Religous Experience

Question 1

3 types of religious experience

Answer 1

Visions

Numinous experiences - R. Otto

Mystical experiences - W. James & W. Stace

Question 2

3 types of visions

Answer 2

• Corporeal visions
• Imaginative visions
• Intellectual visions

Question 3

How is each type of vision seen?

Answer 3

Corporeal - sensory, sensed through senses, through the eye of the body.

Imaginative - seen in the mind, the eye of the mind.

Intellectual - seen with the ‘eye of reason’.

Question 4

What is an example of a corporeal vision?

Answer 4

St Bernadette

Visions of a small young lady claiming to be the virgin Mary, led to the discovery of a spring of water (became the site of miracles - Lourdes)

Question 5

What is an example of an imaginative vision?

Answer 5

Joseph’s dream.

An angel appeared in a dream, warning him of King Herod’s attempt to kill Jesus & told him to run away with Jesus & Mary to Egypt.

Question 6

What is an example of an intellectual vision?

Answer 6

St Theresa of Avila

Had a vision of Christ, though didn’t see him, she says she ‘felt’ Jesus at her right hand - claiming that such an experience ‘illuminates the understanding’, and in her case, Jesus made himself ‘present to the soul’.

Question 7

What did Otto define mystical religious experiences as?

Answer 7

‘Numinous’ - derived from the latin word ‘numen’ meaning divine power.

Question 8

What is it an experience of?

Answer 8

Something ‘wholly other’ - unlike anything else.

Question 9

What did Otto believe too much focus had been put on?

Answer 9

That God could be known through logical argument, rather numinous experiences are non-rational (not irrational, but a way of knowing that doesn’t involve reasoning).

Question 10

What are the latin/greek words Otto uses to describe numinous experiences that are different to anything else?

Answer 10

Mysterium - the utter indescribable mystery of the experience.

Tremendum - the awe & fear of being in the presence of an overwhelmingly superior being.

Fascinans- despite that fear, being strangely drawn to the experience.

Question 11

Otto claims numinous experiences are what of any religion ‘worthy of name’?

Answer 11

Numinous experiences are the core of any religion ‘worthy of name’.

Question 12

For Otto, what is fundamental to true religion?

Answer 12

A sense of a personal encounter with the divine.

Question 13

What did James mean by ‘mystical’?

Answer 13

Intense & totally immersive.

Question 14

What do mystical experiences often involve?

Answer 14

A sense of unity with some kind of higher power or even with the universe itself.

Question 15

What are James’ four criteria which characterises all mystical religious experiences?

Answer 15

Ineffable
- beyond language, cant be put into words.
Noetic
- some sort of knowledge or insight gained.
Transient
- temporary.
Passive
- happens to the person, the person doesn’t make the experience happen.

Question 16

What does James say that the most useful descriptor of a mystical experience is?

Answer 16

That it ‘defies expression, that no adequate report of its content can be given in words’.

It is ineffable, had to be directly experienced to be appreciated (like music or love).

Question 17

What is James’ pluralist argument for religious experience?

Answer 17

His four criteria are found in religious experiences globally.
He concludes that mystical are the core of religion, and teachings & practices were ‘second hand’ religion (not what religion is really about).

This makes James a pluralist, the view that all religions are true.

Question 18

What argument of James’ W. Stace develop? What did he say?

Answer 18

James’ pluralist argument - that all RE are coming from a higher spiritual reality.

Stace claims that this universality of certain features of RE is good evidence that they’re real.

Question 19

What is James’ pragmatism argument?

Answer 19

It argues against the attempt to dismiss RE as mere hallucinations.
He argued that the validity of RE depended upon the effect it had on people’s lives.