Mystical experiences

• The two philosophers associated with mystical experiences are James and Stace.
• James said religious experience is primary and that organised religion arose out of people comparing their religious experiences.
• James said the true purpose of humanity is union with the higher universe that gives this world its significance.
• James' four criteria for assessing the genuine nature of a mystical experience were ineffability, noetic quality, transciency and passivity.
• Ineffability.

  Cannot be described in words- it has to be directly experienced. Cannot be transferred or imparted to others. It is like a feeling, and no feeling can be understood by somebody who has not experienced it.
• Noetic quality.

  They give rise to knowledge. Those who experience them learn something as a result. Truths are intuitively realised or felt to be true even though they cannot be described.
• Transiency.

  Cannot be sustained for long- usually only last a maximum of two hours. After a time, it becomes difficult to reproduce the experience I'm memory. However, if someone has a further experience they can become conscious of a continuous development in the richness and importance of what is felt.
• Passivity.

  Once the experience begins, it is out of the person's control- even when the person concerned has invited the experience (e.g. by praying). The will of the experiencer becomes passive: the mystic does not control the experience- the experience controls the mystic.
• Stace saw the goal of all religious experience as union with God.
• State said mysticism is nothing to do with:

  • the occult or parapsychology.
  • visions or auditory experiences.
• State identified two types of mystical experiences: Introvertive and extrovertive.
• Introvertive mystical experiences:

  • The ultimate mystical experience.
  • Sense experience is totally suppressed.
  • No awareness of the world.
  • No intellectual function.
  • Ordinary human consciousness is replaced with mystical consciousness in which the 'I' is absent.
• Extrovertive mystical experiences:

  • A halfway house to the introversive 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.