Religious Experience

Numinous

• Deriving from the latin word 'numen' meaning divine power. It involves feelings of awe and wonder in the presence of an all-powerful being. It is an experience of something 'Wholly other'

• or more simply related to the presence of a deity

Imaginative Vision

A vision seen in the mind, usually through a dream experience

• An example of this is Joseph's dream, in which he was told Mary was pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit and that he was to marry her

Corporeal Vision

A vision that comes through the physical senses (e.g. sight). Relates to the physical body.

• An example of this is the 18 visions of Mary that Bernadette of Lourdes experienced

Intellectual Vision

A vision without any visual image, where the experience is an "illuniation" of the soul

• An example of this is Teresa of Avila was a mystic who had many such visions. "i saw nothing with the eyes of the body, nothing with the eyes of the soul"

Transcendent

Concept that God is beyond the space-time universe, "wholly other"

Passivity

The experiencer does not control the expereibce but is controlled by it

Ineffability

The exoerience cannot be described in words; it has to be experienced

Noetic quality

the sacred knowledge obtained during a mystical experience

Transiency

Experience are temporary (under 2 hours) but effects are long

Introvertive

a religious experience in which sense experience is totally suppressed; there is no sense of 'i'

Extrovertive

A religious experience where sense experience is still active; a 'halfway' to introvertive

Neurotheology

The attempt to explain religious experience and behaviour in neuroscientific terms

Rudolf Otto

-Made a book on the nature of religious experience called 'The Idea of the Holy'

-The book attempts to describe the sense some people have of a reality beyond their experience of the world

Religious experience

a sudden awareness of the supernatural or a feeling of coming in contact with God.

• it a taste of transcendency

Numinous Experience

• Experience of the ‘wholly other‘

• it is an experience that is the basis of genuine religion

• it is a non-rational and unique form of experience, outside our everyday experience

• The emphasis is on God's transcendence.

• it refers to a presence and reality that cannot be understood with the senses or intellect.

• it is a sense of the holy

Numinous= Having a strong religious or spirtual quality; ind icating or suggesting the presence of the divine

Mysterium

MYSTERIOUS- far removed from humanity that can be experienced but not understood. Elicts the respinse of awe and wonder

Tremendum

TREMBLING- fearsome experience of God's overwhelming majesty and energy. Sense of human nothingness (feeling small) sinfulness. Consequently, absolute dependence on God.

Fascinans

The compulsive & attractive nature of the experience creates the desire for a relationship with God (despite its fearful nature)

Walter stace

Stace made a varity of arguments to why mysticism makes sense.

• he definens mysticism as 'non-sensuous' and 'non intellectual' union with the divine

• Mysticism has nothing to do with mystery and is more simmlar to telepathy, teleinesis, clairvoyance and recognition.

• Vision and Voices are not mystic experience, mystic experience is non-sensuous having no form, colour, smell or sound

• mystic experiences transcends our sensory-intellectual consciousness

Two types of mystic experience

Introvertive and extrovertive

William James criteria for assessing the genuine nature of a religious experience

Passivity, Ineffability, Noetic quality, Transience

Pragmatism

A philosophical approach that evalutes theories or beliegs in terms of there success of their practical application. e.g William James was a pragmatic