transcenders -- 4/29/2026

29 Apr 2026

transcenders -- 4/29/2026

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Today's selection -- from The Mattering Instinct by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. For a powerful type of personality labeled by the author as a "transcender," the need to matter to others is all-consuming:

“Short of lunacy, there is no greater sense of mattering than that experienced by transcenders.

“Transcenders, like socializers, seek their mattering in mattering to. Only the 'who' to whom they seek to matter isn't any other human or group of humans. Rather it's a transcendent presence believed to ground the being of all that is true in both the physical and moral spheres. A transcender's sense of mattering is grounded in a vision of a metaphysically fortified cosmos, conceived of as numinous, shot through with emanations of unlimited power, knowledge, justice, and–at least in some versions–mercy.

“The transcendent presence might be conceived along conventionally religious lines. In the words of the psalmist: 'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge' (Psalm 19). Or the transcendent presence might be conceived in less religiously conventional terms: 'The universe is programmed to support your happiness, but not at some up-and-down, here-and-gone level. It's programmed to support your deep, abiding, fully actualized joy,' in the words of Marianne Williamson, an influential voice among those who identify as SBNR (spiritual but not religious), who received national attention when, in 2019, she garnered enough support for her candidacy for president of the United States to participate in the first two Democratic primary debates.

“So far as the mattering instinct is concerned, the difference between the psalmist and Marianne Williamson is less significant than the similarity. The all-important fact for any transcender is that the source of human mattering is embedded in the metaphysical grounding of all reality. Our own mattering is assured by our relationship to the transcendent presence whose own mattering is undeniable: For how could that which is responsible for all of existence not matter? The crux of human mattering, for the transcender, lies in the attitude of extrahuman reality. It cares about us.

William James in a séance with a spiritualist medium

“To experience as a transcender is to experience the cosmos with a heady fusion of awe and intimacy. The cosmos, while being an awe-inspiring more, is also domesticated: You feel at home in it. It was meant for you. The fusion can give rise to emotions that characterize the best of human relationships–overwhelming love and gratitude. In the language of the philosopher Martin Buber, the cosmos becomes a Thou rather than an It. And although the Thou exceeds your full knowledge, you yourself are fully seen and known by It: 'You have searched me and know me. There is not a word on my tongue but that Thou, oh Lord, know it well' (Psalm 139). Such transparency before transcendence can inspire fear, as the psalmist continues: 'Surely darkness will conceal me, night will provide me with cover. But darkness is not dark for Thou. Night is as light as day; darkness and light are the same.'

“But even though there is no hiding, you can never doubt how much you matter–cosmically matter, seen and known and, in many traditions, judged. The cosmos, in being a metaphysically fortified more, also renders the transcender a something more. Your life, which can't help meaning all the world to you, means something in the largest sense possible. You yourself, so fragile and tenuous, are implicated in the answer to the most profound of all metaphysical questions: Why is there something rather than nothing? That which answers the question purposefully created you.

“Since the subjective feeling of mattering is closely linked with the subjective feeling of meaningfulness, which is, in turn, linked with the subjective feeling of life satisfaction, the onslaught of psychological research demonstrating that the religious and the spiritual self-report higher levels of life satisfaction is hardly surprising. (Actually, the SBNR have an edge here, since they're not as prone to the negativity of guilt.) Sometimes this research is hawked as a reason to become a transcender, as if metaphysics could be sold to us, like membership in a health club.

“The transempirical nature of claims about a transcendent presence leaves ample room for faith to fill in the details. And faith, in turn, leaves ample room for a wide divergence of opinions about the nature of the transcendent presence that grounds reality and what it may want from us in the way of recognition and reverence.

“Here is yet another reason to be wary of those selling wholesale transcendence as a boost to life satisfaction. Faith, being exquisitely sensitive to the longings of the faithful, comes in many persuasions. I recall a tweet I saw back in 2014, in the triumphant days of Isis and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's declared caliphate. It was written by a young man who had left his native England to fight for Islam's ultimate triumph in the caliphate, and it testified to the exultant boost in his life satisfaction: 'I used to spend my days stacking shirts in Primark. Now POTUS trembles at my existence.'

“The very transcendence that renders the belief of transcenders so powerful a confirmation of their own mattering comes at a steep epistemic price. The epistemic uncertainty contained in the mattering instinct itself–we can't know that we objectively matter even as we can't help longing that we do–is mirrored in the transcender's response to the mattering instinct. The transcender can't know that their version of the cosmos is true even though they can't help longing that it is.

“In this sense, all transcenders, whether the psalmist, the jihad fighter, or Marianne Williamson, are alike in being cosmic petitioners. Their mattering is premised on reality's conforming to their vision of it. Doubters can be cosmic petitioners, believing that their mattering can be validated only by reality's containing their version of a transcendent presence, but are unsure of whether it does. Transcenders are cosmic petitioners who have sufficiently vanquished their doubts.

“The continent of the transcenders, with its powerful fusion of awe and intimacy, isn't a foreign land to me. This is where I was born and raised. I know what it's like to turn to God many times every day–in the blessing for waking up each morning–'I give thanks to you, living and eternal King, for you have returned my soul within me with compassion'–for every variety of food you eat, for putting on new clothes, for experiencing the beauties of nature-a rainbow, a lightning storm, my mother's rose garden in full bloom: 'Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has such things in His world.' I recited the blessing for receiving good news–'Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who is good and does good'–and also the blessing for receiving bad news–'Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, the true Judge.'

“To be a transcender is to believe that your personal existence has a role to play in the narrative of eternity. You would not be at all unless you had a role to play in the drama of all of existence. There is no greater mattering that you can conceive for yourself, short of imagining that you are yourself a transcendent being existing on an exalted plane beyond other mortals–in other words, short of lunacy. Compared to transcendent mattering, any other sense of mattering limps far behind, which again explains why psychologists keep producing data showing that the religious and spiritual report comparatively higher levels of life satisfaction.

“Is it any wonder then that, given the mattering instinct, the continent of the transcenders powerfully attracts us? If the cosmos were designed so as to best minister to the longing that defines us, then surely it would be the cosmos that transcenders, in all their differences, believe it to be: such as to confer cosmic mattering on us. Forget the philosophers' arguments for God's existence–the cosmological argument (arguing for God as the necessary first cause); the teleological argument (arguing that the design and order of the universe entails an intelligent designer); the ontological argument (arguing that God's existence is entailed by his definition); the moral argument (arguing for God as the necessary grounding of morality). Arguments for God are like arguments for why you love your children. They are arguments that are concocted after the fact–the fact being how well belief in a transcendent presence ministers to the longing to matter. This ministering doesn't show that transcenders have it wrong–but nor does it show that they have it right."