of houses of worship, and as a result, “religious and spiritual innovation is emerging in surprising places” (Scheidt and Campbell, 2021, p. 3). To my mind, museums seem ripe for the job.

In addition, the social work field makes clear a hugely compelling point: material transcendence is often the key that unlocks both self transcendence and collective transcendence. In other words, how we relate to those things that can’t be seen can play a pivotal role in our abilities to deal with and transcend individual and societal challenges. For example, some measurement scales used globally to gauge the construct known as “quality of life,” like that of the World Health Organization, include questions about spirituality, while several arenas of social work practice, like end-of-life care, routinely assess clients’ spiritual resources because they are important in so many cultures (Callahan, 2017). And nothing better exemplifies  the role of spirituality in social change than the work of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., the Dalai Lama, and many other Nobel Peace Prize winners. They offered the world spiritually-informed approaches to profound collective challenges.

But even more than research, I’m excited by the growing number of museums in pockets around the world that are working to foster material transcendence for visitors, whether they call it this or not. What are they doing?

First, despite the challenges, some museums do address religion – or, specific organized systems of particular beliefs and practices. For example, St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art in Glasgow has long worked with people of diverse faiths, or none, to interpret differences as well as common ground among religions and worldviews. As religious conflicts continue to fuel unspeakable violence in the world, fostering understanding and acceptance of religious diversity is critical work for museums.

Museums are also creating opportunities for visitors to experience altered states of
consciousness, from the growing trend of yoga in the galleries to meditation programs to the use of contemplative education principles in museum education.

Secondly, some museums engage what scholar Christopher Meehan has called “secular spirituality,” or the search “to find meaning and purpose in universal human experience rather than religious experience per se” (2002, p. 292). My favorite example of this is the Museum of Broken Relationships, a brick-and-mortar site in Croatia and travelling exhibit initiative that has been hosted in over 33 countries to date – and by many accounts, indeed fosters transcendence through the remarkably universal experience of ended relationships.

Third, museums are also creating opportunities for visitors to experience altered states of consciousness, from the growing trend of yoga in the galleries to meditation programs to the use of contemplative education principles in museum education.  I haven’t yet scored a ticket, but I’d love to take part in the DreamOver at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York. For one night, participants get to sleep under a work of art, and the next morning, they talk about the unconscious, their dreams, and what they might mean with a psychoanalyst and a Buddhist teacher. The event is always a sell-out.

Last but most auspiciously, many new projects and museums are forming around explicitly metaphysical collections and missions.  For example, CoSM, The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors in Wappinger New York, is both a permanent public exhibition of the visionary art of Alex and Alyson Grey, and a “place of contemplation & worship for community honoring the practice of art as a spiritual path” (CoSM, 2023). I’m especially heartened by the recent plethora of museum exhibitions around the world that directly and respectfully address the subjects of magic, the supernatural, and the occult (Tully, 2021).  From displays of objects used by Spiritualist mediums to communicate with the deceased to art inspired by supernatural beings, museums have a critical role to play in the metaphysical education of the world.

To this end, the science of museology itself can go beyond its own limitations by embracing metaphysical perspectives. In so doing, transcendent experiences in museums, like mine and many others, become much more than anomalies. Viewed through metaphysical lenses, they gain significance as meaningful experiences of, for example, clairvoyance in the Visionary Art Museum, spirit communication in the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History, or perhaps even an alien encounter in the American Museum of Natural History. Such experiences suggest the need for an occult museology, a frontier exploration of the unseen dimensions of museums that just may offer a radical revisioning of the relationship between “museums and the human spirit.” Overall, the lenses of transcendence provide an integrated way to advance museums’ evolving social and spiritual value. To my mind, material transcendence, in particular, beckons us toward an exciting new museological endeavor that will further expand our understanding of museums and their vast potential.

Author’s Biography

 Lois H. Silverman, Ph.D., MSW, is Professor of Museum Studies, Public Scholar of Museum Education, and Director of Graduate Studies for the Museum Studies Program at Indiana University-Indianapolis. A longtime museologist, visitor studies specialist, and museum consultant, she is the author of The Social Work of Museums (Routledge, 2010) and the forthcoming chapter entitled “On Museums, Transcendence, and Magic” in Flourishing in Museums (Routledge, 2023), among many publications. Her current interests include the spiritual potential of museums, including the intersection of museums, magic, and spiritualism.

References

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Frankl, V. E. (1985). Man’s search for meaning. Simon and Schuster.

Graburn, N. (1977). The museum and the visitor experience. Roundtable Reports, 1–5. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4047931

Haidt, J. (2012). Religion, evolution, and the ecstasy of self-transcendence. TED Conferences.https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_religion_evolution_and_the_ecstasy_of_self_transcendence?autoplay=true&muted=true/

Institute of Museum and Library Services. (2023). Outcome based evaluation basics. Retrieved November 18, 2023, from https://www.imls.gov/grants/outcome-based-evaluation/basics

Lipka, M. & Gecewicz, C. (2017, September 6). More Americans now say they’re spiritual but not religious. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/09/06/more-americans-now-say-theyre-spiritual-but-not-religious/

Meehan, C. (2002). Resolving the confusion in the spiritual development debate. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 7(3), 291-308.    

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Sandell, R. (Ed.). (2002). Museums, society, inequality. Routledge.

Scheidt, M. & Campbell, M. (2021). Sharing spiritual heritage Convening, dialogue, and field building: A report from the Fetzer Institute. The Fetzer Institute. https://fetzer.org/sites/default/files/2021-10/FI_SSH%20Report%20OCT05%202021.pdf

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Silverman, L.H. (2010). The social work of museums. Routledge.

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