Religious experiences


Visions:

  • An individual perceives something beyond reality such as a message, insight or divine figure.

Different types:

  • Sensory/corporeal visions - external objects only appear to certain people

  • intellectual - Example - St Teresa of Avila - her soul understood the Father Son and Holy Spirit are three distinct persons in one God

  • group visions - Seen by more than one person - example - Angel of Mons during WW1 a vision of St George and a phantom bowman halted the kaisers troops

  • individual visions - only seen by one person - often imaginative or dream based

  • dreams - Unconscious state where knowledge or understanding is gained through a series of images or a dream - narrative, that would not normally be available to the individual in the conscious state


Conversions:

  • means ‘turning around’ or ‘changing’

  • used in everyday life

  • some have ceremonies that mark a persons conversion - others see it as private and shouldn’t be boasted about

  • Some actively seek out converts (Christianity and Islam) some don’t (judaism and hinduism)

  • Individual conversion - active or passive -

  • active = agent actively seeks out conversion

  • passive = does not know they are looking for God, God is suddenly revealed to them

  • Communal - group who simultaneously change their way of lives and beliefs

  • communal conversions are often criticised as led by emotions of the crowds

  • gradual conversion - Charles Wesley recalls this in his diary - the experience can be slower to develop

  • Sudden conversion - Examples - Paul + Francis of Assisi - agent has a dramatic change of character due to religious experience

  • Intellectual conversions - seen as transformative process where a person looks to understand their reality and their place within it - changes how a person thinks - example - C.S Lewis

  • Moral conversions - adopt new moral standards through internal transformation - example - Augustine.


Prayer:

  • Can occur communally or private - both groups value both individual and communal prayer

Types of prayer:

  • Prayer of worship - recognising God’s power and thanking him

  • Prayer of petition - asking God for help, this can also pertain to saints, for instance St. Anthony (patron saint of lost things) when searching for something

  • prayer of confession - repenting for your sins and seeking forgiveness from God


Teresa of Avila:

  • She was severely ill and paralysed for 3 years

  • 7 mansions


Meditation:

  • first stage: designed for beginners as the only requirement is showing dedication and the right amount of effort

  • second stage: the prayer of quiet - cannot be achieved through the individuals

  • Third stage: Union - where the soul becomes unified with God

  • Fourth stage - Rapture - ‘The persons who must speak of it are those who know it, for it cannot be understood, still les described’


The interior Castle (The Mansions):

  • Teresa interpreted a vision of a castle, with seven interior mansions, to form an analogy of the soul in its relationship with God.




William James:


  • Author of “varieties of religious experience”

  • believed religious experience couldn’t be proved by empirical science

  • but he wanted to find common characteristics of religious experience

  • He found four characteristics - Ineffability, Noetic quality, transiency and passivity

  • Ineffability - the quality of being difficult to express in normal vocabulary - explained with two analogies - musician who knows the value of a symphony but cannot explain it to someone without a musical ear + someone in love who finds it impossible to explain how they feel

  • Noetic - gaining special knowledge or insights that are unobtainable by the intellect alone.

  • Transiency - lasting only for a short time - example of Swiss man hiking who had a religious experience

  • passivity - little to no control over their own body - held by an immense superior power - may not remember anything but there will be lasting effects - can be induced through meditation, isolation


Rudolf Otto:

  • Author of Das Heilige, or “the idea of the Holy”

  • developed fRIEDRICH sCHLEIRMACHER’S IDEA THAT ESSENCE OF RELIGION WAS IN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND AN AWARENESS OF SENS OF GOD

  • Concept of the numinous - too much emphasis on the rational,

  • Three characteristics of numinous experience - creature consciousness, wholly other and evokes emotional response

  • Examples - Hindu scripture where Arjuna sees vision

  • The Wind in the Willows

  • Numinous Mysterium Tremendum

  • ‘Holy’ has been schematised so uses the word ‘Numinous’ instead

  • a numinous experience is non-intellectual and non-rational

  • Sui Generis