Belonging Through Direct Experience: Formation and Community Beyond Belief
Publication information:
Abstract
Many accounts of religious belonging rest on shared belief, identity, or institutional affiliation. In pluralistic settings, those foundations often strain. This presentation examines a foundation rooted in Direct Experience: ceremonial encounter with the Divine, tested over time by its fruits in ordinary life. Drawing on the lived practice of the Church of Direct Experience (CODE), a nationwide entheogenic religious community, it asks how repeated communion, guided by a shared epistemology and A CODE for Living, can foster durable belonging across wide religious, social, and vocational difference, without asking anyone to surrender prior beliefs or identities.
Presenter Biography
Alex Patterson is Founder and President of the Church of Direct Experience (CODE), a contemporary religious institution centered on Direct Experience as a primary way of knowing. His work examines how shared encounter, ritual practice, and disciplined integration generate belonging across differences of belief, identity, and culture.