Religious Experience

1. Religious Experience An Introduction

2. “Numinous” Experience Rudolph Otto’s . . . Mysterium tremendum et fascinans 1917 "The Other"

3. Two Poles of Religious Experience

4. Religious Systems Associated withTwo Poles of Religious Experience

5. Two-types of Experience Combinations: e.g., some forms of Mahayana Buddhism, Medieval Christianity, Taoism, etc.

6. Similarities Do these differing experiences apply to the same entity? Are nirvana and the Divine one?

8. Numinous/Contemplative and Other Human Experience • Numinous describes the apprehension of an external power||interplay between individual and environment (e.g., in early polytheism) • Contemplative state lies within the individual||evolution, pure consciousness, self-awareness of the universe

9. Experience and Context Is there a kind of perennial mystical experience, or . . . Does every tradition have particular diversities?

10. Religious experience . . . Projection? “Oceanic feeling?”

11. Experiencing as . . . (John Hick) Numinous Experience-> Vision of the Divine (e.g. as Creator)-> Continuing Disposition (God in nature)

12. Experiencing as . . . (John Hick) Numinous Experience-> (High) experience of nirvana-> Vision of the Divine (e.g., as Creator)-> “coming-to-see” (e.g., truth of Buddha’s analysis)-> Continuing Disposition (God in nature) disposition to see the world in that way

13. Some Ramifications • In both pre-Protestant Christianity and Buddhism, contemplation has generated monasticism • While Protestantism could have generated more contemplation, until recently it has emphasized bhakti. • In general, highly ritual systems generate hierarchies and elites, but almost everywhere movements try to break through the ritual mould to some kind of immediate experience/encounter • The contemplative impulse towards asceticism and celibacy will create tensions in traditions that emphasize family life (e.g., Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and some Protestantisms) • Both “poles” can emphasize a sense of love: the numinous Holy One dispenses love and grace and receives the same via bhakti; seems to come from a sense of “the divine” and of “union” • The numinous can attach to non-Divine figures (e.g., the Virgin of Guadalupe) • Dreams can be interpreted as religious experience (vision) • Healing can be interpreted as a religious experience

14. Summary • We can plot religious experience on two poles: the numinous and the contemplative • We can delineate three forms for each of those two poles: numinous experience, divine conversion, divine disposition; contemplative experience, luminous conversion, luminous disposition • Panenhenic experience seems to be another possibility • When considering religious experience, it may be helpful to analyze the kinds of experiences that gave rise to, spawned from, or coincided with particular rituals, doctrines, and practices • It may be helpful to treat religious experience “phenomenologically” rather than either accepting or dismissing it in an a priori way.