The nature of religious experience

Question 1

Give the four types of religious experience.

Answer 1

Mystical (direct contact/ oneness with God or and ultimate reality)
Conversion (leads to the adoption fo a new religious belief)
Visions (experience of God or another religious figure appearing with a message)
Voices (experience of God/ another religious figure having a conversation with them)
Prayer (communicating with God or a higher power through the medium of prayer)

Question 2

Define direct religiosu experience.

Answer 2

Where a person encounters God in a direct way (e.g. Paul, Moses at the burning bush- God reveals Himself diorectly to the person having the experience). The person experiences God in some way.

Question 3

Deinfe indirect religious experience.

Answer 3

Thoughts/ feelings about God prompted by events in daily life (e.g. observing a sunrise and having thoughts about the greatness of God). Acts of prayer are seen as indirect religious experience as God is not directly revealed to a person, nor is knowledge of God revealed; the person gains experience of God through what is observed.

Question 4

Give the three types of vision experience.

Answer 4

Corporeal (bodily vision, human form)
Intellectual
Imaginitive

Question 5

Give the findings recorded by David Hay in his book Religious Experience Today.

Answer 5

(Based on a random sampling of the public).
31% of Brits and 35% of Americans have had experiences they might consider religious.
These experiences generally last a few seconds but may last a lot longer.
They generally give awareness that there is more to reality than the physical world.
They can produce a change in behaviour and attitudes- including a sense of altruism, increased self-esteem, and a feeling of purpose.

Question 6

Give examples of famous figures who have had a religious experience.

Answer 6

St Paul, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

Question 7

What is the role of the person receiving a religious experience?

Answer 7

The experience is not chosen or willed by them in any way; the person experiences or observes God in some way.

Question 8

Give an example of a corporeal vision experience.

Answer 8

St Bernadette of Lourdes had several visions of the Virgin Mary. In one vision she told her to dig at her feet, where she discovered a mountain spring. People still visit the spring and report healing.

Question 9

Give an example of an intellectual vision experience.

Answer 9

Teresa of Avila: “I saw Christ at my side- or, to put it better, I was conscious of Him, for neither with the eyes of the body or of the soul did I see anything.”

Question 10

Give an example of an imaginative vision experience.

Answer 10

Matthew 1: Joseph, while engaged to Mary, has a dream telling him not to be afraid of marrying Mary, even though she is pregnant and he is not the father.

Question 11

Give three noticeable features in voice experiences.

Answer 11

The disembodied shows the presence of God.
The voice communicates a revelation from God (message is noetic).
The voice is authoritative and passes on God’s authority.

Question 12

Give a summary of Augustine’s voice experience.

Answer 12

Augustine: “I was asking myself these questions, weeping all the while with the most bitter sorrow in my heart, when all at once I heard the sing-song voice of a child in a nearby house… it repeated the refrain ‘Take it and read, take it and read’, I stemmed my flood of tears and stood up telling myself that this could only be a divine command to open a book of scripture.”

Question 13

Evaluate Augustine’s religious experience.

Answer 13

He isn’t certain that the voices weren’t of children playing (a natural event, not supernatural like other experiences, that he interprets as having religious significance). Could this be Augustine willing himself to have a religious experience?

Question 14

Evaluate visions and voices as being valid religious experiences.

Answer 14

How can we prove an experience is from God? Some schizophrenics hear voices telling them to murder- which they believe are messages from God. Some of these experiences may also be linked to factors such as fasting.

Question 15

Give examples of conversion experiences.

Answer 15

Paul’s conversion, when he saw a blinding light and heard the voice of Jesus calling him to ministry
C.S. Lewis- intellectual conversion. Walked and talked with J.R.R Tolkein about Christianity, and became convinced of Jesus as the Son of God.
Augustine- moral conversion. His wayward life was changed when he read the words of the Romans- exhorts the reader to abandon the works of the flesh and be clothed with Christ.

Question 16

Give the two types of mental occurrence that lead to a difference in conversion processes.

Answer 16

1. Conscious and voluntary experience, called ‘volitional type’ (gradual conversion).
2. Involuntary and unconscious experience called ‘self-surrender type’ (sudden conversion).

Question 17

What does mystical experience refer to?

Answer 17

The subject reports a loss of individuality, the oneness of all reality, union with the deity, and a unity of the subject of the experience with the object of the experience. They involve special mental states or events that allow an understanding of ultimate truths.

Question 18

Give common features of mystical experience.

Answer 18

A sense of union with the divine.
A sense of dependence on God.
A sense of separateness from God.
Time is transcended.
‘Noetic’ experiences (William James) or a ‘showing’ (Julian of Norwich)- something is clearly revealed to the person receiving the experience.
A sense of joy and wellbeing.

Question 19

What two stages of mystical experience are documented by Paul Tillich?

Answer 19

1. An event or an encounter.
2. A special understanding of the event as a result of ecstasy, a special way of looking at the event which reveals its religious significance.

Question 20

How might people invoke mystical experience?

Answer 20

Meditation, pilgrimage, fasting, hypnotic movement, sensory restriction or over-stimulation. (Sufism in Islam, Kaballah in Judaism, the writing of the Ramakrishna in Hinduism).

Question 21

Give the mystical experience of Jacob Boehme.

Answer 21

1600- aged 25. Saw the origin of all things in a vision. Looking into a pewter dish reflecting the sunlight, he fell into an inward ecstasy where he saw ‘the heart of things… the true nature of God and man, and the relationship existing between them.’
(The Way to the Cross) ‘Heaven and Hell are not places which human beings enter after death, but represent present states in their souls.’

Question 22

Give the mystical experience of Simone Weil.

Answer 22

Had several life-changing mystical experiences. She observed the celebration of a saint’s festival in a Portugese village, and an occassion of prayer in Assisi. These intense religious moments culminated in her experience whilst a guest at the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes in 1938. The exquisite beauty of the chanting monks captured her- she felt as though the Passion of Christ had entered her whole being.
She wrote to a friend, “In 1938… I was suffering from splitting headaches; each sound hurt me like a blow; by an extreme effort of concentration I was able to rise above this wretched … to find a pure and perfect joy in the unimaginable beauty of the chanting and the words.” “the Passion of Christ entered into my being once and for all… in this sudden possession of me by Christ, neither my senses nor my imagination had any part; I only felt in the midst of my suffering the presence of a love, like that which one can read in the smile on a beloved face.”

Question 23

Give characteristics of conversion experience.

Answer 23

Inner experience, not empirically detectable. Only changes in behaviour can be observed empirically.
Communal conversion may occur, wherein a group of people experience a change in behaviour/ beliefs at the same time (e.g. Toronto blessing- 1994)

Question 24

Give the types of prayer.

Answer 24

Blessing (Ephesians 1:3- “our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ”)
Adoration (Psalm 95:6- “let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker.”)
Petition (Colossians 4:12- “He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in the will of God, mature and fully assured”)
Asking forgiveness/ penance (Luke 18:13- “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”)
Intercession (1 Timothy 2:1- “I urge then, first of all, that petitions and prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people.”)
Thanksgiving (1 Thessalonians 5:18- “Give thanks in all circumstances”)
Praise (Ephesians 3:20- “to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations”)

Question 25

What did St. Teresa of Avila believe was the purpose of life?

Answer 25

Union with God through prayer.

Question 26

What did St. Teresa of Avila write in her work ‘The Interior Castle’.

Answer 26

The seven types of prayer, the seven mansions, and the analogy of the garden.

Question 27

Explain the garden analogy.

Answer 27

Teresa explains the stages of prayer and of giving the soul over to God, and emphasises the importance of persistence in prayer.
The Bucket- much like beginning a prayer: requires effort and it is easy to become exhausterd.
The Windlass- still laborious, but makes the process easier. When routine is established, prayer becomes easier.
The River- a river running through the garden takes a lot of the burden from you.
Rain- if it rains, no effort is required at all. Once complentative prayer is established, the soul is given over to God and the union is complete.

Question 28

Explain the Seven Mansions.

Answer 28

Emphasises the importance of life experiences and suffering in union with God.
1st- A long way from the castle’s centre. The soul is cold and easily abstracted by external venomous creatures. Here we learn HUMILITY.
2nd- Increasing in warmth, seeking out knowledge to move forward, but still not safe from distraction.
3rd- Learning control and self-discipline, but still capable of mistakes and reliance on our own effort. It is still possible to fall and get back up.
4th- The soul is influenced by the divine and can rest. Also called the prayer of quiet, this is an early stage of mysticism.
5th- Like the river in the garden analogy, the soul is now taken over by God, sometimes called the prayer of spiritual union, God is in the interior of the soul.
6th- Closeness to God means that we don’t want to turn back, but we may experience hardship as well as mystical experience.
7th- Mysical marriage. Complete irreversible union with God.