Web viewThe article argues that the anthropology of the cultural-linguistic model elaborates the radical materiality, historicity, and contingency of religious experience in

An Annotated Bibliography of Journal Articles on the Study of Spiritual and Religious Experience

IntroductionThis bibliography of journal articles was first created in 2016 as a working document to assist with the creation of a student Reader on the Study of Spiritual and Religious Experience from a variety of disciplinary perspectives (see https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ces/research/wreru/research/current/ …. ). To this end, around 5,000 titles of journal articles were first reviewed, drawn both from references in the wider literature on religious experience and by using the search facilities of various databases, and a list of nearly 1,000 of the most relevant of these were then selected for further study. The selection criteria at this stage included:

(a) material that illustrated a range of different disciplines in Religious Studies and Theological Studies: that is, biblical studies and historical theology; theological and philosophical perspectives; psychological, sociological and anthropological perspectives; and detailed empirical social-scientific surveys using qualitative and quantitative analyses (however, neuroscientific studies were also collected);

(b) a dual focus on both ordinary religious and spiritual experience and (for the more classic, explicitly religious experiences) the Scriptures and history of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

This redaction of the bibliography is now being made available more widely in the hope that it may prove useful to other students of spiritual and religious experience.

Notes on bibliographical format and vocabularyThe bibliographical data has mostly been cut and pasted from the journals themselves, and no attempt has been made to create a consistent format throughout the table. Where ‘keywords’ are listed as such in the final column, these are the keywords provided by the author(s) with their Abstract of the article.

/tt/file_convert/5a9ed4587f8b9a7f178be90c/document.docx 5/6/2023 1

https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ces/research/wreru/research/current/

Using the Table of ArticlesThese data have been formatted as a table in Microsoft Word, which allows users to employ a number of simple procedures to select, convert, search and sort the material. (For the benefit of users with low spec. personal computers, this table is split into sections, each within its own Word document. Given sufficient internal memory [RAM], however, these sections may be copied and pasted together into one table, so that the whole database can be searched and manipulated as one unit.)

To select records in the Bibliography simply locate the mouse pointer outside and to the left of the table, opposite the record to be selected and click the left mouse button. (To select a range of contiguous records, press the Shift key and repeat the procedure locating the mouse pointer against the record at the other end of the required sequence. To select individual records scattered through the table, press the Ctrl key and repeat the procedure against each additional record.)

When record(s) have been highlighted in this way they may be moved within the table, copied (using the menu under the HOME tab; or Ctrl + C) or cut (using the menu under the HOME tab; or Ctrl + X). Copied or cut records may then be pasted into a blank document as a new table (using the menu under the HOME tab; or Ctrl + V).

Using the TABLE TOOLS/Layout tab, records (rows) and columns (fields) may be inserted above or below a highlighted record, or to either side of a highlighted column; highlighted records/columns may be deleted; and individual cells in the table may be merged or split. The whole table may be split at any point above a highlighted record (creating tables with fewer records). Some text formatting may also be performed using this tab.

The data in the table may be converted to text format by placing your cursor within the body of the table of articles (or highlighting the whole table) and clicking the Convert to Text button on the far right under the TABLE TOOLS / LAYOUT tab, then specifying the field separator (tabs, commas, etc.) in the pop-up Convert Table to Text screen. The same operation may be performed on individual or contiguous rows of data if they are highlighted first. This gets rid of all the table formatting.

Using the TABLE TOOLS/Design tab, the appearance of the table may be modified. In order to search the Bibliography, use Microsoft Word’s Find button (on the top far right of the screen under the HOME tab

marked by an icon of binoculars; or by pressing the Ctrl + F keys. The entire table, including data in all the columns/fields (author, title, date etc.), may be searched for words or phrases.

In order to sort the Bibliography, use Microsoft Word’s Sort button (at the top far left of the screen; or in the centre of the screen under the HOME Tab; or near the right of the screen under the TABLE TOOLS / LAYOUT tab. The button is labelled thus:


AZ

All columns/fields (author, date etc.) may be sorted, alphabetically (‘text’) or numerically and in ascending or descending order, either by placing your cursor within the body of the table of articles, pressing the Sort button, and then specifying the column number in the pop-up Sort screen; or by placing the cursor above the chosen column/field (below the shaded field names), clicking to highlight this column/field when the down arrow appears, and then pressing the Sort button. In either case the Sort screen will allow nested sorting over up to three columns (e.g. by author, then journal, then date).

KEY TO SYMBOLS in the Discipline / Field of Study column: (an additional ‘?’ indicates a doubtful categorization)

B = Biblical study H = Historical study N = Neuroscientific study Φ = Philosophical study P = Practical/pastoral study φ = Psychological studyQL = Qualitative empirical studyQN = Quantitative empirical study S = Sociological/Anthropological study Θ = Theological study


TABLE OF ARTICLES

Author Article Title Date Journal Details Discipline/ Field of Study

Notes, Keywords, Abstracts or Summaries

Abernathy, Alexis D. et al

Varieties of Spiritual Experience: A Study of Closeness to God, Struggle, Transformation, and Confession-Forgiveness in Communal Worship

2016 Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 35(1), 9-21

QN Effects of Spiritual Experiences in worship. Interview study.

Adam, Martin T. A Post-Kantian Perspective on Recent Debates about Mystical Experience

2002 Journal of the American Academy of Religion Vol. 70, No. 4, pp. 801-817

Φ Academic discussion of mystical experience has tended to presuppose a model of experience that is broadly Kantian in character, and this is so in two regards. First of all it has adopted Kant's division between intuition and understanding—in the form of a distinction drawn between "experience" and "interpretation." Through the former of each of these pairs, an object is said to be given; through the latter, it is said to be conceptualized. Second, many thinkers have presupposed the Kantian distinction of "noumenon" and "phenomenon." This article questions the appropriateness of both these presuppositions. Situating my arguments in the context of the recent constructivist-essentialist debate, I suggest that thinkers on both sides have not been sufficiently critical in their employment of


Kantian terminology. I argue that there exists an important subcategory of mystical experience that does not fit comfortably into the Kantian conceptual framework.

Adams, Robert M. Review: Religious Disagreements and Doxastic Practices:

1994 Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,, Vol. 54, No. 4, pp. 885-890

Φ Clear critique of Alston. See Alston’s reply.

Afterman, Adam From Philo to Plotinus: The Emergence of Mystical Union

2013 The Journal of Religion

H Judaism. Philo

Albright, Carol Rausch

Neuroscience in Pursuit Of The Holy: Mysticism, The Brain, And Ultimate Reality

2001 Zygon, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 485-492

N Θ Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew B. Newberg's The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience presents a core theory regarding the neurophysical nature of mystical experience; extensions of this theory, focusing upon near-death experiences and the nature of religion itself; and buttressing arguments proposing that genetically based neurophysical "operators" within the brain compel human beings to think in certain ways. On the basis of this work, the authors pose a "metatheology," suggesting that certain brain operations may underlie all the religions of the world. The core theory, its extensions, and related arguments are discussed in turn, concluding with commentary on the authors' constructive theology.

Allik, Tiina Religious Experience, Human Finitude, And the Cultural-Linguistic Model

1993 Horizons, 20/2, pp. 241-59

S? Θ? The article argues that the anthropology of the cultural-linguistic model elaborates the radical materiality, historicity, and


contingency of religious experience in a way that the experiential-expressivist model does not. More specifically, the article argues that experiential-expressivist thinkers who conceptualize religious experience as having a nonconceptual core which is not constituted by the contingencies of a person's material, social, and historical environments implicitly compromise human finitude. The article also suggests that the cultural-linguistic model will seem threatening to our sense of human freedom as long as we share the modern assumption that material causes and human choices are competing kinds of "things" in the world, rather than being descriptions of the same concrete phenomena from different perspectives and for different purposes, and that the cultural-linguistic model will seem atheistic if one shares the modern view that this-worldly causal efficacy is in competition with God's agency.

Little about religious exp

Allison, Joel Religious Conversion: Regression and Progression in an Adolescent Experience

1969 Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 23-38

Ψ The sudden and dramatic religious conversion experience of a male divinity student is presented and explored in terms of its role in adolescent development. Particular emphasis is placed on his perception of family relationships, and especially on how the conversion experience serves to alter a perception of the actual father as weak, ineffective, or absent by supplying instead an internal representation of a strong and


principled substitute paternal figure with clear values and firm judgments. This representation of a positive and powerful paternal figure is seen as crucial in aiding the adolescent process of individuation and differentiation by countering strong longings to retain or reestablish a sense of undifferentiated union with the maternal figure.

Early? Study of one individual

Allman, Lorraine S., et al.

Psychotherapists' Attitudes Toward Clients Reporting Mystical Experiences,

1992 Psychotherapy Volume 29/Winter 1992/Number 4, pp. 564-569

Ψ QN P Little is understood about therapists' attitudes toward clients who report mystical experiences. A survey was mailed to 650 members of the American Psychological Association in full-time practice and was completed by 285 respondents. Results indicated that 4.5% of clients during the past 12 months had reported mystical experiences; most therapists did not view such experiences as necessarily pathological; therapists' theoretical orientation and certain other personal and professional factors influenced their diagnostic attitudes toward these clients; 50% of the respondent therapists themselves reported having had a mystical experience at some time in their lives.

Alston, William P. Perceiving God 1986 The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 83, No. 11 (Nov., 1986), pp. 655-665

Φ Early, but good, account

Alston, William P. Review: Précis of Perceiving 1994 Philosophy and Φ Summary of 1991 book.


God Phenomenological Research, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 863-868

Ref ‘MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE’ (p. 863f) p 864 cf. ‘big deal’; and ‘background’ experiences

Alston, William P. Religious Experience and Religious Belief

1982 Noûs, Vol. 16, No. 1, (Mar., 1982), pp. 3-12

Φ Rather technical. Early

Alston, William P. Reply to Commentators 1994 Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 891-899

Φ Responses to Gale, Pappas, Adams

Alston, William P. Response to Critics 1994 Religious Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 171-180

Φ Responses to Gale, Tilley, Schellenberg. Technical

Alston, William P. The Autonomy of Religious Experience: The Epistemic Status of Religious Belief

1992 International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 31, No. 2/3, (Apr. - Jun., 1992), pp. 67-87

Φ Good account. Cf. Précis

Alston, William P. Review of Yandell 1996 Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Mar., 1996), pp. 235-238

Φ Review of Yandell

Alston, William P. Religious Diversity and Perceptual Knowledge of God

1988 Faith and Philosophy Vol. 5 No.4 October 1988

Φ Early


Alston, William P. The Perception of God 1988 Philosophical Topics, Vol. 16, No. 2, (FALL 1988), pp. 23-52

Φ Good, but early and long. Gives Examples

Altany, Alan What makes a Mystic? 1992 US Catholic, pp. 30-36

Popular

Alva, Reginald Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement and Secularization

2015 PentecoStudies 14.1 (2015) 124-139

S? Θ? Advances in science and technnlngy have relegated the space of religion in the society. Modern people have rightly challenged the traditional hegemony of religious institutions. However, challenging unjust practices within religious institutions must not ystematically jeopardize the spiritual and ethical values, which the religions propose. Society should not sacrifice morality and values on the altar of science and progress.The Catholic C hurch held the Second V atican C ouncil (1962-5) w ith the aim of overall renew al and reform ations w ithin the church. It prepared the Church to read the signs o f times. The beginning of the C harism atic Renewal in 1967 w ithin the Catholic C hurch is a fruit o fth a t effort. Surveys show th a t the Charismatic Movement had a phenomenal growth. In the year 2000, around 11.3 percent of the total global Catholic population was associated w ith Charismatic Movement.2 The Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement (CCRM) seeks the grace of renewal to foster a deepercommunion with God the Father, a total acceptance of the lordship of Jesus


Christ and a perennial openness to the Holy Spirit. The CCRM is playing a vital role by infusing life and vigor to the Church, attracting youth to the Church, bringing hope to the overstressed people and help them discover the meaning of life in the midst of growing ennui and angst because of the rapture of the bubble economy and effects of secularization. The task of renewal of the whole Church is far from finished. It is a project in process.In this paper, we propose to trace the effects of this movement in the Catholic Church. We shall attempt to study, how best this movement can help in preserving the traditional religious values on the one hand and the progress of humanity on the other.Keywords: Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Second Vatican Council, secularization, charisms, mission. Catholic Church, society, morality, values.

Andersen, M. et al. Mystical Experience in the Lab U

2014 Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 26 (2014) 217-245

N Ψ We review previous attempts to study mystical experience and point to problemsinherent to certain methodologies. Focusing on studies that use controlled environmentswe advocate taking an experimental approach to mysticism. To demonstrate theviability of this approach, we report findings from a new study that probes the potentialfor eliciting mystical experiences in the laboratory. We find that our experimentalparadigm is indeed enough to elicit mystical experiences. Based on subjective ratings


of experience, rich descriptions from interviews, and data obtained three months after the study, our data indicate that the experiences reported by the participants had ahigh degree of authenticity and had lasting effects in terms of memory and attribution.These findings demonstrate that at least some forms of mystical experience can bestudied in a controlled environment. Prospects and limitations for the experimentalapproach to mysticism are discussed.

Andrejč, Gorazd Bridging the gap between social and existential-mystical interpretations of Schleiermacher's ‘feeling’.

2012 Religious Studies, 48, pp 377-401

H S? Ψ Φ Θ?

The article engages with two contemporary understandings ofSchleiermacher’s notion of feeling which are in important aspects in conflict: a social understanding (Kevin W. Hector and Christine Helmer) and an existential mysticalunderstanding (Thandeka). Using the phenomenological category of ‘existential feelings’ drawn from the work of Matthew Ratcliffe, I argue that they can be brought into a coherent overall account that recognizes different aspects of feeling in Schleiermacher’s work. I also suggest that such an interpretation of Schleiermacher’s concept of religious feeling offers a different and better understanding of the role of feelings in religious experience and belief than the contemporary ‘perception-model’ of religious experience.

Angel, Leonard Mystical naturalism. 2002 Religious Studies, 38, pp 317-338

Φ Θ This paper suggests that an ontologically reductionist view of nature which also


accepts the completeness of causality at the level of physics can support(1) the blissful transfiguration of the moral, (2) mystical release from standard egoidentification, and (3) psycho-physical transformation cultivated through meditativepractice. This mystical naturalism provides the basis for a thicker, more vigorousinstitutional religious life, including religious life centred around meditationpractices, personalist meanings, and the theology of incarnation, than currentproposals for strongly naturalist religions allow.

Angel, Leonard Universal Self Consciousness Mysticism and the Physical Completeness Principle

2004 International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Feb., 2004), pp. 1-29

Φ Philosophers promoting a version of Universal Self Consciousness mysticism (including Wainwright, Alston, Hick, Wilber and Forman) take it that their interpretations of mysticism are consistent with current scientific findings. However, their theories have implicitly or explicitly against the central claim arising from science, namely, the causal completeness principle. There is strong ground to accept physical causal completeness for human functioning, and the assessment of physical completeness is independent the phenomenology of Universal Self Consciousness mystical experience. Further, a positive account of Universal Self Consciousness mysticism that accepts physical completeness. Such an account is preferable to the many accounts that both require and yet give no basically satisfactory


evidence to ground

Physicalism v religious experience . Good on naturalistic view of brain.

Antes, Peter What Do We Experience If We Have Religious Experience?

2002 Numen, Vol. 49, pp. 336-342

Ψ The starting point of the paper is the historical fact that people who have specialforms of religious experience such as seeing saints, angels, gods or goddesses canalways say whom they saw. They never met anyone totally unknown to them. Thequestion is why. The answer that the paper proposes and invites to discuss is thathaving experience means to identify what is happening with what is known as patternof interpretation. The knowledge of those patterns is due either to socialisation or tofurther studies in favour of, or against, those patterns, yet, it is unlikely that somethingtotally new will ever be discovered through those forms of religious experience.

ap Siôn, Tania Looking For Signs Of The Presence Of God In Northern Ireland: Religious experience Among Catholic And Protestant Sixth-Form Pupils

2006 Archiv für Religionspsychologie / Archive for the Psychology of Religion, Vol. 28 (2006), pp. 349-370

QL A sample of 2,359 sixth-form pupils (between the ages of 16 and 18 years) in Northern Ireland (1,093 attending seven Protestant schools and 1,266 attending nine Catholic schools) responded in 1998 to Greer's classic question 'Have you ever had an experience of God, for exam ple, his presence or his help or anything else?' Religious experience was reported by 29% of Protestant males, 29% of Catholic males, 39% of Protestant females and 38% of Catholic females. Compared with earlier data


these figures reveal a particularly marked decline in reported religious experience among Catholic females (64% in 1981, 56% in 1984, 61% in 1992 and 38% in 1998). The content of the reported religious experience is analysed and illustrated within nine descriptive categories characterised as: help and guidance, exams, God's presence, answered prayer, death, sickness, conversion, difficulty in describing, and miscellaneous.

ap Siôn, Tania Religious experience among Catholic and Protestant sixth-form students in Northern Ireland: looking for signs of the presence of God

2017 Mental Health,Religion & Culture, 20:4, 330-347

QL ABSTRACT John Greer conducted major surveys of sixth-form religion in Protestant schools in Northern Ireland in 1968, 1978, and 1988. John Greer’s colleagues continued that research tradition in Northern Ireland in 1998 and 2010, and extended the survey to include sixth-form students in Catholic schools. Greer’s survey routinely included a question on religious experience, drawing on the approach of Alister Hardy and the Religious Experience Research Unit. The 2010 survey provided the data from around 1500 sixth-form students analysed in the present paper. These new data offer two main points of contrast, between students in Catholic and in Protestant schools, and between students in 1998 and 2010. The analysis preserves Greer’s historic descriptive categories of religious experience styled help and guidance, exams, God’s presence, answered prayer, death, sickness, conversion, miscellaneous, and difficulty in describing.


Apetrei, Sarah Gender, mysticism, and enthusiasm in the British post-Reformation

2015 Reformation & Renaissance Review, Vol. 17 No. 2, July, 2015, 116–128

H The seventeenth century is seen as a watershed in the history ofWestern Christianmysticism, marking its development as a distinct ‘science’, and the separationof spheres distancing academic theology from spirituality, a divorcewhich clearly has gendered dimensions. This article explores that shift in theBritish context. First, it considers the resurgence of mystical currents in the turbulentcrisis of authority in the middle decades of the seventeenth century. Theconclusion is that gender played a central role in the Anglican-rationalist reactionagainst ‘enthusiasm’, and the pathologizing of mystical divinity as a formof melancholy. Second, there is discussion of the doctrine of revelationexpounded by two female mystics (the Benedictine nun, Gertrude More,and the Franco-Flemish spiritualist, Antoinette Bourignon) and theirsupporters.Keywords: mystical theology, gender, Counter-Reformation spirituality,radical religion, Gertrude More, Antoinette Bourignon

Appelbaum, Patricia

Protestant Mysticism: Pacifists and the "Practice of the Presence"

2005 Quaker History, Vol. 94, No. 2 (Fall 2005), pp. 1-24

H "presence mysticism” in Quakerism and mid-twentieth-century mainline Protestants. ‘. Ordinary Practitioners: "Practical Mystics”’

Argyle, Michael The Psychological Explanation 1990 Psyke & Logos, 11, Ψ Good but 1990 and brief


of Religious Experience 267-274

Argyle, Michael The Psychological Perspective on Religious Experience

1997/2009

Religious Experience Research Centre Second Series Occasional Paper 8 First published April 1997 Second Edition October 2009 Copyright c1997 Religious Experience Research Centre

Ψ Good summary overview

Argyle, Michael and Hills, Peter

Religious Experiences and Their Relations With Happiness and Personality

2000 The International Journal for The Psychology Of Religion, 10(3), 157-172

QN Three hundred sixty-four adults, of whom 46% were church members, participated in a study of mystical-religious experiences They also completed measures of happiness, measures of some trait, cognitive and other personality variables, and items intended to form an improved measure of religious affect Church members reported twice as many experiences as nonmembers, and their experiences were predominantly mild This lends support to Pratt's (1920) prediction that the religious experiences of ordinary churchgoers would be commonplace and mild rather that intense However, the ratios of mild to intense experiences were similar for church members and nonmembers, and it was not possible to show that greater happiness was associated with the mild experiences of churchgoers, as Pratt also predicted Analysis


of the new measure showed that religious affect compnses Immanent, Social, and Transcendent Factors The Immanent and Social Factors relate most closely to church membership, whereas the Transcendent factor is associated with mystical experiences There were few associations between church membership or mystical experiences and the personality vanables, and those that were significant were weak The participants' neuroticism and psychoticism scores provided no support for James's (1902) suggestion that some form of psychological distress is associated with mystical experience

On milder religious experiences

Ashton, John The Religious Experience of Jesus

2003 Harvard Divinity Bulletin, 32(1), 17-20

B

Asiedu, F. B. A. The Song of Songs and the Ascent of the Soul: Ambrose, Augustine, and the Language of Mysticism

2001 Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 55, No. 3 (2001), pp. 299-317

H

Astley, Jeff Beyond Science and Nature? Reflections on Scientific Reductionism and Mental and Religious Experience

2015 Journal for the Study of Religious Experience, Volume 1 Number 1 – 2015, 32-48(http://rerc-journal.tsd.ac.uk/index.php/

Φ This paper responds to the critique of scientific reductionism in the Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science (2014). Reflections on the language of transcendence, notions of creation and Ian Ramsey’s epistemology lead into a discussion of the concept of mind. The interpretation of mind in terms of emergent


http://rerc-journal.tsd.ac.uk/index.php/religiousexp/article/view/8/23


religiousexp/article/view/8/23 )

properties, widely welcomed as ‘nonreductive physicalism’, is questioned and the alternative of a qualified substance dualism presented. The Manifesto’s encouragement of the scientific study of spiritual experiences is related to Alister Hardy’s original appeal. Differences between sense and religious experience are explored; the distinction between methodological and ontological types of reductionism discussed; and an apologia for an open approach to experience developed, as an alternative to a more radical post-materialist scientific method. Concluding remarks include a plea for more epistemological humility vis-à-vis experiential claims, the avoidance of ‘spiritual reductionism’ and an acknowledgement of the significance of the material for human nature and dignity.

Astley, Jeff The Objectivity of Religious Experience: Philosophical Arguments

2015 Challenging Religious Issues, 7, 2015, 2-8( http://www.st-marys-centre.org.uk/resources/challengingreligiousissues/Issue%207%20Challengng%20Religious%20Issues.pdf )

Φ

Astley, Jeff Conceptual Enquiry and the Experience of “the

2017 Mental Health, Religion & Culture,

Φ Θ John Hick (1922–2012) was an influential analytical philosopher of religion and liberal


http://www.st-marys-centre.org.uk/resources/challengingreligiousissues/Issue%207%20Challengng%20Religious%20Issues.pdf





Transcendent”: John Hick’s Contribution to the Dialogue

20, 4, 2017, 311-322 Christian philosophical theologian who taught in Britain and the United States. His work on religious epistemology, the theology of religions and, to some extent, eschatology has close links with his understanding of the philosophy of religious experience. This paper offers a detailed analysis and critical evaluation of these significant elements of Hick’s philosophical and theological thought, focusing in particular on his theory of religious knowledge and the role played by religious concepts within religious experience, and the relevance of these reflections for his pluralistic account of the variety of religions and his criterion of religious truth. Hick’s response to the challenges of contemporary neuroscience and the philosophy of mind is also reviewed. The paper reflects on the relevance of these views to accounts of an experience of transcendent reality collected through the empirical psychology of religion.

Astley, Jeff Asking Questions and Analysing Answers about Religious Experience: Developing the Greer Tradition

2017 Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 20, 4, 2017, 348-358

QL Alister Hardy’s initiative in starting a programme of empirical research into religious experience in the UK employing the methods of the social sciences continues through the work of the Religious Experience Research Centres. John Greer initiated a similar research tradition through his questionnaire surveys of the incidence and nature of religious experience among children and young people in Northern Ireland. Leslie Francis and Tania ap Siôn replicated Greer’s


classic surveys, with ap Siôn extending Greer’s analysis into nine categories of religious experience (Guidance and help, Exam concerns, God’s presence, Answered prayer, Death, Sickness, Conversion, Difficulty of description, and Miscellaneous), while also noting their setting and frequency. This paper develops the Greer tradition further, drawing on more recent data from pupils in the Republic of Ireland, and arguing for a modified analytical process in order to provide a more nuanced understanding of reports of religious experience.

Ataria, Yochai Traumatic and Mystical Experiences: The Dark Nights of the Soul

2016 Journal of Humanistic Psychology 2016, Vol. 56(4) 331–356

Ψ P This article examines the similarity between the mystical experience andthe traumatic experience, the latter involving a fundamental threat to lifeor bodily integrity. Despite the necessary caution and reservations, thereare many similarities between these two kinds of experience. Indeed, the resemblance is not restricted to a phenomenological description but is far more deeply rooted: a result of the subject’s encounter with nothingness. This comparison provides us with an opportunity to improve our understanding of both the traumatic and the mystical experience as well as phenomena such as Posttraumatic Growth and Spiritual Crisis.Keywordstrauma, mystical experience, emptiness, nothingness, dark nights, posttraumatic


growth, spiritual crisis

Athanasopoulos, Constantinos

The Validity and Distinctness of the Orthodox Mystical Approach in Philosophy and Theology and Its Opposition to "Esse ipsum subsistens"

2012 Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, T. 68, Fasc. 4 (2012), pp. 695-714

Θ Φ In what follows, I discuss what I mean by Orthodox Mysticism in Philosophy and Theology with specific reference to Ps. Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Symeon the New Theologian and St. Nicholaos Cabasilas. I then discuss what I take to be the goal of the Orthodox mystic in Philosophy and Theology, i.e., ecstatic rapture and union with the Triune God through glori fication or déification. My investigation will finish with an examination of how the Orthodox mystical approach to the Triune God differs from the Roman-Catholic approach to God perceived as 'Esse ipsum subsistens' and the two différent forms of mysticism that these two perceptions of God imply. Keywords: cloud of non-knowledge, doxastic proportionality, esoteric intellectualism, ontology, Orthodox Mysticism, synergos,

Auxier, Randall E. Mysticism and the Immediacy of God: Howison's and Hocking's Critique of Royce

1999 The Personalist Forum, Vol. 15, No. 1(Spring 1999), pp. 59-83

Φ Technical

Azari, Nina P. et al.

Religious Experience and Emotion: Evidence for Distinctive Cognitive Neural Patterns


N Categorical comparisons of neuroimaging data suggest that religious experience is cognitively mediated. Cognition involves coordinated integration of large-scale networks. The aim of this study was to distinguish neural networks mediating religious experience. A principal component analysis (PCA) was


applied to cerebral blood flow data of a Christian religious experience and a happy emotion. Differences in variance patterns (PCs) were assessed. The religious experience and the emotion were distinguished by PC9, a neural network that evidenced two forms of expression:

Azari, Nina P. et al.

Neural correlates of religious experience

2001 European Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 13, pp. 1649±1652, 2001

N The commonsense view of religious experience is that it is a preconceptual, immediate affective event. Work in philosophy and psychology, however, suggest that religious experience is an attributional cognitive phenomenon. Concludes that religious experience may be a cognitive process which, nonetheless, feels immediate.

Azari, Nina P. and Birnbacher, Dieter

The Role of Cognition And Feeling In Religious Experience

2004 Zygon,, vol. 39, no. 4 (December 2004), 901-918

Ψ N Inquiry into religious experience is informed by conceptualizations of emotion. Although a long history of theoretical and empirical work has provided considerable insight into the philosophical, psychological, and (more recently) neurobiological structure of emotion, the role of cognition and feeling in religious emotional states remains poorly conceived, and, hence, so does the concept of religious experience. The lack of a clear understanding of the role of emotion in religious experience is a consequence of a lack of an adequate interdisciplinary account of emotions. Our primary aim here is to examine the consequences of a properly interdisciplinary understanding of emotions for the analysis of


religious experience. To this end, we note points of convergence between psychological, philosophical, and neuroscientific accounts of emotion and between such accounts and reports on the neurobiology of religious experience, in particular two recent human brain imaging studies. We conclude that emotions are richer phenomena than either pure feeling or pure thought and that, rightly understood, emotion affords religious experience its distinctive content and quality. Accordingly, we argue that religious experience cannot be reduced to pure feeling or pure thought. Rather, on our analysis, religious experience emerges as “thinking that feels like something.”

Azari, Nina P. and Slors, Marc

From Brain Imaging Religious Experience to Explaining Religion: A Critique

2007 Archive for the Psychology of Religion 29 (2007) 67-85

N Recent functional neuroimaging data, acquired in studies of religious experience, have been used toexplain and justify religion and its origins. In this paper, we critique the move from describing brainactivity associated with self-reported religious states, to explaining why there is religion at all.Toward that end, first we review recent neuroimaging findings on religious experience, and show how those results do not necessarily support a popular notion that religion has a primitive evolutionary origin. Importantly, we call into question an assumption—key to that account of religion—concerning a conceptual relation between


‘religion’ and ‘religious experience’. Th en, we examine the conditions that must be met in order to explain religion on the basis of brain imaging findings.Moreover, we list principled reasons to be sceptical of explanations of religion in terms of the neural underpinnings of experiences. We conclude that the data from neuroimaging studies are not suited for an explanation of religion.

Bache, Christopher M.

Mysticism and Psychedelics: The Case of the Dark Night

1991 Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Fall, 1991), pp. 215-236

Ψ P This study uses a model of consciousness derived from LSD-assisted psychotherapy to illumine an enigmatic set of painful experiences that occur on the mystic's path known in Western circles as the "dark night." It argues that the dark night experiences described in John of the Cross's classic work Dark Night of the Soul can be conceptualized in terms of Stanislav Grofs category of "perinatal experience." The discussion examines the implications of this recon ceptualization in three areas: (1) our understanding and evaluation of mysticism, (2) assessing LSD's potential for fostering genuine spirituality, and (3) reassessing the ancient claim that the capacity to experience transcendental states of being is innate.

Badham, Paul Religion in Britain and China: Similarities and Differences

2008 Modern Believing, 49 no 1 Jan 2008, pp 50-58

QN See Francis, 2013

Badham, Paul The Authority of Religious Experience

2003 Modern Believing, 44 no 4 Oct 2003,

Θ Overview. Some references to NDEs HICK REVELATION AQUINAS’ VISION


pp 6-17.

Badham, Paul The Experiential Grounds for Believing in God and a Future Life

2005 Modern Believing, 46 no 1 Jan 2005, pp 28-43

Θ Good overview. More on NDEs.. Reference to: Michael Argyle's findings that religious experience usually leads to persistent and positive change: FRUITS

Badham, Paul Religious and Near-Death Experience Experience In Relation To Belief In A Future Life

1997 Religious Experience Research Centre paper, first appeared in Mortality Vol 2, No 1, 1997

Θ Largely on NDEs

Bagger, Matthew C.

Anti-Representationalism and Mystical Empiricism


Φ An anti-representationalist account of the relationship between experience and belief is preferable to that of empiricism because empiricism appears incapable of sustaining its characteristic theses without degenerating into an unpalatable idealism. Anti-representationalism directs the scholar’s attention to the language and inferences presupposed by experience, mystical or otherwise. Consideration of a common mystical movement of thought bears out the need for a belated “linguistic turn” in the study of mysticism.

Bagger, Matthew C.

Ecumenicalism and Perennialism Revisited

1991 Religious Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Sep., 1991), pp. 399-411

Φ Very Critical Review of Robert K. C. Forman, ed. The Problem of Pure Consciousness (‘Forman has attempted to muster support [v. Katz] for the largely abandoned position that mystical experiences cross-culturally include an unmediated, non-relative core’.) ?


Bagger, Matthew C.

The Miracle of Minimal Foundationalism: Religious Experience and Justified Belief

1993 Religious Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Sep., 1993), pp. 297-312

Φ Very thorough, but negative, critique of ‘minimal foundationalism’ of ALSTON, SWINBURNE, FRANKS DAVIS. CREDULITY ‘Rather than the extremes of epistemic circularity or scepticism, we can reject Swinburne's Principle of Credulity or Alston's wholesale epistemic practices and embrace an anti foundationalist epistemology which commits us to far less. I believe that although Gutting and Clark articulate their objections to Swinburne from within the foundationalist framework, they recognize that the Principle obligates us to extend credibility to outrageous beliefs, beliefs which might find no support from the web of our actual beliefs. They therefore aim to restrict the universal applicability of the Principle. They rightly see that we would reject some beliefs out of hand as improbable explanations. We can't treat all beliefs derived from such mechanisms equally’.

Bagger, Matthew C.

Review of Mysticism books (by Cupitt, Jantzen, Sells, Schufreider)

1999 Religious Studies Review, Volume 25 Number 4 / October 1999, 369-375

Φ

Bailly, Nathalie and Roussiau, Nicolas

The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES): Validation of the Short Form in an Elderly French Population

2010 Canadian Journal on Aging / La Revue canadienne du vieillissement 29 (2), 223-231

QN The study’s purpose was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the short form of the Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES) in an elderly French population. Two studies were conducted to examine the psychometric properties of the DSES. Results of factor analysis (studies 1-2) and confirmatory factor


analysis (Study 2) indicated that the DSES can be conceptualized on a single general factor. The reliability of the DSES appeared to be satisfactory with good internal consistency (studies 1-2) and good temporal stability (Study 2). As expected, higher scores were correlated with good life satisfaction and good self-evaluation of health, but no correlation was found with depression. Study results provided preliminary evidence of the psychometric properties of the French translation of the DSES short version. This short version indicates the potential benefi t of encouraging the spiritual aspects of life and could be used in a variety of health-related research.

Baker, Joseph O. The Variety of Religious Experiences

2009 Review of Religious Research, Vol. 51, No. 1 (Sep., 2009), pp. 39-54

S QN Spiritual Experience Scale short version

The primary effort of this study is to help move sociological studies of religious expe rience out of the realm of abstract theory and into quantitative analysis. While this is certainly not the first study to do this, the breadth of experiences assessed by the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey provides more detailed information on the topic than has previously been presented. Results indicate that over 65% of American adults claim to have had at least one of the religious experiences assessed. The different socio-demographic patterning found among specific experiences indicates that using a broad, all-encompassing question to analyze religious


experiences is inadequate. A theoretical distinction is also proposed between experiences involving only feelings and those extending to other sensory sensations such as seeing, speaking, hearing, or healing. While income level does not influence claiming more normative religious experiences of feeling, it is an important predictor of more intense, deviant religious experiences.

Baker, Joseph O.; Bader, Christopher; Mencken, F. Carson

A bounded affinity theory of religion and the paranormal.

2016 Sociology of Religion 77(4): 334-58. .

S QN AbstractWe outline a theory of bounded affinity between religious experiences and beliefs and paranormalism, which emphasizes that religious and paranormal experiences and beliefs share inherent physiological, psychological, and ontological similarities. Despite these parallels, organized religious groups typically delineate a narrow subset of experiences and explanatory frames as acceptable and True, banishing others as either false or demonic. Accordingly, the theory provides a revised definition of the "paranormal" as beliefs and experiences explicitly rejected by science and organized religions. To demonstrate the utility of the theory, we show that, after controlling for levels of conventional religious practice, there is a strong, positive relationship between claiming Christian-based religious experiences and believing in, pursuing, and experiencing the paranormal, particularly


among individuals not strongly tethered to organized religion. Bounded affinity theory makes sense of recent non-linear and complex moderation findings in the empirical literature and reiterates the importance of the paranormal for studies of religion.

Ballew, Shoshana H. et al.

The Role of Spiritual Experiences and Activities in the Relationship Between Chronic Illness and Psychological Well-Being

2012 J Relig Health (2012) 51:1386–1396

P QN Our research explores the correlates of spiritual experiences over a 2-year period in a sample of older adults (N = 164; mean age 81.9 years) living in a continuing care retirement community. Utilizing responses to the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale, scores were analyzed for changes over time and for their hypothesized moderating effect in the relationship between chronic illness impact and markers of psychological well-being (as measured by the Geriatric Depression and Life Satisfaction scales). Repeated measures ANOVA indicated a significant decline (P\.01) in the reported spiritual experiences over a 2-year period of time, and t tests showed a significant difference by gender (P\.01) in years 1 and 2, with women reporting higher levels of spiritual experiences than men. Analyses found low spirituality scores associated with low life satisfaction in all years (baseline: r = -.288, P\.01; year 1: r = -.209, P\.05; year 2: r = -.330, P\.001). Only weak associations were detected between low spirituality and the presence of depressive symptoms at baseline


(r = .186, P\.05) and year 2 (r = .254, P\.01). Moderation effects of spirituality on the relationship between chronic illness impact and markers of psychological well-being were explored in all years, with a statistically significant effect found only for the presence of depressive symptoms in year 2. Higher impact of chronic illnesses is associated with more depressive symptoms under conditions of low spirituality. Future research may center upon longer-duration evaluation of reliance upon spiritual practices and their impact in care management models. Keywords Older adults _ Spirituality _ Chronic illness _ Life satisfaction _ Depression Analysis of data from the Baylor Religion Survey Limited literature survey

Barker, Irwin R and Currie, Raymond F.

Do Converts Always Make the Most Committed Christians?

1985 Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Sep., 1985), pp. 305-313

QN Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale study

This paper presents an attempt to clarify the distinction between religious commitment and the identity change process through which an individual becomes religiously committed. It is argued that conversion and commitment have often been incorrectly equated in the social science literature. The question is asked whether those who have converted to a particular religious perspective are more committed than those who have been brought up in that tradition. The latter are referred to as alternators. Using a sample drawn from among born-again Christians, it is demonstrated here that religious


commitment can be seen to vary within, but not between groups of converts and alternators. Religious commitment, it is argued, is sustained by interaction with other believers after recruitment to the religious group has taken place.

Barnard, G. William

Transformations and Transformers: Spirituality And The Academic Study Of Mysticism

1994 Journal of Consciousness Studies, 1, No.2, Winter 1994, pp. 256-60

P Θ Apologia for spiritually active scholars of religion, v. neutrality/objectivity rhetoric.

Barnard, G. William

Explaining the Unexplainable: Wayne Proudfoot's "Religious Experience"

1992 Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), pp.231-256

P Θ Ψ Criticism of Proudfoot's assertion that each religious experience is completely constituted by our prior cultural belief system. Refers to Schachter and Singer experiment, and understanding of James. Also ref to James’ analysis of whether a particular religious manifestation is worthwhile, whether it "works." (FRUIT)

Barnes, L. Philip Walter Stace's Philosophy of Mysticism:

1992 Hermathena, No. 153 (Winter 1992), pp. 5-20

Φ Defends common core of mysticism. Develops earlier position in L. Philip Barnes, 'Introvertive Mystical Experience', Scottish Journal of Religious Studies 11 (1990), 5-17.

Barnes, L. Philip Is there a Distinctively Christian Mystical Experience?

1995 Journal for the Study of Religion; Sep 1, 1995; 8, 2; 75-97

Φ Critique of Stephen Payne’s John of the Cross and the Cognitive Value of Mysticism, especially his claim for a distinctively Christian mystical experience. Barnes argues for a common core to mysticism..

Barnes, L. Philip Rudolf Otto and the Limits of Religious Description

1994 Religious Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 219-230

Φ In response to Schlamm, 1991, Barnes questions the plausibility of Otto's account of the nature of religious knowledge and his


closely related understanding of the relationship between religious experience and religious language.

Baroody, Wilson G.

Biblical mysticism: Hearing and speaking God’s word

1991 Studia mystica, 1991, 14(4) 3-15

B Analysis of God speaking.

Barrett, Frederick S, et al.

Validation of the revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire in experimental sessions with psilocybin

2015 Journal of Psychopharmacology 2015, Vol. 29(11) 1182–1190

QN Ψ N The 30-item revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30) was previously developed within an online survey of mystical-type experiences occasioned by psilocybin-containing mushrooms. The rated experiences occurred on average eight years before completion of the questionnaire. The current paper validates the MEQ30 using data from experimental studies with controlled doses of psilocybin. Data were pooled and analyzed from five laboratory experiments in which participants (n=184) received a moderate to high oral dose of psilocybin (at least 20 mg/70 kg). Results of confirmatory factor analysis demonstrate the reliability and internal validity of the MEQ30. Structural equation models demonstrate the external and convergent validity of the MEQ30 by showing that latent variable scores on the MEQ30 positively predict persisting change in attitudes, behavior, and well-being attributed to experiences with psilocybin while controlling for the contribution of the participant-rated intensity of drug effects. These findings support the use of the MEQ30 as an efficient measure of individual mystical experiences. A method to score a “complete


mystical experience” that was used in previous versions of the mystical experience questionnaire is validated in the MEQ30, and a stand-alone version of the MEQ30 is provided for use in future research. Keywords Psilocybin, hallucinogens, entheogen, psychedelic, spiritual, mystical experience, factor analysis, structural equation modeling, psychometrics

Barrett, Nathaniel F. and Wildman, Wesley J.

Seeing Is Believing? How Reinterpreting Perception as Dynamic Engagement Alters the Justificatory Force of Religious Experience

2009 International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Oct., 2009), pp. 71-86

Φ William Alston's Theory of Appearing has attracted considerable attention in recent years, both for its elegant interpretation of direct realism in light of the presentational character of perceptual experience and for its central role in his defense of the justificatory force of Christian mystical experiences. There are different ways to account for presentational character, however, and in this article we argue that a superior interpretation of direct realism can be given by a theory of perception as dynamic engagement. The conditions for dynamic engagement are such that there can be no absolute discontinuity between individual perceptual experiences and more public forms of inquiry, and this requirement has radical consequences for the prima facie justificatory force of religious experience. Keywords William Alston • Direct realism • Perception • Religious experience • Justification of belief • Dynamic engagement • Alva Noë


Difficult argument

BARTHOLOMEW I, ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH Trans. Chryssavgis, John

Divine charisma and Personal Experience

2004 Theology Today 61 (2004): 7-13

Θ Orthodox Theology:

Bartocci, Goffredo Transcendence techniques and psychobiological mechanisms underlying religious experience

2004 Mental Health, Religion & Culture Volume 7, Number 2, June 2004, 171–181

Ψ S In this paper the author explores the process by which the combined influence of specific cultural factors and individual transcendence techniques activates psychobiological mechanisms that, in turn, trigger the appearance of special states of consciousness, namely religious trance. Most of these religious and spiritual experiences rationalize a threat common to all cultures, namely the risk of losing one’s Ego. The activation of individual transcendence techniques paraphrases denial defence mechanisms insofar as it involves avoidance of the external reality to preserve homeostasis. The mentioning in psychoanalytic terms of a ‘death instinct’ (i.e. a drive opposite to the attachment/life instinct) as a possible source of detachment/transcendence phenomena is still worth considering. The Freudian example of ‘the cotton-reel mother’, whom the child could make disappear and then reappear again, is a powerful one of the phenomenon of detachment dynamics. Cross-cultural research on the varieties of trance shows that Altered States of Consciousness can be induced by both collective and


personal rituals that allow the subject to reach the altered states of consciousness by making the whole world appear or disappear in fantasy. While some of the highest forms of supernatural experience, such as ecstasy, mysticism and the communion with the Absolute, engender enough social approval to allow to believe that such experiences mitigate or prevent mental disorders, when the supernatural experiences occur in bizarre features they are indicators of a clear psychopathology. The perspective of transcultural psychiatry offers the best method of outlining the great ethnographic variety of these experiences and, subsequently, making a comparative analysis of the links that exists among culture, psychopathology and the supernatural in a given situation. From a clinical point of view, it becomes increasingly clear that psychiatrists need expertise to draw clinical inferences based on the specific patient’s culture and his psychopathological presentation, especially when the patient’s life history is characterized by the multi-faceted activity of transcendence techniques.

Barton, Stephen C Why Do Things Move People? The Jerusalem Temple as Emotional Repository

2015 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 2015, Vol. 37(4) 351–380

B S This article brings social-scientific method to bear on a biblical subject by asking the Durkheimian question, ‘Why do things move people?’, and asking it in relation to the Jerusalem temple. More specifically, drawing upon anthropological study of the emotions, an apparently neglected aspect of temple


studies is opened up, namely, whether or not, and if so how, the power of the temple to ‘move’ people arose in part at least from its function as an emotional repository, the latter understood as consisting of material objects, persons, beliefs and practices that, in a highly concentrated way, constitute a ‘place’ where a people’s sense of identity, value and order are focused. At relevant points, implications for interpreting the affective aspect of New Testament ‘temple’ texts are offered.KeywordsDurkheim, emotions, social-scientific interpretation, temple, torah

Barton, Stephen C. Eschatology and the Emotions in Early Christianity

2011 Journal of Biblical Literature (JBL), 130, no. 3 (2011): 571–591

B S? Φ? Constructionist view of emotions

Barusch, Amanda Smith

Religion, Adversity and Age: Religious Experiences of Low-Income Elderly Women

1999 Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, March, 1999, Volume XXVI, Number I, 125-142

S P Elders throughout the world turn to religious organizations and rely on religious beliefs to cope with both the routine challenges of daily life and the hardships brought on by severe adversity. Hundreds of studies have documented a positive association between health or well-being and religious participation. Yet few have examined religious experiences of the elderly themselves. In-depth consideration of these experiences might shed light on the contribution of religion to individual lives. This study examines religious experiences of


women living in poverty in the United States. Results underscore the deep-seated religious commitment of this group. The dominant theme, mentioned more often than any other, was gratitude. Respondents view the Lord as the source of all that is good, and are grateful for life, good fortune, help in times of hardship, and material goods. This view of an all-powerful God contrasts with some respondents' views of themselves as weak or irrelevant. Finally, one-third of respondents who mentioned church attendance reported that ill health or functional limitations restricted their ability to go to church regularly. So, while religion may be good for one's health, good health may facilitate participation in church-related activities.

Batluck, Mark Religious Experience in New Testament Research

2011 Currents in Biblical Research 9(3) 339–363

B Initiated by Gunkel in 1888, and again by Dunn in 1970, research on religious experience in the New Testament has developed into four distinct streams, all of which address the matter from a different vantage point. Mystical/revelatory experience examines early Christian texts that are ecstatic or disclose new information to the recipient. A second group equates religious experience with encounters of the Holy Spirit. Thirdly, historical Jesus studies investigates historical dimensions of the religious experience described in the Gospels. Fourthly, others address religious experience categorically, trying to account for the grand scope and effect of religious experience


recorded in the writings of the New Testament. Each approach offers a great deal to scholars and will be a fruitful line of inquiry in studies to come.

Batzler, L. Richard Mystical prayer and the Web of Life

? Journal of Religion and Psychical Research pp. 206-216

? OMIT?

Bauckham, Richard The Worship Of Jesus In Apocalyptic Christianity

1981 New Test. Stud. vol. 27, 3, pp. 322-341

B

Baumeister, Roy F. and Exline, Julie J.

Mystical Self Loss: A Challenge for Psychological Theory


Ψ Hood (2002) calls two things to the attention of psychologists. First, there is the soulful self, which he reminds psychologists is an important aspect of self that psychology has neglected. The other is the phenomenon of self-loss in mystical experience, which has not received much attention in recent decades (at least from psychological researchers). Put another way, Hood directs us to consider both the processes engaged in mystical phenomena and the nature of the underlying self that these processes reveal. We comment briefly on each

Baumert, Norbert ‘Charism’ And ‘Spirit-Baptism’: Presentation Of An Analysis

2004 Journal of Pentecostal Theology 12.2 (2004) 147-179

B Θ This article summarizes the results of a previously published two-volume investigation on the biblical meaning and the historical development of these two fundamental concepts, including a further discussion on contributions to this subject which have appeared in this journal (see below section 4). In contradistinction to K.


McDonnell a different catholic position is given here: The term ‘Spirit-baptism’ as used within the Pentecostal-charismatic movement means neither the sacramental grace of initiation nor the setting-free of it, but is a term on the experiential level denoting a special kind of infilling with the Holy Spirit in our time. It is not ‘normative’, but— although very widespread—something that the Holy Spirit ‘distributes as he wills’. Thus, the early Pentecostal two-stage model is far more appropriate than the sacramentalistic interpretation. In that sense Spirit-baptism— normally with the gift of tongues—is a special grace of God.

‘Experience of the Spirit’ - though much discussed - remains a somewhat elusive concept. ORDINARY SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE

Beauregard, Mario Mind does really matter: Evidence from neuroimaging studies of emotional self-regulation, psychotherapy, and placebo effect

2007 Progress in Neurobiology 81 (2007) 218–236

N This article reviews neuroimaging studies of conscious and voluntary regulation of various emotional states (sexual arousal, sadness, negative emotion). The results of these studies show that metacognition and cognitive recontextualization selectively alters the way the brain processes and reacts to emotional stimuli. Neuroimaging studies of the effect of psychotherapy in patients suffering from diverse forms of psychopathology (obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, unipolar major depressive disorder, social phobia, spider


phobia, borderline personality) are also examined. The results of these studies indicate that the mental functions and processes involved in diverse forms of psychotherapy exert a significant influence on brain activity. Neuroimaging investigations of the placebo effect in healthy individuals (placebo analgesia, psychostimulant expectation) and patients with Parkinson’s disease or unipolar major depressive disorder are also reviewed. The results of these investigations demonstrate that beliefs and expectations can markedly modulate neurophysiological and neurochemical activity in brain regions involved in perception, movement, pain, and various aspects of emotion processing. Collectively, the findings of the neuroimaging studies reviewed here strongly support the view that the subjective nature and the intentional content (what they are ‘‘about’’ from a first-person perspective) of mental processes (e.g., thoughts, feelings, beliefs, volition) significantly influence the various levels of brain functioning (e.g., molecular, cellular, neural circuit) and brain plasticity. Furthermore, these findings indicate that mentalistic variables have to be seriously taken into account to reach a correct understanding of the neural bases of behavior in humans. An attempt is made to interpret the results of these neuroimaging studies with a new theoretical framework called the Psychoneural Translation Hypothesis.


Beauregard, Mario and Paquette, Vincent

Neural correlates of a mystical experience in Carmelite nuns

2006 Neuroscience Letters 405 (2006) 186–190

N The main goal of this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was to identify the neural correlates of a mystical experience. The brain activity of Carmelite nuns was measured while they were subjectively in a state of union with God. This state was associated with significant loci of activation in the right medial orbitofrontal cortex, right middle temporal cortex, right inferior and superior parietal lobules, right caudate, left medial prefrontal cortex, left anterior cingulate cortex, left inferior parietal lobule, left insula, left caudate, and left brainstem. Other loci of activation were seen in the extra-striate visual cortex. These results suggest that mystical experiences are mediated by several brain regions and systems.

Beggiani, Seely J. Theology At The Service Of Mysticism: Method In Pseudo-Dionysius

1996 Theological Studies 57 (1996) 201-23

Θ H PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS

Behrens, Georg Pike's Mysticism. 1994 Religious Studies, 30, (1994). pp 109-114

Φ Good review of Nelson Pike. Mystic Union: An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism, 1992.

Belzen, Jacob A. Studying the specificity of spirituality: lessons from the psychology of religion

2009 Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 12:3, (2009) 205-222

Ψ Psychological research on spirituality need not start from scratch: the psychology of religion provides substantial knowledge and experience that can be drawn on when psychologists want to do research on spirituality. Spirituality, while certainly not identical with religion or religiosity, is a human phenomenon to which many


methodological insights from the study of religion may be applied, although it is also a domain where many mistakes from the history of the psychology of religion are likely to be repeated. After presenting some thoughts on the conceptualization of spirituality, and reflecting on the type of psychology required to do research on spirituality, the paper points out some hidden agenda’s in the psychologies of religion and spirituality. Focusing on and keeping in mind the specificity of spiritual conduct, the paper discusses a number of practical aspects of empirical research on spirituality. Keywords: spirituality; psychology of religion; hermeneutical approach

Benavides, Gustavo

Religious Experience Reconsidered as an example of theoretical assertiveness in the study of, religion

2010 Religion, 40:4, (2010) 286-287

S The publication of (Taves) Religious Experience Reconsidered is one more indication that the incoherent mixture of coyness and braggadocio that for decades has characterized the study of religion and other disciplines, is finally giving way to honest theoretical assertiveness. Taves’ book is a careful treatment of experience deemed religious that manages to do justice to the recurrent features of what people tend to experience in such contexts, while also taking into consideration the culture-bound components of those experiences. What is especially welcome is that instead of seeking to establish a bland middle ground, she has pursued an independent path, making use of scholarship in a variety of disciplines,


especially psychology of religion.

Beng, Peter Gan Chong

Being and Becoming and the Immanence ─ Transcendence Relation in Evelyn Underhill’s Mystical Philosophy

2011 Sophia (2011) 50:375–389

Φ If mysticism, as Coventry Patmore defines it, is 'the science of ultimates,' in what way would mysticism explain the possibility of a profound relationship between ultimate reality as infinite and proximate reality as finite?1 This paper attempts to address that question through the lens of Evelyn Underhill’s philosophy of mysticism. The paper fundamentally works at framing two of Hegel’s triadic patterns of dialectic against the being-becoming binary as engaged by Underhill. This application helps unveil the relation of transcendence with immanence, a relation that is crucial for a structuring of the infinite-finite mystical intimacy. Keywords Being-becoming . Dialectic . Infinity. Underhill

Beng, Peter Gan Chong

Union and Difference: A Dialectical Structuring of St. John of the Cross’ Mysticism

2009 Sophia (2009) 48:43–57

Φ H This paper intends to append the frame of dialectic upon St. John of the Cross’ delineation of mysticism. Its underlying hypothesis is that the dialectical structuring of St. John’s mystical theology promises to unravel the web of relational concepts embedded within his immense writings on this unique phenomenon. It is hoped that as a consequence of this undertaking, relevant pairs of correlative opposites that figure prominently in mysticism can be elucidated and perhaps come to some form of resolution. Keywords Mysticism . St. John of the Cross . Dialectic


Benne, Obert Mysticism and the Unraveling of the Church

2008 Dialog: A Journal of Theology • Volume 47, Number 2 • Summer 2008, 86-8

P S Brief

Bennett, Myra Seventy-Four Christian Experiences: A Comparative Study of Experiences From Four Different Traditions

2003 Religious Experience Research Centre

QL

Bernal, Edith González

La experiencia mística en la Sagrada Escritura (Mystical experience in Holy Scripture)

2015 Theologica Xaverianavol. 65 no 180(2015): 353-380.

B In Spanish The Holy Scripture testifies the genuine and gratuitous experience of God in the life of men and women. Both Testaments speak of an action that, as an irresistible force, embraces all the human being. In fact, this action seduces, takes possession and empowers to communicate it and pass it on. Thus, the mystical experience in the biblical context is shown as an inner and spiritual process that is originated on an encounter that creates a sublime knowledge and has an intense affective repercussion. Key words: Experience, Mystic, Revelation, Mystery, biblical mystery.

Bertman, Martin A Buber: Mysticism Without Loss of Identity

2000 Judaism Winter 2000; 49, 1, 80-92

H Φ Θ

Bidwell, Duane R. Maturing Religious Experience and the Postmodern Self

2001 Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 49, No. 4, 2001, 277-90

P Ψ Θ Past attempts to define “mature religion” have been rooted in a modernist theological anthropology which assumes an atomistic, universal, rational, and stable human self. Yet postmodernists resist universal statements


about humanity and understand the “self” as an ever-changing social construct. This paper suggests a theological anthropology more adequate to the postmodern world, examines “maturing religious experience” from this perspective, and considers ways pastoral care/counseling can nurture healthy, integrative, and maturing Christian faith in postmodern culture. KEYWORDS: religious experience; selfhood; postmodernism.

Bingemer, Maria Clara

Seeking The Pathos Of God In A Secular Age: Theological Reflections On Mystical Experience In The Twentieth Cent

2013 Modern Theology 29:3 July 2013, 248-78

Θ Very up-to-date. Focus on Dorothy Day,

Bingham, Jane Making Space For God: Religious Experience In Male Anglican Priests Who Have Sought Psychotherapy And/Or Spiritual Direction

2009 British Journal Of Psychotherapy (2009) 25(1), 56-76

Ψ P In qualitative psychoanalytically-informed research the author explores how the internal object-representational world of six stipendiary male Anglican priests might illuminate the psychological significance of their relationship with God. Viewing personality development as a lifelong process permits a more synthetic view of existing theories of God as maternal object, transitional object or oedipal father. A relationship with God may reinforce a good relationship with primary objects, but when failures in maternal containment have resulted in disturbances of the spatiotemporal organization of the infant’s mind, new experience – including religious experience –


will be superimposed on this distorted psychic substrate.When spacecentred thinking dominates, religious objects may offer exogenous structural support to the personality, but in the absence of transformative object relationships they will remain unassimilated. The priestly quest may sometimes be an attempt to establish or repair a triadic internal relationship with a maternal containing object and the symbolic father. Key words: religious experience, Anglican priest, spiritual direction, spatiotemporal organization, maternal containment, symbolic father

Object relations

Blackwood, Jeremy W.

Elements of a Methodical Understanding of Eastern Christian Mysticism

2011 Irish Theological Quarterly 76(4) 339–356

Θ Christian mystical writing expresses symbolically the complexities of conscious experience identified by Bernard Lonergan as ‘differentiations of consciousness.’ In order for the insights of such literature to penetrate theoretic systematic theology, there must be effected a theoretic account of conscious experience that is of sufficient depth to account for the differentiations witnessed to by mystical writing. This article attempts a preliminary step in this direction by taking key elements of the Macarian Homilies as pointers to further areas requiring systematic theoretic development. Building on the suggestions of three scholars working within a Lonergan-grounded horizon, this article articulates a theory of the divinely enraptured


subject as revelatory and suggests that such a position is a theoretic account of the symbolically-expressed grasp of conscious experience articulated in the Macarian Homilies.Keywordsaffect, Doran, Lonergan, subject, symbolic, systematic

Blum, Jason Radical Empiricism and the Unremarkable Nature of Mystic Ineffability


Φ Ineffability has long been considered a hallmark of mystical experience. Dominant trends in epistemology and the study of mysticism, however, hold that experience is fundamentally conceptual and linguistic in nature, and therefore that experience cannot actually be ineffable. From this perspective, ineffability claims stymie analysis, and their cross-cultural prevalence in mystic traditions is problematic. Radical empiricism dissolves these difficulties by offering a broader and less discursive understanding of experience; specifically, it regards ineffable experience as a real possibility. It is therefore able to incorporate ineffability claims into analysis as signals of emotional or qualitative dimensions of experience that are not linguistic in nature. Radical empiricism also thereby explains the cross cultural prevalence of ineffability claims as an unremarkable facet of human consciousness and experience. It therefore affords a more effective explanation for the prevalence of ineffability and a more productive perspective for the study of mystical experience. Keywords


ineffability, radical empiricism, mysticism, mystical experience, epistemology

Bockmuehl, Markus

“The Form Of God” (Phil. 2:6) Variations On A Theme Of Jewish Mysticism

1997 The Journal of Theological Studies, NEW SERIES, Vol. 48, No. 1 (APRIL 1997), pp. 1-23

B Paul stands in a Jewish tradition in which it was possible to speak of the Lord's greatness by alluding to the inconceivable size and bodily appearance

Bondi, Roberta A Conversation with Julian of Norwich on Religious Experience

2002 Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, 2(1), 83-98

H P Very personal

Borg, Jacqueline et al.

The Serotonin System and Spiritual Experiences

2003 The American Journal of Psychiatry; Nov 2003; 160, 11, 1965-9

Ψ N Serotonin System ‘may serve as a biological basis for spiritual experiences

Boulding ,M. Cecily

St Catherine of Siena's 'Mystical Apprehension' of God

2004 New Blackfriars, Vol. 85, No. 996 (March 2004), pp. 163-169

H

Boulter, Hugh Religious Experience In The Inter-Faith Context

1998 RERU Religious Experience Research Centre

Bower, Bruce VISIONS FOR ALL: People who report vivid religious experiences may hold clues to nonpsychotic hallucinations

2012 Science News, Vol. 181, No. 7 (APRIL 7, 2012), pp. 22-25

N Popular presentation

Bowie, Fiona An Anthropology of Religious Experience: Spirituality,

2003 Ethnos, vol. 68:1, 2003 (pp. 49–72)

S The manner in which a religious culture is transmitted and internalised defies


Gender and Cultural Transmission in the Focolare Movement

conventional ethnographic description. Exterior forms of behaviour, articulated expressions of motivation, observable rules and appearances can be described, but the interior, ascetic dimensions of the experience are less amenable to observation and analysis. In this study the author uses Mauss’s notion of habitus, the learned bodily techniques that often appear natural, to discuss some of the ways in which the culture of the Focolare Movement is transmitted to its members. As a member of the Focolare, the author has internalised many aspects of Focolare religious culture, and uses reflexive experience to discuss the methodological issues surrounding spiritual relationships with informants. The article also discusses the importance of a gender-specific analysis and the consequences of doing ‘anthropology at home’ in a supposedly alien fieldwork setting, that of the Focolare permanent Mariapolis at Fontem in South West Cameroon. keywords Focolare, reflexive anthropology, Bangwa, habitus References common core

Bowie, Fiona Belief Or Experience? The Anthropologist's Dilemma


S

Bowie, Fiona Building Bridges, Dissolving Boundaries: Toward a Methodology for the Ethnographic Study of the

2013 Journal of the American Academy of Religion, September 2013,

S The study of death, the afterlife, and related phenomena has long been of interest to anthropologists and religious studies scholars. Although such matters are of central human


Afterlife, Mediumship, and Spiritual Beings

Vol. 81, No. 3, pp. 698–733

and cultural concern, Western academic approaches often rely on the juxtaposition between “our” rational and “their” irrational belief systems, and attempt to “explain away” or ignore emic interpretations with a subsequent loss of semantic density. A methodology for studying the afterlife and related phenomena based on cognitive, empathetic engagement involves adopting an emic interpretive lens in order to arrive at a “thick description” that does not shy away from aspects of experience outside the ethnographer’s Weltanschauung. A discussion of the implications of adopting a dialogical, participative, open-minded approach to these aspects of human belief and practice are discussed in the context of case studies of spirit possession and reincarnation.

Boyatzis, Chris J. A Critique of Models of Religious Experience

2001 The International Journal For The Psychology Of Religion, 11(4), 247–258

Ψ The Edwards and Lowis (this issue) critique and revision of the Batson, Schoenrade, and Ventis (1993) model of religious experience is critiqued on the following major grounds: (a) It fails to circumscribe the topic adequately and relies on extreme cases and exceptional figures (e.g., Moses, Siddhartha) to illustrate religious experience while failing to consider seriously the appropriateness and effect of using such extreme examplars; (b) it fails to sufficiently accommodate more ordinary religious experiences of ordinary people and children; (c) it fails to account for empirical evidence indicating that many religious experiences do not have stage-like


qualities, are not preceded by any moral tension or existential crisis, and are not resolved with any “new vision” or lasting impact; (d) it fails to consider the hermeneutic complexities of narrative epistemology within the individuals who recreate and report on their experiences and the psychologists who strive to interpret and understand those experiences; and (e) it fails to address whether this is a model of religious experience or development. In light of these and other deficiencies, the Edwards and Lowis model suffers from limited phenomenological adequacy, though it should be noted that the model’s predecessor (Batson et al., 1993) shared these shortcomings

Boyce-Tillman, Joyce

Crystallising the Angels: A Methodological Proposal for the Study of Angels

2017 Journal for the Study of Religious Experience, 3, 1, pp. 3-22

This article will explore the complex issues involved in the study of angels, examining various frames to accommodate the variety of data available. The data includes accounts of people’s experiences and questionnaires associated with them, reported visionary experiences and a variety of artistic sources. These will include images (such as Hildegard’s choir of angels), poems (such as those of Rilke), historical accounts (such as the biblical account of the Annunciation) and music (such as Elgar's’ Dream of Gerontius and hymn texts). The methodology will build on Fiona Bowie’s cognitive empathetic engagement (2014), adding to this, methodologies from the area of Performance-As-Research (Boyce-Tillman et al 2013).


These will be put together within the developing methodology of crystallisation which “combines multiple forms of analysis and multiple genres of representation into a coherent text”, to build a rich account of the phenomenon problematising its construction, highlighting researchers’’ positionality and examining socially constructed meanings to reveal the indeterminacy of knowledge claims (Ellingson 2009). Within these it will draw on Boyce-Tillman’s analysis of elements within the spiritual experience (Boyce-Tillman 2016) into the areas of Metaphysical, Narrative, Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Extra-personal and InterGaian. Keywords: Angels, Methodology, Thomas Aquinas, Hildegard of Bingen, Music, Art, Psychoanalysis

Boyer, Pascal Religious thought and behaviour as by-products of brain function

2003 TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.7 No.3 March 2003, 119-124

N Religious concepts activate various functionally distinct mental systems, present also in non-religious contexts, and ‘tweak’ the usual inferences of these systems. They deal with detection and representation of animacy and agency, social exchange, moral intuitions, precaution against natural hazards and understanding of misfortune. Each of these activates distinct neural resources or families of networks. What makes notions of supernatural agency intuitively plausible? This article reviews evidence suggesting that it is the joint, coordinated activation of these diverse systems, a supposition that opens up the prospect of a cognitive neuroscience of


religious beliefs.

Bradley, Arthur 'Mystic Atheism': Julia Kristeva's Negative Theology

2008 Theology & Sexuality Volume 14(3): 279-92

Θ This article examines Julia Kristeva's paradoxical concept of a 'mystic atheism'. It falls into three parts. First, it briefly surveys Kristeva's psychoanalytic account of Christian theology in Au commencement était l'amour (1985). Secondly, it assesses Kristeva's analysis of the Christian mystical tradition from Teresa of Avila to Angela of Foligno in such works as Le féminin et le sacré (1999) and the three volumes on Le génie féminin (1999-2002). For Kristeva, Christian mysticism represents a key moment in the transition from theology to psychoanalysis: what she locates within the work of the female mystics is a so-called 'mystic atheism', that is to say, an affirmation of an other within the subject as opposed to the divine other that supposedly lies outside it. Finally, the article offers some critical comments upon Kristeva's own 'mystic atheism': I argue that—like much negative theology—Kristeva's psychoanalysis remains ontotheological in form and that this dimension expresses itself in a problematic tendency to anthropomorphize the other within. In conclusion, I will suggest that Kristeva's 'mystic atheism' ultimately remains within the theological tradition it seeks to call into question. Keywords: Kristeva, psychoanalysis, negative theology, mysticism, atheism


Brainard, F. Samuel

Defining 'Mystical Experience' 1996 Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Summer, 1996), pp.359-393

Φ Good conceptual analysis DEFINITION, CLASSIFICATION AND/OR CHARACTERIZATION OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE The term 'mystical experience' both presumes and, in fact, signifies a set of universal "core" characteristics that are indeed "real," it also shows that the nature of this core-and the nature of "realness" in general-is involved with language and concept formation. Non-ordinariness. ORDINARY RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Braithwaite, Jason J. et al.

Cognitive correlates of the spontaneous out-of-body experience (OBE) in the psychologically normal population: Evidence for an increased role of temporal-lobe instability, body-distortion processing, and impairments in own-body transformations

2011 Cortex 47 839-53 N Recent findings from studies of epileptic patients and schizotypes have suggested that disruptions in multi-sensory integration processes may underlie a predisposition to report out-of-body experiences (OBEs: Blanke et al., 2004; Mohr et al., 2006). It has been argued that these disruptions lead to a breakdown in own-body processing and embodiment. Here we present two studies which provide the first investigation of predisposition to OBEs in the normal population as measured primarily by the recently devised Cardiff anomalous perception scale (CAPS; Bell et al., 2006). The LaunayeSlade Hallucination scale (LSHS) was also employed to provide a measure of general hallucination proneness. In Study 1, 63 University students participated in the study, 17 of whom (26%) claimed to have experienced at least one OBE in their lifetime. OBEers reported


significantly more perceptually anomalies (elevated CAPS scores) but these were primarily associated with specific measures of temporal-lobe instability and body-distortion processing. Study 2 demonstrated that OBEers and those scoring high on measures of temporal-lobe instability/bodydistortion processing were significantly impaired, relative to controls, at a task requiring mental own-body transformations (OBTs) (Blanke et al., 2005). These results extend the findings from epileptic patient studies to the psychologically normal population and are consistent with there being a disruption in temporal-lobe and body-based processing underlying OBE-type experiences.

Braley, Joshua Mysticism, Anomaly, and Theology: Revisiting Wieman's "Religious Experience and Scientific Method"

2006 American Journal of Theology & Philosophy, Vol. 27, No. 1 (January 2006), pp. 32-55

Θ H Critique of Henry Nelson Wieman

Braud, William G. Thoughts on the Ineffability of the Mystical Experience

2002 The International Journal For The Psychology Of Religion, 72(3), 141-160

Ψ Ineffability has been proposed as an important feature of the mystical experience Various psychological processes may contribute to this ineffability, including expansion of awareness from center to margin of the field of consciousness (building on thoughts of William James and Frederic Myers), an attentional shift from a discrete figure to a large, complex, novel ground, limitations imposed by the nature of the


"object" of the experience and by our vehicles of perception and cognition, difficulties of memory transfer from mystical to ordinary states of consciousness, and constraints imposed by brain structures, culture and tradition, and self-fulfilling prophesies This focus on the limitations of vehicles of expression does not deny that exposure to a transcendent realm may also account for aspects of ineffability

Braybrooke, Marcus

Spiritual Experience That Crosses Religious Divisions


Bregman, Lucy The Interpreter/Experiencer Split: Three Models in the Psychology of Religion

1978 Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Jun., 1978), p. 203

Ψ Central to psychology of religion's murky history is the problem "outsider" status of psychological discourse in relation to the language of the religious believer. The generally unsatisfactory state field arises in part from division over underlying models of interpreter experiencer. The first model, widely accepted by social scientists dealing with religion, makes the interpreter a "scientific expert" who can understand other people's religiousness better than they themselves do. While the experiencers remain mystified, locked in irrational immediacy, the interpreter's theoretical knowledge and detachment allow him/her to offer explanations which are believed to have the status of scientific discourse. A classic source of this model is Freud's analysis of religion, which includes "methodological agnosticism"


among its key features, along with the insistence that the interpretation being offered is not merely an alternative account on the same level as the believer's claim. Therefore built into this model is the requirement that interpreter and experiencer are two separate persons, with separate social roles. The second model is "phenomenological"; it vigorously repudiates the detachment and expertise of the scientific interpreter in favor of the experiencer's own claims as experiencer. The interpreter must be him/ herself an experiencer of religious realities in order for his/ her views to be legitimate. In psychology of religion, phenomenological style characterizes not only Otto but the James-Maslow approach to mystical experience. Here an experiential "core" of religion is defined as accessible to almost everyone. Phenomenologists freely evoke and promote religious experiencing, a goal utterly at odds with the aims of the first model. Today a third view of the interpreter/experiencer split emerges, within "Transpersonal Psychology." Religious traditions consist not only of sincere experiencers but include systematic interpreters whose expertise in some way parallels the expertise ot the contemporary Western psychologist. Eastern spiritual traditions provide a systematic body of "psychological theory" on topics such as meditation, and Renaissance writers created "psychologies of imagination." In both cases,


the traditional interpretive expertise is given equal dignity alongside contemporary interpreter's expertise. Although practitioners of Transpersonal Psychology are currently more open to Eastern traditions (in which "living masters" are the interpretive experts) this does not appear to be a permanent limitation. Hopefully, a fuller exploration of this method might help psychology transcend its roots in 19th century scientism without falling into a simplistic advocacy of religious experiencing

Breslin, Michael J. & Lewis, Christopher Alan

Dissociation and Religiosity: The Role of Religious Experience,

(2015) Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health, 17:1, 26-33

Ψ Dissociation can be conceptualized as a disruption in integrated processing of psychological information, due to alterations in consciousness. An emerging body of research has examined the relationship between dissociation and religiosity. Mixed findings suggest a weak positive association between these two constructs. The present aim was to investigate if dissociation predicted religious experience over and above a measure of religiosity. A sample of 371 Irish respondents completed the Measure of Prayer Type, the M Scale Short Version, and the Dissociative Experiences Scale. Binary logistic regression showed that religious experience was predicted by dissociation, controlling for frequency of prayer. KEYWORDS dissociation, religiosity, prayer, religious experience

Breslin, Michael J. Examining the relationship 2016 The Journal of Ψ Within the domain of religiosity and mental health there has been little research on positive


& Lewis, Christopher Alan

between happiness and religious experience among Irish adults.

Happiness & Well-Being, 2016, 4(2), 26-33

individual traits such as happiness. Notwithstanding this, an emerging body of research suggests there is a weak positive association between happiness and religiosity. However, there has been little research on the relationship between happiness and religious experience. The present aim was to expand the literature on the relationship between happiness and religiosity by employing measures of religious experience. A sample of 371 Irish respondents completed the Measure of Prayer Experience, the M Scale Short Version, the Short Depression-Happiness Scale, and the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire Short Form. Multivariate multiple regression showed that age and the Measure of Prayer Experience uniquely positively predicted the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire Short Form only. The findings suggest that a sense of a personal God is more predictive of happiness than a sense of a transcendent God.

Keywords: Happiness, psychological well-being, religious experience, subjective well-being,

Breslin, Michael J. & Lewis, Christopher Alan

Examining the relationship between schizotypy and religious experience among Irish adults

2017 Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 20:4, 398-404,

QN Ψ ABSTRACT The term schizotypy is used to describe a diverse range of characteristics symptomatic of schizotypal personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. An emerging body of research is concerned with the relationship between schizotypy and religiosity. Mixed findings suggest a gender-specific, weak positive association between schizotypy and religiosity. However, there


has been little research on the relationship between schizotypy and religious experience. The present aim was to expand the literature on the relationship between schizotypy and religiosity by employing measures of religious experience. An opportunistic community-based sample of 371 Irish respondents completed the Measure of Prayer Experience, the M Scale short version, the Schizotypal Personality (STA), and Borderline Personality (STB) Scales. Multivariate multiple regression showed that age and Magical Thinking uniquely positively predicted both measures, while Impulsiveness uniquely negatively predicted the Measure of Prayer Experience only

Brett, Caroline The Application of Nondual Epistemology to Anomalous Experience in Psychosis

2002 Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology / VOL. 9, NO. 4 / December 2002, 353-8

Ψ Φ Response to critics. psychotic and mystical aspects need not be dichotomized into separate experiences, but can be seen as intimately intertwined threads in the subjective narratives of actual people.

Brett, Caroline Psychotic and Mystical States of Being: Connections and Distinctions

2002 Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology VOL. 9, NO. 4 / December 2002, 321-41

Ψ Φ Original paper examining the fundamental conceptual organization of psychotic and mystical mental states See responses by Marzanski and Bratton, McGhee etc. in Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology 2002

Brooke, John Hedley

Can Scientific Discovery Be A Religious Experience?


Φ H

Brown, David Realism and religious 2015 Religious Studies / Φ Θ In this article three types of objection to a


experience Volume 51 / Issue 04 / December 2015, pp 497 - 512

realist account of religious experience are explored: (1) the unusual character of its object; (2) its unusual accompanying conditions; and (3) the conflicting content. In response to (1) it is noted that despite divine freedom not all types of encounter preclude predictability, while parallels are drawn with perception of other complex objects such as persons. At the same time the whole notion of simple perceptions is challenged. In response to (2) parallels to the affective element are found not only in moral and aesthetic experience but more widely. Finally, in response to (3) apparent irreconcilable conflicts are lessened by observing how all such experiences take place within the context of traditions whose surface incompatibility does not necessarily indicate deep divisions.

Includes refs to THEOLOGY OF RELIGIONS and Trinity

Brown, Teri, et al. Meaning making across three dimensions of religious experience: a qualitative exploration

2011 Counselling and Spirituality , 30(2), 2011, 11-36

QL P The current study focused on the complex connections between meaning making, spirituality, and religious experiences. In- depth qualitative interviews were conducted׳in a sample of 184 racially diverse and highly religious families (N=445 individual partii׳ pants). A three-dimensional, conceptual model of religion by Dollahite and Marks (2009) provided the framework for the findings. The following three themes are presented (1) Meaning Making and Spiritual


Beliefs: “Faith is the only thing that satisfies that hunger”; (2) Meaning Making and Religious Communities: “We fit our life into our religion, not our religion into our life”; and (3) Meaning Making and Faith Community: “Our church family is just like family.” In connection with each theme, several supporting examples from the data are offered to convey the voices and meaning making processes of the participants with authenticity. The data presented and themes identified are used to offer a framework for more culturally competent and, where appropriate or requested, more religious-accomodative therapy designed to aid clients in finding meaning in their daily lives.

Good, but not really about religious experiences

Brueggemann, Walter

The Costly Loss Of Lament 1986 JSOT, 36, 57-71 B Not really about religious experiences

Recent study of the lament Psalms has indicated their enormous theological significance for the faith and liturgy of Israel and for the subsequent use of the church. There is no doubt that the lament Psalms had an important function in the community of faith. In this paper I will explore the loss of life and faith incurred when the lament Psalms are no longer used for their specific social function.

Brugger, Peter and ESP Extrasensory Perception 2003 Journal of Ψ This paper consists of two parts. In the first,


Taylor, Kirsten I. or Effect of Subjective Probability?

Consciousness Studies, 10, No. 6–7, 2003, pp. 221–46

we discuss the neuropsychological correlates of belief in a ‘paranormal’ or magical causation of coincidences. In particular, we review experimental evidence demonstrating that believers in ESP and kindred forms of paranormal phenomena differ from disbelievers with respect to indices of sequential response production and semantic-associative processing. Not only do believers judge artificial coincidences as more ‘meaningful’ than disbelievers, they also more strongly suppress coincidental productions (i.e. repetitions) in their generation of random sequences. These findings illuminate the cognitive mechanisms underlying the formation and maintenance of paranormal beliefs for which the right cerebral hemisphere is hypothesized to play a central role. These same right hemispheric semantic-associative processing characteristics are centrally implicated in the creative thought process as well as the genesis of delusional (pathological) beliefs (e.g. ideas of reference). The second part of the paper highlights how fundamental limitations in the concept of randomness constrain the analysis and interpretation of forced-choice experiments in the field of parapsychology. Relevant proposals have periodically been forwarded during the past century (key names: Goodfellow, Brown, Gatlin). These suggest that (1) as human subjects’ guesses are highly non-random and (2) as no finite sequence of target alternatives


is free of bias, above-chance matching of guesses to targets simply reflects the amount of sequential information common to both target and guess sequences. The importance of such a non-causal model has been regularly downplayed by conservative parapsychologists, especially those who insist that ESP involves a transfer of information. Moreover, statistically significant relationships between guessing accuracy and personality factors and/or experimental manipulations most likely do not reflect a transfer of information, but are to be expected if subjects’ sequential response biases are systematically influenced by these same factors.

Bryant, Cullene, The Modern Mystic: A Spirituality for Health Care Workers

2004 The Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling, Winter 2004, Vol. 58, No.4,

P Deepening one’s spirituality – ‘meeting the Holy’ - allows health care professionals to remain fulfilled. Traces a chaplain’s journey to religious experience. Includes 8 indicators of a religious experience

Bulbulia, Joseph and Freanb, Marcus

The Evolution of Charismatic Cultures

2010 Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, Vol. 22, No. 3 (2010), pp. 254-271

S The essay explains how religion may evolve to support cooperation among anonymous partners. It first reviews honest signalling theory, and reveals a limitation in the model's capacity to explain large-scale cooperation. It then suggests that much cooperation is threatened by uncertainty, rather than by cheating. Finally, it explains how signalling theory can be extended to address the problem of cooperation threatened by uncertainty, 'fragile cooperation. The


resulting extension of signalling theory—called 'charismatic signalling'—directs attention to potential cooperative benefits from religion's fascinating and diverse effects on the body. The charismatic signalling model is presented as a 'how-possibly model', not as a 'just-so story'. The model's interest comes from its ability to organise seemingly unrelated puzzles under a common solution, and to motivate the study of cooperative strategies harboured in shared ecologies

Bulkeley, Kelly Mystical Dreaming: Patterns in Form, Content, and Meaning

2009 Dreaming, 2009, Vol. 19, No. 1, 30–41

Ψ QL This article enriches the psychological understanding of religious mysticism by exploring patterns of form, content, and meaning in self-described mystical dreams, drawing on extensive sleep and dream interviews conducted with 100 contemporary Americans. Four major hypotheses regarding mystical experience are tested: mysticism as psychopathological, as culturally constructed, as a mode of pure consciousness, and as characterized by four Jamesian “marks” (ineffability, noesis, transience, passivity). The data from this study indicate that mystical dreams are experienced by around half the population and by women more than men, and their prototypical form involves good fortunes, friendly interactions, and unusual or nonhuman characters. These findings provide only limited validation for the psychopathology and pure consciousness hypotheses and somewhat more support for the Jamesian and cultural construction


approaches. Taken together, the results suggest that psychological efforts to understand religious mysticism will remain incomplete without systematic reference to contemporary dream research. Keywords: dreams, mysticism, content analysis

Bullis, Ronald K., Psychotherapists and the Mystical Process

1992 Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, Vol. 22, No. 1 1992

Ψ P Thin. Psychotherapists who can recognize elements of the mystical process among their clients can serve as spiritual guides in psychotherapy.

Burton, Stacy Rethinking Religious Experience: Notes from Critical Theory, Feminism, and Real Life

? Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 7:283-84.

S? Mormon understandings of religious experience assessed in light of contemporary critical theory.

Bush, Stephen S. The Ethics Of Ecstasy: Georges Bataille and Amy Hollywood on Mysticism, Morality, and Violence

2011 Journal of Religious Ethics 39.2:299–320. © 2011

S Georges Bataille agrees with numerous Christian mystics that there is ethical and religious value in meditating upon, and having ecstatic episodes in response to, imagery of violent death. For Christians, the crucified Christ is the focus of contemplative efforts. Bataille employs photographic imagery of a more-recent victim of torture and execution. In this essay, while engaging with Amy Hollywood’s interpretation of Bataille in Sensible Ecstasy, I show that, unlike the Christian mystics who influence him, Bataille strives to divorce himself from any moral authority external to the ecstatic episode itself. I argue that in his attempt to remove external authority he abandons the only resources that could possibly protect his mystical contemplation from engendering


sadistic attitudes. KEY WORDS: Bataille, mysticism, torture, ecstasy, psychoanalysis

Bush, Stephen S. Are Religious Experiences Too Private to Study?

2012 The Journal of Religion, Vol. 92, No. 2 (April 2012), pp. 199-223

S Φ New materialist perspective in RS no longer focuses on the epistemic subject or on the private contents of its consciousness but on the public, signifying activities of a collection of subjects. Experience is not faring well in the wake of this paradigm shift. Sharf subjects the rhetoric of experience to severe criticism. This paper selectively critiques this.

Bush, Stephen S. Concepts and religious experiences: Wayne Proudfoot on the cultural construction of experiences.

2012. Religious Studies, 48(1), pp 101-117

Φ ) The CONSTRUCTIVIST position, that mystical experiences are determined by the experiencer’s cultural context, is now more prevalent among scholars of religion than the PERENNIALIST position, which maintains that mystical experiences have a common core that is cross-culturally universal. In large part, this is due to the efforts of Wayne PROUDFOOT, I identify some significant unresolved issues in Proudfoot’s critique. (Cf HICK on constructivism/perennialism).

Byrd, Kevin R., et al.

Mysticism as a Predictor of Subjective Well-Being

2000 The International Journal For The Psychology Of Religion, 10(4), 259–269

QN Ψ Four measures of subjective well-being (Satisfaction with Life, Purpose in Life, Negative Affect, and Religious Satisfaction) were each hierarchically regressed on several previously studied control measures of religiousness, three measures of mysticism, and two interaction terms. For both Satisfaction with Life and Purpose in Life, R2 was significantly increased when the three


mysticism measures were entered as a block subsequent to the control variables. When nonsignificant predictors were removed from the equations, the interaction of Extrovertive Mysticism (the experience of a unity to all things) × Religious Interpretation (the tendency to find sacred meaning in experiences) was positively associated with Satisfaction with Life. However, Extrovertive Mysticism was negatively associated with Satisfaction with Life. Religious Interpretation was associated with Purpose in Life and Religious Satisfaction. It was concluded that mysticism may have an important and complex relationship to subjective well-being that cannot be reduced to previously studied religious variables.

Byrom, Greg N. Differential Relationships Between Experiential and Interpretive Dimensions of Mysticism and Schizotypal Magical Ideation in a University Sample

2009 Archiv für Religionspsychologie / Archive for the Psychology of Religion, Vol.31, No. 2 (2009), pp. 127-150

Ψ Ulis study applied a body of knowledge derived from the common core thesis of mysticism to investigate the hypothesis that similarities in belief significantly contribute to the appearance of overlap between mystical and positive dimension schizotypal phenomena. Data from 211 uni versity students who completed Hood's Mysticism Scale and Eckblad and Chapman's Magical Ideation Scale were submitted to correlational analyses. Contrary to the hypothesis, results indi cated that positive schizotypy correlates more strongly with the experiential dimensions of mysti cism than with the interpretive dimension of mysticism. These correlation differences suggest criteria for


distinguishing mystical and schizotypal experiences and identify specific points of overlap. Suggestions for future research into this relationship, and implications for schizotypy research, are noted. Keywords schizotypy, mysticism, psychosis, religion, paranormal

Peter Byrne Mysticism, Identity and Realism: A Debate Reviewed

1984 International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 16, No. 3 (1984), pp. 237-243

ΦΘ** My aim in this paper is to try to point a way forward in the debate on identity of mystical experience which has arisen from Stephen Katz's article ‘Language, Epistemology and Mysticism'. Katz's paper is an attempt to bring funda-mental criticism to bear upon the ecumenical thesis endorsed by W.T. Stace, many other writers upon mysticism, to the effect that mystical experiences in world's religions are all essentially identical or all testimonies to the one reality. In the numerous papers commenting on Katz, points of substance in defence the position represented by Stace have been made, but they need to be developed further if profitable discussion of the relevant issues is to proceed.

KATZ and ECUMENICAL THESIS. ‘"Are individuals experiencing the same thing?" takes on a particular ambiguity. We can ask (i) "Are these experiences epistemologically identical?" - meaning "Are they experiences of the same object, event or scene?" We can ask (ii) "Are they phenomenologically iden-tical?" - "Are they the same in the way they feel to, or strike their possessors?’. ‘We may


accept that concepts and beliefs shape mystical experiences, with the consequence that, e.g., a Jewish mystic's experience is not phenomenologically 240 identical with a Christian mystic's. To maintain that they are nonetheless 'experiencing the same thing' in my other sense then we need a presumption for looking at them in an epistemological light. To justify this presumption we require two further things drawn from the character of the reports of these mystical experiences. We need firstly to find a sufficient measure of agreement and convergence amongst the different descriptions. We need also the ability to explain differences between reports that amount to incompatibilities by reference to errors in some of the descriptions, errors that no doubt reflect defects in the concepts and beliefs of the religious traditions from which the reports come. Pure, unmediated, characterless experiences and the paradoxes they introduce are not required: only convergence alongside divergence in description and the hypothesis of error in experiences and reports to account for incompatibilities.’ ‘appeal to the scientific analogy is a final attempt to show the strength of the ecumenical thesis and to point to the manner in which Katz has failed to grapple with that strength. Once again it brings home the point that identity, of a sort, between mystical traditions is compatible with real differences between them’



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Web viewThe article argues that the anthropology of the cultural-linguistic model elaborates the radical materiality, historicity, and contingency of religious experience in