Content and Exam Tips for OCR A Level Religious Studies
Mystical Experience and Conversion
Religious Experience
Content
the nature and influence of religious experience, including:
mystical experience
conversion experience
different ways in which individual religious experiences can be understood
Key Knowledge
examples of mystical and conversion experiences and views about these, including:
views and main conclusions of William James
as union with a greater power
psychological effect such as illusion
the product of a physiological effect
Types of Religious Experience
Voices
Voice experiences share three characteristics:
- Disembodied = voice heard that does not originate from the person
- Noetic = the voice reveals something
- Authoritative = the voice commands the recipient to do something
Examples:
Moses and the Burning Bush (Exodus 3:2-10)
"The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bus, 'Moses! Moses!' And Moses said 'Here I am.' 'Do not come any closer.' God said. 'Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.' Then he said 'I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God is Isaac and the God of Jacob.' At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said 'I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.'"
St Teresa of Avila's Vision of Jesus
"I was at prayer on a festival of the glorious Saint Peter when I saw Christ at my side - or, to put it better, I was conscious of Him, for neither with the eyes of the body nor with those of the soul did I see anything. I thought He was quite close to me and I saw that it was He Who, as I thought, was speaking to me ... All the time Jesus Christ seemed to be beside me but as this was not an imaginary vision, I could not discern in what form: what I felt very clearly was that all the time He was at my right hand, and a witness of everything that I was doing, and that, whenever I became slightly recollected or was not greatly distracted, I could not but he aware of His nearness to me."
William James (1842-1910 CE)
William James was an American philosopher and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the late nineteenth century, one of the most influential philosophers of the United States.
Mystical Experiences
William James defined mysticism as ‘feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude of whatever they consider to be the divine.’
In The Varieties of Religious Experience, James categorised those forms of religious experience that cannot be explained using normal language:
Ineffable – Those experiences that are so extraordinary they cannot be described in a way that would make them intelligible to anyone who had not had such an experience.
Noetic – These experiences provide some kind of insight or carry a message of revelation of truth.
Transient – Brief experiences that do not last more than half an hour.
Passive – Experiences that cannot be actively sought or created. Often people describe their bodies being ‘taken over’ by a superior presence.
'One may say truly, I think, that personal religious experience has its roots and centre in mystical states of consciousness.' (James, The Varieties of Religious Experience)
James argued that the roots of religious experience could be found in these common features of mystical experiences. He also emphasised the importance of the 'fruits' of religious experience.
Mystical experiences are varied and can include visions. Christian mystics such as Julian of Norwich (c. 1342-1416 CE) and Teresa of Avila (1515-1582 CE) recorded their own visions of Jesus. Julian wrote Revelations of Divine Love after a series of visions when she was close to death. Julian saw a vision of Jesus bleeding in front of her but experienced an overwhelming sense of God's unconditional love.
Teresa of Avila checked her visions with her own spiritual adviser because they were so unusual. One of her most famous visions was of a spear, its golden tip on fire, piercing her side and leaving her with immense feelings of love and elations.
Both Julian and Teresa struggled to explain their feelings and experiences (ineffable), although they were able to reflect on them later. The religious experiences were passive and gave them new insights into their faith (noetic) as well as being short-lived but with lasting impact (transient).
James argued that religious experiences can range from experiences that have little religious significance to those that are completely life changing. He reasoned that most religious experiences happen when a person is in a conscious state rather than in a dream state.
However, James also acknowledged ‘the sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hours. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, says yes.’ Mystical experiences, he therefore concluded, could also be due to the external influences of alcohol and other intoxicants.
Richard Swinburne
Swinburne characterises religious experience into the following categories:
public ordinary - a person interprets a natural event with significance
public extraordinary - miracles take place and nature is changed
private describable - dreams
private non-describable - direct religious experience of God which go beyond human understanding and interpretation
private non-specific - looking at the world but from a religious perspective
Example:
The Ecstasy of Teresa of Avila
"It pleased the Lord that I should sometimes see the following vision, I would see beside me, on my left hand, an angel in bodily form - a type of vision which I am not in the habit of seeing, except very rarely. Though I often see representations of angels, my visions of them are of the type which I first mentioned. It pleased the Lord that I should see this angel in the following way. He was not tall, but short, and very beautiful, his face so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest types of angel who seem to be all afire. They must be those who are called cherubim."
What Can We Learn From Julian of Norwich? - Nazarene Theological College, Manchester
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
James argues that the similarities between mystical experiences could point to a common source - the divine.
Many mystical experiences are passive suggesting there is some external force that acts on and encounters someone in a personal way.
The noetic effect of mystical experiences could indicate the presence of the divine because it is difficult to explain gaining new knowledge or insight.
Mystical experiences are ineffable and so unlike any other normal experience.
Transiency shows the reliability of mystical experiences because they last only a short time but have a large impact on the individual.
Schleiermacher argues that there is more to our existence than the physical and if we stop to reflect, we encounter something other. This sense of the divine is also argued by Calvin.
Weaknesses
Mystical experiences could all be in the mind. The common features are evident because they originate in the psyche which reacts much in the same way each time.
Passivity could be the unconscious mind deluding the conscious self. Participants in Persinger's God Helmet experiment had feelings of something beyond themselves but this was the product of electromagnetic field in the helmet, not God.
Psychologists continue to study the mind and have made some progress in how the brain works but they do not understand it completely.
Ineffability shows how unreliable mystical experiences are as they are difficult to describe. This could be a lack of suitable languages to describe them rather than an indication of similarity.
A change in perspective and character could be due to several factors or non-religious influences.
Unconscious, irrational and subjective experience cannot be empirically tested or fully understood by another person.
Michael Persinger and the God Helmet - Susan Blackmore
Conversion Experiences
William James postulates that conversion experiences are the strongest evidence for the divine because of their observable effects. James' studies were based on pragmatism (the effects on and value to the individual; used by James to emphasise the importance of the effects of a religious experience because they show it holds value for the individual), the practical outcomes seen through how someone acted now and in the future. James' studies were also based on empiricism.
The story of Paul in the Bible is a good example of this. On his was to Damascus to persecute Christians, Paul saw Jesus in a vision. He converted to Christianity and became a missionary, turning Christianity into a religion that spread throughout the Roman Empire. Paul described how he felt he had been 're-born'.
James describes the psychological process of conversion. The inner self is aware of being divide and unhappy but during conversion to religion becomes unified and happy.
He uses research from E.D. Starbuck to support his classification of conversion experiences. Starbuck described two types of conversion:
volitional - gradual change and slow development of new moral and spiritual habits,
self-surrender - a sudden, pivotal, or crisis experience followed by change; the subject ceases struggling and surrenders to the new psychological centre.
Starbuck suggested that conversion was 'a normal adolescent phenomenon' because it mainly occurred in 15-24 year olds. The search for identity and purpose, seen in adolescent struggles, resulted in either a religious conversion experience or a sense of calm and identity that is psychological rather than divine.
James described several fruits of a conversion experience that showed its impact and longevity, including:
a conviction of something beyond the material world
an immense feeling of elation and freedom
a feeling of having met a friendly power and responding by self-surrender
a change in the emphasis of life - more spiritual, charitable, morally aware and with sense of awe and wonder at the universe.
James concluded that since converts found their greatest peace, it may point towards the divine.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
James uses pragmatism to argue that conversion gives insight into private experiences. While psychological factors could be involved, he concluded the effects could indicate divine interaction.
Use of Teresa of Avila's criteria to determine a genuine conversion - it should fit in with the teaching and tradition of the church and should lead to positive changes in the person's character.
James acknowledged that a conversion experience gave the most significant observable evidence in terms of what he called fruits. This included a change in the emphasis of life, for example, converts to religion often show changes in morality or become more charitable.
James would disagree with Kant to an extend. While it may be true that we can never be certain of the metaphysical, it is possible to observe effects that may indicate there is something more.
Weaknesses
Starbuck concluded the psychological effects of conversion experiences are a normal adolescent phenomenon. The sense of being lost, depressed and divided before a conversion is slightly similar to the struggles through adolescence to personal identity.
Freud would disagree with James' use of Teresa of Avila's criteria as he argued that the church was the cause of much psychological and subconscious guilt, repressed in the super-ego, which resurfaced in repetitive rituals such as prayer.
Lasting impacts on a person's character are not unique to religious experience.
Kant argues it is logically impossible to experience God or a noumenal reality since we are rooted in the phenomenal world of the senses.
Alternative Explanations
Psychological Factors
Starbuck, Freud, and Feuerbach would dismiss the validity of religious experience, arguing for a psychological explanation.
Freud argues religion is a ‘universal obsessional neurosis’ which addresses fears about the world and society. The neuroses are repressed memories which re-emerge; these are often sexual. Religion, therefore, is a consolation. Humans project their need for a parent figure onto the universe, and look to God as their father. Religion is ‘an illusion based on wishful thinking’. The mind creates illusions to allow us to deal with the outside world.
Karl Marx argued that religion is the ‘opiate of the masses’; a sedative that keeps people under control. Capitalists have dehumanised people so everything serves the rich, the bourgeoisie. Religion simply serves to maintain the Capitalist system at the expense of other people. If someone had claimed to experience God directly, Marx would argue that it is not the cause that some ultimate power had tried to contact them. Rather, the person (consciously or unconsciously) was intent on reflecting on their own needs as a human being and the perfections they ultimately desired.
Timothy Leary conducted studies in the 1960s where he compared accounts of 'religious experience' with accounts of those having consumed hallucinogens. He argued that these accounts could not be distinguished from each other.
Ludwig Wittgenstein's Concept of 'Seeing As'
Wittgenstein pointed to the epistemological significance of puzzle pictures, such as the ambiguous “duck-rabbit” that can be seen either as a duck’s head facing one way or a rabbit’s head facing another way. The enlarged concept of experiencing-as (developed by the British philosopher John Hick) refers to the way in which an object, event, or situation is experienced as having a particular character or meaning such that to experience it in this manner involves being in a dispositional state to behave in relation to the object or event, or within the situation, in ways that are appropriate to its having that particular character. All conscious experience is in this sense experiencing-as. The application of this idea to religion suggests that the total environment is religiously ambiguous, capable of being experienced in both religious and naturalistic ways. Religious faith is the element of uncompelled interpretation within the distinctively religious ways of experiencing—for theism, experiencing the world or events in history or in one’s own life as mediating the presence and activity of God.
In other words, our own internal biases will colour what we see and therefore how we interpret our own experiences. If we are hoping or searching for meaning, we may be more likely to find it than those who are not.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strength of Psychological Explanations
Empirical evidence of change in character can be tranced to psychological factors. Starbuck argues that conversion experiences are a normal part of adolescence as the mind adjusts and finds its identity as an adult.
Some psychologists would argue that perception is rooted in the mind. Feuerbach argued that the idea of God is a human projection constructed from innate human desires. Religious experiences have no reality or objective truth.
Psychologists refer to 'inattentional blindness'. In religious experiences, we can also be misled by our minds. We can be sincere in our beliefs about the experience, and even change our lives because of it, but we can be mistaken.
Weaknesses of Psychological Explanations
Using James' pragmatism and empiricism, there are long-lasting fruits of religious experience evidenced in changes in character and outlook. These changes come from a transient experience but have profound effects. Therefore, it seems more probable that religious experiences are not simply wish fulfilment or a psychological phenomenon.
Hick developed the idea of 'experiencing as' from 'Wittgenstein's 'seeing as'. We may all experience the same things but simply perceive and describe things in different ways. Therefore, how we choose to describe or react to each experience is private and difficult for anyone outside of the private experience to dismiss.
There are psychological elements to religious experiences. Nevertheless, this does not negate their importance of the effect on a person's life. This is the most important factor for James, the fruits of the experience.
Alternative Explanations
Physiological Factors
Another explanation for religious experiences is that they can be caused by physiological changes in the brain. Changes in hormones hat affect brain function or stimulation of the brain could account for visions, hearing voices, or other mystical experiences.
It is known that drugs, alcohol, or vitamin deficiencies can have mind-altering effects. This could challenge James' ideas about the observable effects of religious experience pointing to something beyond ourselves because the experience is claimed to be a result of physical changes. It is possible that the visions experienced by Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila were caused by vitamin deficiency.
Biological or neural factors can also account for the emotions and sensations of religious experience. Persinger's 'God Helmet' mentioned above gives empirical evidence for this. However, Persinger's experiments were not widely accepted because the results were inconclusive.
Further support for physiological experience cite Paul's conversion. The effects Paul felt, such as seeing a bright light, becoming unconscious, and temporary sight loss, are also symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy. Later in his writings, Paul Refers to a 'thorn in his side', which would be a metaphor for recurring illness, such as epilepsy.
Paul's Conversion
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths of Physiological Explanations
Similar experiences can be reproduced by electro-magnetic fields acting on the brain or by temporal lobe epilepsy.
St Paul could have been suffering from epilepsy or sunstoke.
Some religious experiences, such as visions or voices, are linked to fasting, vitamin deficiencies or substance abuse. Russell claimed that scientific investigation concludes there is 'no distinction between a man who eats little and sees God and a man who drinks much and sees snakes'.
Weaknesses of Physiological Explanations
If God were to interact with humans, it is conceivable that he would use natural physical and neurological processes, like those in the brain.
It is reductionist to reduce all human activity and experiences to the material. Materialism cannot fully explain the sense of 'other' found in the variety of experiences James recorded.
It is difficult to explain the radical changes that occur in a person's character after a religious experience as simply the result of neurological activity. James could support this by also using empiricism and pragmatism, particularly the fruits of an experience.
Corporate and Individual Religious Experiences
Corporate Religious Experience
Corporate religious experiences are experiences by many people at the same time.
The Toronto Blessing started in Toronto Airport Vineyard Church in the 1990s and spread across churches and continents. It has been described as a move of the Holy Spirit and manifests in many ways including speaking in tongues, uncontrollable laughter, and making animal noises. It has been very controversial and many question the validity of this experience; why would God show himself in this way?
It could be argued that corporate religious experiences provide more evidence than individual religious experiences and so fit with James' empiricism. However, psychologists would argue that they are an example of social conformity. Mass hysteria can spread through a group; many people would join in to avoid social rejection.
Individual Religious Experiences
Although there are problems with verifying individual religious experiences, personal testimony can be persuasive.
Swinburne identified five types of religious experience:
Seeing God in a place or object everyone can see.
Seeing God in a public place, but in an unusual way.
A private experience which can be described in everyday language.
A private experience beyond expression.
A private belief about a person’s relationship with God.
Swinburne supported religious experiences for the following reasons:
The principle of credulity – unless we have overwhelming evidence to the contrary, then we should believe that things are as they seem to be.
If God is loving and personal, then he could reveal his identity to humanity.
The principle of testimony – we cannot constantly doubt people’s accounts of religious experiences.
So many thousands of people have had an experience of what seems to them to be God that we should believe them. The sheer weight of testimony, from so many people, if sufficient to prove the existence of God.
If religious experiences have a deep effect on the life of those who experience them, then they cannot be considered to be meaningless.
What are the grounds for claiming that the testimony of religious believers is any less reliable than that of non-believers?
Swinburne identified three types of evidence that would indicate that a person’s experience is not as they report it:
The circumstances surrounding the person make their account unreliable, for example they have used hallucinatory drugs.
There is evidence that things are not as they are reported.
There is evidence that the experience was not caused by God.
Evaluation
Strengths of Corporate Religious Experience
More witnesses to a corporate religious experience. The cumulative testimony is more convincing. However, this could be due to social conformity or mass hysteria.
There are empirical and observable effects of corporate religious experiences.
Swinburne's principle of credulity could defend the reliability of corporate religious experiences. We should believe things are as they seem to be if there is no overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Strengths of Individual Religious Experience
Swinburne's principle of testimony argues that unless we have good reason to doubt, we should believe what people tell us. Swinburne suggests that people usually tell the truth and personal testimony is the only way to find out about subjective experience. However, some people may lie about their experience.
There is empirical evidence of lasting changes in a person's character after their conversion experience. James also notes a common factor of transiency.
Swinburne's principle of credulity can also be used to defend the reliability of individual religious experience as we should credit the individual with having a religious experience unless there is evidence to suggest otherwise.
Wider Reading
Propositional and Non-Propositional Revelation
Revelation is communication or knowledge to man by a divine agency. In monotheistic religions, revelation is the process in which God makes himself, his will and other information known to humanity.
There are two broad forms of revelation:
General – available to all people at all times and in all places. Examples include the beauty of creation and the voice of the conscience which is interpreted as God.
Special – God’s revelation of himself to particular persons and at particular times such as the revelation of sacred writings e.g. the Torah to Moses.
If we assume the Bible to be a special revelation, the question remains as to how the scripture was revealed. Was God revealing facts, or was he merely making himself known through the process? ‘All scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error’ (2 Timothy 3: 16).
In Christianity, there are two types of revelation:
1. Propositional Revelation
This refers to God directly revealing truths about his nature to people. ‘Proposition’ indicates that the revelations are facts from God or about God, and therefore, for theists, they are true and beyond doubt. The Ten Commandments, for Jews and Christians, are a revelation from God and are not open to debate. Faith must come into play here because the recipient accepts that the revelations are from God. Believers do not reject the use of reason but acknowledge that it cannot prove God’s revelations; but there are cases when God can be revealed through using reason through arguments such as the Teleological Argument.
Aquinas suggested that faith concerns knowledge about God who is transcendent. For him, faith is based on something factual, which opinion is not, but it is not as certain as science. Aquinas emphasised the role of propositional revelation and natural theology. For Aquinas, revelations can be accepted as genuine if they accord with the Church’s teachings; the difficulties lie in reading some parts too literally.
2. Non-Propositional Revelation
Non-propositional revelation is the idea that God does not reveal facts or information during the process of revelation. God makes himself known during the experience. It may be through nature; for example, Paley was impressed with the intricacy and design of the human eye. Nature can reveal God, but it is indirect and a matter of interpretation. The experience is ineffable; beyond what can be described.
If the Bible is a non-propositional revelation, the role of the reader is highly important as this revelation takes place in their life so every person will see the world in a different way according to their worldview. Schleiermacher believed that the biblical texts came about as writers reflected on their religious experiences. This is about having ‘faith’ in something, not a matter of having facts and information to prove it.
A. J. Ayer
The only meaningful statements about reality are those that can be verified.
The only verifiable statements are those that derive from sense experience (empirical) or are true by definition (rational/analytical).
Therefore, only statements that can be tested synthetically (verified through the senses) or analytical (true by definition) are meaningful.
Religious experience is not true by definition.
Nor is it verifiable by sense experience.
Therefore, religious experience is not meaningful or real.
Ayer accepted that religious experiences occurred, but he classed them as hallucinations or dreams.
Strengths of Ayer’s Argument
The main premise of this argument is that there is no data but sense data from the physical world or that which is true by definition. If we take this to be true then the argument is sound and reasonable.
Weaknesses of Ayer’s Argument
It may not be true that all knowledge is gained from the physical world. There may also be more than five senses that we do not have an awareness of, and so cannot access this sense data.
Rudolf Otto
Otto defined mystical experience as ‘either a strange fantasy or a glimpse into the eternal relationship of things’.
He disagreed with Naturalism; the belief that all natural events can be explained by science, but did not disregard science or reason.
Otto developed the concept of the numinous—a “category of value” and a “state of mind”—as a way to express what he viewed as the “non-rational” aspects of the holy or sacred that are foundational to religious experience in particular and the lived religious life in general. For Otto, the numinous can be understood to be the experience of a mysterious terror and awe (Mysterium tremendum et fascinans) and majesty (Majestas) in the presence of that which is “entirely other” (das ganz Andere) and thus incapable of being expressed directly through human language and other media. Otto conceives of the concept of the numinous as a derivative of the Latin numen, meaning “spirit,” etymologically derived from the concept of divine will and represented by a “nodding” of the head. Otto argues that understanding the numinous in a satisfactory way requires a scholar to draw upon their own experience of religious sentiments, given its non-discursive and direct nature; this becomes a point of contention among later secular scholars of religion. In later works, such as Mysticism East and West: A Comparative Analysis of the Nature of Mysticism (1932), Otto gives numerous examples of the ways in which the concept of the numinous can be applied cross-culturally to traditions beyond Christianity, such as Hinduism and Buddhism.