Religious Experience

Question 1

Corporeal visions

Answer 1

• empirical, as they are mediated through the physical senses
• the visionary sees the figure/object in the same way as someone would see a chair

Example:
- the 18 visions of Mary that Bernadette experiences (she saw a ‘small young lady’)

Question 2

Imaginative visions

Answer 2

• visions mediated through ‘the mind’s eye’ and not through physical sight
• often take the form of dreams

Example:
- Joseph’s dream, where he was told that Mary was pregnant due to the Holy Spirit and that he was to marry her

Question 3

Intellectual visions

Answer 3

• no visual image
• defy description
• the experience enlightens/illuminates the soul
• direct cognition of reality
• the subject claims to ‘see’ things as they really are

Examples:
Saul’s conversion, Teresa of Avila

Question 4

An experience of the numinous

religious experience

Answer 4

• an adjective meaning ‘relating to the power/presence of a deity’
• cannot be understood with the senses or intellect
• a sense of the holy, minus its moral character
• our feelings about the numinous are sui generis (‘of their own kind’)

Question 5

Elements of the numinous (Otto)

religious experience

Answer 5

• creature-feeling
• Mysterium tremendum et fascinans

Question 6

Creature-feeling

Answer 6

the emotion of a creature, abased (degraded) and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all creatures

Question 7

Mysterium tremendum et fascinans

Otto

Answer 7

A Latin term that means ‘fearful and attractive mystery’

Mysterium - something far removed from humanity that can be experienced but not understood, which elicits a response of awe and wonder

Tremendum - the fearsome experience of God’s overwhelming majesty and energy, elicits creature-feeling

Fascinans - the compulsive and attractive nature of the experience creates desire for a relationship with this Being

Question 8

Explanation of the numinous - C.S. Lewis’s example

Answer 8

• if you were told there was a tiger in the next room, you would feel fear
• if you were told it was a ghost, you would feel fear, but of a different kind due to its uncanniness
• if you were told it was a spirit, you would feel wonder and awe but also dread

Question 9

The four marks of mystical experiences (William James)

Answer 9

• Ineffability
• Noetic quality
• Transiency
• Passivity

Question 10

Ineffability

Answer 10

• a private experience that makes sense only to other mystics
• it cannot be adequately described in words

Question 11

Noetic quality

Answer 11

• the encounter gives a genuine insight into truths
• it gives rise to knowledge, causing the recipient to learn something
• they consist of non-rational and intuitive rather than intellectual knowledge

Question 12

Transiency

Answer 12

• the experience is usually short, almost always no more than 1-2 hours
• with time, it becomes more difficult to reproduce in the memory, but its continuing significance is seen in any further experiences
• it has a life-transforming effect on the individual’s view of life

Question 13

Passivity

Answer 13

• the experience controls the mystic, whose will is unable to direct what happens
• this may result in unusual activity, e.g. Teresa of Ávila is said to have levitated

Question 14

Religious experience

Answer 14

An experience of or encounter with God within a religious framework. These are spontaneous - the recipient does not seek the experience

Question 15

Mystical experience

Answer 15

Often transcends religious boundaries and involves a direct, ineffable encounter with what is perceived as ultimate reality. These are sought in some way.

Question 16

What mysticism is not (according to Stace)

Answer 16

• misty, foggy, vague, or sloppy
• mystery-mongering (deliberately mystifying others), mystery in the sense of parapsychology (e.g. telekinesis), hocus-pocus (meaningless talk)
• visions and voices (as these are sensory experiences)

Question 17

What mysticism is (according to Stace)

Answer 17

• non-sensuous, non-intellectual
• formless, shapeless, odorless, soundless
• involves the apprehension of an ultimate non-sensuous unity in all things

Question 18

Features of introvertive mystical experiences

Stace

Answer 18

• pure consciousness
• non-spacial and non-temporal (not related to space/time)
• sense of reality
• sense of absolute peace
• sense of the holy
• ineffable

Question 19

Features of extrovertive mystical experiences

Stace

Answer 19

• all things are One
• a sense of the One as inner subjectivity or life in all things
• sense of reality
• sense of absolute peace
• sense of the holy
• ineffable

Question 20

Introvertive mystical experiences

Answer 20

• the ultimate mystical experience
• sense experience is totally suppressed
• there is no awareness of the world
• there is no intellectual function
• ordinary human experience is replaced with mystical consciousness in which the ‘I’ is absent

Example - Arthur Koestler floating in the river, where the river and ordinary consciousness both cease to exist

Question 21

Extrovertive mystical experiences

Answer 21

• a halfway house to the introvertive experience
• normal objects are seen with the physical senses, but they are transfigured so that the non-sensuous unity of all things shines through them

Example - American N.M. observing a backyard, where everything suddenly seemed to have an ‘inside’, where the glow of light came from within

Question 22

Principle of Credulity

Answer 22

If it seems to a subject that x is present, then probably x is present; what one seems to perceive is probably so

Question 23

Special considerations that limit the Principle of Credulity

Answer 23

• Unreliable perceptions e.g. LSD
• Claims that cannot be repeated
• The cause of the experience was probably not there
• If the cause was there, it probably didn’t cause the experience (presence ≠ causation)

Question 24

Principle of Testimony

Answer 24

The experience of others are (probably) as they report them

Question 25

Michael Martin: objections to Swinburne

Answer 25

- Strongest man of County Cork - Virgin Mary and Kali - Reverse Principle of Credulity - If the Principle of Credulity is believed, then it is possible for anything to exist

Question 26

Michael Martin: the strongest man of County Cork

Answer 26

- you cannot tell from only the voice that the being you heard was omnipotent, omniscient and completely free - you cannot distinguish the voice from that of an enormously powerful but finite being - you cannot tell that it is not an infinitely powerful evil being

Question 27

Michael Martin: Virgin Mary and Kali

Answer 27

- Kali, the goddess of death and destruction, with bloodshot eyes, fangs etc. - the Virgin Mary was beautiful and gentle - however, they are both associated with creation and fertility - it is absurd to say that God appears to different religious individuals in different forms

Question 28

Michael Martin: Reverse Principle of Credulity

Answer 28

if it seems (epistemically) to a subject S that x is absent, then probably x is absent

Question 29

Michael Martin: if PC is to be believed, anything could exist

Answer 29

one would land oneself in the 'swamp of gullibilism' anything could exist, ranging from lesser beings to creatures of legends and myths

Question 30

Challenges to religious experience

Answer 30

- mainly experienced by the unsupported evidence of individuals - subjective and private - ineffable - can be accounted for by natural explanations

Question 31

Sigmund Freud's challenge to religious experiences

Answer 31

- religion is wish-fulfilment by the unconscious mind - the idea of God helps us control fear of the unknown and death - religious visions are hallucinations caused by our need to have control over our helpless state

Question 32

Temporal Lobe Epilepsy - challenge to religious experiences

Answer 32

- people who suffer from this are prone to having religious experiences - when the temporal lobes seize, misfiring neurons can affect memory, emotions, processing of sounds and smells, and feelings of conviction and insight

Question 33

God Helmet - challenge to religious experiences

Answer 33

- uses magnetic coils placed on either side of the head to stimulate the temporal lobes - leads to experiences akin to those of religion

Question 34

Hallucinogenic drugs - challenge to religious experiences

Answer 34

- these are known as 'entheogens' - generating/becoming the Divine from within - people who take them can have intense spiritual and religious experiences

Question 35

The three types of visions

Answer 35

- Corporeal - Imaginative - Intellectual