Religious Experience (also known as a spiritual, sacred, or mystical experience) is an altered state of consciousness where an individual reports contact with a transcendent reality, an encounter or union with the divine.
Many religious and mystical tradition see religious experience as real encounters with God or Gods or real contact with other realities, while the scientific view holds that religious experience is only a normal property of the human brain that evolved sometime in the human evolution.
William James' Definitions
and Philosopher William James
described four characteristics of religious / mystical experience in The Varieties of Religious Experience.
According to James, such an experience is:
- Transient -- the experience is temporary; the individual soon returns to a "normal" frame of mind.
- Ineffible -- the experience cannot be adequately put into words.
- Noetic -- the individual feels that he or she has learned something valuable from the experience.
- Passive -- the experience happens to the individual, largely without conscious control. Although there are activities, such as meditation (see below), that can make religious experience more likely, it is not something that can be turned on and off at will.
Norman Habel's Definitions
Habel defines religious experiences as the structured way in which a believer enters into a relationship with, or gains an awareness of, the sacred within the context of a particular religious tradition (Habel, O'Donoghue and Maddox: 1993).Religious experiences are by their very nature preternatural
; that is, out of the ordinary or beyond the natural order of things. They may be difficult to distinguish observationally from psychopathological states such as psychoses
or other forms of altered awareness (Charlesworth: 1988).
Not all preternatural experiences are considered to be religious experiences. Following Habel's definition, psychopathological states or drug-induced states of awareness are not considered to be religious experiences because they are mostly not performed within the context of a particular religious tradition.
Moore and Habel identify two classes of religious experiences: the immediate and the mediated religious experience (Moore and Habel: 1982).
- Mediated -- In the mediated experience, the believer experiences the sacred through mediators such as rituals, special persons, religious groups, totemic objects or the natural world (Habel et al: 1993).
- Immediate -- The immediate experience comes to the believer without any intervening agency or mediator. The deity or divine is experienced directly (Habel et al: 1993).
Richard Swinburne's Definitions
In his book Faith and Reason, the philosopher Richard Swinburne formulated five categories into which all religious experiences fall:
- Public -- a believer 'sees God's hand at work', whereas other explanations are possible e.g. looking at a beautiful sunset
- Public -- an unusual event that breaches natural law e.g. walking on water
- Private -- describable using normal language e.g. Jacob's vision of a ladder
- Private -- indescribable using normal language, usually a mystical experience e.g. "white did not cease to be white, nor black cease to be black, but black became white and white became black."
- Private -- a non-specific, general feeling of God working in one's life.
Swinburne also suggested two principles for the assessment of religious experiences:
- Principle of Credulity -- with the absence of any reason to disbelieve it, one should accept what appears to be true e.g. if one sees someone walking on water, one should believe that it is occurring, unless one has recently ingested hallucinogenic drugs.
- Principle of Testimony -- with the absence of any reason to disbelieve them, one should accept that eye-witnesses or believers are telling the truth when they testify about religious experiences.
- Numinous -- The German thinker Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) argues that there is one common factor to all religious experience, independent of the cultural background. He identifies this experience as the numinous in his book The Idea of the Holy (1923). Otto, not be strictly defined since the numinous is that in which all religious experiences are defined. The numinous can only be evoked or awakened in the mind. The numinous is a realm or dimension of reality, which is mysterious, awe-inspiring and fascinating. Otto states that the best expression for the numinous is the Latin phrase 'mysterium tremendum' - a magnificent mystery. The mystery is the 'Wholly Other', beyond apprehension and comprehension. It is expressed in the idea of 'the wrath of God' in the Old Testament and is connected with the consciousness of the absolute superiority and supremacy of a power other than oneself. Otto sees the numinous as the only possible religious experience. He states: "There is no religion in which it [the numinous] does not live as the real innermost core and without it no religion would be worthy of the name" (Otto: 1972). Otto describes in his convoluted style one form of religious experience, but he does not succeed in characterising the essence of all religious experience. Otto does not take any other kind of religious experience such as ecstasy and enthusiasm seriously and is of the opinion that they belong to the 'vestibule of religion'.
- Ecstasy -- In ecstasy the believer is understood to have a soul or spirit which can leave the body. In ecstasy the focus is on the soul leaving the body and to experience transcendental realities. This type of religious experience is characteristic for the shaman.
- Enthusiasm --In enthusiasm - or possession - God is understood to be outside, other than or beyond the believer. A sacred power, being or will enters the body or mind of an individual and possesses it. A person capable of being possessed is sometimes called a medium. The deity, spirit or power uses such a person to communicate to the immanent world. Lewis argues that ecstasy and possession are basically one and the same experience, ecstasy being merely one form which possession may take. The outward manifestation of the phenomenon is the same in that shamans appear to be possessed by spirits, act as their mediums, and even though they claim to have mastery over them, can lose that mastery (Lewis: 1986).
- Mystical -- Mystical experiences are in many ways the opposite of numinous experiences. In the mystical experience, all 'otherness' disappear and the believer becomes one with the transcendent. The believer discovers that he or she is not distinct from the cosmos, the deity or the other reality, but one with it. Zaehner has identified two distinctively different mystical experiences: natural and religious mystical experiences (Charlesworth: 1988). Natural mystical experiences are, for example, experiences of the 'deeper self' or experiences of oneness with nature. Zaehner argues that the experiences typical of 'natural mysticism' are quite different from the experiences typical of religious mysticism (Charlesworth: 1988). Natural mystical experiences are not considered to be religious experiences because they are not linked to a particular tradition, but natural mystical experiences are spiritual experiences that can have a profound effect on the individual.
- Spiritual awakening -- A spiritual awakening is a Religious experience involving a realization or opening to a sacred dimension of reality. Often a spiritual awakening has lasting effects upon one's life. The term "spiritual awakening" may be used to refer to any of a wide range of experiences including being born again, near-death experiences, and mystical experiences such as liberation and enlightenment.
Explanations of religious experience
Religious and mystical points of view
While all Muslims believe that they are on the pathway to God and will become close to God in Paradise — after death and after the "Final Judgment" — Sufis believe as well that it is possible to become close to God and to experience this closeness while one is alive.
Sufis believe in a tripartite way to God as explained by a tradition attributed to the Prophet,"The Shariah are my words (aqwal), the tariqa are my actions (amal), and the haqiqa is my interior states (ahwal)".
Shariah, tariqa and haqiqa are mutually interdependent. The tariqa, the ‘path’ on which the mystics walk, has been defined as ‘the path which comes out of the Shariah, for the main road is called shar, the path, tariq.’ No mystical experience can be realized if the binding injunctions of the Shariah are not followed faithfully first. The path, tariqa, however, is narrower and more difficult to walk. It leads the adept, called salik (wayfarer), in his suluk
(wandering), through different stations (maqam) until he reaches his goal, the perfect tauhid, the existential confession that God is One.
Christian doctrine generally maintains that God dwells in all Christians and that they can experience God directly through belief in Jesus, Christian mysticism aspires to apprehend spiritual truths inaccessible through intellectual means, typically by emulation of Christ. William Inge divides this scala perfectionis into three stages: the "purgative" or ascetic stage, the "illuminative" or contemplative stage, and the third, "unitive" stage, in which God may be beheld "face to face."
The third stage, usually called contemplation in the Western tradition, refers to the experience of oneself as united with God in some way. The experience of union varies, but it is first and foremost always associated with a reuniting with Divine love. The underlying theme here is that God, the perfect goodness, is known or experienced at least as much by the heart as by the intellect since, in the words of 1 John 4:16: "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him." Some approaches to classical mysticism would consider the first two phases as preparatory to the third, explicitly mystical experience; but others state that these three phases overlap and intertwine.
Based on Christ's injunction in the Gospel of Matthew
to "go into your closet to pray", Hesychasm in tradition has been the process of retiring inward by ceasing to register the senses, in order to achieve an experiential knowledge of God (see theoria
The highest goal of the Hesychast is the experiential knowledge of God. In the 14th Century, the possibility of this experiential knowledge of God was challenged by a Calabrian monk, Barlaam, who although he was formally a member of the Orthodox Church had been trained in Western Scholastic theology. Barlaam asserted that our knowledge of God can only be propositional. The practice of the Hesychasts was defended by St. Gregory Palamas.
In solitude and retirement the Hesychast repeats the Jesus Prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."He considers bare repetition of the Jesus Prayer as a mere string of syllables, perhaps with a 'mystical' inner meaning beyond the overt verbal meaning, to be worthless or even dangerous.
) is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy
that took shape in the 3rd century
AD, founded by Plotinus
and based on the teachings of Plato
and earlier Platonists
Neoplatonism teaches that along the same road by which it descended the soul must retrace its steps back to the supreme Good. It must first of all return to itself. This is accomplished by the practice of virtue, which aims at likeness to God, and leads up to God. By means of ascetic observances the human becomes once more a spiritual and enduring being, free from all sin. But there is still a higher attainment; it is not enough to be sinless, one must become "God", (henosis). This is reached through contemplation of the primeval Being, the One - in other words, through an ecstatic approach to it.
It is only in a state of perfect passivity and repose that the soul can recognize and touch the primeval Being. Hence the soul must first pass through a spiritual curriculum. Beginning with the contemplation of corporeal things in their multiplicity and harmony, it then retires upon itself and withdraws into the depths of its own being, rising thence to the nous, the world of ideas. But even there it does not find the Highest, the One; it still hears a voice saying, "not we have made ourselves." The last stage is reached when, in the highest tension and concentration, beholding in silence and utter forgetfulness of all things, it is able as it were to lose itself. Then it may see God, the foundation of life, the source of being, the origin of all good, the root of the soul. In that moment it enjoys the highest indescribable bliss; it is as it were swallowed up of divinity, bathed in the light of eternity. Porphyry tells us that on four occasions during the six years of their intercourse Plotinus attained to this ecstatic union with God.
Philosophical and theological points of view
In the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, several historical figures put forth very influential views that religion and its beliefs can be grounded in experience itself. While Kant
held that moral experience
justified religious beliefs
, John Wesley
in addition to stressing individual moral exertion thought that the religious experiences in the Methodist movement
(paralleling the Romantic Movement
) were foundational to religious commitment as a way of life. In the 19th century, Friedrich Schleiermacher
and Albert Ritschl
continued and extended this view that human (moral and religious) experience justifies religious beliefs
. Such religious empericism would be later seen as highly problematic and was--during the period in-between world wars--famously rejected by Karl Barth
. In the 20th century, religious as well as moral experience as justification for religious beliefs still holds sway. Some influential modern scholars holding this liberal theological
view are Charles Raven
and the Oxford physicist/theologian Charles Coulson
Scientific studies on religious experience
There are many areas of science that explore the religious experience like Neurotheology
, Transpersonal psychology
, Psychology of religion
, and Genetics
Transpersonal psychology is a school of psychology
that studies the transpersonal
aspects of the human experience. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology
describes transpersonal psychology as "the study of humanity’s highest potential, and with the recognition, understanding, and realization of unitive, spiritual, and transcendent states of consciousness" (Lajoie and Shapiro, 1992:91). Issues considered in transpersonal psychology include spiritual self-development
, peak experiences
, mystical experiences
, systemic trance
and other metaphysical
experiences of living.
U.S. psychologist and philosopher William James (1842-1910) is regarded by most psychologists of religion as the founder of the field. His Varieties of Religious Experience is considered to be the classic work in the field, and references to James' ideas are common at professional conferences.
James distinguished between institutional religion and personal religion. Institutional religion refers to the religious group or organization, and plays an important part in a society's culture. Personal religion, in which the individual has mystical experience, can be experienced regardless of the culture.
Psychology of religion is the psychological study of religious experiences, beliefs, and activities.
's work on himself and his patients convinced him that life has a spiritual purpose beyond material goals. Our main task, he believed, is to discover and fulfil our deep innate potential, much as the acorn contains the potential to become the oak, or the caterpillar to become the butterfly. Based on his study of Christianity
, and other traditions, Jung perceived that this journey of transformation is at the mystical heart of all religions. It is a journey to meet the self and at the same time to meet the Divine. Unlike Sigmund Freud, Jung thought spiritual experience was essential to our well-being.
Neurotheology, also known as biotheology or spiritual neuroscience, is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena. Proponents of neurotheology claim that there is a neurological and evolutionary basis for subjective experiences traditionally categorized as spiritual or religious .
According to the neurotheologist Andrew B. Newberg neurological processes which are driven by the repetitive, rhythmic stimulation which is typical of human ritual, and which contribute to the delivery of transcendental feelings of connection to a universal unity. They posit, however, that physical stimulation alone is not sufficient to generate transcendental unitive experiences. For this to occur they say there must be a blending of the rhythmic stimulation with ideas. Once this occurs "…ritual turns a meaningful idea into a visceral experience. Moreover they say that humans are compelled to act out myths by the biological operations of the brain on account of what they call the "inbuilt tendency of the brain to turn thoughts into actions".
Studies of the brain and religious experience
Early studies in the 1950s
attempted to use EEGs
to study brain wave patterns correlated with "spiritual" states. During the 1980s Dr. Michael Persinger
stimulated the temporal lobes
of human subjects with a weak magnetic field
. His subjects claimed to have a sensation of "an ethereal presence in the room.. Some current studies use neuroimaging
to localize brain regions active, or differentially active, during religious experiences.
describes neurological processes which are driven by the repetitive, rhythmic stimulation which is typical of human ritual, and which contribute to the delivery of transcendental feelings of connection to a universal unity. They posit, however, that physical stimulation alone is not sufficient to generate transcendental unitive experiences. For this to occur they say there must be a blending of the rhythmic stimulation with ideas. Once this occurs "…ritual turns a meaningful idea into a visceral experience.
The God gene hypothesis states that some human beings bear a gene which gives them a predisposition to episodes interpreted by some as religious revelation. According to this hypothesis, the God gene (VMAT2), is not an encoding for the belief in God itself but a physiological arrangement that produces the sensations associated, by some, with the presence of God or other mystical experiences, or more specifically spirituality as a state of mind. Simply put, the gene is involved in the breakdown of monoamines, a class of neurotransmitters which contribute to an individual's emotional sensitivity. The loose interpretation is that monoamines correlate with a personality trait called self-transcendence. Composed of three sub-sets, self-transcendence is composed of "self-forgetfulness" (as in the tendency to become totally absorbed in some activity, such as reading); "transpersonal identification" (a feeling of connectedness to a larger universe); and "mysticism" (an openness to believe things not literally provable, such as ESP).
Causes of religious experiences
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- Habel, Norman, O'Donoghue, Michael and Maddox, Marion (1993). 'Religious experience'. In: Myth, ritual and the sacred. Introducing the phenomena of religion (Underdale: University of South Australia).
- Lewis, Ioan M (1986). Religion in context: cults and charisma (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
- Moore, B and Habel N (1982). Appendix 1. In: When religion goes to school (Adelaide: SACAE), pages 184-218.
- Otto, Rudolf (1972). Chapters 2-5. In: The idea of the holy (London: Oxford University Press), pages 5-30. [Originally published in 1923].
- Prevos, Peter (1998). Omgaan met het transcendente (Dealing with the transcendent). Open University of the Netherlands.
- Moody, Raymond. Life After Life ISBN 0-06-251739-2
- Deida, David. Finding God Through Sex ISBN 1-59179-273-8
- Katie, Byron. Loving What Is page xi ISBN 1-4000-4537-1
- Roberts, T. B. (editor) (2001). Psychoactive Sacramentals: Essays on Entheogens and Religion. San Francosco: Council on Spiritual Practices.
- Roberts, T. B., and Hruby, P. J. (1995-2002). Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments An Entheogen Chrestomathy. Online archive.
- Roberts, T. B. "Chemical Input—Religious Output: Entheogens." Chapter 10 in Where God and Science Meet: Vol. 3: The Psychology of Religious Experience Robert McNamara (editor)(2006). Westport, CT: Praeger/Greenwood.