“The Thrilling New Science of Awe”

One of the most fascinating developments of the current time is that human qualities once understood in terms of virtue–experiences called spiritual–are now being taken seriously by science as intelligence as elements of human wholeness. Dacher Keltner and his Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley have been pivotal in this emergence. From the earliest years of his career, he investigated how emotions are coded in the muscles of human faces, and how they serve as “moral sensory systems.” All of this, as Dacher sees it now, led him deeper and deeper into investigating the primary experience of awe in human life–moments when a person has a sense of wonder, an experience of mystery, that transcends their understanding. These, it turns out, are as common in human life globally as they are measurably health-giving and immunity-boosting. They bring people together with others, again and again. They bring one’s nervous system and heartbeat and breath into sync, and even into sync with other bodies around them.