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Philosophy ↗︎
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AO1: Mystical religious experiences

• Mystical religious experiences are characterised by being radically unlike any ordinary experience: ‘wholly other’ (Otto).
• They involve immediate awareness of the divine or ultimate reality.
• They are sui generis and therefore cannot be described like mere visions can, as in seeing an angel or hearing a voice.
• That would be like a supernatural variation on an ordinary perception. 
• They involve feelings of overwhelming love and peace.
• In Christianity, mystics such as Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross described stages of spiritual development towards experiences of union with God,

AO1: William James on mystical experiences

• William James’ approach to religious experience is to treat it as a psychological phenomenon whose value can be judged empirically by its experiential consequences.
• This puts him in a middle ground.
• On one side, the reductionist ‘medical materialism’ claimed that explaining the psychological or neurological cause of an experience proves it to be false.
• On another side, Freud took subjectivity seriously but overlooked the value of religion, rejecting it as a neurosis.
• Religion itself failed to study its experiences empirically, opting to approach their validity through theological criteria like coherence with scripture .
• James sought a middle path that took subjective experience seriously without abandoning empiricism.
• He studied religion from the point of view of the individual subject.
• Beginning with phenomenology brackets metaphysical questions of doctrine.
• He found that religious experiences occur across different religions and cultures and display similar characteristics. 
• This was especially true of mystical experiences, which are not mere visions but intensely immersive.
• They involve a profound sense of unity with a higher power or with reality as a whole. 
• James’ four ‘marks’ of mystical experience:
• Ineffable means beyond language and description, which James thinks is the most important criteria.
• This explains why mystics use contradictory or paradoxical expressions, like being both nowhere and everywhere, or united with God yet retaining self.
• Noetic means conveying “illuminations and revelations”, a sense of deep insight or knowledge that normal intellect cannot access and carry a strong sense of authority. 
• Transient means they cannot be sustained for long, typically lasting minutes or hours before fading.
• Passive means once initiated, the individual feels taken over or “grasped and held” by a superior power.

AO2: James’ ‘pluralism’ argument

• James’ four characteristics of mystical experience occur cross-culturally.
• His pragmatism resists turning phenomenology into metaphysical proof.
• He cautiously concludes it’s hard to explain away universal mystical experiences as purely cultural construction.
• Perennialist Walter Stace takes this further, as clear evidence that mystics in different traditions are apprehending the same transcendent reality.
• His identification of a universal structure of mystical experience is intended not just to describe experience but to account for it as apprehension of objective reality.
• First level ‘extrovertive’ experience of the unity of everything in the external world. 
• Second level ‘introvertive’ unity of the person with the external world.
• Mystical experiences thus provide an argument for the supernatural, though not the Christian God specifically. 
• They support Pluralism, the view that all religions are valid responses to the same transcendent Real.

Counter:

• However, James’ argument is contested by physiological subject-related challenges.
• We should expect hallucinations to have universal similarities, because humans share the same neural physiology.
• Dr Ramachandran claims St Paul might have had epilepsy, since his description was consistent with having an epileptic seizure.
• Dr Persinger created a machine (the God helmet) which manipulated people’s brain waves causing some to feel the presence of unseen beings.
• It seems random unusual brain activity can cause something like a religious experience, even mystical ones.

Evaluation

• Theists might respond that even if an experience could be created by brain hallucinations, that doesn’t prove they all are. 
• The brain could even simply be the means by which the supernatural produces such experiences in ordinary cases.
• Certainly, physiological explanation cannot prove that all RE’s are caused by natural causes.
• Nonetheless, it shows that they sometimes are. 
• Whereas, we have no evidence for their sometimes being supernaturally caused.
• So, we have evidence for naturalistic causes of such experiences and none for supernatural causes.
• We can operate on this principle:
• We should prefer explanations that extend known mechanisms before positing new kinds of entities.
• Therefore, the availability of scientific explanation makes a supernatural explanation of universal similarities in mystical experience unnecessary.

AO2: James’ pragmatism/fruits argument

• James argued the positive life-changing effects (fruits) of mystical experiences distinguish them from inert hallucinations.
• E.g., conversion, freedom from addiction, or greater moral behaviour.
• His pragmatist epistemology claims the meaning of existential and religious beliefs is their predictions for subjective experience.
• Transformative effects on behaviour is evidence for the ‘pragmatic truth’ of the existential and religious worldview that flows from the experience.
• This means it likely fits reality in some way, since beliefs that misrepresent reality are unlikely to continue to work across experience.

Counter:

• However, James admitted that conversion experiences can involve transition from a conflicted to a stable self.
• Jung extends this to explain life-changing effects without any nod to the supernatural.
• His insight is that the psyche needs a centre of meaning (the Self). 
• During crisis, guilt, addiction, despair, identity breakdown, the psyche is unstable and fragmented.
• It therefore seeks a new framework, or a means of integrating with a current one in a new or proper way.
• We can make a Jungian interpretation of Paul:
• A persecutor with deep inner conflict whose crisis experience radically reorientated their identity towards a new symbol (Christ).

Evaluation

• We have two naturalistic explanations of life-changing effects.
• Firstly, the right sort of random hallucination to the right person at the right time could be life-changing.
• E.g. if a Christian hallucinated an angel talking to them, that might change their life.
• Secondly, Jung shows that what James treats as suggestive of religious worldviews could just be a natural psychological crisis-resolution mechanism.
• The intensity of the experience shakes them out of their rut.
• The clarity of their new focus feels liberating compared to their prior conflicted state. 
• This can grant the resolve to adhere to the behavioural implications of the symbol system, whether conversion to a new one or renewed conviction in an old one.
• So, the availability of a psychological explanation makes supernatural influence an unnecessary hypothesis.

AO1: Conversion

• Conversion experiences are religious experiences that result in a person adopting a new faith or undergoing a radical transformation within an existing one.
• They may be sudden or gradual, individual or collective, and can involve visions, mystical encounters, answered prayer, or deep moral conviction. 
• What unites them is not their character but their effect.
• William James argued that their key feature is their transformative effect on the personality. 
• It’s characterised by movement from a “divided self,” marked by guilt, anxiety, or inner conflict, to a more unified, confident, and morally energised self. 
• They are frequently accompanied by feelings of relief, new purpose, and a restructured sense of identity. 
• Two famous historical examples illustrate the impact of conversion. 
• St Paul persecuted Christians until he reported encountering Christ on the road to Damascus.
• This transformed him into Christianity’s most influential missionary and theologian. 
• The Roman emperor Constantine claimed to receive a vision before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, prophesizing his victory if he adopted Christian symbolism like the Cross.
• This led to his adoption of Christianity and eventually to its establishment as the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. 
• These cases show how conversion experiences can function as a catalyst for profound personal and social transformation, reshaping not only individual lives but entire cultures.

AO2: Conversion experiences

• The radical transformation of belief, identity and life direction of conversion experiences is often presented as evidence for supernatural influence. 
• But it could instead be seen as responses to psychological pressures.
• E.g., Constantine’s vision of Christ before victorious battle had immense political and social utility. 
• It provided religious justification for his adoption of Christianity and its subsequent adoption by the empire.
• It offered a unifying ideological framework for a large and fragile empire.
• This doesn’t mean Constantine made it up. Rather, the usefulness of the experience may have unconsciously shaped how the experience was interpreted, propagated and remembered.
• Believers can show excitement at converts from other groups, and hostility to apostates.
• Conversion experiences can thus be unconsciously influenced by socio-political forces, functioning as group consolidation narratives.

Counter

• However, this explanation seems limited. 
• Most conversion experiences occur in ordinary individuals who have no political power and often face social costs rather than benefits. 
• Many converts lose family support, face stigma and social exclusion. 
• Such cases appear to be sincerely motivated by personal conviction rather than by institutional or political utility.

Evaluation

• Nevertheless, there is strong evidence that all conversion experiences are culturally influenced.
• Conversions overwhelmingly occur to belief systems which exist now and are culturally important, rather than long-dead or marginal belief systems. 
• E.g., people do not convert to worship Zeus.
• Such cases are therefore best explained by a person’s psychological attraction to the social phenomenon of a faith, rather than supernatural inspiration.
• Religions continually reach out in the culture to non-believers, offering ethical appeal, communal belonging, and resources for navigating personal crises.
• In ordinary cases people just convert.
• Conversion experiences may occur e.g., when the influence is more unconscious, or if the person is conflicted.
• Depending on the level of psychological tension, this could cause anything ranging from a full blown mystical conversion experience, to their interpretation of something unusual as justification to convert. 
• Such experiences appear reactive to social influences in the religious “marketplace”.

AO1: Corporate RE’s

• When multiple people share a RE.
• The bible itself contains such cases, like at the day of pentecost when the holy spirit entered the discipled and caused them to speak in tongues.
• This happens in modern times too. E.g., the toronto blessing – a church in Canada where a congregation all suddenly felt the presence of the holy spirit. Some started rolling around laughing, some speaking in tongues.
• This was an example of the Charismatic movement, which incorporates corporate experiences as part of their liturgy, during a Church service. 
• Multiple people all claim to feel the presence of the holy spirit at the same time. This makes it a ‘corporate/communal’ religious experience. 
• Charismatics claim influence from the day of pentecost in the bible, which is a corporate experience in scripture.
• The holy spirit filled the disciples, causing them to speak in tongues.
• Such experiences can be unexpected, such as the miracle of the sun at Fatima, where 70,000 people showed up expecting Mary to do miracles due to a prophecy. 
• Instead, they claimed to see the Sun move, spin, change colour, or appear to fall toward the earth.
• Many in the crowd were sceptics, journalists, and non-believers.
• This is often cited as the strongest candidate for a genuinely spontaneous corporate religious experience.

AO2: Corporate RE’s

• Corporate experiences can seem especially convincing. 
• Firstly, we have multiple people attesting to the experience. 
• Secondly, we can’t explain such cases away with reference to individualistic explanations like random hallucinations, drugs, mental illness, sleep deprivation etc. 
• It’s astronomically unlikely the same natural cause would happen to multiple people at the same time and produce the same experiential effect. 
• None of these standard naturalistic explanations work here.

Counter

• However, there are psychological explanations regarding group dynamics that could explain corporate religious experiences.
• E.g. social compliance – if one or some people start doing it, others will simply join in due to expectations. 
• There’s also stronger influences like mass hysteria, mob mentality, deindividuation.

Evaluation

• This criticism is successful because there is clear evidence and examples of groups sharing delusions. 
• Ordinary life is often formal, involving repressive following of rules. 
• This creates temptation to seek experiences of letting go. 
• This can be seen in non-religious cases, like people screaming in the woods to feel psychologically liberated.
• Humans can share intense psychological states, like excitement or ecstasy. 
• If they interpret that as the holy spirit speaking through them, they will believe they really all felt the spirit’s presence.
• Corporate experiences are thus more simply explained as misattribution of shared intense psychological feelings.
• Even if we didn’t know the psychological mechanism, the incongruous diversity of things groups of people bear collective witness to proves that groups can share delusions. 
• In medieval Europe whole villages claim they saw a witch casting spells.
• In America whole villages claim they all saw an alien ship come down and take their dogs.
• This is good evidence that groups of people can simply share delusions.
• So, we can explain corporate experiences scientifically, making a supernatural explanation unnecessary.

AO1: Swinburne’s principles of testimony & credulity (witness)

• Swinburne states it is a principle of ‘rationality’ that, absent ‘special considerations’, if it seems (epistemically) to a subject that X is present, then probably X is present.
• This implies, if you experience something supernatural (credulity), or someone tells you they have (testimony), that is evidence for the existence of that supernatural entity.
• Swinburne knows critics of religious experience tend to be naturalists, who typically accept empiricism: that knowledge derives from experience.
• Swinburne sees no consistent way to exclude religious experiences as sources of knowledge.
• If naturalists accept religious experience is evidence, they can only dismiss reports with evidence of confounding psychological or physiological influences.
• E.g. of physiological or psychological explanations like psychosis, random brain hallucinations, drugs, fasting, sleep deprivation, etc.
• Yet there are cases where we have no evidence of naturalistic causes.
• If naturalists try to deny that religious experiences are evidence because they ‘could’ be hallucinations, then that just leads to scepticism.
• Since technically, all experience ‘could’ be hallucinations. 
• So, to avoid epistemological scepticism, empiricists have to accept religious experience as evidence.
• In which case, there will be some instances of testimony or credulity we will have no rason (counter-evidence) not to accept as evidence for God.
• C. F. Davis concludes that Swinburne defends against challenges attacking the reliability of the person (subject) or the coherence of their account (description).
• For Swinburne religious experiences thus form part of a cumulative case for God, alongside other arguments.

AO2: Swinburne’s empirical argument (testimony & credulity)

• Swinburne argues inductively:
• Experience is evidence (empiricism)
• We can only rationally dismiss evidence with stronger counter-evidence.
• So, if someone witnesses (credulity) or testifies to experiencing God, that is evidence for God.
• We can dismiss such reports if we have evidence of naturalistic causes.
• But those cases with no evident naturalistic explanation must then be taken as evidence for their object (God).
• They can’t be dismissed simply because they ‘could’ be hallucinations, since that’s true of all perceptions.
• So, naturalists have to accept witness or tesimony of religious experiences as evidence for the supernatural.
• Otherwise, they either deny empiricism (that experience is evidence) or cast doubt on all experience (scepticism).

Counter

• However, Swinburne seems to overlook the differences in inductive epistemic strength between religious and ordinary experiences.
• As Russell points out, inference from private mental states to external reality is generally weak unless supported by public, repeatable confirmation. 
• He illustrates: if a crowd sees the same object, hallucination becomes unlikely, and belief is justified.
• Religious experiences, by contrast, are typically private and lack this kind of intersubjective verification.
• Ordinary perceptions also gain credibility through predictive power and integration into a shared empirical framework, whereas religious experiences cannot be tested or confirmed in comparable ways.
• Empiricism therefore does not require treating them as equally reliable.

Evaluation

• This undermines Swinburne’s conclusion by giving us an inductive basis for rejecting religious experiences.
• Religious experiences may count as data, but without independent confirmation they remain low-level evidence, comparable to uncorroborated private perceptions. 
• This allows scepticism about religious experience without collapsing into scepticism about perception in general.
• Swinburne is therefore countered by the distinction between mere empirical data and empirically warranted belief.

AO2: The multiple claims critique

• We can apply Hume’s multiple claims critique of miracles here.
• All religions have religious experiences. 
• An experience of one God is evidence against the God(s) of other religions. 
• So, their inconsistency with each other reduces their evidentiary weight as it implies they are generally unreliable.

Counter

• However, the natural theology approach (e.g., of Swinburne) addresses this.
• It regards religious experience as evidence for a generic higher power, not for the Christian God in particular.
• Other arguments are needed to close that gap.
• His principles of credulity and testimony are only meant to increase the probability of some God.
• Pluralists could also use Swinburne’s method.
• Religions are different interpretations of their shared mystical core (James & Otto).
• Appearances of different deities are then expected and thus still evidence for a higher divine reality.
• So, the diversity of religious experience could still be evidence for a generic higher power, or a pluralist divine reality.

Evaluation:

• However, we can press the objection in ways natural theologians and pluralists can’t survive.
• The issue is, it’s not just different Gods which are experienced. 
• There is rarely a thing a human has imagined that someone somewhere has not claimed to have seen.
• E.g., ghosts, Yetis, aliens, faeries, astral projection, auras, telepathy, glitches in the matrix, the loch ness monster, etc.
• Swinburne wants us to accept as evidence what a person with no evident cognitive issues says they saw.
• The problem is that this approach is epistemically indiscriminate.
• It would grant credence to every imagination.
• This fails to distinguish genuine from illusory experiences, and thus fails to filter for truth.
• It isn’t helpful in discerning which beliefs are actually true.
• The diversity of reported subjective experiences seem only limited by imagination, and is thus epistemically indistinguishable from it.

AO2: sociological reductionism (object challenge)

• Sociological reductionist critiques aim to provide a naturalistic account for religious psychology in general.
• Hermeneutics of suspicion investigates the social and power function beneath supposedly faithful beliefs and experiences.
• For Marx, religion is a tool of social control. Focusing life on getting to heaven and submitting to rulers inhibits motivation to challenge political injustice.
• Durkheim thinks religion grows from a community’s need for a shared ethos to enable collective identity.
• Such theories would explain the universalities of religion and religious experience.
• Evidence for them is therefore evidence against the supernatural explanation.

Counter

• Davis herself responds that reductionist theories are incomplete, since the immense diversity of religious experiences seem difficult to explain by any one theory.
• She further argues that they are only hypotheses, so they are not conclusive.
• This is in keeping with the general critique of suspicion hermeneutics that they make unfalsifiable claims about private motivations.

Evaluation:

• However, the religious explanation of itself as faithful mediation of divinity is also just a hypothesis.
• So, the question is which hypothesis has more evidence and explanatory power.
• We can use Swinburne’s ‘cumulative case’ concept against him.
• The diversity of religious experience could be accounted for by the cumulative diversity of reductionist theories.
• This overcomes Davis’ ‘incompleteness’ defence.
• There is a way to deploy suspicion with empirical legitimacy, because there is clear historical evidence for the link between religion and power.
• The link between religion and a source of community and purpose is something believers frequently use to argue religion is necessary.
• Yet this supposed strength could suggest religion is merely fulfilling a human need.
• Religion serves social regulatory functions, so claiming communication with the divine indisputably has social implications.
• There could have been no God and yet humans, desiring power, community and explanation, would have invented one.
• Most believers would likely admit this, but about religions other than their own.
• Those needs are strong enough to self-justify by causing intense experiences, or just interpretations and false memories.
• Political populism is a useful comparison. People can be so hungry for stories which validate their political interests.
• Religion claims existential importance, meaning religious experiences are developed in similarly intense pressures.
• So, reductionist challenges counterbalance whatever prima facie evidentiary weight religious experiences seem to have.
• We are certainly justified in being sceptical and even suspicious of religious self-understanding and the appeal to private experience.

Question preparation

Revision paragraphs:

AO1: Mystical religious experiences
AO1: William James on mystical experiences
AO2: James’ ‘pluralism’ argument
AO2: James’ pragmatism/fruits argument
AO1: Conversion
AO2: Conversion experiences
AO1: Corporate RE’s
AO2: Corporate RE’s
AO1: Swinburne’s principles of testimony & credulity (witness)
AO2: Swinburne’s empirical argument (testimony & credulity)
AO2: The multiple claims critique
AO2: sociological reductionism (object challenge)

Question types:

Questions which focus on one type of RE: (corporate / conversion / mystical / individual)

• You can just focus on that one type, or bring in other types to debate whether they are more or less convincing than the one in the question. But the focus must be kept on the type in question. 

E.g.: “Conversion experiences are evidence for God” – Discuss [40]

• AO1: Conversion (full detail)
• AO2: Conversion experiences
• AO2: James’ pragmatism/fruits argument
  • Here James argues the life-changing effects (of which conversion experiences are a quintessential example) are evidence which ‘pragmatically’ validate RE’s (though as evidence for a higher spiritual reality rather than ‘God’).
• Then I’d do any of the following:
• AO2: Swinburne’s empirical argument (testimony & credulity)
  • Swinburne would argue conversion experiences are indeed evidence for God, in cases where there is no counter-evidence.
• AO2: The multiple claims critique
  • This argues conversion experiences must be unreliable because of the multiple contradictory Gods experiences (and converted too).
• AO2: sociological reductionism (object challenge)
  • This argues conversion experiences are unreliable because they grow out of sociological conditions, rather than being responses to anything supernatural.

Critical comparison of ‘types’ of RE: (corporate / conversion / mystical / individual)

• E.g.: Critically compare any two types of RE.
• E.g.: assess whether a particular type of RE is the best/most-convincing/reliable/believable
• You must mention at least 2 types in your essay. 
• You can include critics who argue they all fail – that is relevant to whether one is better than the others.
• You could conclude:
  • One type better than others
  • All equally valid/convicing/successful
  • All equally invalid/unconvincing/unsuccessful

E.g.: “Corporate experiences are the most convincing evidence for God” – Discuss [40]

• AO1: Corporate RE’s
• AO2: Corporate RE’s
• AO2: James’ ‘pluralism’ argument (argues for mystical individual experiences)
• AO2: Swinburne’s empirical argument (argues all types are equally potentially convincing – so long as there’s no counter-evidence)

E.g.: “Individual mystical experiences are more convincing than Corporate experiences” – Discuss [40]

• AO1: Mystical religious experiences
• AO2: James’ ‘pluralism’ argument
  • James here argues for individual mystical experiences.
• AO1: Corporate RE’s
• AO2: Corporate RE’s
  • They seem to avoid critiques faced individual experiences, but face their own issues.
• AO2: Swinburne’s empirical argument (testimony & credulity)
  • Swinburne argues all types of RE are potentially valid, what matters is whether, in each case, there is counter-evidence or not – the type isn’t what matters in his argument.
• AO2: The multiple claims critique
  • Suggests all types of RE’s are equally unreliable, because they involve experiences of contradictory supernatural claims.
• AO2: sociological reductionism (object challenge)
  • Claims all types of RE are equally unreliable, because they grow out of sociological conditions rather than being genuine apprehensions of something supernatural.

Questions about what it is that validates a religious experience:

• Testimony and witness credulity (Swinburne)
• Their life-changing effects (James’ pragmatism)
• Their being experienced by multiple people (corporate)

• These can then be used to criticise each other. E.g., although James and Swinburne agree there can be validity to religious experiences, they disagree about what makes them valid.
  

E.g.: Are testimony and witness sufficient to validate a religious experience? [40]

Required:

• AO1: Swinburne’s principles of testimony & credulity (witness)
• AO2: Swinburne’s empirical argument (testimony & credulity)
  

Further options:

• AO2: The multiple claims critique
  • This argues that multiple claims of different Gods etc proves the evidence of testimony and witness weak and generally unreliable.
• AO2: sociological reductionism (object challenge)
  • This argues that we have evidence for sociological causes of religious experience that undermines the credibility of testimony and witness.
• AO2: James’ ‘pluralism’ argument
  • James would argue that it is the cross-cultural similarities (pluralism) of religious experiences which validate them – not witness/testimony.
• AO2: James’ pragmatism/fruits argument
  • James would argue that it is the life-changing effects (pragmatism) of religious experiences which validate them – not witness/testimony.

Are RE’s are caused by a psychological effect? [40]
Or:
Are RE’s are caused by a physiological effect [40]

• These two questions are kind of mirrors of each other, and can be answered with the same content. Since, if a psychological critique works, that proves it can’t ‘just’ be physiological (if it’s physiological at all..) – and vice versa.
• Some arguments say RE’s are caused by psychological effects, others say they are caused by physiological effects.
• Your job is to consider at least one type of each critique, and judge whether one type, both types, or neither type of critique succeeds. 
• If one type succeeds – that is the explanation of RE’s. 
• If both type succeeds – then RE’s are caused by natural effects, sometimes psychological, sometimes physiological, sometimes both.
• If neither type succeeds, then RE’s are not caused by natural causes but by something supernatural, like God (Swinburne) or a higher spiritual reality (James).
• AO1: explain a few types of RE’s – and the distinction between psychological and physiological.
• AO2: Swinburne’s empirical argument (testimony & credulity)
  • Would say some cases might be, but there are cases where there’s no evidence of psychological OR physiological influences.
• AO2: James’ ‘pluralism’ argument
  • Would work great for physiological (bc of persinger & epilepsy counters – are physiological)
• Anything else works great for psychological: 
• AO2: James’ pragmatism/fruits argument
• AO2: Conversion experiences
• AO2: Corporate RE’s
• AO2: The multiple claims critique
• AO2: sociological reductionism (object challenge)

Are religious experiences just illusions? [40]

• AO1: William James on mystical experiences (moderate amount)
• AO2: James’ ‘pluralism’ argument
  • James argues they are not illusions (Persinger counters).
• AO2: James’ pragmatism/fruits argument
  • James further argues they are not just illusions (Russell counters).
• AO2: Swinburne’s empirical argument (testimony & credulity)
  • Swinburne argues they can sometimes be justifiably judged more than just illusions – when there’s no counter-evidence.
• AO2: The multiple claims critique
  • Argues RE’s must be illusory due to people seeing contradictory Gods.
• AO2: sociological reductionism (object challenge)
  • Argues RE’s are illusions created for a sociological function

Weirdly worded questions:

Sneaky questions about James which might not mention his name but are focused on him (so would need James AO1 and both of his AO2s):

• Whether religious experiences are union with a greater power
• How convincing are individual RE’s (union is an individual thing)
• Does the influence/effect of religious experiences validate them?