RE - Religious experiences

• visions

  Something seen other than by ordinary sight. It's only counted as a vision if it reveals a message. Could deliver a specific message
• Group visions 


  More than one person has seen it.
• Individual vision


  Only one person has seen it. Often imaginative or dream based. Imagine is produced in the person's imagination and has no existence external to that person. For example, St Teresa Avila - completely afire with a great love for god
• Sensory vision

  Senses
• Conversions

  Means to change direction or to turn around. For example if an atheist became Christian .​Process of change that alters ones view of the world and ones personal place in it. Conversions are usually a personal experience.
• Characteristics features of a conversion

  Conversions can either be gradual or sudden. Conversions might involve the giving up of the personal will, either freely or with resistance and an internal battle. Conversions can be passive or active: passive - the experience comes upon them somewhat unexpectedly without them deliberately seeking it. Active- someone might specifically seek a spiritual experience by going to an evangelistic meeting.

  Example - Paul's conversion story
• Different descriptions and explanations for conversions

  A conversion can be from faith to faith. For example, John Wesley was aware he didn't have faith in Christ then in 1738, he records how he felt his heart strangely warmed. ' I did trust Christ, Christ alone, he had taken away my sins , even mine '

  Example of an intellectual conversion - C.S.Lewis professor at Oxford. He recounts how he walked and talked for hours with J.R.R Tolkein about myth and Christianity and became convinced jesus was the son of god.
• Mystic experiences

  Transcendent : not localisable ​in space or time

  Ineffable : not expressible in language

  Noetic : conveying illumination, truth

  Ecstatic: filling the soul with bliss, peace

  Unitive : uniting the soul with reality

  Ladder or staircase- journey from darkness to light.
• Transcendent mysticism


  Associated with the mystical experience that take the receiver 'beyond' the realm of the normal everyday experience. Feeling of moving beyond this physical realm to the realm of the 'other', the realm of the spirit.
• Rumi's belief

  All individuals have a yearning within them that's due to the feeling of separation that all being instinctively feel
• Rumi's belief

  Spiritual purification through love could union with god be truly achieved
• Rumi's belief

  The human spirit was designed for the singular underlying purpose to draw into a deeper relationship with god
• Mystical gateways


  Direct doorways to the divine
• Rumi's belief

  Poetry, music, dance were all direct doorways to the divine
• Teresa of Avila introduction

  Her family inspired her to take her religious life seriously and she became a nun. After a severe illness she was partially paralyzed for three years. She became somewhat disillusioned with her religious practises, especially prayer. Her vision was a ' sorely wounded christ' which inspired her to write her great work on prayer. She believe true union with god could only be achieved by intense concentration.
• Teresa of Avila 


  She firmly believed it wasn't possible for an individual to achieve that union by themselves but that, only through gods grace, could a person move through the various stages. E.g garden. Tereasea considers the soul to be like a castle that contains seven suites and mansions. First three mansions refer to prayer, allowing the individual to come closer to god, do not give the same level of union that can eventually be gained.
• Teresa of avila- fourth mansion


  Known as prayer of quiet. Individual operating on the mystical level. Sometimes the experience is so intense the individual can faint.
• Teresa of Avila - fifth mansion

  Uniting with god.
• Teresa of Avila - sixth mansion


  Contains the longest mystical description. Known as the stage of spiritual marriage. Main experience is feelings of painful longing, wanting to spend every possible moment alone with the divine and complete rejection of all things that can get in the way of such moment.
• Teresa of avila - seventh and final mansion


  Mystical marriage
• William James' four characteristics of mystical experiences

  When you have a mystical experience you have to have had one yourself to understand what it feels like - it's indescribesble. Explanations of the classification in james' own words :

  Ineffability

  Noetic quality

  Transiency

  Passivity
• William James classifications : ineffability 


  Means can't put it into words. It decide expression. Quality must be directly experienced: it cannot be imparted or transferred to others. No one can make clear to another who has never had a certain feeling.
• William James classifications - Noetic quality

  Means gaining knowledge of god. They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance. It reveals something about god.
• William James classifications - transiency

  Mystical states cannot be sustained for long. Except in rare instances, half an hour or at most an hour or two, its limited. ​When they recur it is recognised. Very intense and have lasting consequences yet in terms of the time they take they are short lived
• William James classifications - passivity

  Means god takes over during experiences. Long lasting effects. Mystic feels as If his own will were in abeyance= by taking control by​ the gods. Some memory of their context always remains. The moment itself is governed by a being or force external to the will of the mystic. Transformative effects on the individual who's life will very often be changed after the experience.
• Rudolf otto- concept of numinous


  Otto's approach looks at the aspect of of religious experience that were beyond the scope of rational and empirical reasoning. There is a focus on the feeling. The individual who experienced the numinous feels the presence of a supernatural divine power as part of their religious or mystical experience. The only way to sum up the intensity by using the term ' mysterium tremendum' . Otto is trying to describe the profound intensity that is associated with a deeply felt religious experience
• Numinous

  Otto's definition of what makes a religious experience uniquely religious, as opposed to just an ordinary experience
• Otto's definition of the numinous

  • Very individual and personal experience
  • Provides little information about the nature of god or specific religious beliefs
  • Provides no instruction other than a sense of awareness
  • God is 'wholly other'
• Objections to Otto's definition of the numinous
• Every individual can experience the divine
• Challenges to religious experiences - description related challenges

  When any event is described that claims itself to be an experience of god there is no proof. Description is therefore not valid. The claim is inconsistent so should be rejected. Misunderstanding of the experience on the part of the recipient.
• Challenges to religious experiences - subject related challenges

  They're unreliable. Maybe considered to be suffering from mental illnesses or suffering dellusion brought about by Some sort of substance misuse. Not in a position to properly understand what they have experienced so they're claim must be dismissed
• Challenges to religious experiences - object related challenges

  Likelihood of having experienced something such as the recipient claims is so unlikely as to be entirely untrue. Suggestion of god having been experienced is no more likely then a claim having seen an 8ft green alien. As we are unlikely to believe anyone that claimed experience of the alien then why should we believe the claim of someone who has said to experienced god ?
• Further debates about the challenges

  In trying to establish the reliability of any mystical ​experience, some criteria for establishing the truth must be agreed upon. However, many philosophers agree that such criteria are virtually impossible to verify- how can we put a criteria in place if the person can't explain their mystical experience . Mystical experiences are subjective and not objective .
• Further debates about the challenges

  Communicating mystical experiences depends entirely on the perception of the experience of the recipient . It's considered as a subjective experience. As scientific empiricism reject subjective accounts out of hand , challenges the 'truth' of any mystical experience.
• Logical positivists 


  Group of philosophers who only accept things that could be proven with evidence. They're focused on science and aren't religious. They reject mystical experiences. They said :

  Any claim made by a religious believer, may seem to be an ordinary claim about their perception of the state of reality but as their claim lacks any empirical evidence to support it.
• John wisdoms parable of the gardner
• Mystical experience - using gardner parable 


  Flews point was for religious believers, they would always offer a qualification as to why no evidence could be found to count against their own beliefs. Considered meaningless Anthoney flew was a logical positivists
• Frued and mystical experiences


  ​Held the view that all religious experiences were nothing more than the result of the repression if sexual urges.
• Richard Swinburne and mystical experiences 


  He argues what someone claims to perceive is probably the case unless there are special reasons for thinking the experience is false. The reasons are : if the person was unreliable(drugged) ,