William James is a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher. He was trained as medical doctor. He came from a rich family while his father is an eccentric theologian. He divides religious experiences into “healthy-minded” and “sick-minded,” according to the personality of the subject, which tints the content of the experience itself.

1. Religious Experience
William James
Prepared by:
Sem. Slater Wayne B. Morilla
Sancta Maria Mater et Regina Seminarium, Cagay, Roxas City
Arguments on

3. Religious Experience has been argued to
be ground for belief in God.”
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE is the feelings, acts,
experiences of individual men in their solitude, so
far as they apprehend themselves to stand in
relation to whatever they consider divine’.
What is religious experience?

4. 1. The experiential: Concerned with the experience
itself
2. The propositional: Extracts experiences from
certain definite propositions.
There are two general approaches to
interpreting religious experience:

5. TYPES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES
1. Near death experiences
2. Conversion
3. Group experiences
4. Mysticism
5. Meditation

6. St. Teresa of Avila
St. Teresa of Avila was a Spanish
mystic lived during the Counter-
Reformation, a period of religious
turmoil in Europe. She has a very
exceptional experience with God that
she would describe it as a, “erotic
passion.” Her love of God and her
desire for spiritual union with Him
found expression in which an angel
pierced her heart with a golden spear
and sent her to trance
Saint’s encounter with God:

7. St. Teresa of Avila
In Teresa’s vision, she as “soul” is
completely submissive and receives
the wound at the hands of an Eros
figure. Nevertheless, central to both
scenes is the symbol of wounding,
the origin of love in pain inflicted
from without.
Saint’s encounter with God:

8. The argument maintains that special episodes, such as
seeing visions of Christ or Mary or hearing the voice of
God, as well as the more general experience of “living in
God’s presence,” establish evidence of God as their
source.
Studies and Evaluation of Religious Experience

9. Can any experience of
the divine be used as
an argument for the
existence of God
?

10. Every experience involves the
interpretation of:
Sensations – there is the thing that is experienced, and
the interpretation and understanding of what is
experienced. The former is objective and the latter
subjective.
Religious experience must therefore include both
the objective and subjective elements.

11. William James is a pioneering
American psychologist and
philosopher. He was trained as
medical doctor. He came from a rich
family while his father is an eccentric
theologian. He divides experiences
into “healthy-minded” and “sick-
minded,” according to the personality
of the subject, which tints the content
of the experience itself.
William James (1902)

12. 4 constituent ideas on religious experience
Ineffability
Noetic
Quality
Transiency Passivity

13. It is a lack of ability to articulate well their religious
experience. Words cannot be used in explaining
their experience because a pseudo-description
might be use just to defend that you had a
encounter with God which may lead to falsity and
unlikely and that the person will demand that you
have to experience it too to believe it.
Ineffability

14. Noetic Quality means that you gain knowledge
which cannot be explained through normal means.
Religious experience carries some sort of knowledge
and the truth that the individual did not acquire
before. They always leave a lingering feeling that
they did, in fact, mean something.
Noetic Quality

15. It means that even temporarily short religious
experience but the effect is long lasting. Their
experience is very short to sustain but could be
pulled back in the mind and when they reoccur, the
mystic can recognize it immediately.
Transiency

16. It is a loss of self-control like what St. Teresa of Avila
experienced. The mystics feel like they are grasped
and held by a superior power.
Passivity

17. James simply points to religious
experiences and the role they serve as
filling people with love, happiness,
humility and peace.
He made some conclusions from his
understanding of Religious experience.
However, these experiences don’t only
have physical elements but could be
supernatural or metaphysical too and
these conclusions rest on 3 principles:
William James’ conclusions

18. EMPIRICISM
PLURALISM
PRAGMATISM

19. We interpret all situations in the same way we
interpret religious experience. The Noetic Quality
and Transiency provides us a hint of the reality
beyond this world. So, we can see this through the
effects of religious experience.
Empiricism

20. Although Religious experiences in different religions
are distinctly different, they all experience the
ultimate reality and interpret them as a proof of
God.
Pluralism

21. The truth is based on what is valuable to us and
obviously religions and religious experiences are
valuable to us and hence truth can be found in
religion and religious experiences.
Pragmatism

22. Thank you
so much!