Aesthetic, Spiritual, and Flow Experiences: Contrasts and Educational Implications

The purpose of this paper is to cross-examine Dewey's ideas on religious and aesthetic experiences, and Csikszentmihalyi's theory of flow experience. To achieve this end, we offer an analytic framework for evaluating experiences: triggers, characterizations, and import. In using this framework, we not only more deeply examine these ideas of experience, but we also discuss what educators may learn from the intersection of these three important theories of experience.