Meddows Creswell (they/them/theirs) is an undergraduate psychology major and early entry graduate student in the Master of Arts in Religious Studies program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Their research interests have propelled them to seek to identify and understand the wide array of health-promoting behaviors found across religious cultures. Spiritually charged altered states of consciousness especially fascinate Meddows due to their potential to catalyze major behavioral changes. Meddows aims to investigate why these experiences typically either nurture biopsychosocial well-being or trigger potentially underlying vulnerabilities. They suspect that varying levels of mental fortitude play a fundamental role in determining which way the pendulum will swing. Meddows therefore maintains that ritualistic practices including meditation, devotion, and mind-body exercises appear to be important preconditions in reaping the benefits of transcendent, revelatory events (drug-induced or otherwise).
Please contact Meddows Creswell by email at dcreswe1@charlotte.edu or through their LinkedIn with further inquiries.