Signals of transcendence

According to Os Guinness, a signal of transcendence is an experience which transcends you beyond the normal or material world; just for a moment perhaps showing you something deeper, something which helps you to make sense of human existence. He explains these signals as the kind of life-changing experiences which shock you awake and make you realise that you’ve been sleeping at the wheel and ignoring the reality of the big questions of life and death, meaning and purpose, or the prospect that there is something more — a reality beyond physical matter.

A signal of transcendence may take many forms, it might be: a near-death experience, a sudden epiphany, or the product of deep searching over many years, or something else entirely (‘one person’s signal is another person’s silence’). Guinness picks out ten such examples (and mentions a load more in passing), recounting the stories of men and women who have had such calls and the extent to which they have heeded them (which is often another matter entirely!).

This book is a challenge to think, to distract yourself no longer, to start asking questions again, with the irrepressible curiosity and wonder we had when we were children. To leave the ranks of the brain-dead masses who distract themselves with TV, or mindlessly scroll through TikTok and Instagram, or find a million other ways to keep themselves busy so that they avoid ever stopping to think. For Plato this was the shadows in the cave — life exists outside of it, but everyone is too scared to venture beyond what’s comfortable and familiar; the sunlight might be dangerous; who knows what could be out there? So Os Guinness challenges us to take on life’s big questions, and never give up searching, and to be ready for when your signal of transcendence comes.

Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel was a notorious Swedish arms dealer, the inventor of dynamite and a very successful businessman. He owned Bofors — one of the most famous weapons manufacturers of all time, renowned for their Bofors anti-aircraft guns. Before Alfred took over, they focused on making iron and steel; it was the Swede who turned them into the weapons giant that eventually brought them great fame and much wealth during the Second World War especially (when they sold to both sides).

However, what many might not know is that this same Alfred Nobel lent his name to the famous Nobel prizes, including the Nobel Peace Prize that has been won by such luminaries as Martin Luther King, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai and Barack Obama (the latter ironically having spent more time at war than any other president in US history).

How did a weapons manufacturer come to be associated with the most prestigious award for peace? Well, he had a signal of transcendence. If the story is to be believed, the Swede read of his own death in a foreign newspaper under the title, ‘The merchant of death is dead’. It continued on to say, ‘Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding more ways to kill people faster than ever before, died yesterday’. Apparently it was this that shook him to the core — not that he was supposedly dead (the papers had made a mistake and got the wrong Nobel, it was his brother Ludvig, the world’s first oil baron who had died!), but that this would be his legacy and how his life would be judged. He was on the wrong side, one of life’s baddies. It was this experience that became the pivotal turning point in his life. He changed his will and put aside practically all of his wealth towards the Nobel prizes. Now, perhaps more than any other, his name is associated with the goodies of the world.

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy, the author of a rather lengthy novel, which you’ve probably heard of, called War and Peace. Widely reckoned to be one of the greatest writers of all time (although funnily enough he never won a Nobel prize, despite countless nominations!), he had a similarly profound signal of transcendence.

It happened when he was at the top of his game, with all the money and fame anyone could ever wish for; he was healthy in body with a loving wife and family. However, suddenly and quite dramatically, Tolstoy became haunted by the prospect of death and the realisation that life — at least for him — was ultimately meaningless. At some point he would die and then what good would any of his worldly accomplishments do him? The science of the time offered no answers to why questions (it still doesn’t). There seemed to be no hope. He felt that he had wasted his life and would be judged for the wrong things he had done. It was this that drove him, first to despair, and then to a frantic search for hope. Guinness explains where this lead:

In the end, Tolstoy put his trust in the simple faith of the Russian peasant and in his own carefully tailored version of Jesus.

Tolstoy became a Christian anarchist and spent the last twenty years of his life advocating pacifism and preaching a unique blend of moralistic religion, later inspiring Mahatma Gandhi to lead the non-violent struggle for Indian independence (there’s another chap who never won a Nobel prize!).

Summing up

People often look for something more, for transcendence when confronted with death, which might cause them to pray, seek religion, get spiritual, look for God. Why? Simply, I think, because death takes you out of this world, which is by definition transcendent. Death certainly makes us feel uncomfortable. It’s wrong, unnatural even. It makes us ask is that it? Is that all there is to life? A few short breaths and then nothingness? CS Lewis writes:

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.

Is there more? Is there a God? Os Guinness reckons there is and quotes Augustine from his Confessions to explain why those who question are often the most restless and troubled:

You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.

Don’t live in denial of the reality of death, in the ‘unexamined life’ as Guinness puts it. When you receive a signal of transcendence it’s a ‘homing signal [pointing to] the home of all homes – with our Father and our God’. There’s more to life. There’s freedom from slavery to sin. You can know God for yourself now. As the old hymn puts it:

There’s a way back to God from the dark paths of sin,
there’s a way you can enter and all may go in.
At Calvary’s cross is where you begin,
when you come as a sinner to Jesus.

This is the great hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ. ‘Seek and you will find,’ says Jesus (Matthew 7:7). Ultimately, I think we will find that these signals of transcendence all originated from Him and all point to Him.