Introduction

There are notable similarities between scientific and religious belief systems. In complementary ways, both seek a human—that is, rational—way to experience and engage with the mysteries at or even beyond the edges of the natural, sensory world as it is. Moreover, many scientists approach their work as they would a religion, adopting both the good and bad of structured systems of belief (Maslow 1965). Whilst some have traditionally resisted such analogy, others have made it an explicit confluence, arguing that transcendence, the “elevation or extension beyond ordinary limits” (Oxford English Dictionary, n.d., under “transcendence”), is what keeps both science and religion seeking not only answers but also more, deeper questions (Heller 1997; Nicoli, Sbalchiero, and Vaidyanathan 2025a, 2025b).

The transcendent sense of wonder, then, emerges as a critical theme in understanding whether and how science and religion can coexist. The ancient Greek philosophers saw wonder as the starting point for all enquiry (Aristotle 2001, 982b; Plato 1988, 155d). Wonder, historically associated with active curiosity and enquiry, serves as a guiding force—with links to personality, emotion, and wellbeing (Jacobi et al. 2022; Varga et al. 2023)—in helping individuals pursue new knowledge and fill existing gaps by fueling individual yearning and deliberate searching for unknown information, especially in the presence of feelings of interest and deprivation (Kashdan et al. 2018; Ryakhovskaya et al. 2022; Valdesolo et al. 2017).

From the Enlightenment onward, the image of the scientist became increasingly entangled with broader processes of rationalization in Western modernity. Max Weber (2004, 12–17) famously described modernity as marked by “disenchantment,” a condition in which the world becomes calculable and subject to technical control rather than sacred mystery. Within this framework, science emerged not merely as a method of enquiry but as a paradigmatic expression of rationalization itself, privileging formal coherence, empirical verification, and methodological discipline over metaphysical speculation. This intellectual trajectory was further reinforced in the early twentieth century by logical empiricism. Hans Reichenbach (1956) articulated a vision of scientific philosophy grounded in logical clarity and empirical testability, explicitly distancing scientific knowledge from metaphysical and theological claims. In such accounts, the separation of science and such “aesthetic” notions of wonder were increasingly separated in the pursuit of pure rationalism (Reichenbach 1956), leading to the endurance of the image of the scientist who is as purely rational and secular as his¹ scientific instruments. More broadly, Charles Taylor (2007, 539–93) describes contemporary Western societies as inhabiting a “disenchanted age,” in which belief in transcendence is no longer socially axiomatic but has become one option among others within what he terms the “immanent frame.” Science, in this context, functions as a central institution of that immanent frame, symbolizing epistemic restraint and methodological naturalism. As a result, the modern scientist is frequently imagined as the emblem of secular rationality: analytical, objective, and detached from transcendent commitments (Weber 2004; Taylor 2007).

This historical consolidation of science and rationalization has shaped enduring expectations about the relationship between scientific practice and transcendence. If science is institutionally aligned with disenchantment, then transcendent experience appears, at least prima facie, to stand in tension with scientific enquiry. It is precisely this assumed tension that our study seeks to examine empirically. Rather than presupposing either conflict or integration, we investigate how scientists themselves articulate experiences they describe as transcendent and how these accounts interact with inherited narratives of secularization and rationalization.

After this historical consolidation of science and rationalization, modern science continues to be widely perceived as a rational, methodical, analytical, and objective endeavor, characteristically devoid of spiritual overtones and resistant to emotion, aesthetics, and transcendence (Gane 2004; Weber 2004, 12). The ideal of scientific objectivity, which underpins the legitimacy of science, privileges scientific claims that are “untainted” by personal beliefs, values, and interests (Reiss and Sprenger 2020; Yamamoto 2012). Discussions of the institutional imperatives that govern modern academic science (Merton 1973) as well as empirical research on public perceptions of scientists (B. B. Johnson and Dieckmann 2020; Long and Steinke 1996; Weingart et al. 2003) often suggest a mode of operation bereft of personal commitments or emotional—let alone transcendent—experiences. Such perceptions have even led in some cases to an intuitive bias stereotyping scientists as valuing knowledge over morality (Rutjens and Heine 2016). Science, and the scientist,” are therefore typically perceived to be among the vanguard of what many have described as a rising tide of secularization within a broader disenchanted age (Nicoli, Sbalchiero, and Vaidyanathan 2025a; Taylor 2007).

By turning the very same “secularizing” methodical and analytical lens on modern scientists themselves, however, a more nuanced picture emerges. Scientists can and do express and engage with affect and aesthetics in their work (Jacobi et al. 2024), and they also endorse forms of spirituality and resonate with ideas of enchantment (Nicoli, Sbalchiero, and Vaidyanathan 2025b). Many even readily identify as formally religious (Ecklund et al. 2019). Scientists are thus an understudied but important (perhaps the most important) population in which to study the manifold interactions of the supposedly “secularizing wave” of science with the complex human religious and moral convictions of the individuals whose experiences of the transcendent cut across the religious, spiritual, and “nones” alike (Vernon 1968; Silver et al. 2014; Van Mulukom et al. 2023).

Much of the literature has treated science and spirituality as separate, even antagonistic, domains. Responding to this observation, Thomas F. Gieryn (1983) coined the term “boundary work” to describe how scientists demarcate science from nonscience to protect epistemic authority. We propose a more complex form of boundary work wherein scientists combine rather than strictly separate scientific and spiritual spheres. Within this framework, moments of transcendence do not simply negotiate lines of separation; they create hybrid spaces where empirical reasoning and existential reflection coexist. Deepening this insight, Sorrell and Ecklund (2019) explore how scientists legitimize both science and religion through dynamic boundary strategies. Other researchers have demonstrated that whilst analytic thinking can diminish religious belief (Shenhav et al. 2012; Gervais and Norenzayan 2012), self-transcendent affective experiences in response to awe-inspiring science content can increase belief in God (Johnson et al. 2019a), just as calling to mind spiritual experiences can evoke awe in the religious and nonreligious alike (Preston and Shin 2017). More recently, Khalsa and colleagues (2022) showed how sacred and secular realms overlap in scientific settings, while Bigliardi (2023) has examined how many new religious movements co-opt aspects of science and scientific language, complicating binary distinctions. Boundary work in this context suggests that transcendence among scientists is not reducible to either secular rationality or religious tradition but often emerges in their interplay.

An important distinction for our framework is between awe and wonder. Awe (as aesthetic affect) is a receptive state characterized by the perception of vastness, the need for accommodation, and accompanying feelings of humility and smallness of self that might overwhelm rather than stimulate analytic searching (Keltner and Haidt 2003; Keltner 2023). Wonder (as epistemic cognition) is an active stance of enquiry and engagement fueled by the desire to understand (Keil 2022; Darbor et al. 2016), often in response to stimuli defying accommodation. Underscoring the diverse ways transcendence can be articulated (Darbor et al. 2016), awe and wonder respectively account for encounter and enlightenment, the aesthetic and epistemic, and the affective and cognitive aspects of transcendent experiences, just as transcendence itself is best conceived as an umbrella experiential category that can be accessed through either or both of these modalities depending on the content and context of the experience (Varga 2021).

Contemporary discussions reinforce the distinction: while awe can inspire transcendence through emotional intensity, wonder and its related states (e.g., curiosity) function as ongoing epistemic drivers of exploration and meaning-making (Kashdan et al. 2018; Ryakhovskaya et al. 2022; Jacobi et al. 2024; Valdesolo et al. 2017). In other words, awe is concerned with observing and experiencing the world, and wonder is related to understanding it (Darbor et al. 2016; Keil 2022). As Petersen (2025) observes, scientific contexts often skew toward wonder, framing it as a motivating force for conservation, poetics, or ritual, while awe remains underexplored in these same contexts. We argue that awe appears to be especially implicated in scientific work, where it has been associated with interest in science and spirituality of science as well as associated scientific learning, meaningfulness, and wellbeing (Preston et al. 2023; Varga et al. 2023; Cuzzolino 2021; Valdesolo et al. 2017, 2016). Recognizing awe and wonder as distinct but interrelated constructs allows us to clarify how scientists describe transcendence: sometimes as a sudden, overwhelming affective rupture (awe), and at other times as a sustained, inquisitive engagement with mystery (wonder).

We propose that the contrast between a more active, approach-motivated wonder that gives way to awe and passive contemplation (McDougall 1921; Darbor et al. 2016) reveals much about the dynamics and modalities of transcendence more generally. Scientific practice is frequently associated with active, methodical analysis: careful observation, measurement, and explanation. Yet, thus far overlooked in the literature is a passive, meditative dimension—moments when methodical observation gives way to contemplation, absorption, or surrender. Consistent with the aforementioned distinction of wonder and awe, this contrast has precedents in the Thomistic distinctions between the discursive (reasoning) and contemplative (intuitive) modes of knowing (Aquinas 2018) and the Kantian distinction of beauty and sublimity (Kant 2000). It can also be found in early theories of epistemic emotion (McDougall 1921) and the psychological differentiation of extrovertive and introvertive types of mystical experience (Hood 1975). The relationship between these two modalities for scientists is not oppositional but cyclical: active analysis can unexpectedly open into meditative contemplation, and contemplative states may inspire renewed analytic focus. Recognizing this dialectic is crucial for capturing how transcendence manifests within empirical enquiry. This resonates with Williams’s (2023) analysis of attention, which he conceptualizes not as a purely active focus but as a negotiated process between perceiver and environment. Such an approach highlights how contemplative absorption can emerge precisely from the suspension of methodical analysis, thereby reinforcing the cyclical interplay between analytic effort and meditative receptivity.

This raises the question of whether contemplation is inherently religious or whether it can also be secular—or even something else entirely. Some scientists describe contemplative states in explicitly secular terms, while others employ mystical or spiritual language. The very ambiguity of contemplative discourse highlights its polyvalence: it can signify devotion to the divine, but it can equally describe immersion in scientific practice or artistic beauty. Taken together, these perspectives allow us to frame this study not only as descriptive but also as a theoretical contribution to ongoing debates about “higher experiences.” By identifying how awe, wonder, contemplation, and boundary work intersect in scientists’ accounts, we situate our findings within a broader conversation about transcendence as a human category. The present study thus offers conceptual thickening by clarifying the mechanisms through which such experiences are reported and interpreted. For the scientists in our study, as we will see later, transcendence often arises precisely at the intersection of explanatory clarity and existential openness.

The Present Study

The primary research question driving this study is: How does transcendence fit within the broader context of scientific enquiry and experience? The relationship between science and transcendence is complex and often contested (Heller 1997; Maslow 1965). On one hand, science is frequently seen as a rational, empirical endeavor that leaves little room for the ineffable or the transcendent. Yet, on the other hand, the very act of scientific discovery—of probing the deepest mysteries of the universe, life, and consciousness—can evoke a profound sense of wonder, awe, and even transcendence. This raises a critical tension: Does science suppress transcendence, or does it, in fact, stimulate it through the experiences it generates? Scientific enquiry often produces what might be called a “surplus of meaning” (Pace 2011): discoveries that not only explain but also inspire, pushing the boundaries of human understanding and inviting deeper reflection. Moreover, we must ask whether science can offer a meaningful framework for interpreting transcendence, one that allows individuals to engage with it, whether or not they connect it to religious or spiritual traditions. Could this surplus open new pathways for contemplating transcendence, even within a rigorously empirical worldview? This article explores these questions within a sociological framework, distinguishing among the “religious” (i.e., belonging to a formally organized system or community of belief), “religious but not spiritual” (e.g., “culturally” religious), “spiritual but not religious” (e.g., not participating in organized religious practice), and “neither religious nor spiritual” (i.e., having no religious or spiritual affiliation or affinity) as identified in both preliminary surveys and interviews with scientists. The present study thus explores how science, and the beliefs of scientists, might both constrain and enable transcendent experiences and whether science itself can serve as a bridge between empirical knowledge and the timeless human search for meaning.

Data and Methods

Data were collected from an international study² comprised of 104 in-depth interviews, conducted between November 2023 to May 2024, with biologists and physicists across four countries: India, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These two scientific disciplines were chosen because they seem to access and evoke transcendence in complementary ways. As Ben D. MacArthur (2021, 150) puts it, “while the physicist may see beauty in simplicity, the biologist may see beauty in interconnection, mutuality and complexity.” Similarly, the physicist might experience transcendence in questions of cosmology, fundamental laws, and the nature of reality just as the biologist might experience transcendence in complexity, life processes, and evolutionary narratives. These different perspectives provide a more diverse overview of the two main ways into understanding aesthetic and epistemic considerations in scientists’ transcendent experiences.

To minimize potential bias, the recruitment materials framed the research as an investigation into “the deeper motivations behind scientific work, the experiences scientists find most meaningful, and the challenges they face in achieving fulfilment and connection in their professional and personal lives.” Notably, the term “transcendence” was deliberately omitted to prevent preconceived associations from influencing participation. During the interviews, which lasted between sixty and ninety minutes, participants were guided through reflections on their experiences of connection, or disconnection, with nature, self, others, and any sense of a higher power or divine presence. The discussion also explored themes such as spiritual longing, (dis)enchantment with science, encounters with mystery, and the pursuit of meaning. Rather than focusing on abstract beliefs, the interviewers prioritized concrete narratives, inviting participants to share personal anecdotes that illustrated these dimensions of their lives. Demographic details of the interview sample, including an interviewer-assessed “spiritual identification,” are provided in Table 1.

Spiritual identification was based on how interviewees self-identified during the interview. In some cases, this differed from their earlier survey responses. For analytical consistency, the classifications reported here reflect interview-based identification. Although some variation in spiritual identification appears across national contexts, no single country exclusively drove the thematic clustering identified in the lexical analysis. The patterns observed in the correspondence analysis are distributed across all four countries represented in the sample.

Many respondents identified current or cultural religious affiliations in response to personal history questions. The dataset, however, does not provide collated summary data on religious backgrounds for all respondents. Superficially, there did not seem to be much variation in the way transcendent experiences were discussed, as most of the segments extracted in the present study do not show the use of religion-specific terms.

Our spiritual/religious typology distinguishes four orientations: religious and spiritual (RS), religious but not spiritual (RNS), spiritual but not religious (SBNR), and neither religious nor spiritual (NRNS). Importantly, our data reveal that NRNS is not a homogeneous group; some members resembled SBNR respondents in their openness to transcendent language, while others rejected both religious and spiritual categories altogether. This heterogeneity aligns with Zinnbauer and colleagues (1997), who challenge the conflation of spirituality and religiosity and emphasize the need for analytical clarity in distinguishing these categories. Linda A. Mercadante (2014) further illustrates the internal diversity within SBNR and nonaffiliated groups.

From a methodological point of view, this study employed a two-phase, mixed-methods design, utilizing a sequential exploratory framework (Creswell and Plano Clark 2011) to systematically integrate qualitative and quantitative components. The qualitative phase centered on in-depth interviews (Bryman and Burgess 1994), which, as widely documented in methodological literature (Deterding and Waters 2021; Savin-Baden and Major 2013; Silverman 2006; Strauss and Corbin 1998), frequently yield emergent themes that arise organically rather than in direct response to predetermined questions. A notable characteristic of this dynamic was participants’ tendency to introduce topics slated for later discussion early in the conversation, demonstrating the fluid nature of qualitative interviewing and emphasizing the need for methodological adaptability. Consequently, by following verbatim transcription and quality verification, all interview transcripts and accompanying field notes were imported into ATLAS.ti for qualitative analysis. The analytic process involved constant comparative analysis, with researchers moving iteratively between raw interview data, reflective field diaries, and systematic content examination. To manage the substantial qualitative dataset, we implemented a multi-stage coding approach: an initial “broad bucket” coding strategy facilitated the capture of both expected and spontaneously arising themes, while subsequent rounds of analysis refined these categories. This systematic yet flexible approach enabled effective data reduction while preserving the richness of participants’ narratives. Our analysis focuses on the “transcendence” code, a thematic category comprising textual excerpts and narrative passages that referred to transcendent experiences. This code was constructed by capturing respondents’ descriptions of moments that surpassed ordinary perception, whether through awe, sudden insight, or profound emotional and cognitive shifts. The lexical patterns within this corpus, as we will see later, reveal recurring keywords (such as “encounter,” “wow,” “amazing,” “sheer,” “beauty,” “excitement,” “joy,” “awe,” “profound,” “aware,” “grasp,” “insight,” and “illumination,” among others) that collectively articulate the ineffable yet transformative nature of these experiences, reflecting both the affective intensity (awe, joy) and the epistemic dimension (insight, illumination) of transcendence. The final corpus consists of 581 portions of text labelled with the “transcendence” code, ensuring analytical rigor through systematic categorization while preserving the richness of individual narratives. The 581 coded text segments were distributed across key demographic variables, with female scientists contributing 232 segments and male scientists 349 segments. Geographically, the segments were distributed across all four national contexts: India (93 segments), Italy (123 segments), the United Kingdom (186 segments), and the United States (179 segments). Disciplinary representation showed a similar balance, with biologists contributing 296 segments and physicists 285 segments, reflecting comparable engagement with themes of transcendence across these scientific fields.

Our analysis of the 581 text segments coded as “transcendence” employed computational topic detection to identify latent thematic patterns. We utilized Reinert’s (1983) hierarchical classification algorithm as implemented in IRaMuTeQ (Ratinaud 2014), a text analysis software built on the R platform. This method proved particularly effective for revealing what Reinert (1993) conceptualizes as “lexical worlds,” i.e., topics with distinct vocabularies that emerge as interpretable latent dimensions within textual data. The analytical process (Sbalchiero 2018) began with preprocessing our corpus of 581 elementary context units: the algorithm first constructed a word-by-unit contingency matrix to map lexical co-occurrences, then performed successive correspondence analyses (Greenacre 2007; Lebart, Morineau, and Warwick 1984) combined with χ²-based hierarchical clustering (Reinert 1983) to group elementary context units into semantically coherent topics. For our specific research objectives, we examined how these topics correlated with participants› spiritual identifications. This “who says what” approach allowed us to identify significant associations between particular semantic classes and religious/spiritual orientations through χ²-based analysis: if a topic was discussed more by scientists who identified as religious (or spiritual or none), then the positive differences and the threshold for the significance of χ² indicated an association between that identification and the topic. The final output organized the textual material into interpretable semantic classes, each characterized by distinctive lexical patterns that we analyzed in relation to their most representative textual excerpts, as discussed in subsequent sections.

Although the hierarchical classification algorithm identified statistically coherent lexical classes, interpretation did not proceed mechanically from statistical output. Following the identification of lexical classes, we returned to full interview transcripts and representative excerpts within each class, engaging in iterative qualitative analysis. This process involved close reading, contextual comparison across cases, and theoretical refinement of emerging patterns. Thus, while computational procedures structured the corpus and revealed statistically significant lexical oppositions, the substantive interpretation of transcendence was grounded in qualitative analysis of narrative context. The automated and qualitative components were therefore analytically integrated rather than sequentially isolated.

Results

Our text analysis of the segments coded as “transcendence” revealed two predominant thematic clusters, separated along the vertical axis of the graph (Figure 1). Each cluster reflects a distinct conceptualization of transcendence that correlates with scientists’ self-reported spiritual and religious orientations. In the main factorial plane, Factor 1 captures the principal opposition in lexical distribution and corresponds to statistically significant χ² associations with spiritual identification. The left quadrants are predominantly associated with scientists identifying as SBNR or NRNS, whereas the right quadrants are predominantly associated with RS or RNS scientists. The figure thus visualizes the primary dimension of differentiation in the corpus. Factor 2 accounts for substantially less inertia and does not correspond to a stable or theoretically interpretable differentiation across spiritual identification or other demographic variables. For this reason, it is not central to our analysis, which focuses on the principal dimension of opposition represented by Factor 1.

Figure 1: Correspondence analysis (main factorial plane) of the lexical classes identified in the corpus coded as “transcendence.” Factor (facteur) 1 represents the principal dimension of opposition in the data, differentiating predominantly nonreligious (SBNR, NRNS) orientations in the left (negative) quadrants and religious (RS, RNS) orientations in the right (positive) quadrants along the x-axis. Factor (facteur) 2 does not correspond to a stable or theoretically interpretable differentiation across spiritual identification or other demographic variables.

Nonreligious Scientists

The first lexical cluster, predominantly associated (by χ² association) with nonreligious orientations (SBNR and NRNS), reveals a distinctive configuration of transcendence grounded in empirical engagement and first-person experiential meaning-making. For example, an Italian physicist, Francesco,³ told us, “I abandoned religion, but I did not abandon the spirituality that is rooted in the universe.” These respondents articulate transcendence not as a fixed set of beliefs but as an evolving, deeply personal journey of existential enquiry. Their narratives consistently framed transcendent experiences through the lens of direct engagement with the natural world, using language that emphasizes active searching (“desire,” “search,” “elsewhere”) and embodied awareness (“sense,” “connection,” “yourself”). Natural observation, encompassing empirical practice and the scientific mindset, thus emerged as an unexpected conduit for transcendent experiences. This phenomenon manifested most vividly in what we might term “empirical awe”: those moments where methodological observation unexpectedly transforms into profound epistemic-emotional encounters. Francesco went on to recount:

I often experience this deep connection with the universe as something that transcends us . . . This is something transcendental with respect to the materialistic view that is a requisite for science. I have noticed it both in my research about the infinitely small— I mean work with microscopes that allow us to see molecules or even simply study a cell, visualize it, understand what processes have modified that cell. This leads me to see something more transcendent because I can relate the features of that cell to those of an organ where it has a function, and then the organ in an organism, the organism in an individual which eventually cannot live without a society that therefore we could consider as a superorganism. So seeing all these levels connected to each other leads to a vision that I perceive as transcendent compared to the tiny reality that I am actually observing (IT-P-M-SBNR-8977).⁴

The lexical patterns (Figure 2) of these interviews reveal a fascinating dynamic where predominantly nonreligious scientists consistently coupled objective terminology (“nature,” “cosmos,” “observation”) with deeply affective language (“desire,” “purpose”). This linguistic interplay points to what might be called reflexive/contemplative transcendence—an ongoing cycle where one’s mode of observation, whether within rigorous scientific practice or everyday life, simultaneously generates and interprets transcendent experiences. Unlike institutionalized religious frameworks, this phenomenon resists rigid doctrinal systems, favors fluid metaphorical expression over fixed metaphysical claims, and remains firmly rooted in first-person experiential meaning-making.

Figure 2: Co-occurrences of words associated with transcendence among nonreligious scientists (SBNR and NRNS).

The data suggest these scientists have developed a unique orientation where transcendence emerges not from received wisdom but from the very act of disciplined looking—where the observer’s sustained engagement with the natural world becomes both the source and the lens through which profound connections are revealed and understood. For example, an Italian biologist, Serafina, told us, “I did two years of preparation for confirmation. I tried hard to believe but couldn’t. Now I don’t feel the need to explore something immaterial, transcendent. I already consider human emotion and human thinking to be transcendent—something that emerges from matter and has an independent meaning, a life of its own. I am not attracted to looking for something more” (IT-B-F-N-6070). Such an approach to the transcendent in science creates a distinctive epistemological position that honors empirical grounding while making space for moments of awe and wonder that arise organically through the observational process itself.

Whilst traditional religious frameworks often ground transcendence in communal rituals and historical revelation (Alcorta and Sosis 2005; Durkheim 1912; Torrance 1994), these scientists articulated transcendence as an emergent property of personal—and scientific—engagement, a distinction that becomes particularly evident when comparing lexical patterns across clusters. “That’s a Spinozian kind of spirituality, very dominated by rationality, by the laws of nature . . . Even if I have a secular vision, I don’t ask myself if God exists or not. I have an ethical law within that leads me to do good, but I don’t have faith in any religion designed by human beings. Yet, in a transcendent entity, I admit we can conceive some entity that transcends our reality . . . I think that there must be a deep connection with something transcendent,” Francesco told us, going on to cite the physicist David Bohm as an example, “He had a very holistic vision of physics that led him to embrace concepts from Vedas, Buddhism, and Hinduism. The idea of consciousness in Hinduism, for example, is very significant for all scientists who are engaged in understanding the origin of consciousness. It makes you realize that it had already grasped some extremely important aspects that researchers are facing today” (IT-P-M-SBNR-8977). As seen in these cases, at the interpretation level, the data reveal a consistent inverse relationship between appeals to institutional authority and references to empirically triggered transcendent experiences, suggesting fundamentally different phenomenological foundations for transcendence across these groups. Among nonreligious scientists, references to transcendence often drew—sometimes implicitly—on ancient traditions. One respondent cited Vedic and Buddhist concepts when reflecting on consciousness, noting how these traditions anticipated issues modern science continues to confront. This suggests that even self-identified secular scientists may reproduce patterns of thought shaped by ancient religious and philosophical cultures, whether consciously or not.

In this regard, the thematic cluster correlating with nonreligious scientists also reveals a nuanced phenomenology of transcendence that occupies a conceptual middle ground between spiritual frameworks and secular scientific rationality by articulating an aspect of transcendence that emerges through empirical engagement with the natural world. Central to these accounts is what we can term contemplative empiricism, a paradoxical fusion of methodical observation and meditative awareness. Scientists described how specific natural places, for example, become sites of revelation where routine research unexpectedly deepens into transcendent experience. Hashir, a British physicist, told us:

When you’re at the telescopes, it’s an amazing environment . . . These places you go to, I mean, Hawai‘i or the Canary Islands or Chile, they are these incredible places. And it’s the sheer physical beauty, I think you would say, immediately that hits you. And then there’s the beauty of the night sky because it’s completely unpolluted . . . You go there and you see the Milky Way and all the various other phenomena . . . When I’m there I really try to immerse myself in the physical environment. So, not just the nighttime environment and not just the telescope environment, but I really try to get out and explore and really get a sense of being in one specific place on Earth. Which is somewhat ironic because work is about looking completely away from Earth. But for me, that’s kind of an important part. So I am vaguely involved in some space telescope instrumentation. But for me, it doesn’t hold nearly as much excitement or joy. And it’s more of a technical procedure to go through. (UK-P-M-SBNR-15587)

Others, such as Harvey, compared transcendent experiences in their scientific work to striking encounters with natural world:

The causal correlation between this thing—this electron in diamond—it’s a nanoscale little thing that has a photon that comes out, and that photon goes through an optical path, and then that hits a diode. That diode sends a signal into an intellect digital converter, and that goes into my computer, that then goes into my monitor, that goes into my eye. And that’s just like, in the same way that I think when someone sees a beautiful mountain or something like that—it’s truly transcendent in that way sometimes. (US-P-M-RS-23869)

Recurrent references like these to specific “landscapes,” “sites,” or “observations” tied to vivid geographic or sensory details and, moreover, the paradoxical language that is simultaneously scientific (e.g., “measurement,” “data”) and contemplative (e.g., “wonderful,” “pause”) underline this cluster’s hybrid nature, which is neither fully secular nor traditionally religious. Nisha, an Indian biologist, gave this example: “I want the things I cannot explain or the fact when you’ re just sitting on a rock and you’re surrounded by all these little buzzy moving things. This is so intense. I like that. And that feels to me, very sort of transcendent. And I like landscapes . . . We choose our landscapes to study. I do, that are not complex forest. That’ s overwhelming to me. I like ecosystems that are open and vast. And so, rocky hills where I can sit on top of a hill and like see forever. That feels very amazing. And that to me feels very connected to this broader, incredible natural world” (IN-B-F-N-1849). This duality suggests a liminal space where scientific rigor and existential reflection can coexist.

The language of these narratives oscillates revealingly between registers. For example, Farhad, a British physicist, told us, “When I’m sitting there observing the thing that I’m researching—that’s when I really feel that connection to nature. And I feel like, wow, the vastness of nature almost gives me that motivation to carry on my research” (UK-P-M-SBNR-14815). This discursive tension mirrors scientists’ lived reality as both rigorous researchers and awestruck observers. What emerges is neither conventional religious transcendence (mediated through doctrine) nor purely secular empiricism but rather what might be called an empirical sublime, where the very practice of scientific observation, or the encounter with art and beauty, becomes a gateway to existential reflection.

This hybrid positioning became particularly evident in the scientists’ descriptions of temporality during transcendent moments, even extending beyond the scientific context: the world pausing as a landscape revealed deeper meaning, or hours dissolving during a particularly engrossing observation, or when music or art become drivers opening the way to transcendent thought. As, Elliot, described, “I do think probably in my life the most common time when I do feel sort of a transcendent kind of feeling is often in music—if I’m singing, performing. Sometimes an encounter with a work of art, which could be visual art in a museum or could be reading a novel or something. To me, I think I find those transcendent moments come more often in connection with artistic endeavors” (US-P-M-SBNR-21514).

Religious Scientists

The second lexical cluster, predominantly associated with religious orientations (RS and RNS), presents a distinct configuration in which transcendence is articulated within, and often negotiated through, communal faith traditions. These individuals articulated transcendence through a unique integration of faith and scientific worldview, where terms like “transcendence,” “spiritual,” and “religious” consistently appeared alongside “knowledge,” “beauty,” and “awareness” but also in tension with “scientific progress,” “faith,” and conceptual “distinctions” between domains. Two Italian scientists interviewed together, Benedetto (a biologist) and Carlo (a physicist), cited agreement with Werner Heisenberg on the relationship between science and transcendence: “I think that a real scientist is open to the transcendent. Why? Because science moves you away from reality” (IT-B-M-RS-SB1). Others offered different perspectives. For example, Sani: “I won’t say it is God, but maybe some kind of higher authority or power exists—one that guides you always. It’s not just during research or intellectual pursuits; this presence is always above you, offering guidance everywhere” (IN-B-F-RS-SB24) and Mano: “The curiosity of science has to be balanced with the necessity that comes from your religious understanding of the world—it’s the very first important fact that these do have a profound connection. Both of them. Because the thing is that my understanding doesn’t necessarily evolve only from what I learn in a laboratory or in a science textbook. It also evolves with surrounding traditions, culture, religion—what I learn in these aspects of life as well. So basically, they are not completely separate; they exist in harmony” (IN-P-M-RS-3748). This discourse reveals a dual orientation: while transcendence remains anchored in “spiritual” and “religious” frameworks, it does not necessarily require reconciliation with scientific practice (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Co-occurrences of words associated with transcendence among religious scientists (RS and RNS).

Many respondents explicitly maintained separate “realms,” where “faith” operates in one sphere and “scientific knowledge” in another, yet described moments when these domains productively interact. For example, some referenced the “beauty” of natural laws as evidence of divine order, while others framed “scientific progress” as a form of participation in a larger metaphysical truth. Michael described, “[C]onnection with large scale structure I think is kind of self-evident in the reason why I said it was good, because it’s like I’m spreading out my tendrils out into the universe” (US-P-M-RS-23324), whilst Pavel identified an almost spiritual “yearning” for “sort of progress in my understanding of what is going on, first of all. Because I mean, I’m, as a scientific worker, as a writer, I mean, for me, the most important thing is just progress, constant progress towards understanding. And that’s why this is a major thing which makes me happy” (UK-P-M-RS-SB5). Crucially, this cluster showed neither the conflict posited by traditional “science versus religion” narratives nor the seamless integration suggested by mystical perspectives but rather a pragmatic “distinction” that allows both systems to coexist on their own terms—a form of negotiated faith.

Italian biologist Feliciano described his approach to this balance: “I certainly recognize the spiritual dimension precisely as a human trait of openness to the transcendent, and an inner dimension of an inner world that is not only the material one. Similarly, the religious dimension relates to codified, shared, and transmitted faith. In this case, I would say that overall, these are two dimensions that together constitute part of a complete human being” (IT-B-M-RS-SB12). American physicist, Harvey, offered a slightly different framework, prioritizing the sensible world but still leaving room for a transcendent spirituality:

I mean, I think that my spirituality . . . I think that sense of spirituality for me is about a sense of wonder and emotional connection with this world, and not, I think about something beyond this. Because to me, at least, supernatural suggests something that either doesn’t follow the laws of physics or somehow outside of the realm of comprehensive science or something. And to me, that we can have speculative fiction and imagine other kinds of worlds and those sorts of things, those are much less interesting to me, except as, the reason that I enjoy some kinds of science fiction or fantasy is because of what those stories tell about our real world. Fiction is a great way to explore our world. But what really interests me is our world, and people in our world and stories about our world . . . If to you, aesthetic spirituality means spirituality connected with a sense of transcendence, whatever, within our world, then I think I would sign on for that. (US-P-M-RS-23869)

Whereas Cluster 1 revealed a form of reflexive/contemplative transcendence, Cluster 2 showed that religious scientists frequently describe transcendence as grounded in communal traditions yet open to reinterpretation. Faith provides the initial framework, but scientific work often reshapes how transcendence is understood and articulated. Rather than static categories, religious traditions serve as dynamic resources through which higher experiences are both anchored and reimagined. We refer to this second pattern as negotiated transcendence: a dynamic framework in which scientists variably position spiritual and scientific domains. Some participants emphasized a strict distinction between the realms of “religion” and “scientific progress,” while others described more permeable boundaries where “beauty” or “awareness” created unexpected intersections. Cluster 2 did not require full integration nor mandate strict separation; rather, it illustrates how individuals actively negotiate these relationships contextually (see Oleynick 2015).

The comparative structure of these two configurations is summarized in Table 2. The table synthesizes the interpretation of the lexical classes across five analytical dimensions: orientation and definition, key characteristics, source of meaning, narrative register, and epistemology.

Among nonreligious scientists (SBNR and NRNS), transcendence was articulated primarily as a first-person experiential process grounded in disciplined empirical engagement. Its defining characteristic is a reflexive cycle in which observation gives rise to heightened awareness, which is then interpreted without recourse to institutional doctrine. The narrative register frequently oscillates between scientific and contemplative language, reflecting what we have described as contemplative empiricism. Epistemologically, transcendence emerges from within empirical practice itself and is framed as an emergent property of engagement with nature rather than as an appeal to inherited authority.

By contrast, among religious scientists (RS and RNS), transcendence was articulated within interpretive frameworks shaped by communal traditions of belief. While scientific practice is not rejected, it is situated alongside religious commitments in either negotiated coexistence or dynamic interaction. Here, transcendence is frequently grounded in references to faith, divine order, or spiritual meaning embedded in natural laws. Epistemologically, empirical and revelatory modes of knowing are positioned in complementary or dialogical relation. This comparison demonstrates that the distinction between the two configurations is not merely lexical but epistemological and phenomenological, reflecting different ways of grounding and interpreting higher experience within scientific life.

Discussion

The analysis reveals two patterned configurations of transcendence structured by differing epistemological orientations rather than by the mere presence or absence of religious affiliation. Among nonreligious scientists (SBNR and NRNS), we observe a form of reflexive or contemplative transcendence predominantly grounded in first-person experience. A hallmark instance of this configuration is what we have termed empirical awe—the shift from disciplined methodological observation to a profound epistemic-emotional encounter or insight. The mechanism underlying such experiences may be described as contemplative empiricism: a meditative quality of sustained observation that gives rise to reflective and reflexive moments of heightened meaning, sometimes experienced as what might be called the “empirical sublime.” Here, transcendence is not imported from outside scientific practice but emerges from within its disciplined procedures.

By contrast, among religious scientists (RS and RNS), transcendent experiences more frequently take the form of negotiated transcendence, arising through interaction with communal traditions of belief. The mechanism at work here may be described as negotiated faith, in which science and religion are positioned either in respectful distinction or in dynamic coexistence through more permeable boundaries. Some religious traditions are more open to this kind of empirical integration than others, and this was perhaps reflected in part by some interviewees’ responses to our prompts. Others more explicitly acknowledged the tension with religious principles as a challenge but also motivation to keep scientific and analytical ways of thinking separate from the spiritual and the awe-inspiring. Transcendence is thus anchored in and partially articulated through inherited frameworks while remaining responsive to scientific engagement.

An intriguing pattern is that explicitly observational–contemplative accounts appeared less frequently among religious scientists than among nonreligious scientists. One possible interpretation is that transcendence for religious scientists is already mediated through established faith traditions; empirical observation therefore does not function as the primary gateway to higher experience, though this likely varies by religious tradition as well. For nonreligious scientists, by contrast, disciplined observation often becomes the privileged path through which experiences described as transcendent are accessed and interpreted. These distinctions refine sociological accounts of boundary work (Gieryn 1983; Sorrell and Ecklund 2019) by showing that transcendence does not merely demarcate science from religion. In many cases, it arises from within empirical engagement itself. At the same time, the persistence of negotiated transcendence among religious scientists complicates strong secularization narratives (Weber 2004; Taylor 2007). Transcendence does not disappear in a disenchanted age; rather, it is differently grounded and interpreted.

Finally, particular attention should be given to hybrid cases in which science and spirituality are not separated but intertwined. Some scientists describe explicit domain distinctions, but others recount moments in which empirical practice and spiritual meaning converge. These accounts suggest that transcendence often arises not at the margins of scientific work but at its very center—where the pursuit of explanation coexists with openness to mystery. This finding enriches the dual-path model proposed by Johnson and colleagues (2019b), especially as applied to scientists, because it suggests that many are actively engaged in negotiating the tension between both the analytic and the awe-inspiring aspects of their work. The contrasts identified here reflect not opposition between science and religion but differentiated modes of grounding meaning within scientific life.

Conclusion and Future Directions

Although our approach combines automated text analysis with qualitative interpretation, we placed primary value on the richness of the interviews themselves. The computational procedures served mainly as tools to organize the material, while our interpretive work relied on reading and contextualizing extended passages of text. In this way, we sought to preserve the depth and nuance of participants’ accounts. At the same time, our focus on segments explicitly coded as “transcendence” reflects a deliberate analytic choice: we concentrated on those parts of the interviews where participants directly engaged with this theme. Not all scientists framed their experiences in these terms, but this variation is itself informative, as it highlights the diversity of ways in which transcendence is expressed, or resisted, within scientific practice. Future research, however, could place emphasis elsewhere, thereby complementing our focus on explicitly transcendent discourse.

We also drew on interview data exclusively from biologists and physicists, who not only might differ from each other in terms of their engagement with the transcendent but also might not generalize to the scientific population as a whole if their idiosyncratic response patterns are specific to their disciplines or the contrast between them. The themes that emerged are consistent with our attempt to address both of the major approaches to transcendent aesthetic experiences in science as described in the literature (MacArthur 2021), but future work should examine these themes in a broader range of scientific disciplines.

The dataset did not provide consistent religious affiliation data for all religiously identifying participants, thus preventing systematic comparison. The language of transcendence in interviews where a specific religious affiliation was mentioned, however, did not differ very much by religion. Instead, the terms used tended to be more general and descriptive (rather than religiously ascriptive), perhaps in keeping with the eponymous nature of transcendence and the negotiated distinction religious scientists maintain between their work and spiritual practice. This lack of religious inflection was perhaps also driven by the salience of words like “connection” and “unity” derived from the core question prompts. While the present study was primary concerned with the distinction between religious and nonreligious scientists, future research could examine scientists’ language around transcendence within (and between) explicitly religious frameworks.

Beyond religious and nonreligious frameworks, individual differences in affect intensity (Larsen, Diener, and Emmons 1986) may also modulate responses to the emotional (e.g., awe, joy) and epistemic (e.g., insight, illumination) aspects of transcendence, particularly when intersecting with aesthetic dimensions of science (Jacobi et al. 2024). Future research could examine affect intensity and aesthetic or affective distance (Abraham, Powers, and McRae 2023) as potential predictors of scientists’ transcendent experiences, which may in turn influence wellbeing outcomes (Jacobi, Varga, and Vaidyanathan 2022; Varga 2021; Varga, Kelly, and Jacobi 2024). The relationship of transcendent experiences and inspiration in the creative process (Cui et al. 2020), particularly as a motivating force in science, offers another such future direction. Also needed is a more precise psychological measure of self-transcendent experiences that captures both the contents and modalities of these experiences (Varga 2021). For example, in our interviews, scientists identified natural places (contents) as contexts for revelatory insights (modalities), the combination of which points to self-transcendence. A bimodal content–modality approach to assessing the psychological hallmarks of transcendence would offer greater clarity and specificity by distinguishing these experiences from affectively or epistemically charged but otherwise mundane occurrences. In conclusion, our analysis reveals two distinct but equally profound pathways to transcendence among scientists.

The contemplative transcendence of nonreligious scientists emerges organically through empirical engagement, where moments of awe in nature become drivers of existential reflection—a reflexive cycle blending observation and meaning-making without institutional mediation. Conversely, the negotiated transcendence of religious scientists operates through dynamic coexistence, where faith traditions and scientific practice maintain either permeable boundaries or respectful separation, unified by themes of beauty and cosmic order. While nonreligious scientists achieve transcendence through the methodological rigor of contemplative empiricism, leading to the empirical sublime, religious scientists harmonize realms through pragmatic distinction and negotiated faith, achieving a separate but complementary balance. This bifurcation underscores that transcendence in science is not monolithic but adapts to epistemological priorities, whether grounded in first-person experience or structured by communal belief. Yet the data also show a shared truth: whether through contemplative empiricism or negotiated faith, these scientists affirm that the pursuit of knowledge never fully eclipses the capacity for wonder (Jacobi et al. 2024). In this very tension may lie the most humanizing quality of science: not the answers it provides, but the deeper questions it keeps alive.

Competing Interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.