3A - Nature of Religious Experience

What is a religious experience?

- A unique, non-empirical occurrence that may be perceived as supernatural
- It is usually spontaneous but can be generated through intense training and self-discipline
- A deeper level of knowledge of the awareness of G is often gained
- It is possible to have one at the same time as somebody else but the exp. = individual
- It is encouraging and the person is left feeling positive

What are the four types of religious experience?

- Visions
- Conversion
- Mysticism
- Prayer

What is a vision?

Something seen other than by ordinary sight
* Supernatural/prophetic - often conveys a revelation

Fill in the blanks and give a brief summary: visions can either be _ or _.

- Sensory: external objects, sounds or figures appear
- Dream-based: the unconscious state experiences a series of images (e.g. Joseph w/ saw the unnAngel)

How are visions intellectual? (Hint: the three 'i's)

- They bring the recipient inspiration, insight or instruction

What are the three types of vision and give examples of each.

- Group: Angels of Mons (which was actually a myth)
- Individual: Bernadette of Lourdes
- Corporeal: external, seemingly a physical object only visible to some people

What are the four types of content in visions? Give an example of each.

- Message (can also be warnings): Peter's vision
- Religious figures: St Teresa of Avila's angel with a spear
- Place of significance: Guru Nanak's cup of nectar
- Fantastic creatures/figures: Ezekiel

What is a conversion?

- 'To change direction' or 'to turn around'; a process of change that alters one's view of the world and one's personal place in it
- Usually a personal exp. e.g. Acts 9 (Saul) but can be communal, e.g Acts 2 (Pentecost): the Apostles "were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues"; on the 1st day, they converted 3000 people

Fill in the blanks: conversions can be _ or _, _ or _, and _ or _.

- Gradual (e.g. spending a long time in a Catholic school and converting) or sudden
- Volitional or self-surrendering
- Passive or active
- God knows what the person needs, the best way for their conversion to occur

What are the five types of conversion?

- Intellectual persuasion - conflict between two thought systems
- Moral transformation - someone changes how they live
- No religion to a faith - Augustine
- One faith to another - Sundar Singh
- Faith (believing) to faith (trusting) - John Wesley = aware that he did not have a personal faith in Jesus but converted by seeing the faith of others

What is mysticism?

A departure from a logical, rational view of religion

What is the mystical ascent?

• A ladder or staircase with steps beginning in the earthly, mundane world, but with regular practice and divine assistance, the individual can transcend their own reality and climb the staircase

What are the 5 elements of mysticism, as outlined by Ed Miller?

- Transcendent
- Ecstatic
- Unitive
- Ineffable
- Noetic

Explain the transcendent aspect of mysticism.

- Not localisable in space or time
- Feeling of moving 'beyond' the normal, physical realm of everyday experience
- 'Other-worldly'

Explain the ecstatic aspect of mysticism.

- Filling the soul with bliss or peace
- A suspension of the senses
- The closest a mortal can get to the feeling of what it must be like for departed souls to be in the presence of God.
- Two states: interior sensation - the mind is focused on a subject; physical suspension of normal sense activities
- Trance-like state

Explain the unitive aspect of mysticism.

- Uniting the soul with reality
- Removal of separation between individual and God
- St. Bernard of Clairvaux: "Mutuality of love"
- Henry Suso: "has passed into him and has become one spirit with him

Explain the ineffable aspect of mysticism.

- The experience itself is not describable
- The person subject to the experience often feels overwhelmed by God's presence. God is often described through phenomenon like light, fire, wind or thunder, but these are usually understood symbolically rather than literally.
- James states, '... it defies expression, that no adequate report of its contents can be given in words... its quality must be directly experienced; it cannot be imparted or transferred to others.'
• Not expressable in language

Explain the noetic aspect of mysticism.

- "Noetic quality...mystical states ... also states of knowledge" (James)
- Religious experiences bring divine knowledge. This might be a propositional revelation (when the divine reveals truths about itself) or non-propositional revelation (when the believer has to interpret what it means afterwards).
• Conveying illumination/truth

How can true union with God be achieved, according to Teresa of Avila?

- Through prayer
- She wrote extensively on prayer and the spiritual life, including her masterpiece of mystical theology, the Interior Castle. In this book she described the seven stages of union with God in everyday, easy to understand language.
• Intense concentration and disciplining oneself through various stages of prayer (e.g Julian of Norwich)

What analogy did Teresa of Avila use for the state of a person's spiritual self?

- A garden

In Teresa of Avila's garden analogy, the garden can be watered in four ways; which is the most effective way?

- "Heavy rain"
- the "Lord waters it with no labour of ours"
- "Incomparably better"

What analogy did Teresa of Avila use for the soul?

- A castle with seven mansions (representing the 7 states of prayer)
- She calls this either The Interior Castle ("El Castillo Interior") or The Mansions ("Las Moradas")

What are in mansions 1-3?

• Prayers that allow the individual to become closer to G but do not give the same level of union that can eventually be gained

What is in mansion 4?

- Prayer of consolations from G ("Prayer of Quiet")
- Human will = captivated by God's love
- Peace/spiritual delight
- Individual can appear faint/semi-comatose, known as the "sleep of the faculties"

What is in mansion 5?

- Prayer of simple union
- God implants himself in the interior of the soul
- The experience = so powerful that they do not doubt that it was God

What is in mansion 6?

- Stage of spiritual marriage
- An overpowering longing to spend every moment with the divine 'spouse'
- Will feel spiritually ecstatic
- Will feel the powerful love of G

What is in mansion 7? Why is it special?

- Mystical marriage
- Complete unity with the divine; the soul has reached a state of transforming unity; intimate/perceptive understanding of the divine
- Highest possible state of prayer achievable on Earth

What is the only way that people can move through ToA's mansions?

• God's grace

What is the name given to a religious experience featuring more than one person?

• Corporate

What did Jesus tell Julian of Norwich when she asked about the suffering in the world?

• "All will be well"

How does Teresa of Avila's experience fit into other types of experience?

• It was also mystical