religious experience Flashcards
What are the 3 types of religious experiences?
Corporeal, Imaginative + Intellectual
What is a corporeal vision?
Empirical; supernatural experiences mediated through physical senses
Visionary sees the figure in the same way someone would see a chair
What’s an example of a corporeal vision?
18 visions of Mary that Bernadette of Lourdes saw
Mary identified herself as the ‘Immaculate Conception’
What’s an imaginative vision?
Visions mediated through the ‘minds eye’ not physical sight
Often dreams
What’s an example of an imaginative vision?
Josephs dream where he was told Mary was preg. through power of Holy Spirit
What’s an intellectual vision?
No image, but the subject claims to ‘see’ things as they rlly are
Mystical visions; hard to understand but they enlighten the soul
What’s an example of an intellectual vision?
Teresa of Avila - a mystic who saw “nothing with the eyes of the body, nothing with the eyes of the soul” but saw Jesus as he rlly was
What’s a numinous experience?
Exp. thats the basis of all gen. religion
Non rational + unique
Sense of the wholly other
What is meant by the term ‘holy’?
‘Other than’ ‘Separate from’
Attempt to describe the sense some ppl have of a reality totally beyond their exp. of themselves
What is meant by mysterium?
Far removed from humanity
What is meant by tremendum?
Fearsome experience of God’s overwhelming energy
What is meant by fascinans?
Nature of the experience creates a desire for a relationship w the Being
What does Mysterium tremendum et fascinans mean?
Fearful + attractive mystery
What did William James believe about religion?
He was sympathetic to it but wasn’t a part of an organised religion
What did William James believe organised religion grew from?
People comparing their religious experiences
What did William James believe the true purpose of humanist is?
Union w the higher universe that gives this world its significance
What is William James’ 4 criteria for assessing the genuine nature of a mystical experience?
Ineffability, Noetic quality, Transiency, Passivity
What is meant by ineffability?
Private experience that makes sense only to other mystics