Dr. Matthew Wickman: An Insightful Presentation on Spiritual Experiences
By Thomas McPoyle
On Friday, Feb. 24, Southern Virginia University was introduced to Dr. Matthew Wickman, Professor of English at Brigham Young University and founding director (emeritus) of the Brigham Young Humanities Center. Specializing in literature and spirituality, intellectual theory, and Scottish literature, Dr. Wickman has published almost 30 articles and book chapters in addition to three books, “Literature After Euclid: The Geometric Imagination in the Long Scottish Enlightenment,” “The Ruins of Experience: Scotland’s ‘Romantick’ Highlands and the Birth of the Modern Witness,” and the recently published “Life to the Whole Being: The Spiritual Memoir of a Literature Professor.”
During his visit to our campus, Dr. Wickman provided insight on his spiritual life as an academic and shared his knowledge with us all. He dived deep into definitions of spiritual experiences by pulling quotes from several texts including The Bible, The Book of Galatians, Wesley J. Wildman’s Religious and Spiritual Experiences, and Parley P. Pratt’s Key to the Science of Theology. He also noted that these spiritual experiences can be present within anyone, regardless of religious or cultural backgrounds.
Spiritual experiences can come to anybody. They come to us in a language we can understand (or, otherwise said, in a way we can understand) but they also bring us new understanding. In that respect, they change us. While spiritual experience is deeply personal, its effects are rarely limited to us alone.
In his presentation, Dr. Wickman connected literature to how we encounter/recognize these spiritual experiences. In an excerpt from his book Life to the Whole Being, Wickman states the following:
In many instances, literature lends form to the meaning and diversity of our spiritual experiences, to their qualities of connectedness, purpose, and ultimate concern… For this reason, literature can also act as a springboard for our own spiritual experiences, such that learning to recognize the richness of such experiences in or through literature can make us more receptive to them ourselves.
For additional highlights from Southern Virginia’s forum with Dr. Matthew Wickman, click here.
An Insightful Presentation on Spiritual Experiences: Dr. Matthew Wickman was originally published in The Herald on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.