My research studies spiritual experiences in situ at various historical sacred sites throughout Türkiye. This study has two parts. The first part focuses on how appraisals of factors like sacredness and historicity correlate with experiences of awe, mystical-type experience, connectedness, and affect in historic sacred sites. The second part aims to contextualize visitors' experiences in broader cultural and historical continuums, drawing from religious studies, sociology, and ethonography. Ultimately, this study begins to articulate future paradigms in rigorously studying spiritual and religious experience as they happen, rather than divorced from their original contexts.  

I utilized validated measures of various constructs such as awe (AWE-SF), mystical experience (MEQ-4), and personality (TIPI) alongside qualitative measures to construct surveys administered at various sites and timepoints. I also managed data collection, cleaning, organization, and analysis. I used a Bayesian mixed-effects model accounting for site and indiviual participant response patterns when analyzing how site appraisal correlates with awe, mystical-type experience, and connectedness. Qualitative data was analyzed via a topical analysis and subsequent comparative analysis, drawing from religious studies, sociology, and ethnography research.