with Julie J. Exline, Ph.D. (Research Director of DOPS; Bonner-Lowry Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, UVA Health)
This introductory presentation will discuss an array of spiritual and extraordinary experiences, emphasizing those around the boundary between life and death. What makes people think that something supernatural is going on? What are some consequences of interpreting these events in terms of mental illness, normal psychological processes, or supernatural or spiritual realities?
Dr. Exline will emphasize how extraordinary experiences might help to resolve certain types of spiritual struggles while creating others. She will also preview a variety of pathways toward extraordinary experiences, setting the stage for the day’s later presentations.
Julie J. Exline, Ph.D., is the Bonner-Lowry Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences and the Research Director of the Division of Perceptual Studies, University of Virginia Health Systems. Before taking this position in July 2025, she spent 25 years as a faculty member in Psychological Sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Exline is a licensed clinical psychologist and certified spiritual director. She has a special interest in the struggles that people often face around spirituality and religion—and how afterlife-related beliefs and experiences might cause some spiritual struggles while resolving others.