‘we think the evidence reveals a culturally mediated prejudice. It’s based on a conviction that religious ways of interpreting reality simply must be mistaken because they appear to conflict with or be irrelevant to cherished and successful scientific paradigms.’ (Hammond)
The belief that ‘religious people’ are crazy or unbalanced is challenged by the research conducted.
Religious experiences are wholly from what is customary and usual. God is experienced in some form as opposed to everyday physical objects and there is a spiritual change that clearly has a religious dimension. It can be claimed that religious experiences are so different from normal experiences not just because of its object but because such experiences regulate the whole of a person’s life that it cannot be judged like normal, ordinary experiences.
Religious experiences are not universal like ordinary experiences; not everyone can experience them. Humans use the same conceptual scheme when they describe an ordinary experience. An example of this is that regardless of culture we would all describe a tree in the same way. However, with a religious experience, though the feeling may be similar the object is different. In conclusion, religious experiences have different interpretations in different cultures.
Another main difference between an ordinary experience and a religious experience is that a religious experience cannot be checked, an ordinary experience is open to checking because it can be seen by others.
‘Religious experiences give insight into the unseen whereas the ordinary gives no insight into other realms.’
Types of Religious Experience.
Swinburne, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford categorises experiences into two main sections; Public and Private experiences. Swinburne then breaks down these categories into five main points.
Public experiences.
- Perceiving God or God’s action in a public object or event, but which might be interpreted in a different way. An example of this is the regularity of the universe.
- Religious experiences through very unusual public objects, for example the disciples’ experiencing the risen Jesus;
Private experiences.
- Experiences which the individual cab describe using ordinary language. Swinburne’s example of this is the appearance of the angel Gabriel to Mary.
- Experiences which the individual cannot describe using ordinary language, but which are nevertheless very real to those experiencing them, these experiences being mystical experiences.
- No specific experience, but the individual nevertheless feels that God is acting in his or her life, for example through conscience, intuition.
Swinburne claims that the believer’s explanation is the most straight forward and therefore the onus is the non-believer. The main part of his argument lies in his claim that if a person is trustworthy in other areas of life, and there is no mitigating circumstances, then that is a good reason for taking a person’s religious experience seriously. Davies declares,
‘Even if it is possible to be mistaken with a claim based on experience, not all such claims need be mistake. …Context is very important here.’
Swinburne makes his assertion primarily though two principles; the principle of credulity and the principle of testimony.
There is ain infinite number of different religious experiences, as each one is unique, but there have been attempts to classify them based largely upon the results of the experience. Most religious experiences are said to be mystical. This means that the recipient feels a sense of ‘union’ with the Divine. Their are some religious experiences that are classified as ‘prayer’ experiences. This usually refers to experiences that have been brought about by meditation and reflection. However, there are some effects of religious experiences that can be permanent and life changing. Such experiences are often classified as ‘conversion’ experiences.
Mystical Experience.
This term is extremely versatile, and has been used to convert everything from the experiences of the Great Mystics of each religious tradition to mysterious occurrences. There are many different definitions of the term mysticism.
‘…belief in the possibility of union with the Divine nature by means of ecstatic contemplation; reliance on spiritual intuition or exalted feeling as the means of acquiring knowledge of mysteries inaccessible to intellectual apprehension.’
(Oxford English Dictionary)
‘Mysticism is the art of union with Reality. The mystic is a person who has attained that union in a greater of lesser degree; or who aims at and believes in such attainment.’
(E.Underhill- quoted by F.C. Happold)
‘Mysticism involves the spiritual recognition of truths beyond normal understanding.’
