Religious Experience

Religious experience (RE) flashcards

William James

Philosopher and psychologist who lived in the 19th century.

Claimed that religious (or mystical) experiences occur in different religions and have similar features.

A pragmatist - philosophical view which states that if something is good for us, or works, then that is evidence of truth.

William James definition of RE

It defies expression, that no adequate report of its contents can be given in words.

William James’ four criteria of a mystical experience (PINT)

• Passive - it happens to a person, the person doesn’t make it happen

• Ineffable - it is beyond language and can’t be accurately described

• Noetic - there is some sort of knowledge gained from it

• Transient - the experience is temporary

William James’ explanation of dismission of RE

If someone has never had a mystical experience, they might call one absurd and dismiss it, but this would change if they had lived experience

James’ pluralist argument for RE

There must be an explanation of why these 4 criteria are found in RE in different cultures across the world.

• W. Stace developed this by claiming that the universality of certain features of RE is good evidence they are real

James concludes that RE are the core of religion, not the teachings and practices.

Paul Knitter’s pluralist analogy on RE

Each religion is a well.

If you get to the bottom of the well, you get down to the underground water that you then realise is sourcing all other wells.

James’ pragmatism argument for RE

Pointed out that unlike hallucinations, RE had life-altering impacts on the receiver.

Points to an example of an alcoholic who recovered from his addiction after going through an RE. He gained power he didn’t have before - James argues that this is evidence of a higher spiritual reality as the source.

James on conversion experiences

They are a strong example of the point about life changing impacts of RE.

Viewed them as a transformation from and unhappy self with a guilty conscience to a more unified, happy state

Counter argument to James’ pragmatism argument

James may be right about most hallucinations, but if one fits with someone’s prior beliefs, it could end up being life changing for them.

E.g. if a Christian hallucinates an angel, they are more likely to perceive it as life changing than if a Muslim were to have the same hallucination

Swinburne’s argument for RE

If we experience something or someone tells us they have, then that is evidence for that thing probably being true.

Applying this to RE, if it seems to someone that they experienced God, then that is evidence for God.

It doesn’t prove God but it gives a rational reason to believe in God.

This evidence then must be subject to scrutiny and testing.

If there is no contrasting evidence, it is irrational to dismiss an RE.

Swinburne’s principles of testimony and credulity

Credulity: People should be believed unless we have good reason to disbelieve them

Testimony: People in general are truthful. There needs to be good reasons to doubt their honesty

• Should we not try to find evidence first before blind trust?

Counter argument to Swinburne

These principles would actually reject a lot of REs. Many are caused due to people being liars, psychological influences etc.

If there’s evidence for a naturalistic cause of RE e.g. fasting, on drugs, mentally ill, their experience shouldn’t count as evidence for God

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

Is just an experience of God sufficient to justify its belief?

Arguably, the existence of God is an extraordinary claim which might need more substantial evidence.

Freud’s psychological challenge to RE

Called religion ‘obsessional neurosis’ caused by 2 forces:

• Fear of death - we are constantly aware that we are going to die, unlike other animals who only feel this when threatened. Religion manipulates the mind to believe that death is not the end

• Forever young - Christians call God ‘father’ because they desire to be a child forever. It’s a desire for eternal innocence in the face of the painful reality of the world

Freud thought these forces were so strong that they resulted in delusions which can explain RE

Religious response to Freud

His analysis fails to explain mystical RE because of its sense of unity with something infinite + unbounded.

Freud’s theory may work well against mere visions, but mystical experiences are ecstatic, immersive and totally unlike anything else - this means they are harder to dismiss as hallucinations

Freud’s response to the religious criticism

Intense mystical experiences are actually the reliving of childhood experiences before the ego had formed.

This is a feature of the mind and only later became associated with religion, but in essence has nothing to do with it.

Counter evaluation - Freud

There’s many non-neurotic religious people

Freud is not empirical enough in his methods for his theories to count as real science due to his small sample size which was not representative of society

Persinger’s physiological challenge to religious experience

A neuroscientist who created a helmet that physiologically manipulated people’s brain waves and sometimes caused them to have an RE where they felt the presence of unseen beings

This shows that RE originates from the brain, not anything supernatural

Religious response to Persinger

Maybe brain manipulation is simply the mechanism which God creates RE through

Also, we know drugs can cause hallucinations so this shouldn’t necessarily count against the validity of RE

Persinger evaluation

He demonstrates that RE could have a naturalistic explanation, so supernatural explanations are unnecessary

Implementation of Ockam’’s razor here is useful as it makes more sense to choose the simple, naturalistic option

Conversion experiences

These influence a person to join a religion

One example is St Paul - He was a Jew called Saul who persecuted Christians and after his RE (blinded and cared for by Christians) he changed his name to Paul, became an apostle and spread the faith - was this an epileptic episode?

Another example is William Vecera - soldier who fought in Afghanistan and found a deeper connection to his faith once he left the army. Something profound happened but it was desired - critique of James’ PINT (Transience)

Otto & the Idea of the Holy

Numinous - the term given by Otto to any experience of God that transcends the everyday

This shows God is not a being among beings but is something completely different to anything in ordinary experience

Rel exp draws someone in. Exp suggests he is immensely powerful. No adequate words can describe it (Link to James’ PINT)

Ninian Smart

We discover that religious experience has its own kind of logic

Defence of conversion experiences against Freud (religious pov)

Conversion isn’t fear of death. The converted person will have already believed in a god + afterlife system which would have fulfilled those desires

??? Not everyone starts with a religion

Corporate religious experiences

Multiple people have the same RE together e.g. the Pentecost

This has inspired a denomination of Christianity called Pentecostalism which focuses on intense shared worship

Another example is the Toronto Blessing - the Church felt unusual emotions, some falling around, crying and laughing

This can’t be explained by physiological or psychological causes that could only apply to individuals like drugs, fasting, mental illness

Psychological group dynamics

There are peculiar psychological dynamics to crowds or groups of people such as mob mentality, mass hysteria and social compliance

In the middle ages, an entire village would form an angry mob who were all convinced they’d seen a witch cast a spell

Concerts could be an example of this as well

The multiple claims issue

REs have evidence against them - the RE of other religions

Since different religions can’t all be true, these conflict with each other and must be seen as unreliable

They all make different claims about which supernatural beings exist

Claiming that an RE is evidence for a particular religious belief only creates more evidence against it

Pluralism response to the multiple claims issue

This is the view that all religions are true

William James holds this POV

James thinks that mystical experiences occurring in all religions and being life-changing shows that they are all true - in a pragmatist sense

Hick argues that the different religions are like blind men each touching a different part of an elephant (Islamic parable) - They each report they feel something different but that’s because they are too blind to see how they are really a part of the same thing

For Hick, differences between religions are just part of the cultural ‘lens’ through which we see the world

Teresa of Avila - mystical experience example

She had a series of visions when she was 39. She describes the powerful effect this had on her life.

Ppl challenged her visions and said it might have been psychologically driven or the result of sexual frustration

Looked at the evidence of her feelings after and argues if it were sexual frustrations they would have left her feeling disgusted

‘I show them the jewels the divine hand had left me’ - response to criticisms

Hume

Humans are drawn to the unusual and bizarre and things are often exaggerated. We start to remember the story we told rather than the actual experience to make it seem more interesting