Topic 1. preliminary conceptual clarifications: defining the notion of "religious experience": what is to count as a 'religious' experience, and in what sense(s) of 'experience'. Why the interest in religious experience.
Topic 2. the disputed question among the scholars as to how many kinds or varieties of so-called 'mystical' experience are there: whether the mystical experiences reported in different cultures and traditions are basically of the same type, or whether there are significantly different types. If the latter, what are they? Or is it not even possible to make cross-tradition classifications?
These two problems are problems within the phenomenology of religion but their solution depends on and has consequences for certain paradigmatically philosophical considerations, including the following:
Topic 3. the relationship between religious experience and interpretation. How this compares with the relationship between experience and interpretation elsewhere, e.g. sense perception, the sciences.
Topic 4. what is their cognitive value, their (potential) reality-revealing function - if they have one? Is this only for the person who has them, or maybe for us also? Evaluating mystical and other religious experience within a tradition. Evaluating mystical and other religious experience independently of commitment to a religious tradition. The extent to which this latter is possible.
Return now to Philosophy of Religion, or proceed
to Bibliography.
Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy. First published 1917. (=Otto)
Underhill, Evelyn. Mysticism. E.P. Dutton, N.Y., 1961. Originally 1911. (= Underhill)
Stace, W.T. Mysticism and Philosophy. Macmillan, London, 1960. (= Stace)
Zaehner, R.C. Mysticism: Sacred and Profane. O.U.P., 1957. (= Zaehner, 1957)
Dhavamony, Mariasusai. Phenomenology of Religion. Universita Gregoriana Editrice, Roma, 1973. Part Four: Religious Experience. (=Dhavamony, 1973.)
Smart, Ninian. The Religious Experience of Mankind. Fontana, Collins, Glasgow, 1969. (= Ninian Smart, 1969) See also article by Ninian Smart in Paul Edwards, editor, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Macmillan, N.Y., 1967), "Mysticism, History of", Vol. Five, pp. 419-429. (= Ninian Smart, 1967)
Egan, Harvey D. Christian Mysticism. Pueblo, N.Y., 1984. (= Egan 1984)
Egan, Harvey D. What are they saying about Mysticism. Paulist, N.Y., 1982. (= Egan, 1982)
Dupre, Louis. "The Christian Experience of Mystical Union". The Journal of Religion, Vol. 69, No. 1, January 1989. Pp. 1-13. (= Dupre, 1989) See also Louis Dupre, "The Mystical Experience of the Self and Its Philosophical Significance", in Woods Collection (1980) pp. 449-468, below.
Humphreys, Christmas. Zen Buddhism. Unwin, London, 1961. (= Humphreys, 1961)
Lassalle, H.M. Enomiya. Zen Buddhism for Christians. Open Court, Illinois, 1974. (Lasselle, 1974.)
Hardy, Sir Alister. The Spiritual Nature of Man: A study of contemporary religious experience. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979. (= Hardy 1979)
Hardy, Alister. The Biology of God. Taplinger, N.Y., 1975. (= Hardy, 1975)
Hay, David. Exploring Inner Space: Scientists and Religious Experience. Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1982. (= Hay, 1982)
Vergote, Antoine. The Religious Man. Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 1969. (We will probably try to read something more recent.)
Spilka, Bernard, George A. Brown and Stephen A. Cassidy, "The Structure of Religious Mystical Experience in Relation to Pre- and Postexperience Lifestyles", The International Journal For the Psychology of Religion, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1992, pp. 241-257.
[Note: further research needed on the Psychology and Sociology of Religion, e.g. Andrew Greeley various books, Ralph Hood, esp. Mysticism, Antoine Vergote, more recent work etc. But not to get bogged down in the psychology and sociology: The focus is on philosophical analysis. There is an enormous bibliography (21 pages) on the psychology of religion in my possession, derived from a unit given by someone at ACU Brisbane, Australia. See Vergote in next section for a very balanced and insightful approach.]
Clasper, Paul. Eastern Paths and the Christian Way. Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y., 1980. Or similar brief introduction to world religions. One needs at least to know which is which.
Some article literature would be helpful here also. For example:
Corrigan, Kevin. "'Solitary' Mysticism in Plotinus, Proclus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Pseudo-Dionysius", The Journal of Religion, Vol. 76, No. 1, Jan. 1996.
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Volume LXXI, No. 3, Supper 1997 - particularly the first four articles. The whole issue is devoted to Plotinus.
Return to Top if you want.
Vergote, A. Religion, Belief and Unbelief: A Psychological Study. Leuven University Press, Leuven, 1996 (English translation of French and Nederlands original.) See especially Ch. III "Religious Experience".
Hick, John. An Interpretation of Religion. Human Responses to the Transcendent. Macmillan, London, 1989. (= Hick 1989) See also Hick in Woods collection (= Hick, 1980).
Stiver, Danr. The Philosophy of Religious Experience. Blackwell, Oxford, 1996.
Davies, Brian. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. OUP, New Edition 1993. Ch. 7 "Experience and God". This gives a brief overview of some work in the analytic tradition, plus some (mildly skeptical) argument of his own.
Smart, Ninian. Reasons and Faiths. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1958. (= Smart, 1958). Ninian Smart is an important player in both the phenomenology and philosophy of religion.
Smart, Ninian. Philosophers and Religious Truth. SCM, London, 1964. Second edition, 1969. Especially Ch. V, "Rudolf Otto and Religious Experience", pp. 109-138. (= Smart, 1969)
Katz, Steven T., editor. Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis. Sheldon Press, London, 1978. Especially articles by Katz, Moore and Nelson Pike. (=Katz 1978 collection.) Photocopy of table of contents attached.
Katz, Steven T., editor. Mysticism and Religious Traditions. Oxford Univ. Press, 1983. ( = Katz 1983 collection) Katz and that of his co-workers presents something of a watershed in the philosophy of religious experience.
Woods, Richard, editor. Understanding Mysticism. Image Books, Doubleday and Co., N.Y., 1980. A collection of articles, not only philosophical, on mysticism in the various religions. ( = Woods collection.)
Wainwright, William J. Mysticism: A Study of its Nature, Cognitive Value and Moral Implications. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1981.
Forman, Robert K. C., editor. The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 1990.
Alston, William P. Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1991.
Yandell, Keith E. The epistemology of religious experience. CUP, 1993.
Jantzen, Grace. Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism. CUP, 1995.
Pike, Nelson. Mystic Union: An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1992.
Swinburne, Richard. The Existence of God. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979. Esp. Ch. 13. (Swinburne, 1979.)
Donovan, Peter. Interpreting Religious Experience. Sheldon Press, London, 1979. (Donovan, 1979.)
Walgrave, Jan H., and Moyaert, Paul. Mystiek en Liefde. Leuven University Press, 1988. (For people who can read Dutch/Flemish.) (= Walgrave/Moyaert, 1988)
Livingston, James. Anatomy of the Sacred. 1989.
Kevin Hart, The Trespass of the Sign: Deconstruction, theology and philosophy. CUP, 1989.
Dalfert, Ingolf U. Theology and Philosophy (Blackwell, Oxford. 1988).
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 31, Nos. 2-3, 1992. Special Issue: The Epistemic Status of Religious Belief, edited by Bowman Clark and William Power. Especially articles by Alston, Yandell, Long, Clarke, Power and Runyon. Photocopy of table of contents attached.
King, Sallie B. "Two Epistemological Models for the Interpretation of
Mysticism", Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 56,
(1988), pp. 257-279. Contains some critique of Katz.
Horne, James R. "Which Mystic Has the Revelation?". Religious Studies, Vol. 11, No. 4, Sept. 1975. Pp. 283-291. (= Horne, 1975.)
Jantzen, Grace M. "Mysticism and Experience". Religious Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3, Sept. 1989, pp. 295-315. (= Jantzen, 1989)
Evans, Donald. "Can Philosophers Limit What Mystics Can Do? A Critique of Steven Katz." Religious Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1, March, 1989, pp. 53-60. (= Evans, 1989)
Schlamm, Leon. "Rudolf Otto and Mystical Experience". Religious Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3, Sept. 1991, pp. 389-398. (= Schlamm, 1991)
Stoeber, Michael. "Constructivist Epistemologies of Mysticism: A Critique and a Revision". Religious Studies, Vol. 28, No. 1, March 1992, pp. 107-116. (= Stoeber, 1992)
D'Costa, Gavin. "Whose Objectivity? Which Neutrality? The Doomed Quest for a Neutral Vantage Point From Which to Judge Religions". Religious Studies, Vol 29, No. 1, March 1993. Pp. 79-95. (= D'Costa, 1993)
Stoeber, Michael. "Introvertive Mystical Experiences: Monistic, Theistic, and the Theo-Monistic". Religious Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2, June 1993. Pp. 169-184. (= Stoeber, 1993)
Eddy, Paul R. "Religious Pluralism and the Divine: Another Look at John Hick's Neo-Kantian Proposal". Religious Studies, Vol. 30, 1994. Pp. 467-478. (Eddy, 1994)
Hick, John. "Religious Pluralism and the Divine: A Response to Paul
Eddy". Religious Studies, Vol 31, 1995. Pp. 417-420. (Hick, 1995)
Heaney, John J., editor. Psyche and Spirit. Paulist Press, N.Y., 1984. (= Heaney collection.)
Cahn, Steven M., and Shatz, David, editors. Contemporary Philosophy of Religion. O.U.P., 1982. (= Cahn and Shatz collection, 1982.) Includes Richard M. Gale, "Mysticism and Philosophy", 113-122; William J. Wainwright, "Mysticism and Sense Perception", pp. 123-145.
Hepburn, Ronald W. "Mysticism, Nature and Assessment Of", in Edwards., editor, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Macmillan, N.Y., 1967), Vol. Five, pp. 429ff.; and "Religious Experience, Argument for the Existence of God", Vol. Seven, pp. 163ff. (= Hepburn 1967a and 1967b.)
Vergote, Antoon. "Finding God: a matter of recovering or discovering? Reflections on Augustine's Teaching". Louvain Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1987. (= Vergote, 1987a)
Vergote, Antoon. "Over De Grens, Da Capo", in Over De Grens: De Religieuze 'Behoefte' Kritisch Onderzocht, Bij Het Emeritaat Van Prof. Dr. Dr. Antoon Vergote (Universitaire Pers Leuven, 1987), pp. 209-221.
De Dijn, Herman. "Einstein and Spinoza: Science and Religion". In Tradition and Renewal, edited David A. Boileau and John A. Dick, Volume 1. Leuven University Press, 1992. Pp. 1-14. (= De Dijn, 1992)
Ricoeur, Paul. "Experience et Langage Dans Le Discours Religieux", Phenomenologie et Theologie, edited Jean-Francois Courtine, Criterion, Paris, 1992, pp. 15-39.
Gerald P. Gleeson, "Deconstructing the Concept of God", Pacifica, Vol. 5, 1992, pp. 59-66. ( = Gleeson, 1992)
Other texts worth consulting include: Schussler-Fiorenza and Ann Carr, in Concilium, 206 (1989); .Nicholas Lash, Easter in Ordinary, SCM, London, 1988. M. Levine, in Religious Studies, Vol. 26, pp. 207-220. Fritz Staal, Exploring Mysticism. .Von Hugel
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS
*James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. (= James)
*Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy. First published 1917. (=Otto)
Any study of religious experience presumes also at least a passing acquaintance with world religions other than Christianity, e.g. via Clasper, above, or Ninian Smart, 1967 or 1969, or better yet, if you can read the language
Walgrave, Jan H., and Moyaert, Paul. Mystiek en Liefde. Leuven
University Press, 1988. (For people who can read Dutch/Flemish.) (= Walgrave/Moyaert,
1988) The first part of this particularly provides an excellent overview,
especially but not only of Christian mysticism. The whole appears very
well written and well worth the read, though on first glance it does not
enter into all the little scholarly disputes which we will have to face.
Vergote, Antoine. The Religious Man. Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 1969. Part One, Section 1, "Religious Experience", early pages.
Hick, John. An Interpretation of Religion. Human Responses to the Transcendent. Macmillan, London, 1989. (= Hick 1989). Pp. 153ff.
*Power, William L. "Religious experience and the Christian experience of God", International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 31, Nos 2-3, 1992, pp. 177-186. (= Power, 1992)
*Jantzen, Grace M. "Mysticism and Experience". Religious Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3, Sept. 1989, pp. 295-315. (= Jantzen, 1989)
Dupre, Louis. "The Christian Experience of Mystical Union". The Journal of Religion, Vol. 69, No. 1, January 1989. Pp. 1-13. (= Dupre, 1989)
*Smart, Ninian. "Understanding Religious Experience." Katz Collection, pp. 10-21. = Katz, Steven T., editor, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, Sheldon Press, London, 1978, pp. 10-21. (Smart, 1978)
*Wainwright, William J. Mysticism: A Study of its Nature, Cognitive Value and Moral Implications. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1981. Pp. 1-7.
*Zaehner, R.C. Mysticism: Sacred and Profane. O.U.P., 1957. (= Zaehner, 1957) See excerpts in Woods Collection, on Reserve. If you can get the book: pp. 36-41 and 84ff on nature mysticism; p. 153-174 on monistic and theistic mysticism; perhaps conclusion, pp. 198-207 (photocopy supplied to presenter).
*Smart, Ninian. "Interpretation and Mystical Experience". Religious Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1965. Pp. 75-87. Also in the Woods Collection. (= Smart, 1965)
*Smart, Ninian. Philosophers and Religious Truth. SCM, London, 1964. Second edition, 1969. Ch. V, "Rudolf Otto and Religious Experience", pp. 109-138. (= Smart, 1969) On Reserve.
Smart, Ninian. "The Purification of Consciousness and the Negative Path." In Mysticism and Religious Traditions, edited by Steven T. Katz. Oxford Univ. Press, 1983. pp. 117-130. (= Smart, 1982)
Schlamm, Leon. "Rudolf Otto and Mystical Experience". Religious Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3, Sept. 1991, pp. 389-398. (= Schlamm, 1991)
*Katz, Steven T., "Language, Epistemology, and Mysticism", in Katz collection, pp. 22-74. (Katz, 1978) Katz collection 1978 will be on reserve, post 7th October. I have a photocopy, meanwhile.
*Moore, Peter. "Mystical Experience, Mystical Doctrine, Mystical Technique", in Katz collection pp. 101-131. (Moore, 1978)
Keller, Carl A. "Mystical Literature", in Katz collection, pp. 75-100. (Keller, 1978)
*Hick, John. "Mystical Experience as Cognition", in Woods collection, pp. 422-437 (Hick, 1980 in Woods collection).
*Hick, John. An Interpretation of Religion. Human Responses to the Transcendent. Macmillan, London, 1989. (= Hick 1989). Excerpts.
*Evans, Donald. "Can Philosophers Limit What Mystics Can Do? A Critique of Steven Katz." Religious Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1, March, 1989, pp. 53-60. (= Evans, 1989)
Wainwright, William J. Mysticism: A Study of its Nature, Cognitive Value and Moral Implications. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1981. Pp. 7-53. (= Wainwright, 1981)
Forman, Robert K.C., editor. The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy. Oxford Univ. Press, 1992.
*Stoeber, Michael. "Introvertive Mystical Experiences: Monistic, Theistic, and the Theo-Monistic". Religious Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2, June 1993. Pp. 169-184. (= Stoeber, 1993)
*Stoeber, Michael. "Constructivist Epistemologies of Mysticism: A Critique and a Revision". Religious Studies, Vol. 28, No. 1, March 1992, pp. 107-116. (= Stoeber, 1992)
Mavrodes, George, "Real v. Deceptive Mystical Experiences", in Katz collection (1978), pp. 235-258.
*Swinburne, Richard. "The evidential value of religious experience", in the Peacocke collection (1981), pp. 182-196. Also The Existence of God (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979), Ch. 13.
Wainwright, William J. Mysticism. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1981. Chapter 3: The Cognitive Status of Mystical Experience, pp. 82-138. This is actually more recent, as the Cahn and Shatz article (below) is a reprint from Religious Studies, Vol. 9, 1973. It is also more comprehensive. But the line of argument is much the same.
*Wainwright, William J. "Mysticism and Sense Experience", in Cahn and Shatz collection (1982), pp. 123 - 145. Also in Religious Studies, Vol. 9, 1973. (= Wainwright, 1973/1982) = from Cahn, Steven M., and David Shatz, editors. Contemporary Philosophy of Religion. O.U.P., 1982. (= Cahn and Shatz collection, 1982.)
*Donovan, Peter. Interpreting Religious Experience (Sheldon Press, London, 1979), esp. Ch. 3.
*Horne, James R. "Which Mystic has the Revelation?", Religious Studies, Vol. 11, No. 4, Sept. 1975, pp. 283ff.
*Alston, W.P. "The autonomy of religious experience", International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 31, Nos. 2-3, 1992, pp. 67-88.
Alston, William P. Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1991.
*Yandell, K.E. "Sensory experience and numinous experience", International Journal for Philosophy of Religion", Vol. 31, Nos. 2-3, 1992, pp. 89-118.
Yandell, Keith E. The epistemology of religious experience. CUP, 1993.
*D'Costa, Gavin. "Whose Objectivity? Which Neutrality? The Doomed Quest for a Neutral Vantage Point From Which to Judge Religions". Religious Studies, Vol 29, No. 1, March 1993. Pp. 79-95. (= D'Costa, 1993)
Vergote, Antoon. "Finding God: a matter of recovering or discovering? Reflections on Augustine's Teaching". Louvain Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1987. (= Vergote, 1987)
Louis Dupre, "The Mystical Experience of the Self and Its Philosophical Significance", in Woods Collection (1980) pp. 449-468.
*De Dijn, Herman. "Einstein and Spinoza: Science and Religion". In Tradition and Renewal, edited David A. Boileau and John A. Dick, Volume 1. Leuven University Press, 1992. Pp. 1-14. (= De Dijn, 1992
Geivett, R. Douglas, and Brendan Sweetman, Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology. OUP, 1992. Part IV: Religious Belief and Religious Experience - articles or selections from Alston, Hick, James Kellenberger, and a critical article by Wayne Proudfoot.
Return now to Philosophy of Religion, or go
on to Topic One.