Varieties of Religious Experience

Posted by Chris on 16 May 2010 | 2 Comments

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From the earliest times humans have reported extraordinary experiences. They’ve sometimes been referred to as mystical, religious, non-ordinary or sacred. They’ve sometimes been sought, by means of fasting, chanting, dancing, drumming, meditating or the ingestion of psychedelic substances, and they’ve sometimes occured spontaneously. They’ve often been described as ecstatic, sometimes as hellish, but nearly always as deeply engaging. They’ve often changed the directions of lives, sometimes for the better and sometimes not.

Two questions arise from these experiences. Firstly, are they authentic – do they provide real information about the world beyond the experiencer, or are they generated entirely within the individual’s nervous system? If the answer is that they are authentic, the second question becomes whether they are related to or arise from the supernatural realm of regular, scriptural religion.

One of the earliest studies of extraordinary states was conducted by the American psychologist, William James, and published in his 1902 book Varieties of Religious Experience. A particularly good discussion of this was conducted by Melvyn Bragg for the Radio Four series In Our Time.

You can download the podcast from  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl 

If you have had a religious experience or have an opinion on their cause or validity, do leave a comment below.


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  • I have had many spiritual experiences, or religious if you choose that word, throughout my life. I had an out of body experience at the age of 16 months that was trauma induced. I do not know if it was the first, but it is the first I remember. As an adult my experiences have not been trauma induced. They would be more religious in nature. If you have questions, please contact me.

    Posted by Anne Stinn, 20/05/2010 5:37pm (2 years ago)

  • The International Association for Near-Death Studies Inc. http://www.iands.org/ has a vast database of personal experiences from ordinary people who suddenly were thrust into a life-changing experience through various reasons like illness or trauma. Unfortunately, once again, the experiences are subjective and for the most part have to be taken at face value. It's an interesting site to browse.

    Trance experiences among the San (Bushman) people here in Southern Africa have been quite well documented. They are enhanced through drumming and hallucinogenic plants; their relationship with stars is interesting in that there appears to be a long-established understanding of an stellar-San relationship. "The stars are also things which resemble the moon; for they used to be formally people.... the star mother brings the star child, he runs away he runs into the clouds .... therefore we are stars - we must walk the sky for we are heaven's things." Heaven's Things - a story of the /Xam Pippa Skotnes University of Cape Town Press.

    I think in the context of First People's rituals/trance dancing, it is a perhaps a way of investigating issues which are troubling the tribal group without placing responsibility for opinions/decisions on a specific member of the group ie. the things that need to be done to resolve an issue are seen to be coming from an external, unrelated, impersonal (in personal/family relationship) source and so cannot be used at a later stage to cause rifts (which could be disastrous for its survival) in the group.

    Often archetypes like the Mantis/Trickster are interrogated and blamed for bad luck or misfortune.

    Perhaps in our modern context they are upheavals in the subconscious brought upon also by trauma and stress, but maybe we have become so socially isolated and being unable to let the traumas run free in the impersonal context of mythology, imaginary beings and the endorphin rush of hours of physical dance, that they are experienced as that somewhat stereotypical "long-tunnel/golden light" expression of the neural/chemical explosion?

    Posted by Robert de Vos, 16/05/2010 10:40pm (2 years ago)

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