Hi Everyone!! This is a summarised mind map for the 'Religious Experience' topic which is part of the OCR Philosophy spec. Along with all my mind maps, it is a compilation of various textbooks, class notes and Youtube videos which essentially makes it ready to go and all the content you need to kno...
William James Several people to Personal/direct
A religious experience = when someone feels they
have had a direct or personal experience of God. testify/validate revelation from God is
Pragmatist (believes that the truth of something can be determined but its practical more likely to happen to
effects and consequences - accounts aren’t fixed but are whatever has value and one person (e.g.
Types of religious experiences
works for us) Qur’an)
Conversion = an experience which produces a
E.g. Freedom Fighters say they kill for God or because God told them to
radical change in someone’s belief system Can’t be that Judges results not
everyone has a quantity (all are self
Not simply down to psychology because it cannot account for all factors
Vision = an individual believes they have seen or psychological authenticating and don’t
↪ experience can make a person happier, kinder, more loving - for James this is problem need large numbers of
heard God or something supernatural
enough evidence to support the experience is valid people
Mystical experience = experience of God or the
We should judge a religious experience based on its results - if good things
supernatural which go beyond everyday sense Easier to reject One person’s
happen the experience was real (e.g. if it leads to a joyful desire to worship God,
experience on persons claim experience can be just
fresh approach to life) E.g. WIth the Toronto Blessings he would say let them be
than a group as valid
believed
Numinous experience = an indescribable
experience which invokes feelings of awe, worship,
Could be mass hysteria
fascination RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES
Corporate experience = religious experiences which
Schleiermacher Dawkins (naturalist)
happen as a group of people ‘as a body’
The essence of religion was based on personal experience We need to be able to see things in order
William James 4 characteristics of religious
↪ simply not enough to agree to a set of doctrines or ethic principles to believe them (all faith is blind faith)
experiences
Religious experience should be at the heart of religion/faith Criticisms of Schleiermacher
Passive = experience is not initiated by the person
Every person has a conscience of the divine but in many people this is 1) Too much emphasis on the subjective
Ineffable = experience is unexplainable (beyond
human powers of description) obscured (hidden) - those who have experiences have access to an
unobscured consciousness of the divine (Jesus is the only example of 2) Reduce religion to emotions
Noetic = receiving knowledge from God that is not having complete God conscience unobscured
3) Removes the possibility of showing that religious
otherwise available (direct/personal revelations from
Experiences are self authenticating claims are based on fact
God)
In the catholic tradition, the experiences of mystics have to be tested 4) Has to be a possibility of testing the experiences
Transient = the experience is a temporary one that
against the Churches teachings and against scripture before against the Bible and Church (else everything can
cannot be sustained (but may have long lasting
considered - but Schleiermacher they should be prioritised and the be considered valid - even those caused by drugs
effects on the receiver)
statements of belief should be formulated to fit it instead like morphine or hallucinations)
, FC Happold (1960s secularising society) Rudolf Otto
Kant
2 types of mysticism It is fundamental to religion to have a personal/direct
1) Direct experience of God is impossible - we do
encounter with natural forces (God) - to bring about a
not have the senses to be able to experience
1) Mysticism of love and union sense of awe (numinous experience)
God
- Longing to escape from loneliness
- Humans have the urge to be individual and to be accepted in Divine has 3 main qualities
2) Religious experience cannot be verified - it is a
some way which are always in conflict with each other
subjective, individual/private, unique, ineffable,
- Despite our need to be individual, we are always trying to get 1) Quality of mystery - realisation that God is
non empirical event (so it is impossible to test)
back to God - the desire to be part of something bigger than incomprehensible (cannot be seen, heard,
ourselves captured, fully understood/described)
3) Lack of uniformity of religious experiences - if
2) God is recognised as being of ultimate
one religion relies on their experiences to prove
2) Mysticism of knowledge and understanding importance
the truth of their religion, then a diverse range of
- We have an urge to find out the secrets of the universe 3) God has a both attractive and dangerous quality
religions can do the same without it being
(meaning of life) - God cannot be controlled but at the same time
contradictory (David Hume - experiences can
- The way that we can look for answers to such an ultimate the individual feels a sense of privilege during
cancel each other out)
question is through experience of God the experience
3 aspects of mysticism (soul, nature, God)
Soul - mysticism is the idea of finding the soul Sigmund Freud (naturalist/psychological account)
Nature - God is immanent (everywhere connected with nature)
God - humans want to return to God Religion provides some sort of security blanket - psychological illness
Conclusions People who claim to feel God are deluding themselves
The mystic understands that this physical, material world is only
a part of reality and comes from ‘Divine Ground’ People have unconscious and conscious mental processes (psyche made of 3 layers)
Human nature is such that people can know the ‘Divine Ground’ 1) The ego - layer of the mind which is obvious to us (at the conscious self,
not through reason but intuition where we are aware of our opinions and decisions)
2) This id - the unconscious self which is not immediately obvious containing
People have 2 distinct natures - the ego which is the part we are memories and repressed emotions and desires that we might not want to
always conscious of and the spiritual ‘eternal self’ the ‘spark of admit to ourselves
divinity within him’ 3) The super-ego - the equivalent of the conscience (inner moral voice) which
tells us what is right/wrong
The purpose of humanity is to discover this ‘eternal self’ and to ↪ Freud says this was created as we grow up - our parents, siblings, peers
unite it with the ‘divine ground’ let us know what they find acceptable or not which imprints on our
personalities
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