Religious experiences

In religious experience, or sacred experience, the believer comes in contact with transcendental reality. Habel defines religious experiences as the structured way in which a believer enters into a relationship with, or gains an awareness of, the sacred within the context of a particular religious tradition (Habel, O'Donoghue and Maddox: 1993).

Religious experiences are by their very nature preternatural; that is, out of the ordinary or beyond the natural order of things. They include psychopathological states such as psychoses, forms of altered awareness and religious experiences (Charlesworth: 1988).

Not all preternatural experiences are considered to be religious experiences. Following Habel's definition, psychopathological states or drug-induced states of awareness are not considered to be religious experiences because they are mostly not performed within the context of a particular religious tradition.

Moore and Habel identify two classes of religious experiences: the immediate and the mediated religious experience (Moore and Habel: 1982).

In the mediated experience, the believer experiences the sacred through mediators such as rituals, special persons, religious groups, totemic objects or the natural world (Habel et al: 1993).

The immediate experience comes to the believer without any intervening agency or mediator. The deity or divine is experienced directly (Habel et al: 1993).

There are four classical forms of immediate religious experience, the numinous, ecstasy, enthusiasm and mystic experience.

The numinous
The German thinker Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) argues that there is one common factor to all religious experience, independent of the cultural background. He identifies this experience as the 'numinous' in his book The idea of the holy (1923).

The numinous can, according the Otto, not be strictly defined since the numinous is that in which all religious experiences are defined. The numinous can only be evoked or awakened in the mind. The numinous is a realm or dimension of reality, which is mysterious, awe-inspiring and fascinating.

Otto states that the best expression for the numinous is the Latin phrase 'mysterium tremendum' - a magnificent mystery. The mystery is the 'Wholly Other', beyond apprehension and comprehension. It is expressed in the idea of 'the wrath of God' in the Old Testament and is connected with the consciousness of the absolute superiority and supremacy of a power other than myself.

Otto sees the numinous as the only possible religious experience. He states: "There is no religion in which it [the numinous] does not live as the real innermost core and without it no religion would be worthy of the name" (Otto: 1972).

Otto describes in his convoluted style one form of religious experience, but he does not succeed in characterising the essence of all religious experience. Otto does not take any other kind of religious experience such as ecstasy and enthusiasm seriously and is of the opinion that they belong to the 'vestibule of religion'.

Ecstasy
In ecstasy the believer is understood to have a soul or spirit which can leave the body. In ecstasy the focus is on the soul leaving the body and to experience transcendental realities. This type of religious experience is characteristic for the shaman.

Enthusiasm
In enthusiasm - or possession - god is understood to be outside, other than or beyond the believer. A sacred power, being or will enters the body or mind of an individual and possesses it. A person capable of being possessed is sometimes called a medium. The deity, spirit or power uses such a person to communicate to the immanent world.

Lewis argues that ecstasy and possession are basically one and the same experience, ecstasy being merely one form which possession may take. The outward manifestation of the phenomenon is the same in that shamans appear to be possessed by spirits, act as their mediums, and even though they claim to have mastery over them, can lose that mastery (Lewis: 1986).

Mystical experiences
Mystical experiences are in many ways the opposite of numinous experiences. In the mystical experience, all 'otherness' disappear and the believer becomes one with the transcendent. The believer discovers that he or she is not distinct from the cosmos, the deity or the other reality, but one with it.

Zaehner has identified two distinctively different mystical experiences: natural and religious mystical experiences (Charlesworth: 1988). Natural mystical experiences are, for example, experiences of the 'deeper self' or experiences of oneness with nature.

Zaehner argues that the experiences typical of 'natural mysticism' are quite different from the experiences typical of religious mysticism (Charlesworth: 1988). Natural mystical experiences are not considered to be religious experiences because they are not linked to a particular tradition, but natural mystical experiences are spiritual experiences that can have a profound effect on the individual.

Discussion
Habel's differentiation between mediate and immediate religious experiences is based on the assumption that it is possible to have a direct experience of any given phenomenon. This assumption is in a general epistemological statement about all experiences.

In western philosophy it is more or less generally accepted that one cannot have a direct experience of reality. This is also true for religious experiences and therefore the immediate religious experience as such is not possible.

The immediate religious experience is, as it were, caused by a mediated religious experience. The transcendent cannot be perceived in a direct way; the believer needs mediators to be able to experience. The Christian uses prayer and contemplation on the Bible to feel at awe with God, thus creating a numinous experience. The shaman cannot perform his ecstatic ritual without the use of mediating objects and rituals. He uses his special costume, the beating of the drum, the chanting, the dancing and so on to reach an altered state of consciousness which in term enables him to travel to the transcendental worlds.

Religion can be loosely defined as a way of dealing with the transcendent (Prevos: 1998) and it provides the vehicles for the believer to experience this transcendental reality. So while religion is the mediator for religious experience in this context, the transcendent can come through many different avenues, such as brushes with death (Moody), deep sex (Deida) or even profound depression (Katie).

Books

 * Moody, Raymond. Life After Life ISBN 0-06-251739-2
 * Deida, David. Finding God Through Sex ISBN 1-59179-273-8
 * Katie, Byron. Loving What Is page xi ISBN 1-4000-4537-1

Papers

 * Charlesworth, Max (1988). Religious experience. Unit A. Study guide 2 (Deakin University).
 * Habel, Norman, O'Donoghue, Michael and Maddox, Marion (1993). 'Religious experience'. In: Myth, ritual and the sacred. Introducing the phenomena of religion (Underdale: University of South Australia).
 * Lewis, Ioan M (1986). Religion in context: cults and charisma (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
 * Moore, B and Habel N (1982). Appendix 1. In: When religion goes to school (Adelaide: SACAE), pages 184-218.
 * Otto, Rudolf (1972). Chapters 2-5. In: The idea of the holy (London: Oxford University Press), pages 5-30. [Originally published in 1923].
 * Prevos, Peter (1998). Omgaan met het transcendente (Dealing with the transcendent). Open University of the Netherlands.

Papers

 * experience+women Google Scholar