Religious Experience Flashcards
Types of religious experience
Visions.
Conversions.
Mystical experiences.
Prayer.
Visions
Where someone sees, hears or feels the presence of a supernatural figure or event. They often include an intellectual aspect where they gain knowledge and/or understanding. They sometimes deliver a specific message and they can be either sensory or dream based.
Dream based visions
They occur in the unconscious mind and often use images or a narrative which would not be possible to experience while awake.
Sensory visions
Experienced whilst awake, most commonly they’re individual but there have been some cases of group visions. Some visions are corporeal which means they seem as if there is something physically present.
Conversions
A change in belief, lifestyle or both. Conversions can be from no religion to faith, one religion to a different religion or from belief to trust.
Moral conversions
Where a change of lifestyle is the key factor.
Intellectual conversions
Where a change in belief is the key factor.
Characteristic features of conversions
Gradual- occurring over a period of time, or sudden.
Volitional- freely chosen or self surrendering- accepted after a period of resistance.
Passive- happens without seeking it or active- seeking it (attending a place of worship).
Transforming- changing them into a new person.
Mystical experiences
Characterised by a sense of unity with God. Transcendent- go beyond the ordinary limits of time and space. Ecstatic- produce an overwhelming feeling of bliss or peace.
James’ 4 characteristics of mystical experiences (PINT)
Passivity- happen to the recipient.
Ineffability- they can’t be properly described in language.
Noetic quality- they provide special knowledge or understanding.
Transiency- short lived, but have a lasting effect.
Prayers- according to Teresa
Prayer = communication with God. The garden analogy; the state of a persons soul is represented by a garden and prayer is represented by watering plants. There are 4 ways; carrying buckets (great effort), water wheel and buckets, by a stream, by heavy rain. It means that prayer requires great effort but the effort needed can decrease with time until it becomes natural and easy.
The 7 mansions of prayer
We need to achieve union with God but to do this we need to find the central part by passing through 7 rooms. Each of the 7 mansions represents a different stage of prayer. Teresa believes that it requires great dedication and effort but it is only possible through the grace of God.
7 mansions- room 1-3 ordinary prayer
1- begins to pray but surrounded by distractions and sin.
2- practice prayer regularly but lack the determination to avoid sin.
3- devoted to God, spend hours in prayer and they avoid sin.
7 mansions- room 4-7- mystical prayer
4- souls receive consolations (comfort) from God.
5- simple union of the soul with God.
6- spiritual engagement, a determination to spend every moment with God.
7- highest state- a spiritual marriage, It is a permanent and intuitive feeling of complete unity with God.
Example of a vision
Saul on the road to Damascus- sensory, intellectual, group and individual. He was saying threats against the Lord’s disciples, as he neared Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him, he fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him “why do you persecute me?” the men travelling with Saul heard the sound but did not see anyone. When he got up he was blind- for 3 days.
Example of a conversion
Swearing Tom- individual, sudden, active, volitional, transforming and moral. Tom entered a church, prayed using the words the preacher had used, a change took place and he was changed from swearing Tom to praying Tom.
Example of a mystical experience
Alfred Tennyson- noetic quality, passivity, unity, transciency, transcendent, ineffability. “individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being”
“the clearest, the surest of the surest.”
“utterly beyond words”
Otto’s numinous- the tremendum component
The tremendum component of the numinous experience-
awe-fulness (inspiring awe)
overpoweringness- (inspires feeling of humility)
energy- (impression of vigour and compelling).
Otto’s numinous- the mysterium component
The mysterium component-
wholly other- totally outside our normal experience
fascination- the person is caught up in the experience.
Are religious experiences genuine- yes
Swinburne and James
Are religious experiences genuine- no
Freud and Caroline Franks Davis
Swinburne (sees religious experiences as genuine)
We should treat the majority of religious experiences as genuine based on 2 principles- The principle of credulity- if we think we experiences something, we probably did. And the principle of testimony- if someone tells us something is true, they probably believe it is.
Some can be unreliable such as after taking hallucinogenic drugs, and some are untrustworthy.
Swinburne continued
He also uses a cumulative argument, lots of weaker pieces of evidence add up to produce strong evidence,
Challenge- Flew, several leaky buckets don’t together hold water.
Response- Caroline Franks Davis, it depends on how the buckets are arranged.
James- pragmatism (sees religious experiences as genuine)
He argues that truth is not something which is objective, it is subjective, so we should treat any religious experience as being true. What actually caused the experience is irrelevant (drugs, wishful thinking… )
Challenge- People generally think of truth as something which is objective.
James- pluralism (sees religious experiences as genuine)
Most people argue against religious experiences, as some are very different and sometimes contradict each other, so they are unreliable and not genuine. James argues that people interpret their experiences based upon cultural and religious background so we should expect them to be different.
Challenge- This means that all experiences are equally valid, so no one can say that theirs is the correct religion.
Example of James’ pluralism
Blind men and the elephant, they all were at different spots, one believed it was a spear, a snake, a rope, a wall, a tree and a fan. This is because they interpreted the elephant on incomplete experience, this doesn’t mean the elephant isn’t real.
Freud- (sees religious experiences as not genuine)
He believed that religious experiences were wishful thinking (we want it to be true), and as children we look up to our parent’s to protect us, but as we grow older we realise our parents can fail and can’t protect us, so we invent a new ‘father’ who is all powerful and all knowing and who loves and protect us. (God).
Challenge- Freud based his theory on 5 mentally ill patients, doesn’t represent most people.
Caroline Franks Davis- (sees religious experiences as not genuine)
3 categories-
Description related challenges- problems with how religious experiences are described.
Subject related challenges- problems with the reliability of the recipient.
Object related challenges- problems with the nature of what is experienced.
