Hearing voices and spirituality

Although voice-hearing is often associated with severe mental illness, it can be an important aspect of people's religious or spiritual life. This is an area explored in the world's first major exhibition on hearing voices which enters its final month (February) at Durham University's Palace Green Library. Hearing Voices: suffering, inspiration and the everyday is the first exhibition of its kind to examine voice-hearing from different cultural, clinical, historical, literary and spiritual perspectives. Different types of voices The exhibition is informed by research from Durham University's Hearing the Voice project , an interdisciplinary research project funded by the Wellcome Trust, which is leading the way in examining the spiritual aspects of voice-hearing. Dr Angela Woods , co-director of Hearing the Voice at Durham University and academic lead for the exhibition, said: "This exhibition sheds new light on a much maligned and commonly misunderstood experience. Many people immediately link voice-hearing with particular forms of distress or psychiatric diagnoses, but 5-15 per cent of the general population will have occasional or fleeting occurrences of hearing voices. "This exhibition shows that there are many different types of voices rich with personal, cultural, religious and historical significance." Spiritual significance of voices With material spanning seven centuries, visitors can explore the spiritual significance of hearing voices, and the way in which voice-hearing has been interpreted and represented in different religious contexts from the medieval period to the present day.