SCM Studyguide to Religious and Spiritual Experience (Scm Studyguides)

322 Pages·2020·9.609 MB·English

by  Jeff Astley

SCM STUDYGUIDE TO RELIGIOUS AND
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
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SCM S T U D Y G U ID E
TO R E L IG IO U S
A N D S P IR IT U A L
E X P E R IE N C E
Jeff Astley
scm press
© Jeff Astley 2020
Published in 2020 by SCM Press
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photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of
the publisher, SCM Press.
The Author has asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
to be identified as the Author of this Work
Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition,
copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of
America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Acknowledgement is made for use of Figure 3.9 from Wesley J. Wildman, 2011,
Religious and Spiritual Experiences, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Reproduced by permission of the licensor through PLSClear.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
978-0334-05796-3
Typeset by Regent Typesetting
Printed and bound by
Ashford Colour Press
Contents
Introduction vii
Acknowledgements xiii
Part 1 Definitions 1
1 Defining the Terms: Experience, Religious Experience, Spiritual
Experience 3
Part 2 Data 17
2 The Characterization, Classification and Reporting of Religious
and Spiritual Experiences 19
3 Qualitative and Quantitative Research 27
4 Categories of Religious and Spiritual Experiences: From
Mysticism to NDEs 37
Part 3 Debates 55
5 Experience and Experiences 57
6 Triggers and Facilitators 67
7 Experience and Fruits 75
8 Experience and Interpretation 83
9 Objectivity and Veridicality 103
10 Evidence and Argument 115
11 Challenges of Diversity and Naturalistic Explanations 123
12 Religious Experience and Religious Language 135
13 Religious Experience and Revelation 148
14 Gender Issues 162
Part 4 Disciplines, Doubters and Defenders 169
15 The Psychology of Religious and Spiritual Experience 171
16 Religious and Spiritual Experience in Scripture 179
17 Religious and Spiritual Experience in the Christian Tradition 193
18 The Theology of Religious and Spiritual Experience 205
19 The Philosophy of Religious and Spiritual Experience 216
20 The Anthropology and Sociology of Religious and
Spiritual Experience 226
Appendix: Religious and Spiritual Experiences and Neuroscience 244
References 247
Index of Subjects 273
Index of Names 299
Introduction
Guided Study
The SCM Studyguides provide introductions to the study of a specific topic
and are aimed at undergraduates and other readers with a serious interest
in learning. The SCM Studyguide to Religious and Spiritual Experience is not
intended as a popular presentation of religious and spiritual experience, or as
an apologia (argument for or defence or commendation of them). Nor is it an
anthology of such experiences, of which there are many available, although it
offers some examples drawn from an assortment of sources. Rather, this book is
a guide to studying these phenomena, their implications and the many debates
to which they give rise.
Like other guides, the intention of a study guide is to help people ‘find their
way about’ some area, region, territory or landscape. In this case, the ground
that needs to be explored is vast, for religious and spiritual experiences are wide­
spread and enormously varied phenomena, even though some have argued for
deep connections and commonalities between them. They are also reported by
people across widely diverse cultures, religions, philosophies and worldviews. To
make the student’s task even more difficult, these experiences have been studied
by, and discussed within, a number of very different academic disciplines: in the
humanities (e.g. philosophy), the social sciences (e.g. anthropology) and even
the natural sciences (e.g. neurophysiology). Hence, the literature on this topic
is very diverse and extensive, and sometimes rather demanding - especially in
those areas that the student is exploring for the first time.
Inevitably, then, this guide has had to be selective. In particular, it is selective
in emphasizing religious and spiritual experiences in the Hebrew Bible, the New
viii SCM STUDYGUIDE TO RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
Testament and the Christian tradition, and the issues and debates that they raise,
rather than attempting to range right across all the scriptural, historical and
traditional sources available in the worlds religions. This is an appropriate focus
for a work published by a Christian publisher. Nevertheless, the greater part of
this book deals with debates and disciplines that are also relevant to the study
of religious and spiritual experiences within other religious faiths - and those
experienced by people who stand outside all religions.
The author realizes that many who read this book will also do so selectively.
Not every reader is going to be interested in every kind of religious and spiritual
experience, every problem or argument within this extensive region, or every
perspective from which it has been surveyed. But perhaps every reader, what­
ever their particular focus of interest, needs to acknowledge the wider context in
which their focus is set; if only because, if they should trespass beyond the limits
of their own concerns, they are likely to come across some idea, debate or insight
that will help them better to understand the contours of their home territory.
But I must be realistic. This guide is bound to be treated by some readers as
they routinely treat other travel guides: as a reference book in which to ‘look up’
a particular phenomenon, issue, debate or author. To help with this function,
I have provided many cross-references to other chapters in the book and fairly
extensive index entries. Additionally, in Part 4, ‘Disciplines, Doubters and
Defenders’, I have added some glossaries of key terms and brief overviews of the
ideas of some significant contributors to the debates over religious experience.
My hope, of course, is that many readers will want to read through the whole
book, and that if they do so they will feel that this task is worth the extra time and
energy. I also hope that they will judge that I have at least attempted to report
fairly on and provided pertinent quotations of the different positions that have
been taken in the study of and debates over religious and spiritual experiences.
In the end, however, the teacher (and, therefore, the textbook writer) has to
leave the student to decide for themselves the strengths and weaknesses of the
arguments of others, and the plausibility and coherence of their concepts. It is
right, therefore, to conclude every topic with a (normally implicit) question, ‘So,
what do you think about this, and why?’ On the other hand, even teachers hold
their own views and values; and mine will doubtless become apparent in the text
from time to time. I trust, however, that my own views won’t get in the way of
your finding your own way around this fascinating, influential, disturbing - and,
at times, exasperating - topic.
INTRODUCTION (lx )
Fields, Disciplines and Studies of Religious
and Spiritual Experience
The different categories of religious and spiritual experiences (RSEs) may be
said to represent different (if overlapping) ‘fields’ or ‘areas’ of human experience.
These experiences are the phenomena that are available for study by scholars
and researchers, mainly through their expression in words and other behaviour.
This study involves the application of different approaches and methodologies:
that is, ‘disciplines’ or forms of knowledge, each of which has its own distinctive
concepts, theories, testing procedures and forms of argument (cf. Hood, 1995b,
parts II-V; Schmidt, 2016b). The raw material that constitutes the basis of the
resulting analyses and other species of reasoning, represents the main reference
of people’s talk about the ‘facts’ (in terms of the ‘empirical facts’) or ‘data’ of RSEs.
A respected critical investigation into one particular type of explicitly religious
experience (visions of Christ) concludes with the claim that one of its greatest
challenges had been that ‘their study touches on many disciplines’, including
(in this case) biblical, historical, psychological, theological and philosophical
studies. ‘The extensive bodies of literature belonging to [these] disciplinary
domains ... makes the task of interpreting these experiences difficult’ (Wiebe,
1997, p. 220). But a multidisciplinary approach, which makes at least some
attempt to sample ‘the vast range of approaches’ that are relevant to the study
of religious and spiritual experiences (Schmidt, 2016b, p. 9), is increasingly
recognized as essential to understanding these phenomena. This also applies to
the related field of the study of religious emotions, where it is similarly true that
‘the reductionism that we see in some accounts’ of such occurrences is ‘almost
always a result of disciplinary chauvinism and the resulting ignorance’ (Roberts,
2008, p. 502).
So, Part 4 offers an attempt at such a multidisciplinary approach, with chapters
introducing the following disciplinary perspectives on the field:
• Psychological perspectives (Chapter 15).
• Theological perspectives (Chapter 18).
• Philosophical perspectives (Chapter 19).
• Anthropological and sociological perspectives (Chapter 20).