Phenomenology and Mysticism: The Verticality of Religious Experience

Anthony J. Steinbock, Phenomenology and Mysticism: The Verticality of Religious Experience, Indiana University Press, 2009, 309 pp., $28 (pbk), ISBN 978-0253221810/Blogger Ref http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Multi-Dimensional_Science

Indiana University Press, Amazon

Scott O’Leary, University of Saint Mary

In his latest work, Anthony Steinbock offers an insightful phenomenological analysis of mystical experience and its implications for our understanding of human uniqueness or individuality, the nature of phenomenology, and the role of religious experience or ‘epiphany’ in human life. Although this sounds overly ambitious, Steinbock generally succeeds.

In his introduction, Steinbock explains his intention to provide an account of a unique dimension of human experience that possesses its own phenomenological structure, a dimension he calls the ‘verticality’ of mystical or religious experience in contrast with the ‘horizontal’ realm of experience of traditional phenomenological investigation. Steinbock differentiates these dimensions by their distinct levels of phenomenological ‘givenness’: the horizontal realm is that which is in principle within our grasp and the vertical is that which is not within our grasp or control but ‘given’ freely and superabundantly. Steinbock argues that the fundamental characteristic of religious experience is its vertical orientation and that the phenomenological structures and criterion of evidence of vertical experience are distinct and independent of those of horizontal experience. Steinbock advances these claims by analyzing paradigmatic examples of mystical experience and their impact on phenomenology’s understanding of evidence, givenness, and individuation.

The book does not offer a first-personal account of the phenomenology of mystical experience, presumably because the author is a philosopher interested in mystical experience rather than himself a mystic. Nor does Steinbock think that mystical experience can be achieved through the use of  psychotropic substances or other instrumental means, as William James attempted, since what is essential to mystical experience is not any particular objective mystical ‘content’, but rather the openness to the Holy captured in vertical intentionality. He therefore focuses his phenomenological study instead on three mystics, one from each of the Abrahamic faiths: St. Teresa of Avila represents the Christian tradition, Rabbi Dov Baer the Jewish, and the Sufi Ruzbihan Baqlı the Islamic. He justifies his selection of these three ‘exemplars’ on the grounds of each account’s immediacy, rawness, and lack of theological conceptualization. In addition, despite differences in these Abrahamic faiths, he claims that there is an underlying unity present in these mystics’ experiences that is illustrated by their vertical rather than horizontal intentional structure. Nonetheless, he later broadens his analysis to include the accounts of Saint John of the Cross, Mother Teresa, Rabbi Zalman, and Hallajı Mansur.

Steinbock is aware that some may question the possibility of offering a phenomenological, rather than hermeneutic, account of written rather than first-personal experiences. But he claims to follow the ‘phenomenologist’s effort…to guide us to the point where the matters can flash forth of themselves, stirring in us the lived experience he or she is trying to awaken’ (p. 27). According to Steinbock, the core to phenomenological analysis is not first-personal experience, then, but rather an openness to that which is given in experience, whether one’s own experience or another’s, and through his analysis, he aims to evoke in us the realm of verticality that is latent but unthematized in the mystics’ first-personal accounts. Ultimately, whether this project is best characterized as a phenomenology or a hermeneutics of mystical experience will therefore depend largely on how one understands these two enterprises. 

Less convincing is Steinbock’s quick argument that mystical experience best explains religious experience more generally. He might be correct that there is a wider array of mystical experiences than non-mystical ones, but this differs from the claim that we can appeal to these as ‘exemplars’ to understand religious experience. One might argue that mystical experience is just a small part of religious experience, less important than elements like belief, faith or daily practice. It would have been helpful for Steinbock to develop his argument since he focuses exclusively on the phenomenological data of the mystics, but then uses these insights to attempt to explain the core of all religious experience. Furthermore, it is not immediately apparent that a broader array of experiences necessarily implies a more truthful account of experience or reality, since theoretically the experiences unique to mystics could be illusory.

Nor is Phenomenology and Mysticism an easy work. This is less a function of Steinbock’s style or presentation and more a result of the subject matter.  Steinbock generally succeeds in keeping philosophical and mystical terminology to a minimum. However, this reviewer became slightly lost in the chapter on Jewish mysticism, which introduces somewhere between ten and twenty Hebrew terms. This is unfortunate since Steinbock manages to avoid this with Saint Teresa and Baqli, which shows that although difficult, phenomenological description seems possible without a deep grasp of the relative individuals’ cultural or theological milieu. While Steinbock provides a rigorous phenomenology of mystical experience, appreciating its scope and philosophical significance presupposes a thorough understanding of the phenomenological method and the history of phenomenology. Nowhere is this clearer than in the chapter on ‘Individuation’, where Steinbock offers a comparative analysis of his account of individuation and the mystics’ explanation of the separation between the Holy and the human with Heidegger’s account of ‘the forgetfulness of Being’. Though Steinbock presents a concise analysis of Heidegger’s views, those unfamiliar with the details of Heidegger’s claim will likely miss much of the significance of the chapter. While this is unfortunate, it is nonetheless evident that Steinbock goes to great lengths to make his account clear and most sections will be accessible to many outside the field.

The last chapter, on ‘Idolatry’, is perhaps Steinbock’s strongest and it is here that he turns from a primarily descriptive to a critical phenomenology. He diagnoses three aspects of idolatry: individual pride and an overvaluation of the self, secularism and fundamentalism, and the ‘delimitation’ of reality to one restricted sphere (p. 212). Each of these phenomena is idolatrous in Steinbock’s technical sense because each is a reversal or denial of verticality. Pride not only impoverishes the self by closing it off from others horizontally and vertically, it also ‘impoverishes the world since it fails to recognize the value of things unless they relate to me or serve me’ (p. 216). Even pride in others, like pride in a child’s accomplishments, is essentially a way of distancing oneself and a form of idolatry of the self. The child’s accomplishments become valuable only because they better the self, rather than being valuable in the way that they benefit the child.

Secularism and fundamentalism represent idolatries of the world.  Both reverse the relative with the absolute. Secularism involves an exclusive attraction to the world in the world’s supposed ‘absoluteness’, which is fundamentally mistaken if Steinbock’s analysis of the verticality of religious experience is correct. Since the world encompasses only our horizontal orientation, any exclusive focus on the world results in a denial of the vertical and a misplaced absoluteness. Similarly, fundamentalism is idolatrous because it attempts to make the relative absolute by bringing the absolute (the Holy) down to earth. Fundamentalism attempts to make the Holy conform to our ideas and conceptions in the service of humanity, rather than opening ourselves up to the Holy. It is a reduction of the infinite to the finite, all in the name of the infinite, and it is for this reason so hard to diagnose.

The third moment of idolatry, delimitation, occurs whenever there is an exclusive orientation toward one aspect of reality such that the aspect concerned remains trapped in the horizontal and can no longer point beyond itself to anything greater. Pride, secularism and fundamentalism all delimit reality by refusing to go beyond the self or the world, restricting experience to the horizontal aspects of reality. But all finite experiences point beyond to the infinite. Whether it is Mother Teresa seeing Christ in the faces of the poor, Buddha seeing existence in a flower petal, or Simone Weil seeing universal beauty in individual beautiful things: for Steinbock, ‘[w]hat is given is infinitely richer than itself’ (p. 239).   Steinbock repeatedly makes the claim that religious ‘vertical’ modes of experience cannot be reduced to other modes, especially that of presentation. This claim is supported throughout by highlighting differences in the modes of givenness and evidence between vertical and horizontal orientations. It also neatly undercuts efforts to reduce religious experience to power relations (Nietzsche), economic structures (Marx), psychosexual development (Freud), or any of a number of more recent proposals made in neuroscience or evolutionary biology. Although Steinbock is sympathetic to the way culture influences mystical experiences, for him the direction of intentional relations in mystical experiences precludes any reduction of the vertical to the horizontal and, in the manner of phenomenology, all evidence given in experience must be taken ‘as given’ and any  ontological presuppositions ‘bracketed’.

Nevertheless, this reviewer wonders if Steinbock overstates his claim for the independence of ‘vertical’ or religious experience from ‘horizontal’ modes of experience. While it is one thing to deny that the vertical can be reduced to the horizontal, it is another issue altogether whether the vertical and horizontal are truly independent of each other. Steinbock’s claim amounts to a separation of two orientations of reality, one vertical and the other horizontal, which happen to coincide at the juncture of human existence. But simply because their modes of givenness and evidence are different does not entail independence from each other.

Steinbock’s independence thesis is evident in his claim that religious experience must be addressed on its own terms, with its own criteria and evidence, just as the ‘moral within the experience of the moral’ is independent (p. 115).  But this independence of moral experience is a substantive phenomenological claim rather than a formal one, posited by Levinas but seemingly very different from the phenomenology of Husserl or that of Brentano. For Husserl, the axiological realm is revealed through affective experience that is grounded in descriptive experience. My indignation at the latest sufferings of those in Darfur is an evaluative experience that takes the suffering of the people of Darfur as unjust. But this evaluative claim is grounded in descriptive features of the situation: the lack of food and medical supplies, the treatment of these people by their leaders, and the indifference of the world community.  Axiological attributes, in this case the injustice in Darfur, are founded upon presentational experience, such as a news program detailing the suffering or the testimony of a friend. For many phenomenologists, our entire experience of value and valuing, the axiological part of reality that is an indispensable part of ‘the moral’, is founded upon the descriptive aspects of reality that are revealed in presentational experience.

This does not mean that we can reduce the moral to the descriptive or the affective to the presentational. However, it means that contra Steinbock, the moral is not part of the vertical or that the vertical is in some way dependent on the horizontal. Yet, if this is true about the moral, why not think the same of the religious? The religious, our vertical orientation, might simply be founded upon certain affective moments such as Rudolph Otto’s feelings of the Holy. Don’t the mystics often describe feelings, images, and other qualia that ground these experiences? Rather than giving reasons to believe that the vertical is independent from the horizontal, Steinbock simply shows that the logic of the vertical and the modes of evidence and verification may be different. But this seems no different than Husserl’s claim that the logic of the axiological is different than the presentational or descriptive. This seems just one example among many of Steinbock relying heavily on claims he makes in his earlier book, Home and Beyond: Generative Phenomenology After Husserl (Northwestern University Press, 1995), to advance substantive rather than formal claims concerning key questions at the heart of phenomenology.

In addition, it seems that in focusing on verticality, Steinbock neglects the temporality, or lack thereof, of mystical experience. Mystical experience presumably happens at a specific time (and place) in the flow of life, but mystical experience often conflicts with everyday time consciousness, focusing on experiencing the present moment apart from any connection to a past or future moment. This is something that Eastern and Western mystics seem to agree in emphasizing. If mystical experience offers a wider account of human experience, one wonders, what does this reveal about time-consciousness? Though this opens up an entirely separate set of questions, it seems essential to address time-consciousness if one posits an entirely different, ‘vertical’ form of intentionality.

Despite these worries and criticisms, Steinbock should be commended for generally succeeding in such an ambitious project. He offers a rigorous, phenomenological approach to the study of Western mysticism that reveals a whole new ‘vertical’ dimension to human experience. Phenomenology and Mysticism should be required reading for anyone interested in mystical experience.

December 5, 2012


The Above Article from Plurilogue

Politics and Philosophy Reviews

Religious Experience

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For the Wayne Proudfoot book, see Religious Experience (book).

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A religious experience (sometimes known as a spiritual experience, sacred experience, or mystical experience) is a subjective experience in which an individual reports contact with a transcendent reality, an encounter or union with the divine. Such an experience often involves arriving at some knowledge or insight previously unavailable to the subject yet unaccountable or unforeseeable according to the usual conceptual or psychological framework within which the subject has been used to operating. Religious experience generally brings understanding, partial or complete, of issues of a fundamental character that may have been a cause (whether consciously acknowledged or not) of anguish or alienation to the subject for an extended period of time. This may be experienced as a form of healing, enlightenment or conversion. The commonalities and differences between religious experiences across different cultures have enabled scholars to categorize them for academic study.^[1]
Many religious and mystical traditions see religious experiences (particularly that knowledge that comes with them) as revelations caused by divine agency rather than ordinary natural processes. They are considered real encounters with God or gods, or real contact with higher-order realities of which humans are not ordinarily aware.^[2] Sceptics or scientists may hold that religious experience is an evolved feature of the human brain amenable to normal scientific study. Such study may be said to have begun with the American psychologist and philosopher William James in his 1901/02 Gifford Lectures later published as The Varieties of Religious Experience.

Contents [hide] 1 Definitions 1.1 William James' definition 1.2 Norman Habel's definition 1.3 Richard Swinburne's definition 1.4 Classical definitions 2 Explanations of religious experience 2.1 Religious and mystical points of view 2.1.1 Sufism 2.1.2 Christian mysticism 2.1.3 Hesychasm 2.1.4 Neoplatonism 2.1.5 Buddhism 2.1.6 Hinduism 2.1.7 Meher Baba 2.2 History of modern science and religion view 3 Scientific studies on religious experience 3.1 Psychology 3.1.1 Transpersonal psychology 3.1.2 Psychology of religion 3.1.2.1 Carl Jung 3.2 Neuroscience 3.2.1 Neurotheology 3.2.2 Studies of the brain and religious experience 4 Causes of religious experiences 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links

[edit] Definitions

[edit] William James' definition

Psychologist and Philosopher William James described four characteristics of religious / mystical experience in The Varieties of Religious Experience. According to James, such an experience is:

• Transient — the experience is temporary; the individual soon returns to a "normal" frame of mind. It is outside our normal perception of space and time.
• Ineffable — the experience cannot be adequately put into words.
• Noetic — the individual feels that he or she has learned something valuable from the experience. Gives us knowledge that is normally hidden from human understanding.
• Passive — the experience happens to the individual, largely without conscious control. Although there are activities, such as meditation (see below), that can make religious experience more likely, it is not something that can be turned on and off at will.

[edit] Norman Habel's definition

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 may be difficult to distinguish observationally from psychopathological states such as psychoses or other forms of altered awareness (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).

• Mediated — 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).
• Immediate — The immediate experience comes to the believer without any intervening agency or mediator. The deity or divine is experienced directly

[edit] Richard Swinburne's definition

In his book Faith and Reason, the philosopher Richard Swinburne formulated five categories into which all religious experiences fall:

• Public — a believer 'sees God's hand at work', whereas other explanations are possible e.g. looking at a beautiful sunset
• Public — an unusual event that breaches natural law e.g. walking on water
• Private — describable using normal language e.g. Jacob's vision of a ladder
• Private — indescribable using normal language, usually a mystical experience e.g. "white did not cease to be white, nor black cease to be black, but black became white and white became black."
• Private — a non-specific, general feeling of God working in one's life.

Swinburne also suggested two principles for the assessment of religious experiences:

• Principle of Credulity — with the absence of any reason to disbelieve it, one should accept what appears to be true e.g. if one sees someone walking on water, one should believe that it is occurring.
• Principle of Testimony — with the absence of any reason to disbelieve them, one should accept that eye-witnesses or believers are telling the truth when they testify about religious experiences.

[edit] Classical definitions

Numinous — The German thinker Rudolf Otto (1869–1937) argues that there is one common factor to all religious experience, independent of the cultural background. In his book The Idea of the Holy (1923) he identifies this factor as the numinous. The “numinous” experience has two aspects: mysterium tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling; and mysterium fascinans, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel. The numinous experience also has a personal quality to it, in that the person feels to be in communion with a holy other. 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 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 — 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.
Spiritual awakening — A spiritual awakening usually involves a realization or opening to a sacred dimension of reality and may or may not be a religious experience. Often a spiritual awakening has lasting effects upon one's life. The term "spiritual awakening" may be used to refer to any of a wide range of experiences including being born again, near-death experiences, and mystical experiences such as liberation and enlightenment.

[edit] Explanations of religious experience

[edit] Religious and mystical points of view

[edit] Sufism

While all Muslims believe that they are on the pathway to God and will become close to God in Paradise — after death and after the "Final Judgment" — Sufis believe that it is possible to become close to God and to experience this closeness while one is alive.^[3] Sufis believe in a tripartite way to God as explained by a tradition attributed to the Prophet,"The Shariah are my words (aqwal), the tariqa are my actions (amal), and the haqiqa is my interior states (ahwal)". Shariah, tariqa and haqiqa are mutually interdependent.
The tariqa, the ‘path’ on which the mystics walk, has been defined as ‘the path which comes out of the Shariah, for the main road is called shar, the path, tariq.’ No mystical experience can be realized if the binding injunctions of the Shariah are not followed faithfully first. The path, tariqa, however, is narrower and more difficult to walk. It leads the adept, called salik (wayfarer), in his suluk (wandering), through different stations (maqam) until he reaches his goal, the perfect tauhid, the existential confession that God is One.^[4]

[edit] Christian mysticism

Main article: Christian mysticism

Three early Methodist leaders, Charles Wesley, John Wesley, and Francis Asbury, portrayed in stained glass at the Memorial Chapel, Lake Junaluska, North Carolina

Christian doctrine generally maintains that God dwells in all Christians and that they can experience God directly through belief in Jesus,^[5] Christian mysticism aspires to apprehend spiritual truths inaccessible through intellectual means, typically by emulation of Christ. William Inge divides this scala perfectionis into three stages: the "purgative" or ascetic stage, the "illuminative" or contemplative stage, and the third, "unitive" stage, in which God may be beheld "face to face."^[6]
The third stage, usually called contemplation in the Western tradition, refers to the experience of oneself as united with God in some way. The experience of union varies, but it is first and foremost always associated with a reuniting with Divine love. The underlying theme here is that God, the perfect goodness,^[7] is known or experienced at least as much by the heart as by the intellect since, in the words of 1 John 4:16: "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him." Some approaches to classical mysticism would consider the first two phases as preparatory to the third, explicitly mystical experience; but others state that these three phases overlap and intertwine.

[edit] Hesychasm

Based on Christ's injunction in the Gospel of Matthew to "go into your closet to pray",^[8] hesychasm in tradition has been the process of retiring inward by ceasing to register the senses, in order to achieve an experiential knowledge of God (see theoria).
The highest goal of the hesychast is the experiential knowledge of God. In the 14th Century, the possibility of this experiential knowledge of God was challenged by a Calabrian monk, Barlaam, who, although he was formally a member of the Orthodox Church, had been trained in Western Scholastic theology. Barlaam asserted that our knowledge of God can only be propositional. The practice of the hesychasts was defended by St. Gregory Palamas.
In solitude and retirement the hesychast repeats the Jesus Prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." He considers bare repetition of the Jesus Prayer as a mere string of syllables, perhaps with a 'mystical' inner meaning beyond the overt verbal meaning, to be worthless or even dangerous.

[edit] Neoplatonism

Neoplatonism is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists.
Neoplatonism teaches that along the same road by which it descended the soul must retrace its steps back to the supreme Good. It must first of all return to itself. This is accomplished by the practice of virtue, which aims at likeness to God, and leads up to God. By means of ascetic observances the human becomes once more a spiritual and enduring being, free from all sin. But there is still a higher attainment; it is not enough to be sinless, one must become "God", (henosis). This is reached through contemplation of the primeval Being, the One — in other words, through an ecstatic approach to it. It is only in a state of perfect passivity and repose that the soul can recognize and touch the primeval Being. Hence the soul must first pass through a spiritual curriculum. Beginning with the contemplation of corporeal things in their multiplicity and harmony, it then retires upon itself and withdraws into the depths of its own being, rising thence to the nous, the world of ideas. But even there it does not find the Highest, the One; it still hears a voice saying, "not we have made ourselves." The last stage is reached when, in the highest tension and concentration, beholding in silence and utter forgetfulness of all things, it is able as it were to lose itself. Then it may see God, the foundation of life, the source of being, the origin of all good, the root of the soul. In that moment it enjoys the highest indescribable bliss; it is as it were swallowed up of divinity, bathed in the light of eternity. Porphyry tells us that on four occasions during the six years of their intercourse Plotinus attained to this ecstatic union with God.

[edit] Buddhism

Buddhism is a 2500-year-old Asian religion. The religious experience is described in the earliest of Buddhist literature, which is found in the Pali Canon. In the Pali Canon the religious experience is described in eight stages of samadhi. The first four stages are known as jhana, the remaining four stages are known as ayatana.^[9]

[edit] Hinduism

Hinduism is arguably the oldest religious system in the world and gave birth to Buddhism. The religious experience is described in the vedas and the yoga sutras as two stages of samadhi, they are Savikalpa samadhi and nirvikalpa samadhi.^[10]

[edit] Meher Baba

According to the syncretistic Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba, "Spiritual experience involves more than can be grasped by mere intellect. This is often emphasised by calling it a mystical experience. Mysticism is often regarded as something anti-intellectual, obscure and confused, or impractical and unconnected with experience. In fact, true mysticism is none of these. There is nothing irrational in true mysticism when it is, as it should be, a vision of Reality. It is a form of perception which is absolutely unclouded, and so practical that it can be lived every moment of life and expressed in every-day duties. Its connection with experience is so deep that, in one sense, it is the final understanding of all experience."^[11]

[edit] History of modern science and religion view

In the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, several historical figures put forth very influential views that religion and its beliefs can be grounded in experience itself. While Kant held that moral experience justified religious beliefs, John Wesley in addition to stressing individual moral exertion thought that the religious experiences in the Methodist movement (paralleling the Romantic Movement) were foundational to religious commitment as a way of life.^[12] In the 19th century, Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albert Ritschl continued and extended this view that human (moral and religious) experience justifies religious beliefs.
Such religious empiricism would be later seen as highly problematic and was — during the period in-between world wars — famously rejected by Karl Barth.^[13] In the 20th century, religious as well as moral experience as justification for religious beliefs still holds sway. Some influential modern scholars holding this liberal theological view are Charles Raven and the Oxford physicist/theologian Charles Coulson.^[14]

[edit] Scientific studies on religious experience

There are many areas of science that explore the religious experience like Neurotheology, Transpersonal psychology, Psychology of religion, and Parapsychology

[edit] Psychology

[edit] Transpersonal psychology

Transpersonal psychology is a school of psychology that studies the transpersonal, self-transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human experience. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology describes transpersonal psychology as "the study of humanity’s highest potential, and with the recognition, understanding, and realization of unitive, spiritual, and transcendent states of consciousness" (Lajoie and Shapiro, 1992:91). Issues considered in transpersonal psychology include spiritual self-development, peak experiences, mystical experiences, systemic trance and other metaphysical experiences of living.
U.S. psychologist and philosopher William James (1842–1910) is regarded by most psychologists of religion as the founder of the field. His Varieties of Religious Experience is considered to be the classic work in the field, and references to James' ideas are common at professional conferences.
James distinguished between institutional religion and personal religion. Institutional religion refers to the religious group or organization, and plays an important part in a society's culture. Personal religion, in which the individual has mystical experience, can be experienced regardless of the culture.

[edit] Psychology of religion

Psychology of religion is the psychological study of religious experiences, beliefs, and activities.

[edit] Carl Jung

Carl Jung's work on himself and his patients convinced him that life has a spiritual purpose beyond material goals. Our main task, he believed, is to discover and fulfil our deep innate potential, much as the acorn contains the potential to become the oak, or the caterpillar to become the butterfly. Based on his study of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Taoism, and other traditions, Jung perceived that this journey of transformation is at the mystical heart of all religions. It is a journey to meet the self and at the same time to meet the Divine. Unlike Sigmund Freud, Jung thought spiritual experience was essential to our well-being.^[15]
The notion of the numinous was an important concept in the writings of Carl Jung. Jung regarded numinous experiences as fundamental to an understanding of the individuation process because of their association with experiences of synchronicity in which the presence of archetypes is felt.^[16][17]

[edit] Neuroscience

[edit] Neurotheology

Neurotheology, also known as biotheology or spiritual neuroscience,^[18] is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena. Proponents of neurotheology claim that there is a neurological and evolutionary basis for subjective experiences traditionally categorized as spiritual or religious.^[19]
According to the neurotheologist Andrew B. Newberg, neurological processes which are driven by the repetitive, rhythmic stimulation which is typical of human ritual, and which contribute to the delivery of transcendental feelings of connection to a universal unity.^{[clarification needed]} They posit, however, that physical stimulation alone is not sufficient to generate transcendental unitive experiences. For this to occur they say there must be a blending of the rhythmic stimulation with ideas. Once this occurs "…ritual turns a meaningful idea into a visceral experience."^[20] Moreover they say that humans are compelled to act out myths by the biological operations of the brain due to what they call the "inbuilt tendency of the brain to turn thoughts into actions".

[edit] Studies of the brain and religious experience

Early studies in the 1950s and 1960s attempted to use EEGs to study brain wave patterns correlated with "spiritual" states. During the 1980s Dr. Michael Persinger stimulated the temporal lobes of human subjects^[21] with a weak magnetic field. His subjects claimed to have a sensation of "an ethereal presence in the room."^[22] Some current studies use neuroimaging to localize brain regions active, or differentially active, during religious experiences.^[23][24][25] These neuroimaging studies have implicated a number of brain regions, including the limbic system, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, superior parietal lobe, and caudate nucleus.^[26][27][28] Based on the complex nature of religious experience, it is likely that they are mediated by an interaction of neural mechanisms that all add a small piece to the overall experience.^[27]

[edit] Causes of religious experiences

Meditation

Sufi whirling

Various religious texts prescribe meditative practices in order to achieve the state of consciousness which is typical of religious experience. Texts of Yoga and Tantra mention specific physical, nutritive, ethical, and meditative methods in order to achieve specific kinds of experiences. The traditions of Mantra Marga (literally, "the way of formulae") in particular stress the importance of saying, either aloud or to oneself internally, particular Mantras (phrases to be repeated) given by their teacher.^[29] Combined with this is the set of practices related to Yantras (symbols to be meditated on). Various other ways not specific of any religion include:

• Meditation^[30]
• Praying^[31]
• Music^[32]
• Dance, such as:
  • Sufi whirling^[33]
• Extended exercise, often running in a large communal circle, which is used in various tribal and neo-pagan religions.
• Extreme pain, such as:
  • Mortification of the flesh^[34]
• Profound sexual activity^[35]
• Use of entheogens, such as:
  • Ayahuasca (DMT)^[36]
  • Salvia divinorum (salvinorin A)^[37]
  • Peyote (mescaline)^[38]
  • Psilocybin mushrooms (psilocybin)^[39]
  • Amanita muscaria (muscimol)^[40]
• Psychological or neurophysiological anomalies, such as:
  • Profound depression^[41] or schizophrenia
  • Temporal lobe epilepsy^[42]
  • Stroke^[43]
• Near-death experience^[44]
• Learning^{[citation needed]}

[edit] See also

• Altered state of consciousness
• Psychedelic experience
• Argument from religious experience
• Cognitive science of religion
• Depersonalization disorder
• Enlightenment (spiritual)
• Entheogens
• Higher consciousness
• Kundalini
• Mysticism
• Near death experience
• Neurotheology
• Nirvana
• Numinosum
• Psychology of religion
• Psychonaut
• Religious ecstasy
• Religious Experience Research Centre‎
• Religious revival
• Revelation
• Samadhi
• Self-knowledge
• Spiritual crisis
• The Varieties of Religious Experience
• Theta rhythm
• Transcendence (religion)
• Transpersonal psychology
• Turiya

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Batson, C. D., Schoenrade, P., & Ventis, W. L. (1993). Religion and the individual: A social psychological perspective.. Oxford University Press.
2. ^ The Argument from Religious Experience http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/?page_id=41
3. ^ Sufism, Sufis, and Sufi Orders: Sufism's Many Paths
4. ^ Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (1975) pg.99
5. ^ John 7:16–39
6. ^ Christian Mysticism (1899 Bampton Lectures)
7. ^ Theologia Germanica, public domain
8. ^ Matthew 6:5–6 (King James Version)
9. ^ [http://www.greatwesternvehicle.org/pali/tipitaka/sutta/majjhima/mn026-tb0.htmlAriyapariyesana Sutta, Majjhimá Nikàya-26
10. ^ [1] Patanjali, Yoga Sutras
11. ^ Baba, Meher: Discourses, Sufism Reoriented, 1967, p. 20
12. ^ Issues in Science and Religion, Ian Barbour, Prentice-Hall, 1966, page 68, 79
13. ^ Issues in Science and Religion, Ian Barbour, Prentice-Hall, 1966, page 114, 116-119
14. ^ Issues in Science and Religion, Ian Barbour, Prentice-Hall, 1966, p. 126-127
15. ^ Crowley, Vivianne (2000). Jung: A Journey of Transformation:Exploring His Life and Experiencing His Ideas. Wheaton Illinois: Quest Books. ISBN 978-0-8356-0782-7.
16. ^ Jung, C. G. (1980). C. G. Jung speaking: Interviews and encounters(W. McGuire & R. F. C. Hull Eds.). London: Pan Books.
17. ^ Main, R. (2004). The rupture of time: Synchronicity and Jung’s critique of modern western culture. Hove and New York: Brunner-Routledge.
18. ^ Biello, David (2007-10-03). "Searching for God in the Brain". Scientific American. Archived from the original on 2007-10-11. http://web.archive.org/web/20071011195305/http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=434D7C62-E7F2-99DF-37CC9814533B90D7. Retrieved 2007-10-07.
19. ^ Gajilan, A. Chris (2007-04-05). "Are humans hard-wired for faith?". Cable News Network. http://cnn.health.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Are+humans+hard-wired+for+faith%3F+-+CNN.com&expire=&urlID=21822630&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2007%2FHEALTH%2F04%2F04%2Fneurotheology%2Findex.html&partnerID=2012. Retrieved 2007-04-09.
20. ^ Newberg, Andrew B.; D'Aquili, Eugene G.; Rause, Vince (2002). Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books. p. 90. ISBN 0-345-44034-X. http://www.andrewnewberg.com/why.asp.
21. ^ "'God on the Brain?" BBC
22. ^ "'This Is Your Brain on God" Wired
23. ^ "'Neural correlates of religious experience." NCBI
24. ^ "' From Brain Imaging Religious Experience to Explaining Religion: A Critique." Ingenta Connect
25. ^ "' The new science of neurotheology." Wordpress
26. ^ Newberg, A., Alavi, A., Baime, M., Pourdehnad, M., Santanna, J. & d’Aquili, E. (2001). The measurement of regional cerebral blood flow during the complex cognitive task of meditation: A preliminary SPECT study. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 106, 113-122.
27. ^ ^{a b} Azari, N.P., Missimer, J. & Seitz, R.J. (2005). Religious experience and emotion: Evidence for distinctive cognitive neural patterns. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 15, 263-281.
28. ^ Beauregard, M. & Paquette, V. (2006). Neural correlates of a mystical experience in Carmelite nuns. Neuroscience Letters, 405, 186-190.
29. ^ Daniélou, Alain: Yoga, methods of re-integration
30. ^ "'Divining the brain" Salon.com (URL accessed on September 20, 2006)
31. ^ "'Exploring the biology of religious experience" NRC online
32. ^ "'The Emotional Effects of Music on Religious Experience: A Study of the Pentecostal-Charismatic Style of Music and Worship " Sage Journals
33. ^ "'ufis seek ultimate religious experience through mystic trances or altered states of consciousness, often induced through twirling dances " Sufism: New Age Spirituality Dictionary
34. ^ "'Self-inflicted Pain in Religious Experience " www.faithfaq.com (URL accessed on July 11, 2006)
35. ^ *Deida, David. Finding God Through Sex ISBN 1-59179-273-8
36. ^ "'Psychedelics and Religious Experience " Alan Watts http://deoxy.org/ (URL accessed on July 11, 2006)
37. ^ "'Those who think of the salvia experience in religious, spiritual, or mystical terms may speak of such things as enlightenment, satori, and "cleansing the doors of perception." " sagewisdom.org (URL accessed on August 26, 2007)
38. ^ "'A Note on the Safety of Peyote when Used Religiously. " www.csp.org Council on Spiritual Practices (URL accessed on July 11, 2006)
39. ^ "'Drug's Mystical Properties Confirmed " www.washingtonpost.com (URL accessed on July 11, 2006)
40. ^ "'The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. " Conuncil on Spiritual Practices (URL accessed on July 11, 2006)
41. ^ Katie, Byron. Loving What Is page xi ISBN 1-4000-4537-1
42. ^ "'God on the Brain " http://news.bbc.co.uk (URL accessed on March 20, 2003)
43. ^ "My Stroke of Insight" http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html (URL accessed on July 2, 2008)
44. ^ Moody, Raymond. Life After Life ISBN 0-06-251739-2

[edit] References

• 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.
• Moody, Raymond. Life After Life ISBN 0-06-251739-2
• Vardy, Peter (1990). The Puzzle of God. Collins Sons and Co.. pp. 99–106.
• Deida, David. Finding God Through Sex ISBN 1-59179-273-8
• Katie, Byron. Loving What Is page xi ISBN 1-4000-4537-1
• Roberts, T. B. (editor) (2001). Psychoactive Sacramentals: Essays on Entheogens and Religion. San Francosco: Council on Spiritual Practices.
• Roberts, T. B., and Hruby, P. J. (1995–2002). Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments An Entheogen Chrestomathy. Online archive. [2]
• Roberts, T. B. "Chemical Input — Religious Output: Entheogens." Chapter 10 in Where God and Science Meet: Vol. 3: The Psychology of Religious Experience Robert McNamara (editor)(2006). Westport, CT: Praeger/Greenwood.

[edit] Further reading

• Batson, C. D., & Ventis, W. L. (1982). The religious experience: A social-psychological perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-503030-2
• Main, R. (2007). Revelations of chance: Synchronicity as spiritual experience. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, ISBN 0-7914-7024-5
• Baba, Meher (1995). Discourses. Myrtle Beach: Sheriar Foundation. ISBN 1-880619-09-1. http://www.discoursesbymeherbaba.org.

[edit] External links

• "Self-transcendence enhanced by removal of portions of the parietal-occipital cortex" Article from the Institute for the Biocultural Study of Religion
• Peru: Hell and Back National Geographic explores the uses of Ayahuasca in Shamanic healing
• Is This Your Brain On God? (May 2009 week long NPR series)

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