1. Compare the characteristics of non-mystical religious experiences and mystical religious experiences.
2. Discuss whether non-mystical religious experiences can provide credible evidence for religious beliefs. What similarities or differences hold among mystical religious experiences occurring within different religious traditions?
[1] Religious experience can be thought of as instances in which one feels the presence of the divine; a sensation that some supernatural entity (God, the "Overmind", Jesus, Buddha, etc.) is communicating and revealing knowledge or compassion to us. As they are very subjective in nature, defining and/or classifying religious experiences is problematic except through very broad categories. Mystical and non-mystical are two such general terms.
Non-mystical simply translates into "perceived through an ordinary state of awareness"; as in being awed by a beautiful natural vista (from a mountaintop, along a seashore, etc.) and sensing the presence of God as a result. These could be visual, auditory or other sensory stimuli. Far more rare (if even existent) would be what H&R label as apparent perceptions of God- where God appears directly, as in the Biblical accounts of such "miracles".
Mystical religious experience implies a more heightened or altered state of awareness; a feeling of "oneness" with God. There have been various methods historically to achieve this- through meditation, asceticism (a self-denial of any form of indulgence or pleasure), and through psychotropic substances/drugs. Often these experiences are difficult to put into words, and entail the feeling of discovering truths that have not been apparent before.
I think it's important to point out that one can have a mystical experience without it being religious. I've spent a few decades cultivating a form of meditation/awareness, influenced by Zen Buddhism (which is not a religion- there's no deity); and have on numerous occasions had transcendent moments- just simple episodes of feeling at peace and harmony with everything in my environment. No doubt most of us have had similar experiences, whatever our background or beliefs.
[2] Credible evidence that can validate religious belief, as we've seen throughout this course, is a very elusive item. Maybe the lack of proof is a large part of the appeal for many believers- and the mystery of "what it all means" the quality that draws them inward, toward those who claim to have the answers.
As H&R observe in their concluding remarks, a factor that could contribute significantly toward credibility is the extent to which a religious experience is shared- taking a solitary witness at their word is never as good as having others to corroborate an account. The opening story from Stairs & Bernard in Chapter 6 is a good example; where the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton and two of his crew walked for long hours through a desolate place- and later all agreed that they had felt the presence of a fourth "person" traveling with them. The fact that all three had the same impression is far more convincing than if only one had.
Generally, I don't think any religious experience reported second-hand can provide credible evidence. (If God were to show His self to me, in person, then I would have something reliable. If my neighbor claims the same thing, but I didn't witness it, that's completely different). The Bible is a second-hand account, any way you look at it- despite what some fundamentalists espouse, it is not the literal word of God. Men wrote it, and it's gone through several changes of language to get to the English version we know.
The mystical experiences of various religious traditions (or for secular participants) are mostly similar, in my opinion. People have a sense of losing their personal identity (or ego) and feeling as if they've become a part of God- they feel at "one" with other humans, animals, plants, the whole environment. Another word for it is enlightenment.
Only the terminologies, and the specific deities of a given faith, are different from one to the next. But those are superficial qualities, just descriptors for an experience that is often beyond words. Zen has satori; Buddhism has nirvana; Christians have revelation; it's the same game, different name. Native Americans had their own mystic practices before Europeans arrived on the north and south continents; cultures in various stages of isolation have all independently developed their own rituals and potions, etc. to evoke visions and communion with whatever is out there...
icons at the top right corner of the subsection.