Corporate religious experiences occur where two or more people have an experience at the same time such as the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima in 1917, the visions at Medjugorje in and after 1981 or the Toronto Blessing in and after 1994. Because these experiences are easily dismissed as what Durkheim called an “effervescent group phenomenon” and explained in naturalistic terms as the result of mass hysteria, William James chose to define religious experience as “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine”,so it is fair to say that corporate religious experiences are less reliable than individual religious experiences.
Firstly, corporate religious experiences include a group of people witnessing a miracle, as occurred at Fatima in 1917. Such experiences lack credibility in themselves and so should not be considered reliable as evidence for the existence of God. In “On Miracles” from “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” (1758), David Hume warned against relying on witness-evidence in such cases, pointing out that it is always more likely that someone is lying or has made a mistake than that the report is reliable. The fact that claims are more common in “ignorant and barbarous nations” and that witnesses often have vested interests and bias undermines the credibility of reports. Today, most social scientists would agree with Hume. Using the standard RAVEN criteria for evaluating evidence, witnesses to corporate experiences have a poor reputation, vested interest, lack expertise and neutrality. Take the visions at Medjugorje; the 6 children were aged 10-16 years old and so not obviously trustworthy as witnesses. They benefitted from their claims, becoming local and then international celebrities, which shows they had a vested interest. They were not trained in science or theology, so were not in a position to know whether there were alternative explanations of what they saw, or whether their visions were consistent with Christian doctrine. They were Christians from a highly religious rural community, so arguably biased and hardly neutral witnesses. Of course, there are counter-examples whereby corporate experiences include people who are more credible. For example, at Fatima descriptions of the events were collected by Father John De Marchi, an Italian Catholic Priest and researcher. De Marchi spent seven years in Fátima, from 1943 to 1950, conducting research and interviewing the principals at length. In The Immaculate Heart (1952), De Marchi reported that “[t]heir ranks included believers and non-believers, pious old ladies and scoffing young men. Hundreds, from these mixed categories, have given formal testimony. Reports do vary; impressions are in minor details confused, but none to our knowledge has directly denied the visible prodigy of the sun.” This suggests that some witnesses to the miracle of the sun were sceptics, and yet the research was conducted by a Priest, who cannot be said to be neutral or without bias or vested interests, so these few counter-examples do not invalidate Hume’s argument that witnesses’ claims about miracles, which are corporate experiences, lack credibility.
Secondly, corporate experiences are less reliable than individual religious experiences because witnesses rarely agree on the details of the experience, which undermines their evidence. For example, if a group of people all claimed to witness a robbery, but each of them described the robber differently, this would undermine their evidence in court. While scholars like De Marchi will disagree with this, pointing out that some variety in witness-reports is to be expected and that so long as the reports concur on central points such as the “visible prodigy of the sun” at Fatima, the evidence can still be seen as reliable. They also argue that where witnesses do agree precisely, this is suspicious because it suggests that they have collaborated and are not giving an independent account. However, this illustrates the difficulty in establishing that any corporate experience is reliable. If witnesses give differing accounts of what they experienced, it will undermine their evidence, but if they give very similar accounts of what they experienced it will also undermine their evidence. At least with individual experiences this is not a factor; the credibility of the report depends only on the reputation, ability to see, vested interests, expertise and neutrality of one person and not on the same for multiple witnesses and the extent to which several peoples’ reports are consistent. This shows that corporate religious experiences are less reliable than individual religious experiences.
Thirdly, William James’ argument that research should focus on individual religious experiences or “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine” is persuasive. James chooses to ignore experiences associated with institutional religion altogether, because all religions claim these while also being exclusivist, and because Anthropologists including James Frazer have shown the power of institutional religions to manipulate groups of people. For James, it is pragmatic for researchers to focus on individual mystical experiences (which have the “four marks” of being noetic, ineffable, transient and passive) and individual conversion experiences (particularly those where the subject was previously constitutionally and intellectually opposed to faith). In “The Varieties of Religious Experience” Lectures XVI and XVII on Mysticism, James suggests that while individual mystical experiences can be explained in terms of “suggested and imitated hypnoid states, on an intellectual basis of superstition, and a corporeal one of degeneration and hysteria…” this “tells us nothing about the value for knowledge of the consciousness which they induce. To pass a spiritual judgment upon these states, we must not content ourselves with superficial medical talk, but inquire into their fruits for life.” For James, the fact that many mystical experiences change their subjects radically suggests that they are reliable. Further, in Lectures IX and X on Conversion Experiences, James dismisses the arguments of Professors Starbuck and Leuba which suggest that all conversion experiences are unreliable because they can be explained in terms of an adolescent or moral crisis. He pointed out that some experiences are undoubtably adolescent and “imitative” and that others may well be accounted for in terms of a moral crisis, but he rejects the idea that all conversion experiences can be reduced to these psychological explanations. Again, some conversion experiences result in a life being turned around completely and permanently in a way that resists any reductionist, materialist explanation. It follows that these specific individual experiences are the most credible examples to research. Rudolf Otto, Paul Tillich, Walter Stace and FC Happold would all agree with James that individual mystical experiences are the most or even the only credible experiences, choosing to ignore institutional religion and corporate experiences in their research. Taken together, the weight of scholarly opinion is in favour of focusing on individual experiences and this shows that corporate religious experiences are less reliable than individual religious experiences.
Finally, the corporate nature of corporate experiences shows them to be less reliable than individual experiences. As Otto, Tillich and Stace suggest, credible religious experiences are numinal; they must have as their object something supernatural, beyond space and time, and so impossible to describe in ordinary language. While he avoided describing the object of credible religious experiences, James agreed that a mark of a credible mystical experience is ineffability or the inability to describe it in ordinary language. Corporate religious experiences like that at Fatima or those at Medjugorje are neither numinal nor ineffable because they occur where a group of people see something together and the act of seeing suggests that what is seen is a phenomenon, an occurrence within time and space, in the way of other phenomena which our language can describe. James considers whether “sensory automatisms” are features of credible experiences, “hallucinatory or pseudo-hallucinatory luminous phenomena, photisms, to use the term of the psychologists.” He points out that “Saint Paul’s blinding heavenly vision seems to have been a phenomenon of this sort; so does Constantine’s cross in the sky…” and suggests that these are common features of otherwise credible religious experiences. The fact that there are psychological explanations for such hallucinations does not, James argues, preclude the possibility that they have been caused by God and that the experience is genuine, especially when the experience otherwise carries the marks of a credible conversion or mystical experience and when it causes lasting “fruit”. Could the miracle of the sun or the visions of “Gospa” at Medjugorje be described in these terms? In practice, no. The photograph of the sun at Fatima does not suggest that the object was a photism or hallucinatory luminous phenomenon. While the initial sighting of “a shimmering silhouette of a young woman bathed in light” at Medjugorje might have been a photism, the childrens’ later description of “…a young woman about twenty years old… with blue eyes, black hair, and a crown of stars around Her head; She wore a white veil and bluish-grey robe…” seems as if the object they all saw was very real and not a sensory automatism. In this way, corporate religious experiences are less reliable because they are often sensory, having apparently spatio-temporal phenomena as their object, and because they resist being described in psychological terms.
On the other hand, both Richard Swinburne and Caroline Franks-Davis include corporate experiences in their broad five and six-fold definitions of religious experience. Both point out the importance of corporate experiences in supporting religious doctrines, such as the resurrection experiences of Jesus and the gifts of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Nevertheless, neither Swinburne nor Franks-Davis suggests that all the experiences that fall within their definition are equally reliable, let alone that corporate experiences are more reliable than individual experiences. Further, just because religions rely on corporate religious experiences does not make them reliable and nor does it make them as, let alone more, reliable than individual experiences. William James might have accepted that “the fruits” of the corporate experience on Pentecost, combined with its undoubted passivity, transiency, ineffability and noetic character, make it a credible example of a mystical experience – despite it being corporate and associated with “institutional” religion – but the same would not apply to the resurrection appearances, which have less clear “fruit” and which arguably are not ineffable or noetic in character. Rudolf Otto would go further, pointing out while Pentecost could be seen as numinal and in terms of both “mysterium tremendum” and “mysterium fascinans”, the resurrection experiences were not obviously numinal nor were they characterised by “mysterium tremendum”. Walter Stace would agree, pointing out that the resurrection experiences were not “non-sensuous” nor did they demonstrate “unity in all things”. Further, while much of the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection depends on the reliability of corporate religious experiences and while St Paul admitted, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins…” 1 Corinthians 15:17 the corporate resurrection appearances are not reliable evidence for the resurrection. As Hume argued, it is just more likely that witnesses were lying or mistaken, not least because the disciples were from an “ignorant and barbarous nation”, were lacking education and neutrality and possessed of bias and vested interests. While John Hick disagreed with Hume, arguing that it is bad science to disregard counter-instances to the laws of nature, Anthony Flew was correct to point out that counter-instances should provoke further scientific research rather than hasty resort to supernatural explanations! In addition, if the corporate resurrection experiences were reliable evidence for the resurrection, this would undermine our ability to have faith in the resurrection. John 20:29 states “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed…” and Hebrews 11:1 states that “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” If the resurrection appearances were reliable evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, would it be possible to have true faith in Jesus, which many Christians see as the necessary means of salvation. It follows that corporate religious experiences are less reliable than individual religious experiences, even from a Christian point of view and despite the important role that they have in the Bible.
In conclusion, corporate religious experiences are less reliable than individual religious experiences. This is because such experiences lack credibility in themselves – not least because witnesses rarely agree on the details of the experience – because James’ argument that research should focus on individual religious experiences is persuasive and because the corporate nature of corporate experiences shows them to be less reliable than individual experiences. Although Swinburne and Franks-Davis include corporate experiences in their broad definitions of religious experience, and so consider them alongside individual experiences as possible evidence for the existence of God, neither suggests that all the experiences that fall within their definition are equally reliable, let alone that corporate experiences are more reliable than individual experiences. Despite the importance of corporate experiences such as the resurrection experiences in supporting Christian faith, these experiences remain relatively unreliable… and indeed, they must be so, or else there would be no room for faith.
William James discusses conversion experiences in his “Varieties of Religious Experience” Lectures IX and X. Many people might assume that a conversion experience must take somebody from one faith or no faith to a new faith, such as happened to St Paul on the road to Damascus according to Acts Chapter 9 and Chapter 22. Yet, James defines conversion in broader terms, writing… “To be converted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience religion, to gain an assurance, are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self – hitherto divided, and consciously wrong inferior and unhappy – becomes unified and consciously right superior and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities…” p.186 In this way, a conversion experience is one in which a person gains a new and unified purpose in faith and so includes the famous conversion of St Augustine, described in his Confessions, in which he “converted” from having a purely academic interest in Christianity to having an all-consuming faith after hearing a voice commanding “tole, lege.” James argues that conversion experiences, like mystical experiences, have four common features, including
“The loss of all the worry, the sense that all is ultimately well with one, the peace, the harmony, the willingness to be…
the sense of perceiving truths not known before….
the objective change which the world often appears to undergo. “An appearance of newness beautifies every object,”
the ecstasy of happiness produced.” James p245-249
As James rightly argues, while not all claimed-conversion experiences are credible, there are some which share all four of these common features, which are amongst the most credible and research-worthy religious experiences, and which serve to demonstrate the inadequacy of narrow medical materialism and provide a pointer to the existence of God. Conversion experiences provide a sound basis for belief in God for those who have them… in practice they cannot not believe after having had one… but someone else’s conversion experience is not a sufficient basis for someone else to believe in God.
Firstly, James considers the medical explanation of conversion experiences offered by his contemporary Professor Starbuck and rightly rejects it as a complete explanation for this type of experience, while acknowledging that some claimed conversions might be accounted for in this way. Starbuck attempted to explain away conversion experiences as a natural psychological phenomenon of later adolescence, being accompanied by “a sense of incompleteness and imperfection; brooding, depression, morbid introspection, and sense of sin; anxiety about the hereafter; distress over doubts, and the like.” p.195 and resulting in: “a happy relief and objectivity, as the confidence in self gets greater through the adjustment of the faculties to the wider outlook” p.195 James rightly accepts that many adolescents do have such experiences, but notes that these might be ”imitative” and that there are sporadic adult examples of conversion which might be the “originals” and which are worthy of further study. An example of such an “original” might be the conversion of St Augustine. While Augustine was certainly filled with a sense of incompleteness and what he called “soul sickness” prior to the conversion, and while his conversion did lead to a sort of resolution of these feelings, St Augustine was 30 and so no adolescent at the time of his conversion. Further, the fruits of Augustine’s conversion demonstrate that it was not an adolescent phase or a flash-in-the-pan… it changed Christianity and so changed the world! St Augustine was never affected by any doubt or backsliding, as one might expect if the experience had been the result of an adolescent psychological crisis. In this way, James was correct to reject Starbuck’s adolescent crisis explanation as a full explanation for conversion experiences and correct to consider some “original” examples of conversion experience – such as that of St Augustine – as worthy of further study and as a pointer to the existence of God if not any kind of proof. It follows that conversion experiences point towards the existence of God but fall short of being a good basis for believing in God for those who have not had one.
Secondly, James considers the medical explanation of conversion experiences offered by his contemporary Professor Leuba and rightly rejects it as a complete explanation for this type of experience, while acknowledging that some claimed conversions might be accounted for in this way. For Leuba, conversion experiences emerge out of a deep sense of moral imperfection and sin. James acknowledges that some experiences do follow this pattern, and this is fair. Perhaps St Paul’s conversion is the most obvious example to support James’ point. Might St Paul have been brooding subconsciously on his own role in persecuting Christians, even holding the coats during the stoning of St Stephen? Could this sense of moral imperfection – bearing in mind Paul’s Pharisaic training and beliefs – have prompted him to have a moral crisis to facilitate regeneration, doing a 180 degree turn in terms of his behaviour to cope with past guilt? In this way we might compare St Paul with the gangsters who become saints on death row; facing judgement they can only cope by being habitually reborn and utterly changing as a person. Yet again James argues that Leuba is seeking to explain away all conversion experiences based on a few. He wrote “in spite of the importance of this type of regeneration, with little or no intellectual readjustment, this writer [Leuba] surely makes it too exclusive” p. 200 This is convincing because no two conversion experiences and no two individuals are alike. As James wrote, “there are distinct elements in conversion, and their relations to individual lives deserve to be discriminated” p.200 Further, even if Leuba was right and the conversion did result from a moral crisis, there is no way to know that the conversion is not God’s answer to the crisis. God could be working through the brain’s capacities to effect change within the subject, just as God might work through the sun at Fatima or through the waters of the Red Sea when it parted. How else, after all, could God act on his creation than through his creation? Nevertheless, James was right to argue that it would be wrong for a third party to believe in God on the strength of somebody else’s claimed conversion experience – however credible it might seem – because (as Hume pointed out in his essay “On Miracles”) it is always possible that that person has been lying, is deluded or ill. While Dean Inge and William Alston would disagree, claiming that we should believe people unless we have a good reason not to, as Carl Sagan pointed out “exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence” and the fact that the testimony relates to something we cannot verify and can explain in ways that we can, however unlikely, means that we cannot see such testimony as sufficient basis for belief in God. However, James was also right to point out that a conversion experience is sufficient basis for belief for the person who has been converted. A characteristic of the conversion experience is that the world seems to change objectively, so that it becomes impossible for the subject not to believe what they have experienced. As James wrote: “A small man’s salvation will always be a great salvation and the greatest of all facts for him” p.235 and “the sense of renovation, safety, cleanness, rightness, can be so marvellous and jubilant as well to warrant one’s belief in a radically new substantial nature…” p224 It follows that a conversion experience is a good basis for belief in God for those people who have had one.
Further, “original” examples of conversion experience conform to the marks of genuine religious experience proposed by scholars including Otto, Stace and Tillich. For Otto, as he explains in “The idea of the Holy” every genuine experience is characterised by “mysterium tremendum et fascinans.” He described how the experience should include a sense of “piercing acuteness… accompanied by the most uncompromising judgment of self-depreciation, a judgment passed, not upon his character because of individual ‘profane’ actions but upon his very existence as creature before that which is supreme above all creatures.” As James noted, this sense of utter inadequacy, awe and dread is a hallmark of the first stage of a conversion experience, as a person confronts their soul-sickness and inadequacy in the face of God. For Stace, a genuine experience must be of a non-sensuous unity in all things, similar to what Tillich referred to as “the ground of our being”. A genuine experience is not a sensory experience of something external that we can sense through eyes or ears in any literal way, but something inward. In this way, conversion experiences have more claim on being genuine experiences than corporate experiences – which are often of something seen, heard or felt – or of many mystical experiences, which might take the form of visions or voices. St Augustine’s conversion was not the voice saying “tole, lege”… that might well have been the child in the garden… it was only prompted by the voice, the experience was profoundly inward and non-sensuous. In this way, conversion experiences have a good claim to being credible religious experiences by the definitions of scholars other than James. Also, in their ineffable and non-sensuous nature, conversion experiences are not sectarian and are not undermined by the classic criticism of Hume that they exist in all religious traditions and therefore somehow cancel each other out. On the contrary, conversion experiences point to the unity that underpins all religious traditions, a God whose nature and attributes are consistent with the other arguments for God’s existence and not, as is the case for other forms of religious experience, a God whose nature and attributes seem at odds with reason.
In conclusion, as James rightly argued, conversion experiences provide sufficient basis for belief in God for those who have had one. Indeed, it is impossible for the recipient of a genuine conversion experience not to believe. However, conversion experiences do not provide sufficient basis in themselves for people in general, who have not had a conversion experience themselves, to believe in God. It is always possible that individual experiences are, as Starbuck and Leuba suggested, the psychological result of an adolescent or a moral crisis. It is always possible, as Hume suggested, that the subject is lying, deluded or ill. Nevertheless, it is equally possible that God works through the brain, responding to adolescent or moral crises in a way whose power and goodness is demonstrated by its effects in the life of the subject and in the lives of those they touch. Rather than basing belief on a single piece of evidence such as conversion experience, it makes more sense to base it on a cumulative case as Richard Swinburne outlines in his “The Existence of God” (2004) Once the “prior probability” of God’s existence has been established then it becomes reasonable both to believe what we ourselves experience (Principle of Credulity) and to believe what others tell us (Principle of Testimony) so that we can amass a bank of examples of credible religious experiences, including “original” conversion experiences like those of St Augustine and St Paul, which may tip the balance in favour of believing in God, making God’s existence more probable than His non-existence. While skeptics like Flew and Dawkins will surely disagree, arguing that “ten leaky buckets are no better than one”, in practice it is just as reasonable to believe in God on the strength of a strong abductive case as it is to convict somebody in a court of law on the strength of a strong abductive case.
William James defined religious experience for the purposes of his Gifford Lectures, later published as “The Varieties of Religious Experience” (1902). He began by limiting the scope of his enquiry, focusing on “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine” p.32 In this way, James suggested that corporate experiences like those at Fatima, Medjugorje and Toronto are less credible than individual experiences. James was influenced by Durkheim’s dismissal of religious experience as “an effervescent group phenomenon” more likely to be caused by mass hysteria than by God’s actions, so chose to concentrate on individual experiences despite the difficulty of proving such. James went on to outline “four marks which, when an experience has them, may justify us in calling it mystical…” namely passivity, transiency, ineffability and being noetic, and this definition has been important in shaping subsequent research into religious experience. Nevertheless, James’ definition has been criticised both for being too broad and conversely, for being too limited. Yet, despite these criticisms, James’ definition remains the best to use when researching this topic.
Importantly, James’ four marks define mystical experiences, which are just one type of individual religious experience. James spends two lectures and two chapters of “The Varieties of Religious Experience” discussing mystical experiences, but these fall towards the end of a much longer project. James begins Lecture II “Circumscription of the Topic” by warning of the dangers of rigid definitions. He wrote: “The theorizing mind tends always to the oversimplification of its materials. This is the root of all that absolutism and one-sided dogmatism by which both philosophy and religion have been infested.” p.24 This explains why James calls his criteria the four “marks”, suggesting that these are pointers to the credibility of an experience rather than necessary pe-conditions for discussing an experience. Given that it is made up of “marks” or indicators of an experience being genuine, James’ definition is a useful one because it helps the student to analyse experiences and identify areas in which the experience is more, or less, likely to be controversial. For example, the experiences of Julian of Norwich were certainly noetic, containing knowledge she did not have before, and they were also arguably transient and ineffable, despite the facts that she experienced a series of night-long experiences and described them at length in common English. While Julian was not experimenting with drugs or sensory-deprivation in order to provoke an experience, the fact that the experiences all occurred when she was gravely ill might suggest they were not passive; it is easy to imagine that they could have had a physiological and/or psychological cause, even if Julian was not aware of it. Of course, James’ marks raise questions about some important experiences, like those of St Teresa of Avila, which were neither passive nor really transient. Yet this does not take away from the usefulness of the marks unless one misinterprets the marks and uses them as a rigid definition. James suggests that conversion experiences have their own four characteristics – loss of worry, perceiving new truths, perceiving a sense of newness in all things and the ecstasy of happiness produced – and this shows that James did not intend his “definition” to be used as a benchmark but rather as a working definition as part of research. In this way, James’ definition remains the best to use when researching this topic.
An early critic of James’ definition was Rudolf Otto, whose “The Idea of the Holy” was published in 1917. Like James, Otto defined religious experience in terms of solitary encounters with what subjects consider to be the divine and like James Otto argues that genuine experiences are ineffable – in order to signify this, Otto resorts to using Latin terminology such as “mysterium tremendum et fascinans” when describing their characteristics. Nevertheless, Otto criticised James for not specifying that genuine religious experiences must be non-rational. He wrote “William James has collected a great number of [examples of religious experience] without, however, noticing the non-rational element which thrills in them…” p37-8 While they disagreed with Otto in other aspects of their definitions, Walter Stace and Paul Tillich would both agree with his point about the necessary non-rational nature of religious experiences. Despite this, James’ broader definition is more useful when it comes to researching religious experience because insisting that religious experiences are non-rational tends to exclude revelatory experiences, upon which religions depend, from consideration when it is these that there is a real need to study. For example, Moses’ experience at the burning bush in Exodus 3 is one in which Otto’s “mysterium tremendum et fascinans” (the tendency to invoke fear and be compelling simultaneously) is evident, and in which Moses’ reason is shown inadequate by God’s revelation that He is “I am that I am”, and yet to dismiss the other element of Moses’ experience in which God instructs Moses to return to Egypt and explains why as a creative means of expressing something ineffable and non-rational would be to undermine the belief that Moses received and recorded God’s words faithfully. This would be devastating to the three world religions that take the books Moses wrote as their Scriptures. For another example, the Prophet Muhammad’s experience on the Night of Power could be described as numinal and ineffable, but it is difficult to describe it as non-rational in the way that Otto demands. Also, Otto’s definition is very narrow in suggesting that the object of all genuine experiences is the same – the numen – and in suggesting that genuine experiences must invoke fear “mysterium tremendum”. James’ broader definition makes no such claim and would include reassuring experiences and those associated with a sense of love and unity. Other scholars, including Stace, Tillich and FC Happold argue that there is no need for genuine religious experiences to invoke fear of any kind. For these reason James’ broader definition of religious experience is of more use when researching this topic than Otto’s.
A more recent critic of James’ working definition has been Richard Swinburne. For Swinburne, James’ four marks are useful in defining a particular type of religious experience, namely solitary mystical experiences, but these represent only one type of religious experience so a much broader definition is necessary when studying the whole topic. Swinburne proposed a five-fold definition of religious experience as part of his “Existence of God” (1994), arguing that an experience which can be described using everyday language (e.g. a dream), an experience which cannot be described using everyday language (e.g. a mystical experience), a conviction that God has been experienced in some way despite lack of material evidence, perceiving a perfectly normal phenomenon (e.g. a sunset) or perceiving a very unusual public object (e.g. the resurrection) might all be genuine religious experiences. Importantly, Swinburne’s definition includes corporate experiences, which James chooses to exclude from his discussion for not being “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude”, and Swinburne’s definition also includes witnessing miracles, which may not conform with James’ mark of ineffability. Caroline Franks Davis supported Swinburne’s broad approach to defining Religious Experiences in her “The Evidential Force of Religious Experience” (1989). However, by being so broad, Swinburne’s five-fold definition drags less credible and subjective experiences into the discussion in a way that is not helpful when studying religious experience as a stand-alone topic or as evidence for the existence of God. David Hume warned against relying on anybody who reports seeing a miracle in “Of Miracles” (1748), pointing out that it is impossible to know that the “miracle” is such (who can know the laws of nature sufficiently to know that an event breaks them, let alone that they have been broken “by particular volition of the deity or other invisible agent”?) Further, says Hume, these witnesses lack credibility, being most often from “ignorant and barbarous nations” so having no relevant expertise and having plenty of bias and vested interests. Take the miracle of the sun at Fatima in 1917; Hume would dismiss the many witness-reports as more likely to be based on the mistakes or lies of gullible or greedy people than genuine experiences of God. While Swinburne rejects Hume’s argument using his Principles of Credulity and Testimony, both depend on our assessment of “prior probability”, which Swinburne suggests should be in favour of God existing and miracles possibly being genuine… because Religious Experiences are so common. To be clear, Swinburne adopted his broad five-fold definition of Religious Experience in order to cast his net widely and include the experiences of as many people as possible, something that he needed to in the context of his wider probability argument for God’s existence which used the prevalence of religious experience to establish that it is more reasonable to assume that their object exists than not or what Swinburne calls “prior probability”. At the same time, he rejected Hume’s warning against relying on reports of miracles because given our assessment of “prior probability”, the Principles of Credulity and Testimony dictate that we should believe both what we experience ourselves and what others tell us in terms of miracles and religious experiences in the absence of good reason not to. There is a circularity here; Swinburne uses the prevalence of religious experiences in order to establish “prior probability” which he needs in order to establish the prevalence of religious experiences… In this way, Swinburne’s broader definition is less useful than James’ narrower working definition because it includes less credible experiences which undermine religious experience as a topic and as possible evidence for God’s existence.
In conclusion, James’ working definition of religious experience is the most useful for research into this topic. James understood the pitfalls inherent in proposing any rigid definitions in this field and accepted that his working definition was not perfect. He wrote: “The field of religion being as wide as this, it is manifestly impossible that I should pretend to cover it. My lectures must be limited to a fraction of the subject. And, although it would indeed be foolish to set up an abstract definition of religion’s essence, and then proceed to defend that definition against all comers, yet this need not prevent me from taking my own narrow view of what religion shall consist in for the purpose of these lectures…” p30 In this way, James’ four marks should be understood and used as indicators and tools to analyse experiences and not as necessary criteria.
Introduction:
Religious experience has been the subject of philosophical and theological debate for centuries. One view is that religious experience shows that we can be united with something greater than ourselves. Religious experience is a term used to describe experiences that are considered to be of a religious or spiritual nature. These experiences can take many forms, including visions, dreams, mystical experiences, and encounters with the divine. Such experiences have been reported throughout history by people of different religions, cultures, and backgrounds, and are often seen as a central aspect of religious practice and belief. The notion of religious experience, and its implications for our understanding of the nature of reality and our place within it, has been a subject of intense philosophical and theological debate for centuries. One of the most significant arguments in favor of religious experience is that it provides evidence for the existence of a transcendent reality beyond our mundane, everyday experience.
Thesis:
In this essay I will defend the position that while religious experience can provide a sense of connection to something greater than oneself, it does not necessarily prove the existence of a higher power or guarantee the possibility of union with it.
Argument:
Religious experience can be a powerful and transformative event that provides a sense of connection to something greater than oneself. One of the most influential accounts of religious experience is that of William James, who argued that such experiences are best understood as subjective, ineffable, and deeply personal encounters with a transcendent reality that lies beyond the limits of human reason and language. In his book The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James describes religious experience as a "sense of the presence of a higher power" that "transports the individual beyond the limits of his own finite self" (James, 1902/1985, p. 47). This sense of transcendence can inspire individuals to live more purposeful and meaningful lives." James further wrote that religious experiences involve "a sense of the presence of an unseen order of things, of a higher power, of a divine will, which is felt to be the ultimate reality of the universe" (James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902). For James, the fact that religious experiences are so difficult to articulate in rational or empirical terms is precisely what makes them so compelling as evidence for the existence of a transcendent reality.
Counter Argument
One argument against this view is that religious experience is subjective and cannot be verified by others. Critics from the Logical Positivist school argue that experiences of unity with the divine are purely personal and cannot be used A.J. Ayer, rejected the idea of religious experience as a meaningful form of knowledge. Ayer argued that religious statements, including those based on religious experience, were nonsensical because they could not be empirically verified. He famously declared that "the criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of empirical verifiability" (Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, 1936). Similarly, Rudolf Carnap, another logical positivist, argued that religious statements could not be verified and were therefore meaningless. He asserted that "statements of theology or metaphysics are not false or probable, but meaningless" (Carnap, Meaning and Necessity, 1947). Another critic of religious experience from a logical positivist perspective was Bertrand Russell. He argued that mystical experiences, which are often cited as examples of religious experience, were not evidence of anything other than a temporary alteration of consciousness. Russell stated that "mystical experiences are no evidence for the existence of God or any supernatural entity. They are simply evidence of a temporary alteration of the subject's state of mind" (Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian, 1927).
More recently Daniel Dennett has argued that religious experiences are often the result of "hyperactive agency detection devices" in the human brain, which lead us to detect agency and intentionality where none exists. In his book, "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon," Dennett writes:
"The experience of feeling that one is in the presence of a powerful, wise, and loving agent is so compelling that it can easily overwhelm critical thinking, and this is no accident; it is a product of evolution, a byproduct of our highly effective agency-detection machinery. This machinery serves us well most of the time, but it is not infallible, and can lead us astray in certain contexts, especially those that are highly charged with emotional significance."
Further Sam Harris argues that religious experiences can be explained by neuroscientific processes, rather than being genuine encounters with a transcendent reality. In his book, "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion," Harris writes:
"The fact that some people have had experiences for which 'spiritual' and 'mystical' seem the only adequate descriptors does not mean that God exists, or that the universe is suffused with a higher purpose. It simply means that these people have had experiences that have been both extraordinary and difficult to communicate. There is no reason to believe that such experiences require us to accept anything on insufficient evidence, or to abandon our commitment to reason and evidence-based discourse."
Other scholars have taken a more critical view of religious experience, arguing that it is inherently subjective and therefore unreliable as a source of knowledge about the nature of reality. For example, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously argued that the language of religious experience is "a language game" that cannot be translated into any other form of discourse (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 1953). According to Wittgenstein, the meaning of religious experience is deeply embedded in the cultural and linguistic context in which it occurs, and cannot be generalized or applied to any other context.
Counter Counter Argument
Despite these critiques, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that religious experience may be a valid and reliable means of accessing transcendent realities. For example, a number of recent studies have demonstrated that meditation and other spiritual practices can have profound effects on brain function and mental health, suggesting that there may be a real, measurable connection between our subjective experience of spirituality and the workings of the brain and body (Lutz et al., "Neuroscience and the Emerging Mindfulness Revolution," 2008).
Furthermore, many religious traditions explicitly affirm the idea that religious experience can provide a direct and immediate connection with a transcendent reality. For example, in the Christian tradition, the idea of being "united with God" is a central theme, and many Christians report experiences of divine presence and connection that they interpret as evidence of this unity (Schumacher, "Religious Experience: A Study of Methodological Problems," 1979). The view that that religious experience provides a direct connection to this reality, allowing individuals to feel a sense of unity with something greater than themselves is supported by the writings of many religious mystics, who have described experiences of unity with God or the divine. For example, the Christian mystic Julian of Norwich wrote of her experience of being "oneed" with God, describing how she felt "oneed and fastened to Him with everlasting love" (Julian of Norwich, Showings, 1395). Similarly, the Sufi poet Rumi described the experience of being "united with the Beloved" in his poetry, suggesting that such an experience is the ultimate goal of spiritual practice (Rumi, The Essential Rumi, 1207-1273).
Of course, not all religious traditions conceive of the transcendent in the same way, and the idea of being "united with something greater than ourselves" may take on very different meanings depending on the cultural and religious context in which it occurs. Nevertheless, the fact that so many different religious traditions place such a high value on the idea of religious experience suggests that it may have a deeper significance than simply being a subjective, personal encounter with the divine.
Synoptic Links to Buddhist Studies
In Buddhist studies, the concept of enlightenment or awakening (Bodhi) is often associated with a sense of union with a greater reality. The Buddha himself is said to have experienced enlightenment, which is though of as becoming aware of our essential unity with reality, while meditating under a Bodhi tree, where he gained insight into the nature of reality and the causes of suffering. This experience led him to teach the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path as a way to achieve liberation. Further Buddhism, particularly Mahayana Buddhism, emphasizes the concept of interconnectedness or dependent origination, which suggests that everything is connected and dependent on each other. This includes the idea that we are not separate entities, but rather part of a larger whole. The Buddhist concept of non-self (anatman) also supports the idea that we are not separate from something greater than ourselves. The idea is that there is no permanent self or soul, but rather a constantly changing stream of consciousness that is interconnected with everything else. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen master, speaks about this interconnectedness in his book "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching":
"When we look deeply into the nature of reality, we see that everything is interconnected. All phenomena arise in dependence upon other phenomena. We see that we are not separate from the world around us, that we are an interdependent part of the web of life. This insight into the interdependent nature of reality is at the heart of the Buddha's teaching."
Similarly, the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things: "All beings are interdependent and interconnected with one another. The concept of the oneness of humanity is based on this fundamental truth."
Conclusion
In conclusion, the view that religious experience shows that we can be united with something greater than ourselves is a complex and multifaceted one that has been the subject of intense philosophical and theological debate. While some scholars have dismissed religious experience as inherently subjective and therefore unreliable as a source of knowledge about the nature of reality, others have argued that it may provide evidence for the existence of a transcendent reality beyond our everyday experience. Ultimately, the meaning and significance of religious experience may depend on the cultural and religious context in which it occurs, but its power to inspire and transform human lives suggests that it may be a deeply meaningful and valuable aspect of the human experience.
References
James, W. (1902/1985). The varieties of religious experience. Penguin Classics.
Ayer, A. J. (1936). Language, truth and logic. Dover Publications.
Carnap, R. (1947). Meaning and necessity. The University of Chicago Press.
Russell, B. (1927). Why I am not a Christian. Watts & Co.
Dennett, D. C. (2006). Breaking the spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon. Penguin Books.
Harris, S. (2014). Waking up: A guide to spirituality without religion. Simon & Schuster.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. Blackwell Publishing.
Lutz, A., Dunne, J. D., & Davidson, R. J. (2008). Meditation and the neuroscience of consciousness: An introduction. In The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness (pp. 499-551). Cambridge University Press.
Schumacher, M. (1979). Religious experience: A study of methodological problems. SCM Press.
Hanh, T. N. (1998). The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation. Broadway Books.
The 14th Dalai Lama. (2010). Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World's Religions Can Come Together. Doubleday Religion.
This statement largely reflects the conclusion William James came to in his “Varieties of Religious Experience” (1902). James argued that the people who have a religious experience are perfectly justified in believing in the object of that experience, but maintained that reports of other peoples’ religious experiences could not justify belief in anything more than “a higher power.” On the basis of James’ conclusion and WK Clifford’s famous 1877 essay “The Ethics of Belief” it would be fair to say that believing in the God of religion on the basis of others’ reported experiences is wrong because
“it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence.”
As Clifford pointed out, belief is not a private matter because belief affects how we act. He gave the example of a ship owner sending an un-seaworthy vessel to sea on the basis of a belief that the hull was sound. If the belief is not supported by sufficient evidence and not properly justified, it is morally wrong of the ship owner to hold that belief. In the case of the title statement, a person who believed in anything more than “a higher power” on the basis of other peoples’ religious experiences would be morally wrong to do so because this belief affects their actions. For example, a Christian who believed in the Christian God on the basis of the religious experiences described in the Bible would be morally wrong to do so because that belief would direct them to look down on non-Christian religion and make efforts to convert Muslims, Jews and Hindus on the grounds that St Paul reported a vision of the risen Jesus who directed him (via Ananias) to be baptized. The reported vision in Acts 22 would be insufficient justification for the belief of the Christian today and the Christian would be wrong to believe in more than the existence of a “higher power” on the strength of such reports. By this analysis, the title statement is correct.
In William James’ Gifford lectures, given between 1901 and 1902, James explored the topic of Religious Experience in detail, considering conversion experiences and mystical experiences in particular depth, before evaluating the extent to which these experiences could be used as evidence to support belief in God. In Lecture I James challenged the dominant medical materialism, arguing that it is reductive and fails to do justice the the richness of human experience. He later built on this theme in Lecture III pointing out the naivety discounting any claimed experience of anything which cannot be sensibly perceived because indeed all sense-experiences are mediated through the mind and its categories, none of which can themselves be perceived through the senses. In Lecture II James went on to limit the scope of his inquiry to address only
“the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine” p.32
His inquiry did not, therefore, address corporate religious experiences despite the fact that most previous work had focused on what Durkheim called
“an effervescent group phenomenon”
This was because corporate experiences are more plausibly explained in terms of mass hysteria. After exploring the important place of religious experience in religiosity and outlining the common features of conversion experiences and mystical experiences, James concluded that there are religious experiences that are not easily reduced to medical or psychological phenomena. In these cases, James argued, the people who have a religious experience are perfectly justified in believing in the object of that experience. In fact, they can do no other. Nevertheless, this left open the question of whether other people would be justified in believing in God on the strength of what recipients of mystical experiences report. In Lecture XVIII James began to consider this question, discounting the efforts of Philosophers of Religion in proving God’s existence through reason and then pointing out that religious experiences neither support belief in the classical attributes of God nor evidence standard theological doctrines. For James, then, belief in God as the object of Religion lay beyond rational proof and beyond what can be justified through religious experience either. Nevertheless, as James concluded in Lecture XX, Religious Experience can and does justify belief in something other and larger than our conscious selves. As James wrote in his Postscript,
“the practical needs and experiences of religion seem to me sufficiently met by the belief that… there exists a larger power… both other and larger than our conscious selves. Anything larger will do… It need not be infinite, it need not be solitary. It might conceivably even be only a larger and more godlike self…. … my only aim at present is to keep the testimony of religious experience clearly within its proper bounds.”
It is clear, then that James would have accepted the title statement insofar as “God” refers to the God of any specific religion. There is no sense that others’ reports of religious experiences justify belief in anything beyond some larger power; certainly not being a Christian or defining God in terms of the classical attributes. It follows that the title statement is correct insofar as others’ reports of religious experiences could not justify belief in God and so would render such a belief wrong by Clifford’s argument.
James’ argument that the human phenomenon of religious experience only justifies belief in a higher power and not the God of religion is persuasive. Firstly because Rudolph Otto in his The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational (1917) argued that all genuine religious experiences are encounters with “the numinous” rather than either of what Pascal famously called “the God of the Philosophers” or “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”. While Otto’s description of the marks or characteristics of genuine religious experiences seems more tightly drawn than James’, his argument supports James’ conclusion that the phenomenon that some people experience for themselves and which others hear or read about points towards a more abstract “higher power” rather than the God of any particular religion. Secondly because Walter Stace in The Teachings of the Mystics (1960) argued that:
“the central characteristic in which all fully developed mystical experiences agree… is that they involve the apprehension of an ultimate non-sensuous unity in all things, a oneness or a One to which neither the senses nor the reason can penetrate. In other words, it entirely transcends our sensory-intellectual consciousness.” p14-15
Stace’s description of mystical experiences as an encounter with larger reality supports James’ conclusion that religious experiences justify the belief that:
“there exists a larger power… both other and larger than our conscious selves. Anything larger will do… It need not be infinite, it need not be solitary.” Varieties of Religious Experience, Postscript, p.515-6
In this way James, Otto and Stace all support the title statement and agree that other peoples’ religious experiences could not justify belief in the “God” of any particular religion. It follows that the title statement is correct insofar as others’ reports of religious experiences could not justify belief in the God of Religion and so would render exclusive Religious belief on the basis of reports of others’ experiences wrong by Clifford’s argument.
Clearly, Richard Swinburne would take issue with this conclusion. In “The Existence of God” (1979) Chapter 13, Swinburne agreed with James that it is reasonable to believe in God on the basis of one’s own experience. He pointed out that in the absence of any reason to disbelieve it, one should accept what appears to be true and called this the “Principle of Credulity”. On this basis, Swinburne would disagree with Richard Dawkins who claimed in “The Blind Watchmaker”(1986) that if he saw a marble statue waving at him across a museum, he would sooner check into his local psychiatric hospital than believe his own eyes. Swinburne also agreed with James’ broader critique of medical materialism, pointing out that accepting his arguments depends on “prior probability” and that those who have already excluded anything supernatural on ideological grounds will remain unconvinced by any evidence for God. Nevertheless, Swinburne was more open than James to trusting the testimony of others as evidence for the existence of not only a higher power but more specifically the God of Religion. Swinburne claimed that with the absence of any reason to disbelieve them, one should accept that believers are telling the truth when they testify about religious experiences. On the basis of this “Principle of Testimony” Swinburne argued that the common occurrence of those Religious Experiences which conform to his broad, five-fold classification makes the existence of a single “God” (with at least the classical attributes of omnipotence and omnibenevolence) more probable than any alternative explanation of the universe. For Swinburne, believing that God is single is a simpler, more elegant explanation than believing in multiple higher powers. In this way (by the commonly accepted principle of Ockham’s razor) he reasons that whatever caused and designed the universe and whatever people encounter through religious experiences is more likely to be one God than several. Further, by calling on the evidence of the Cosmological and Teleological arguments for God alongside Religious Experience, Swinburne reasons that the single God must be both the cause of everything and so be all-powerful and responsible for the order and purpose evident in the universe and so be omnibenevolent. Swinburne would, therefore, disagree with the title statement and argue that Religious Experiences justify belief in a single all-powerful, all-good “God”, whether you have had one yourself or not.
Nevertheless, Swinburne’s argument is open to a number of criticisms. Firstly, his cumulative approach was rejected by Anthony Flew, who compared it with “ten leaky buckets”. A lot of bad arguments, each of which fails to justify belief in God in itself, are together not significantly better than one bad argument and so fail to justify religious belief. Although JP Moreland attempted to defend Swinburne, pointing out that:
‘clearly if you jam ten leaky buckets together in such a way as the holes in the bottom of each bucket are squashed close to the solid parts of neighbouring buckets, you will get a container that holds water.’
That is pushing the analogy too far. Flew’s point that Swinburne’s cumulative approach fails to provide sufficient justification for believing in God still stands. As Carl Sagan and later Christopher Hitchens pointed out, “exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence“. The existence of the God of religion is certainly an exceptional claim and the evidence provided by Swinburne’s list of inductive arguments in the Existence of God fails to provide sufficient justification for anything beyond being open to a higher power as James, Stace and Otto argued. Secondly, as David Hume and much later Richard Dawkins have pointed out, when people claim to have experienced something exceptional it is always more likely that they have made a mistake than that they are telling the truth. While Swinburne criticizes this argument as bad science, it is reasonable for a scientist to explore whether statistical anomalies might be explained as mistakes first, before exploring other possibilities. In the case of those people reporting religious experiences, there are established and credible physiological or psychological conditions which could explain the experiences without reference to a higher power, let alone a “God”. This is why James rightly rejects the attempt to use other peoples’ Religious Experiences as proof for God. Alternative explanations for the experiences can never be excluded, not least because experiences are ineffable, so descriptions of them are imprecise and can’t bear the weight of being used as evidence to justify belief in the God of Religion. It follows that the title statement is indeed correct insofar as others’ reports of religious experiences could not justify belief in the God of Religion and so would render exclusive Religious belief on the basis of reports of others’ experiences wrong by Clifford’s argument.
In addition, while Swinburne’s reasoning that the “higher power” is more probably single than plural seems sensible, his claim that the higher power must have the attributes of omnipotence and/or omnibenevolence is not. Firstly, Swinburne accepts that neither the Cosmological nor the Teleological Argument justifies belief in the existence of God in itself. How then can he rely on the reasoning of the Cosmological argument to support that element of his conclusion which relates to God’s omnipotence or on the reasoning of the Teleological argument to support that element of his conclusion which relates to God’s omnibenevolence? If an argument can’t justify belief in God’s existence why should it justify belief in God’s omnipotence or omnibenevolence? Secondly, there is specific evidence against God’s power and goodness. If God really was all-powerful, why would he need to break the laws of nature periodically to reveal His existence and His will or correct a sequence of events? Further, if God really was all-good then why would he be so selective and arguably arbitrary in how, when, where and to whom he grants religious experiences?Why would he make eternal salvation dependent on that which only some people have the opportunity to demonstrate, namely having faith that goes beyond the evidence? Swinburne argues that in the absence of a reason to believe otherwise we accept what we experience and what others report about their own experiences, but surely the fact that these experience point to what is inconsistent and incoherent should count as such a reason to believe otherwise. It follows that the title statement is indeed correct insofar as others’ reports of religious experiences could not justify belief in the God of Religion and so would render exclusive Religious belief on the basis of reports of others’ experiences wrong by Clifford’s argument.
In conclusion, the title statement “although it is reasonable to believe in God on the basis of a religious experience you yourself have had, it is wrong to believe on the basis of other peoples’ reports” is correct. In terms of believing an experience you yourself have had, both James and Swinburne suggest that it would be unreasonable to disbelieve the evidence of your own experience. As William Alston wrote:
“It is clear that if I have directly experienced a personal deity… I have the strongest possible basis for believing that such a being exists; just as I have the strongest possible basis for believing that yaks exist if I really have seen one”
Richard Dawkins skepticism on this point seems at odds with the scientific reliance on personal experience and the fact that the whole of science depends on the cosmological principle, that things are the way they appear to be. In terms of believing on the strength of others’ reported experiences, the reasoning of James, Otto and Stace that the most other peoples’ experiences can justify is being open to a “higher power” is more persuasive than that of Swinburne, that others’ religious experiences could justify belief in a single, all-powerful, all-good God. Swinburne’s argument does appeal to common sense. In normal circumstances it is fair to assume the Principle of Testimony because as Dean Inge pointed out:
“If a dozen honest men tell me that they have climbed the Matterhorn, it is reasonable to believe that the summit of that mountain is accessible, although I am not likely to get there myself.”
Synopticly these ideas link well to Buddhist studies. In the Buddhist tradition, for example, personal experience is often seen as a necessary but not sufficient condition for enlightenment. The Buddha is reported as saying "be ye lamps unto yourselves". As Bhikkhu Bodhi explains, "The Buddha himself emphasized that personal insight is not enough, that it must be grounded in a thorough understanding of the teachings" (Bodhi, 2003, p. 174). Similarly, the Dalai Lama has argued that "faith and reason must go together" and that "a purely emotional religious faith is inadequate" (Dalai Lama, 2008, p. 42). At the same time, however, Buddhist thinkers have also emphasized the importance of direct experience and personal inquiry. As the Zen master Dogen wrote, "To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self" (Dogen, 1985, p. 21). And as the contemporary teacher Thich Nhat Hanh puts it, "The teachings of the Buddha are not a philosophy or a theory. They are the practice of mindfulness and the practice of looking deeply" (Nhat Hanh, 1998, p. 5).
Yet, in conclusion as Sagan and Hitchens suggest, the exceptional nature of the claims people make about religious experiences mean that a higher standard of evidence is demanded. By Clifford’s argument, it is wrong to base belief in the God of any specific religion on other peoples’ reports of religious experiences. It is impossible to exclude a psychological or physiological explanation, people could have made a mistake, be wishful-thinking or outright lying however honest they may appear. When religious beliefs dictate actions which can harm or even kill other people, it is wrong to hold them on such a basis.
Referrences
James, W. (1902). The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Longmans, Green, and Co.
Clifford, W. K. (1877). The ethics of belief. Contemporary Review, 29(1), 289-309.
The Bible, particularly the reported vision of St Paul in Acts 22
James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-1902. Longmans, Green, and Co., 1902.
Durkheim, É. (1912). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Translated by J.W. Swain. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Otto, R. (1917). The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational. Oxford University Press.
Alston, William P. (1991). Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Cornell University Press.
Dean Inge (1927) Lecture at the University of Cambridge, titled "The Platonic Tradition in English Religious Thought." Hulsean Lectures 1926 ISBN 0-8414-5055-2
Dawkins, R. (1986). The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Swinburne, R. (1979). The Existence of God (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Stace, W. T. (1960). The Teachings of the Mystics. New York: The New American Library.
Bodhi, B. (2003). The Buddha's Teaching as an Expression of Humanistic Naturalism. In B. A. Wallace (Ed.), Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground (pp. 163-175). New York: Columbia University Press.
Dalai Lama. (2008). The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality. New York: Broadway Books.
Dogen. (1985). Shobogenzo: The True Dharma-Eye Treasury. Gudo Wafu Nishijima & Chodo Cross (Trans.). Kodansha International.
Nhat Hanh, T. (1998). The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation (Broadway Books, 1998).
Bhikkhu Bodhi, "The Buddha's Teaching as an Expression of Humanistic Naturalism," in Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground, ed. B. Alan Wallace (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 163-175.
Paul Williams, "Buddhist Epistemology," in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Donald M. Borchert (Macmillan Reference USA, 2006).