Religious experience

Described by William James as "the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine", such experience is essentially subjective and personal. The relationship so described may be cognitive, ritual, inspirational, transformative or sustaining, and may be experienced positively or negatively; but in all cases the experience may be considered transcendent, although what is defined as transcendent may vary. Further, the experience is usually accompanied by a feeling of reverence and sense of the sacred; and may be associated with the phenomenon of conversion. Certainly, feelings of unworthiness, of wrongness with how things are naturally and of saving from this wrongness by the transcendent, are common. The experience may be renewing and transformative; there is a coming to terms with the conflict between "the flesh and the spirit" and a striving to rise above the habitual level of human nature, to become a "new creation".

Within the definition of religious experience may be the wisdom acquired from the conscious experience in the present of communion by the verifying of spiritual facts. In this sense, the subjective, personal aspect may be seen to be trans-subjective. It is not simply a reflex but grounded in the life-process and closely linked with the experience of others, whose spiritual experience can only, however, be interpreted in the light of one's own. Thus, the nature of religious experience depends on the traditions through which the person relates to the transcendent and the patterns of his personal life. The spatio-temporal nature of the world as normally experienced is seen as a reflection of a transcendent reality in which it is rooted.

Although the characteristic of religious experience has been stated as being absolutely dependent and may have absolute authority for the person experiencing it, it nevertheless does not destroy moral freedom; self-surrender is voluntary and involves conflict and choice. Self-discipline and inner struggle are required before there is willing conformity with divine will and conscious and increasing participation in the divine life. This has been referred to as the process of transformation, as the personality surrenders in faith to that which will satisfy the deepest needs. The vocabulary of religious experience illustrates the sense of obligation involved. The word "religion" itself carries the meaning of "bound", bound in conscientious and dutiful devotion. Kant described the sense of reverence which arises at moral law. The term yoga implies a "yoke". All religions have within them particular systems of discipline whose goal is either union (in the sense of absorption) with the transcendent or perfect communion between the self and the transcendent – for example the three marga or ways of Hinduism, the eightfold path of Buddhism. There is also celebration of the joy that religious experience brings, compared with the joy of human love - as in the Sufi poets and the Judaic Song of Songs.

Although the Christian traditions of the past provided for devotional practice and the rites of passage which give ritual expression and celebration of major concerns, less emphasis was placed on self-conscious reflection on religious experience than is now the case in some Protestant groupings, where the fundamental role of individual religious consciousness is emphasized. However, in the 14th Century, Meister Eckhart spoke of mysticism as experiencing God rather than simply believing. This refers to an attitude which accompanies every state of consciousness, whether normal or abnormal. This attitude is healthy, realistic and life-giving. It implies renunciation and detachment, of letting go, of being open to the present moment whatever it brings. It is not so much an expansion of consciousness as a breaking through consciousness to find an inner centre of stability, a unity and serenity which stays intact despite fluctuations of the conscious state.

Religious experience as the personal relation between the individual and the divine has been extended (Martin Buber) to include any authentic relationship with another person in which the whole of one's being is engaged and in which there is an element of grace or givenness from the other. In any I-thou relation there is a glimpse of the eternal Thou. This mutuality of encounter, he says, can hardly be referred to as an individual experience at all. It is compared with the I-it relationship in which the whole being cannot be involved.

Religious experience may be precipitated by an upsetting of normal routine, whether through a discipline such as fasting or through extreme physical exertion, or through changes such as a new job, a different social situation, travelling. Shocks and stresses induced like this may make the individual able to see himself as he really is, not as he imagines or hopes himself to be. Surveys in the 1960s and 1970s in the UK and the USA have revealed a remarkably high proportion of people claiming to have had spontaneous experiences which could be referred to as religious, of a powerful spiritual force, many of whom stating that their lives had been radically changed by this experience. This is in addition to the numbers of people having experiences induced by traditional religious methods or through various meditative techniques, drugs and other methods.