The term “Religious Experience” exists alongside such terms as “Mystical Experience” and “Spiritual Experience,” perhaps overlapping with them in important ways, to denote a broad set of very important experiences. Using the rubric “RSM Experience” (Religious, Spiritual, Mystical) I will survey phenomena that seemingly implicate “a Spiritual Order,” or, more likely, several such Orders, including paranormal ones.Footnote ¹ We live in an age in which religion is curiously fading from view, an age now widely considered to be secular,Footnote ² although the scope of secularity is uneven in Western culture, once decidedly Christian. We are not in a position to describe the full scope of RSM experience with confidence because the details of these experiences are insufficiently known. This claim will be supported by surveying the experiences we know about, for they point to variations on which our evidence is incomplete.

Former President of the American Academy of Religion (2010), Ann Taves, suggests that scholarly focus be directed to the experiences that subjects deem to be religious, rather than adopt a contrary model of research that assumes that religious things exist, and are causally active in peoples’ lives.Footnote ³ This is a helpful approach to the subject of this book, since RSM experiences are ones that their subjects assess from a personal standpoint, primarily. I will not make ontological assumptions; rather experiential domains that are religious, spiritual, or mystical need to advance arguments for any objectivity to them. Since my interests here are overtly ontological (or metaphysical), I will be giving close attention to any evidence proffered by RSM experience. Some of these experiences have been the object of explicit attention in Western history, and so I turn to efforts to bring some order into the study of RSM experience, beginning with a philosopher who is universally known and also widely considered, correctly in my view, to have been “intoxicated” by RSM matters.

Plato (or Socrates)

Socrates is widely credited with giving to Western civilization its notion of soul. Oxford classicist, John Burnet (1836–1928) advanced this view in 1916 and was joined by other prominent twentieth-century Plato scholars, A. E. Taylor and Francis Cornford,Footnote ⁴ in making it. Although the historical Socrates is difficult to extract from the literary figure bearing that name, I will refer here to the writings of Plato, assuming that he elucidates the views of Socrates at least some of the time. A most significant feature of soul in the Socratic sense is that soul (a) is distinct from the body and (b) is immortal, which implies that it does not merely survive the death of the body but lives on continually in some way, possibly animating some (living) nonhuman animal or other. The Socratic concept of soul was embraced by Christian faith during its long hegemony over Western thought, and so is familiar everywhere.

Plato describes Socrates as referring to various RSM experiences that he either has had or knows about from observation or reports of others. In The Laws the major figure is an Athenian stranger, probably not the historical figure known widely as Socrates, so the views are evidently those of Plato. They accord with earlier dialogues in which the historical Socrates is seemingly represented. Xenophon (430–354 bce), a contemporary of Socrates and Plato, says this of Socrates: “[he was] so religious that he did nothing without counsel from the gods; so just that he did no injury, however small, to any man, but conferred the greatest benefits on all who dealt with him.”Footnote ⁵

The references in Plato’s Dialogues to RSM experiences include the following:

1. 1. Possession or inspiration: “God takes away the minds of poets” … [and] “also uses diviners and holy prophets in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves … who utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker…; poets are only the interpreters of the God by whom they are severally possessed.”Footnote ⁶ Possession is also said to be a state in which one is “taken hold of.”Footnote ⁷ In his discussion with Cratylus over knowledge in general, including the meaning of names, Socrates accepts that he might be an oracle, perhaps inspired by some Muse.Footnote ⁸ In a discussion with Phaedrus, he poses the question whether he might be inspired as he speaks, to which Phaedrus replies: “Yes, Socrates, you seem to have an unusual flow of words.”Footnote ⁹ He describes his state as ecstasy, since he is unable to remember some of what he said.Footnote ¹⁰

2. 2. Prophecy: This category merges with the previous one, but Socrates speaks generally of the human soul as being prophetic.Footnote ¹¹ Here he also mentions that while he is a diviner, he is not a good one. The feature of his experience that he singles out for comment is the presence of “the sign” that only forbids, never bids. In this conversation with Phaedrus, he mentions the voice telling him that he was guilty of impiety: “buying honour from men at the price of sinning against the gods.”Footnote ¹² Prophecy is described as the “blessing of divine madness.”Footnote ¹³ He also mentions that he had been exposed to the Nymphs when describing the demands of a lover: “Do you not perceive that I am already overtaken by the Nymphs to which you [Phaedrus] have mischievously exposed me?”Footnote ¹⁴ When the Muses take hold of “a delicate and virgin soul,” they inspire frenzy.Footnote ¹⁵

3. 3. Prescient Dream: As Socrates is preparing for his execution, he converses with Crito about his vision (in sleep) that he views as predicting the date of his death: “There appeared to me the likeness of a woman, fair and comely, clothed in bright raiment, who called to me and said, ‘O Socrates, The third day hence to fertile Phthia shalt thou go’.”Footnote ¹⁶ He and Crito take this as knowledge from the gods.

4. 4. Waking Vision: In a discourse about the insights, as well as misleading descriptions, found in poets, Socrates speaks of God as incapable of deceit: “He deceives not, either by sign or word, by dream or waking vision.”Footnote ¹⁷ The waking vision is not illustrated, but the reference could be to apparition, of which he speaks in connection with reciting an account of an apparition that creates the greatest effect upon an audience: “Are you not carried out of yourself, and does not your soul in ecstasy seem to be among the persons or places of which you are speaking, whether they are in Ithaca or in Troy or whatever may be the scene of the poem?”Footnote ¹⁸ He speaks of a chain of inspirations, beginning with Homer, for instance, but then devolving upon those who use the words of Homer.Footnote ¹⁹

5. 5. Apparitions: Socrates speaks about the condition that follows those who have craved after immoral and material things, and cannot bear to part with their bodies: “These must be the souls, not of the good, but of the evil, which are compelled to wander about such places [tombs and sepulchers] in payment of their former evil way of life.”Footnote ²⁰ Moreover, “the souls of the dead have the power after death of taking an interest in human affairs.”Footnote ²¹ Consequently legislators for a state must take care to order correctly “the repositories of the dead, and the rites which have to be observed by him who would propitiate the inhabitants of the world below.”Footnote ²² Legislators should also prevent the erection of private shrines at places where apparitions are seen, for secret attempts to propitiate the God will only multiply crimes infinitely, “bringing guilt from heaven upon themselves, and also upon those who permit them … and the consequence is that the whole state reaps the fruit of their impiety.”Footnote ²³

6. 6. Witchcraft and Conjuring: The Laws orders that any diviner or prophet who uses incantations or enchantments to injure another, and the cause is deemed to be the diviner’s actions, that prophet or diviner must die; if such (successful) enchantment is performed by someone who is not a prophet, a court can try the case and administer punishment or a fine.Footnote ²⁴ Moreover, those who claim to be able to conjure the dead and charm the Gods will overthrow individuals and families and must be severely punished.Footnote ²⁵

7. 7. Efficacious Sacrifice: Diotoma of Mantineia, said to be wise in many ways, supposedly delayed the onset of a plague upon Athens when the Athenians offered sacrifice. Significant injunctions are given for performing proper sacrifices. Consistent with this is the injunction not to slander Proteus and Thetis, known to be wizards.Footnote ²⁶

Plato’s Myth of Er in his Republic provides us with a classic account of souls of the dead receiving justice in their afterlife. I do not include it here based on an actual experience, although it is possible that Plato intended it to be such. It is anticipatory of what has become known in the twentieth century as a Near-death Experience (NDE), discussed in the following text.

St. Paul’s Nine Gifts of the Spirit (First Century ce)

Paul is the next major figure in Western history in which RSM experience is mentioned significantly. He shows evidence of knowledge of the writings found in Greek antiquity, such as those of Epimenides, but the influence upon him of Hebrew literature and Christian experience is greater. Numerous experiences are mentioned in which spirits of various kinds are said to have been implicated, but no effort to classify them is included, apart from Paul’s efforts to identify gifts of “the Holy Spirit;” that is, the Presence deemed to derive from the Creator-God. If we add apparitions and exorcism, as well as the enigmatic event described by St. Luke as “the giving of the Spirit” on the Feast of Pentecost – a special event in the Hebrew calendar – we have twelve phenomena:Footnote ²⁷

1. 1. The word of wisdom: This gift is evidentially meant to signify awareness of how to deal with a difficult situation, although distinguishing Divine wisdom from enhanced human wisdom would be difficult without some other indication that God was its source. This is a gift that Socrates would have recognized, also the next one.

2. 2. The word of knowledge: An example of extraordinary knowledge, evidently from a Divine source, is given in the life of the early Christian Church when St. Peter is said to have known that Ananias and Sapphira, a married couple in the first Church in Jerusalem, were deceptive about the size of their gift from the sale of their land. He says that “Satan filled their hearts to lie to the Holy Spirit,” whereupon each of them, at separate times in one day, fell down dead.Footnote ²⁸

3. 3. Faith: This is evidently extraordinary confidence that something of significance will occur. Jesus, said to be the Christ, is described by St. John as having assured his disciples that he would rise from death to live again.Footnote ²⁹ This particular RSM experience is close to prophecy.

4. 4. The gifts of healing: This gift is evidently the power to cause the sick and diseased to become well and is frequently mentioned in the New Testament (NT), and sometimes in the Old Testament. It perhaps belongs with the next one.

5. 5. The working of miracles: In this book, I am not giving particular attention to events in which the natural order is interrupted or altered. The Hebrew-Christian scriptures are full of marvels, and the allegation of these continues throughout the history of Christendom.

6. 6. Prophecy: Agabus, known to be a prophet from Judea, went to Caesarea, where Paul was staying, to prophesy that Paul would be bound and “delivered into the hands of the Gentiles” by the Jews at Jerusalem.Footnote ³⁰ This evidently happened, according to Luke’s account.

7. 7. Discerning of spirits: In conventional Christian theology, the domain of Divine beings is challenged by Satan and his demonic hordes; Socrates and his Greek compatriots seemingly did not recognize this order of being. So prophets and diviners could be influenced, in Christian views, by either the Divine or the diabolical, making discernment about the source of insight vital. Gordon Fee, noted scholar of Christian charismata, says that little agreement exists on the meaning of the phrase that Paul uses.Footnote ³¹

8. 8. Speaking in various kinds of tongues (glossolalia): This still-controversial gift among Christians is said to have been exhibited on several occasions, most notably when “the Holy Spirit was given.” Gordon Fee says that Paul understands those who exhibit this gift to be neither “out of control” nor “in ecstasy.”Footnote ³²

9. 9. The interpretation of glossolalia: No precise example of where this occurred is given in the NT, but Paul seems to have been familiar with it, seemingly involving giving the sense of some instance of glossolalia occurring in Christian worship. It is likely not a translation of what was said.

10. 10. Baptism in the Spirit: Paul mentions this phenomenon, but Luke gives the paradigmatic description of it “on the day of Pentecost”: when a powerful wind was heard, flames of fire were seen resting on the heads of the Christ’s disciples, and Jewish Christians spoke a dozen or so known languages, evidently without having learned them.Footnote ³³ The Christ himself said that baptism in the Spirit would be an experience that would leave his followers empowered.Footnote ³⁴ Extraordinary controversy still exists in the Church over the meaning of NT texts that speak to this issue.

11. 11. Exorcism: Luke describes several exorcisms by Paul, including one in Philippi where he exorcised “a spirit of divination” from a damsel.Footnote ³⁵ Luke also describes an unsuccessful attempt at exorcism, when some Jewish vagabonds tried to exorcize on the authority of the Christ, although they seemingly were not his disciples, “and the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them [seven exorcists] and prevailed against them, so that they left the house naked and wounded.”Footnote ³⁶

12. 12. Visions and Apparitions: Paul reports that his apostolic authority rested in part on the fact that he had seen the Risen Christ.Footnote ³⁷ The nature of his experience is widely debated, especially in view of the three descriptions of it in Acts, not all parts of which concur with one another. When St. Stephen was being stoned, he reported: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” This is just one of several RSM experiences that appear to involve conventional human perception. The nature of these experiences remains debatable, as my discussion of Christic visions in Chapter 5 will show.

Biblical scholarship is now so extensive that every term and phrase in the Hebrew-Christian Bible is subject to searching scrutiny, so that discussion of these dozen RSM experiences could perhaps fill several books. Because some of them are evidently illustrated in the NT, they are not as obscure as they might seem.

St. Augustine’s Tripartite View of “Vision”

The work of St. Augustine of Hippo on RSM experience from approximately 400 ce remains a starting point for virtually all Western discussion of experience variously known as religious, spiritual, mystical, or comparable designations. Mystics such as St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross illustrate this fact, for not only these mystics but also their critics who discuss their experience do so in Augustinian categories. Augustine’s influence extends right to the present time. He illustrates: In reading a text such as “Love your neighbor as yourself,” he observes that “the letters are seen corporeally, the neighbor is thought of spiritually, and love is beheld intellectually.”Footnote ³⁸ He says that when a body is seen corporeally, an image of it is produced “in the spirit,” and if “the spirit is irrational, as in the beasts, the announcement made by the eyes goes just as far as the spirit.”Footnote ³⁹ With creatures having a rational soul, however, “the announcement is made also to the intellect, which presides over the spirit.”Footnote ⁴⁰ Augustine identifies:

1. 1. the body (corpus),

2. 2. the imagination (spiritus), and

3. 3. the intellect

as the human faculties involved in ordinary perception and knowledge, but they are also involved in experiences that have RSM significance.

Augustine considers perception in humans to occur as a result of rays from our bodies grasping earthly objects; in this he exhibits his tie to antiquity.Footnote ⁴¹ This phenomenon of having rays encounter common objects makes an impression upon the body, which the soul notices, but Augustine does not consider anything corporeal to be able to act directly upon the soul, for “only spirit acts on spirit.”Footnote ⁴² The principle that “like can only act upon like” was prevalent in the ancient world,Footnote ⁴³ and is still discussed.Footnote ⁴⁴ Augustine holds that corporeal vision never “oversees” another operation in a human being, but when an object is imagined, the “spirit” functions as an overseer of the body. When the intellect reflects on matters that are neither seen nor imagined, such as love, it exercises its unique powers of overseeing both the perceptual senses and the imagination (spirit). He does allow for the possibility that “a progression of revelation” might also be found in each one of the three categories, and speaks about intellectual vision varying in its clarity;Footnote ⁴⁵ he also says, however, that he cannot “recognize or maintain any objects or visions other than the three kinds perceived by the body and spirit and the mind.”Footnote ⁴⁶

In order to elucidate the notion of spiritual vision and to distinguish it from intellectual vision, Augustine turns to St. Paul where he makes a distinction between the human spirit and the human mind:Footnote ⁴⁷ “If I pray in a tongue (glossolalia in Greek), my spirit (pneuma) prays but my understanding (nous) is unfruitful.” Paul is contrasting glossolalia with the normal exercise of one’s intellectual powers in speech. Paul elaborates on the distinction between the human spirit and the human mind in the same passage, writing: “One who prays in a tongue speaks not to men but to God, for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit,” and “He who speaks in tongues edifies [only] himself.”Footnote ⁴⁸ The Greek word pneuma in these texts is generally translated as “spirit,” not as “imagination,” so the expression “spiritual vision” more accurately carries the connotation of Augustine’s thought than “imaginative vision.” His explanation of spiritual vision demonstrates that this Pauline passage was not peripheral in his understanding.

Augustine accepts the reality of divination, and speculates on the mechanism by which the soul can exercise such a power. He rejects not only the notion that the soul has the power of divination in itself, but also the possibility that the soul might be assisted by an inferior corporeal object, and then conjectures that divination is the result of another spirit (besides one’s own) aiding the human soul. He asks a long series of questions, including the following: “Are images produced in the soul which were not previously there? Or are they in some spirit into which the soul rushes and enters to see them? … Or does the soul see the objects sometimes in itself and at other times by means of mingling with another spirit?”Footnote ⁴⁹ Augustine observes that both evil and good spirits might be implicated in such events, which makes the discernment of their source difficult. He understands the human spirit as having ontological integrity in a way that modernity no longer accepts, and any suggestion that “spirit” and “imagination” are interchangeable (without confusion) in his discussion of divination is impossible to maintain. His speculation about the possibility that spirits might mingle, for instance, could hardly be expressed without elaborate explanation as the mingling of imaginations.Footnote ⁵⁰

Augustine obviously considers the human spirit to be implicated in ordinary experiences, but his primary interest in “visions” is related to his conviction that in them “the transcendent world” is encountered. Augustine claims that some people have knowledge about events that are beyond the reach of their senses by virtue of being possessed by a devil; on the other hand, “when a good spirit seizes or ravishes the spirit of a man to direct it to an extraordinary vision, there can be no doubt that the images are signs of other things which it is useful to know, for this is a gift of God.”Footnote ⁵¹ He does not explain how a person could recognize being “ravished” or “seized” by a good spirit, or by being possessed by a devil, for that matter, but he is clearly thinking of extraordinary experiences, which some might now call “altered states of conscious awareness.”Footnote ⁵² As Augustine understands the phenomenon, the human spirit can be involved in both ordinary and extraordinary experience, and because the term “imagination” is the most appropriate term to describe the ordinary experience, the expression “imaginative vision” has become widely used to describe this visionary experience. Augustine considers spiritual vision to include human insights into spiritual realities, not merely the mundane experience of imagining an object or an event, so using “imaginative vision” to identify Augustine’s spiritual vision is to tame it, so to speak, for the term “imagination” has no obvious connotations of a transcendent form of reality to those of a modern mind-set. Moreover, the term “imaginative vision” is not generally associated now with those extraordinary gifts of the Spirit featured in Augustine’s original explication.

Augustine argues that several kinds of objects exist for each kind of human experience of reality: At the corporeal level we find luminous bodies and stars, as well as the objects that these lights illuminate; at the spiritual level are angels and the objects that they reveal; finally, at the intellectual level are objects seen in the soul itself, such as virtues, and also “the Light by which the soul is illumined, in order that it may see and truly understand everything, either in itself or in the light. For the Light is God Himself.” He adds that “when [the soul] tries to behold the Light, it trembles in its weakness and finds itself unable to do so.”Footnote ⁵³ However, when the soul is withdrawn from the senses of the body and is appropriately fitted for a (noncorporeal) vision of the Light, it “sees above itself that Light in whose illumination it is enabled to see all the objects that it sees and understands in itself.”Footnote ⁵⁴ Augustine’s respect for the Hebrew-Christian Scriptures and for Platonic (or Socratic) categories in the theory of knowledge links him to two significant thought-structures in Western history; moreover, continued respect for him brings Plato and Paul into our time.

St. Teresa of Avila

St. Teresa is perhaps best known for her autobiography, in which her RSM experiences are prominently featured. In her Interior Castle, written in 1577, she brings (her) order into various experiences. This book reflects theology in the Christian tradition in which experience is “generally divided into three parts, respectively called the purgative,Footnote ⁵⁵ the illuminative, and the unitive life. In the first, man is cleansed from sin and habitual imperfection by the use of the sacraments and by voluntary mortification of the passions.”Footnote ⁵⁶ This is described in the first three Mansions. In the fourth Mansion (of seven), Teresa begins to describe the experiences that would generally be described as mystical, but they could possibly fall into other categories arising from a person’s active pursuit of God, or at least being open to his favors. She says that progress is made by love: “Love does not consist in great sweetness of devotion, but in a fervent determination to strive to please God in all things, in avoiding, as far as possible, all that would offend Him.”Footnote ⁵⁷ She describes its effects: “These feelings of devotion produce fits of sobbing; I have even heard that sometimes they cause a compression of the chest, and uncontrollable exterior motions violent enough to cause bleeding at the nose and other painful effects.”Footnote ⁵⁸ I suppose that some might include this as RSM experience, but I will not comment further on it. Dramatic changes that occur to our perceptual-emotive-cognitive fields of experience are apt to be construed as originating in Divine–human interaction.

Teresa speaks about the prayer of recollection, which she considers supernatural: “There is no occasion to retire nor to shut the eyes, nor does it depend on anything exterior; involuntarily the eyes suddenly close and solitude is found. Without any labour of one’s own, the temple of which I spoke is reared for the soul in which to pray: the senses and exterior surroundings appear to lose their hold, while the spirit gradually regains its lost sovereignty. Some say the soul enters into itself; others, that it rises above itself.”Footnote ⁵⁹ This is a kind of mystical experience that others have noted, as I shall indicate in the following text. In the prayer of union

These forms of prayer that Teresa is describing are quite different from the usual meditative prayers that might characterize the life of an average person.

In spiritual espousal “the soul in a secret manner sees to what a Bridegroom it is betrothed; the senses and faculties could not, in a thousand years, gain the knowledge thus imparted in a very short time. The Spouse, being Who He is, leaves the soul far more deserving of completing the espousals, as we may call them.”Footnote ⁶¹ Here the soul is “resolved to fulfil the will of her Spouse in all things and to do all she can to please Him.”Footnote ⁶² In the sixth Mansion, God arouses the soul “by means of words addressed to the soul in many different ways; sometimes they appear to come from without; at other times from the inner depths of the soul; or again, from its superior part; while other speeches are so exterior as to be heard by the ears like a real voice.”Footnote ⁶³

Teresa speaks of raptures of several kinds in the sixth Mansion: “In one sort of rapture the soul, although perhaps not engaged in prayer at the time, is struck by some word of God which it either remembers or hears. His Majesty, touched with pity by what He has seen it suffer for so long past in its longing for Him, appears to increase the spark I described in the interior of the spirit until it entirely inflames the soul which rises with new life like a phoenix from the flames.”Footnote ⁶⁴ Another experience in the sixth Mansion is described in these terms:

Some of the forms of prayer Teresa has in mind are likely experienced only by those in monastic vocations in which meditative prayer is made the focus of a person’s attention.

She next treats of imaginary (or imaginative, or spiritual) visions “whereby it is held that the devil is more liable to deceive people than by the other visions I have already described. This is probably true. Yet when imaginary visions are Divine, they seem, in a certain manner, more profitable for us than the others, as being more suited to our nature – with the exception of the visions sent by our Lord in the seventh mansion which far surpass all others.” Moreover, in imaginary visions the favor of Divine and spiritual nuptials is bestowed. She writes:

Teresa accepts the Augustinian categories of “visions” that I mentioned earlier, including intellectual visions, deemed to be devoid of deception.

Augustin Poulain (Cf. Thomas Merton, Inner Experience, 2003)

Augustin Poulain published a study of the eight distinct states of consciousness of those who have practiced mysticism in Christian contexts, calling them kinds of prayer.Footnote ⁶⁷ Poulain considers these distinctions largely artificial ones, for “[n]ature does not proceed by sudden bounds.”Footnote ⁶⁸ Poulain’s study went into ten editions, the fifth of which was endorsed by the Pope at the time, so it garnered significant interest and influence. Poulain supplements his detailed discussion with references to more than 150 writers in the Christian tradition, demonstrating that he is attempting to do justice to a large literary legacy. “Mystical state” is hard to define, but we can go along with the definition proposed in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “A (purportedly) super sense-perceptual or sub sense-perceptual experience granting acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of sense perception, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection.”Footnote ⁶⁹ Poulain considers a person’s natural dispositions, intellectual abilities, and vocation as having an influence on how quickly one can reach these states.Footnote ⁷⁰ His classification sheds light on the categories treated by St. Teresa in the Mansions, indeed, on all her other writing.

In construing mysticism as capable of participating in that “forward movement which is to be seen in all the descriptive sciences,”Footnote ⁷¹ Poulain expresses his belief that mystical experience might be made the subject of an exact study, although mysticism might not now belong to science as this is conventionally interpreted. Exact and critical forms of inquiry will increasingly have a significant role in the future study of RSM experience, so studies tending in this direction are worthy of note. The eight kinds of prayer recognized by Poulain illuminate the categories discussed by Teresa of Avila:

1. 1. Recitation and

2. 2. Meditation.

These two are not of interest to Poulain, since we initiate these kinds of prayer. The prayers he recognized as mystical are:

1. 3. Affective prayer, which involves a dominant idea that is accompanied with “very ardent affections,” perhaps love or praise or gratitude, etc. Then he adds, “The deduction of truths is partly replaced by intuition. From the intellectual point of view the soul becomes simplified.”Footnote ⁷²

2. 4. The prayer of simplicity (or the prayer of simple regard) occurs when our will becomes involved, and when our affections vary little and can be expressed with very few words.Footnote ⁷³ He does not think that we can generate this state by an act of the will.

3. 5. The prayer of quiet.

4. 6. The prayer of union.

In the prayer of quiet, the Divine action is said to be insufficiently strong to hinder distractions, but in the prayer of union the Divine influence is so great that “the soul is fully occupied with the divine object.”Footnote ⁷⁴

1. 7. Ecstatic union, and

2. 8. Deifying union (or “spiritual marriage”).

In his discussion of the effects of mystic union upon the human body, he mentions the immobility of limbs, and then cites the reported levitations of Catherine Emmerich (1774–1824), who often “climbed” the columns of her church without a ladder in order to clean or decorate cornices that were humanly inaccessible.Footnote ⁷⁵ Poulain does not question the veracity of these reports, and I will not go into the miraculous claims made.

He sums up the object of prayer as follows: “Sometimes, when entering into prayer or some other exercise, with dryness and disgust, after suffering this pain, she [the soul] suddenly perceives that the Bridegroom is present, and this presence, with regard to which she feels great certainty, causes a loving and reverent trembling…. This presence (whether transient or not) operates in such wise as to make us perceive, feel, and know with certainty that God is in the soul and that the soul is in God.”Footnote ⁷⁶ The list that Poulain offers illuminates features of Teresa and perhaps even Augustine, who might not have viewed as plausible the continuum that we find in Poulain.

William James

William James (1842–1910), Professor of Psychology at Harvard University for many years, is well known for his examination of RSM experience in his Gifford Lectures for 1901–2, and in the subsequent book, The Varieties of Religious Experience. This book signals an interest in RSM experience in Western culture not beginning from religious assumptions, and is valuable for that reason alone. He does not attempt an obvious catalog of recognized kinds of RSM experience, but his review of the topic, which includes many detailed accounts of experience from those who themselves underwent it, provides a reader with some sense of its scope. He notes that his interest is not institutional religion,Footnote ⁷⁷ but rather the experiences that experiencers themselves consider religious. He construes religion as pertaining to that which is DivineFootnote ⁷⁸ but does not focus on a definition of “religion.” I will say more about definitions in Chapter 2. James is particularly taken with self-description, but he does not confine his attention to just this category of experience. The following list of RSM experience shows his range of interests:

1. 1. The sense of God, or of the Spirit of God.Footnote ⁷⁹ This is reminiscent of John Calvin’s sensus divinitatis (“sense of divinity”): “That there exists in the human minds and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead.”Footnote ⁸⁰

2. 2. The place of strong emotions, including joy, fear, and laughter, often considered to be evoked by God.Footnote ⁸¹

3. 3. The sense of being “born anew” or “born again,” which is an experience reported by those James describes as “twice-born” rather than “once-born.”Footnote ⁸² The twice-born often have a melancholic disposition; the “once-born” are healthy-mindedFootnote ⁸³ and do not feel a need for a substantial change in outlook, and the accompanying behaviors.

4. 4. Mind-cures are possible, and “miracles” of healing can occur as a consequence of relaxation, rather than preoccupation with fear-driven religion and morbid-mindedness.Footnote ⁸⁴

5. 5. Conversion is an experience for which James is well known. In general, conversion signifies the unification of a divided self, resulting in firmer convictions on religious matters.Footnote ⁸⁵ Many examples are adduced, largely from Christianity, especially Protestantism. Some involve rapid changes, but others more subtle and gradual ones. He collects very different kinds of experience under “conversion,” such as visions, Spirit-baptism, illumination, and striking emotions. James sees the source of change to derive from a person’s unconscious or subconscious life.Footnote ⁸⁶

   1. a. Conversion in adolescence follows a sense of incompleteness, imperfection, brooding, depression, morbid introspection, and a sense of sin; the resulting conversion brings happy relief, confidence within oneself, objectivity, and a movement into adulthood.Footnote ⁸⁷

   2. b. In the conversion of drunkards, emphasis is upon the moral aspect of religion, and doctrinal matters are virtually nonexistent.Footnote ⁸⁸

   3. c. Redemption to another universe was the experience of St. Paul, John Bunyan, and Leo Tolstoy; their melancholy seems never to have disappeared.Footnote ⁸⁹

6. 6. Mystical states of consciousness are considered, including some that might simulate them, such as the effects of alcohol and nitrous oxide.Footnote ⁹⁰ Here cosmic consciousness, Hindu Samadhi, and hypnosis are also discussed.Footnote ⁹¹

James does not attempt to penetrate the metaphysical realm that might be implicated in RSM experience but highlights the subconscious domain that exists beyond the conscious and wants to intrude upon our conscious life.Footnote ⁹² He writes: “If there be higher powers able to impress us, they may get access to us only through the subliminal door.”Footnote ⁹³ The worth of an experience cannot be decided by its origin, he says, but only by its fruits. But when we examine fruits, we find that no significance attaches to sudden changes, for people who have not had such experiences often exhibit as much goodness as those who do. He devotes two chapters to saintliness.

A curious feature of James’s treatment of RSM experience is his failure to mention its occasional intersubjective features. He writes of Paul’s conversion with considerable interest, for example, but he overlooks aspects of Paul’s alleged experience that are intersubjective. Our main source for Paul’s conversion is Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, although Paul makes brief reference to it also in his letters. We find three accounts in Acts of this conversion, two of which appear to be quotations from Paul, whereas Luke speaks in the other. In the first account Luke says that the men who were with Saul (later Paul) heard the voice that spoke to him, but saw no one.Footnote ⁹⁴ The being that appeared in great light spoke to Paul, an experience he considers an encounter with the Risen Christ. In the second account he says that “they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.”Footnote ⁹⁵ In the third account Paul says: “At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth….”Footnote ⁹⁶

In discussing Paul’s conversion experience James says: “There is one form of sensory automatism which possibly deserves special notice on account of its frequency. I refer to hallucinatory or pseudo-hallucinatory luminous phenomena, photisms, to use the term of the psychologists. Saint Paul’s blinding heavenly vision seems to have been a phenomenon of this sort.”Footnote ⁹⁷A striking feature of all three accounts of Paul’s experience is that, while they might not agree precisely on details, they all mention some intersubjectively observable causal effect or concomitant. I shall discuss this feature of (some) RSM experience in the following text, for it speaks to something independent of Paul’s own phenomenological impressions. James does not discuss this, and I cannot understand exactly why that is. A researcher would be indisputably biased if s/he dealt with those parts of a report for which one already has an explanation, and ignored another part of the same report for which no explanation is readily at hand.

Another telling feature of James’s discussion of “Religious Experience” is that he considers psychical phenomena to be in the general domain of such experience. In this respect he has the outlook of Augustine who also discusses phenomena that would often be deemed as psychical, not religious, per se. In view of my interest here in not eliding over any experience that might be deemed religious, or spiritual, or mystical – problematic terms all – I will include a rough overview of psychical phenomena. I have drawn them from a study that purports to be encyclopedic.Footnote ⁹⁸

Psychical Phenomena

Phenomena conventionally viewed as “psychical” or “spiritual” are not always included in phenomena deemed religious, but Socrates, Paul, Augustine, Teresa, and James all allude to some, so it is fitting to include them in my broad view of RSM experiences. Here is a partial list on the subject drawn from The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits, by Rosemary Guiley, for which I will only offer minimal descriptions when the phenomena seem poorly known:

1. 1. Apparitions.

2. 2. Automatisms and automatic writing: These are peculiar, often rapid, human behaviors deemed to be caused by a spirit.

3. 3. Bilocation: The phenomenon of someone being (or seeming to be) in two locations at one and the same time; this is alleged, for example, of the monk, St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, Italy (1887–1968).

4. 4. Clairvoyance & extra-sensory perception: Perceptual insights into matters beyond normal perceptual powers.

5. 5. Death omen: Predicting the time of someone’s death, with the connotation that death is thereby ensured.Footnote ⁹⁹

6. 6. Conjuration of the dead: To call upon the spirit of one who is dead to appear and to do one’s bidding.Footnote ¹⁰⁰

7. 7. Deathbed visions: Experiences of the dying, mostly “apparitions of the dead or mythical or religious figures.”Footnote ¹⁰¹

8. 8. Divination: Foretelling or divining of the future, seemingly because of the causal powers of spirits acting upon the foreteller.

9. 9. Doppelgänger apparition: An apparition of oneself.

10. 10. Exorcism: The act(s) of removing influence(s) of spirits.

11. 11. Hyperacuity: Specially enhanced perceptual senses, supposedly caused by the power of spirits acting in or upon a person.

12. 12. Hypnosis: An altered state of consciousness in which openness to suggestions is enhanced, once thought to be brought about by spiritual forces.

13. 13. Levitation: Rising into the air and maintaining such a position without material aids, sometimes considered to be the effect of a spirit acting on that body.

14. 14. Materialization: A phenomenon in which a ghost, spirit, or similar entity appears in bodily form.

15. 15. Mirror writing: The producing of script seen to be normal when viewed in a mirror, which is a phenomenon supposedly caused by a spirit.

16. 16. Moving coffins: The movement of coffins, apparently by supernatural forces.

17. 17. Necromancy: The summoning of spirits of the dead, presupposing “belief in the survival of the soul after death, the possession of a superior knowledge by the disembodied spirit, and the possibility of communication between the living and the dead.”Footnote ¹⁰²

18. 18. Demonic possession or obsession (Western): These supposed effects of evil spirits are distinguished by the fact that the demon acts from an external position upon humans in obsession, but from an internal one in possession.

19. 19. Planchette (or Ouija board) messages: Using a small wooden or plastic piece on a board with letters and numbers to communicate with the dead or predict the future.

20. 20. Prophetic dreams: Having dreams that are an accurate portent of future events.

21. 21. Psychokinesis: The (supposed) ability to move objects by mental efforts alone, for example, the acts of Uri Geller in bending spoons, which were alleged to be instances of psychokinesis.Footnote ¹⁰³

22. 22. Retrocognition: The (supposed) ability to reconstruct events of the past without normal methods of gleaning information.

23. 23. Séance experiences: “A sitting organized for the purpose of receiving spirit communications or paranormal manifestations via the services of a human medium.”Footnote ¹⁰⁴

24. 24. Sense of reincarnation: The sense, often in children, that one has lived another life in another time, place, and body. The researches by psychiatrist Ian Stevenson (1918–2007) on reincarnation are very widely known, especially his first book on the subject, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, first published in 1966. He worked at the University of Virginia School of Medicine for fifty years.

25. 25. Shamanism: Medical-religious practices in which communication with totem spirits and spirits of the dead takes place and in which supernatural feats are performed.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ “[This is] a vague term used by explorers of Siberia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to designate not a specific religion but a form of savage magic or science, by which physical nature was believed to be brought under the control of man.”Footnote ¹⁰⁶

26. 26. Soul loss: The temporary departure of the soul, hypothesized to explain sickness; permanent departure results in death.Footnote ¹⁰⁷

27. 27. Spirit attachment: “A type of possession in which a discarnate entity becomes attached to a living person … it does not carry demonic associations.”Footnote ¹⁰⁸ Frederick Smith offers examples of such attachment from South Asian religious literature and ongoing experience.Footnote ¹⁰⁹

28. 28. Stone throwing: The phenomenon of stones being thrown at someone or something, seemingly from a supernatural agent or cause. A deceased brother-in-law from southern India once told me about an incident near his Indian home in which “bricks” thrown at a Christian worker by a fakir “dissolved into nothing” as they hit the ground. Diabolical forces were thought to be at work.

29. 29. Telepathy: The transmission of thought from one person to another without any conventional methods of conveying information.

30. 30. Teleportation: The movement of an object from one place to another without occupying the places in between, thought by some to be effected by spiritual powers.

31. 31. Totemism: “The intimate relation supposed to exist between an individual or a group of individuals and a class of natural objects, that is, the totem, by which the former regard the latter as identified with them in a mystical manner.”Footnote ¹¹⁰

32. 32. Trance-state: A state of awareness other than that which occurs during waking consciousness, often occurring involuntarily.

33. 33. Waking dreams: The sensation of dreaming while one is awake, also known as a hypnagogic hallucination.

The variety exhibited by this list could be a research project in its own right, which I cannot undertake here. However, I do not want to ignore this (possibly) sizeable body of RSM evidence.

Roland Fischer

Roland Fischer has developed two continua for representing human experience. He offers a “cartography of inner space” in which various conscious states are mapped onto two perception-hallucination continua, both of them beginning with ordinary perception and ending with hallucinatory states.Footnote ¹¹¹ These states are often considered RSM experiences, but some items in the continua are not. The first of these continua is marked by increasing levels of ergotropic arousal, that is, arousal characterized by increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system and an activated psychic state. The state of arousal found in ordinary perception marks the low end of the first arousal continuum, and points along that continuum include the increasing arousal found in states of:

1. 1. Sensitivity.

2. 2. Creativity.

3. 3. Anxiety.

4. 4. Acute schizophrenia: The American Psychiatric Association summarizes prominent features of schizophrenia as follows:Footnote ¹¹²

   1. a. Positive psychotic symptoms: Hallucinations, such as hearing voices, paranoid delusions, and exaggerated or distorted perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors.

   2. b. Negative symptoms: A loss or a decrease in the ability to initiate plans, speak, express emotion, or find pleasure.

   3. c. Disorganization symptoms: Confused and disordered thinking and speech, trouble with logical thinking, and, sometimes, bizarre behavior or abnormal movements.

5. 5. Impaired cognition: Problems with attention, concentration, memory, and declining educational performance.

6. 6. Catatonia: “Catatonic schizophrenia is dominated by prominent psychomotor disturbances that may alternate between extremes such as hyperkinesis and stupor, or automatic obedience and negativism. Constrained attitudes and postures may be maintained for long periods. Episodes of violent excitement may be a striking feature of the condition.”Footnote ¹¹³

7. 7. Mystical rapture.

Fischer’s second continuum is marked by trophotropic arousal, that is, arousal characterized by the integration of parasympathetic with somatomotor activities resulting in behavior that reflects decreasing sensitivity to external stimuli. Here the state of arousal found in ordinary perception is at the high end of the spectrum, while the points along the second continuum include states of increasing tranquility such as the following:

1. 1. Zazen: We experience everything “on the same low level of subcortical arousal but nevertheless are receptive and appreciating.”Footnote ¹¹⁴

2. 2. Dharna: “The practice of concentrating and holding the mind on a fixed center, within or without, to the exclusion of all others; for example, one may discern only the tip of the nose or the color of a flower without associating or noting any other parts or properties. The concentration is uninterrupted.”Footnote ¹¹⁵

3. 3. Dhyan: “Meditation, such that a continuous flow of only one thought (i.e., of the subject matter of concentration in the preceding step) is constantly maintained, much like the motion of water at a constant rate of flow.”Footnote ¹¹⁶

4. 4. Savichar Samadhi: “Samädhi is the stage in which meditation deepens and the mind by projection may assume the form of (and thus become) the object itself on which it was meditating in the previous step. This complete union and identity of the mind with the object reveals to the yogi the real and true nature of things. Just as there is no alternative but to taste an apple to know how an apple tastes or to bear a child and be a mother to know what motherhood is, so also there is no alternative to true knowledge other than to be what one wants to know. In other words, to know = to be. This is exactly what a yogi accomplishes through complete identity of the mind with the subject matter in savikalpa (substantive) samädhi (vide infra). That is why he claims direct and total knowledge and perception. Since at this stage the mind is still occupied, even though with only one thought process, it is called ‘substantive’.”

5. 5. Nirvichar Samadhi: “In the next and final phase, the vestiges of ‘substantive’ samädhi are also wiped out by the yogi so that there are no thought waves at all in the mind and the true samädhi, that is, the union between the chitta (mind) and the chaitanya (consciousness) takes place. Since in this state the mind is contentless or unsubstantive, devoid of all desires, volitions, thoughts, etc., it is called ‘sheer’ or ‘absolute’.” Fischer calls this: “An emptiness where there is ‘no form, no perception, no name, no concepts, no knowledge, [n]o eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind … no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no objects … no knowledge, no ignorance, no decay nor death. It is the Self’.”Footnote ¹¹⁷

The focused meditative states along this second perception-meditation continuum, identified by Sanskrit words, are indicative of the cultural context in which these have been most assiduously cultivated and studied. Fischer then correlates these states with beta, alpha, and theta EEG waves. The end points of the two continua, that is, the ecstasy of mystical rapture of the first and samadhi of the second, are described by Fischer as “the two most hallucinatory states” known in human experience.Footnote ¹¹⁸

Richard Swinburne

Notable among the descriptions and classifications of RSM experiences is that offered by Richard Swinburne, who, in his (former) position as Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at Oriel College in the University of Oxford, advanced Christian faith in an prolific way.Footnote ¹¹⁹ In his efforts to appraise the significance of religious experience for belief in God he has offered a classification scheme that he deems complete:Footnote ¹²⁰

1. 1. Unusual public events/objects, such as the post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus,

2. 2. Seeing something as Divine by virtue of certain sensations, such as a dream,

3. 3. Seeing something as Divine by virtue of certain sensations that are private but not describable in normal vocabulary, which applies to various experiences widely considered to be mystical,

4. 4. Having religious experience without having sensations at all, such as states of consciousness in which a person feels immersed in that which is Eternal or Absolute, and

5. 5. Seeing something as the work of God.

Swinburne curiously claims that he has advanced a complete classification. I observe that he is considering RSM experiences in relation to God, which is a restriction that I shall not make while discussing phenomena that include alleged diabolical and angelic encounters.

Caroline Franks Davis

Another classification based on a variety of religions is offered by Caroline Franks Davis, whose study formed the basis for her doctoral dissertation at Oxford University under the supervision of Richard Swinburne. Her six main classes are:Footnote ¹²¹

1. 1. Interpretive experiences, in which an ordinary experience is interpreted within a religious framework,

2. 2. Quasi-sensory experiences, including “visions and dreams, voices and other sounds, smells, tastes, the feeling of being touched, heat, pain, and the sensation of rising up (levitation),”Footnote ¹²²

3. 3. Revelatory experiences, such as flashes of insight, enlightenment, sudden convictions, and inspirations that descend unannounced,

4. 4. Regenerative experiences, such as the phenomena reported by John Wesley, and made famous by William James,

5. 5. Numinous experiences, such as those described by Rudolf Otto in The Idea of the Holy,Footnote ¹²³ and

6. 6. Mystical experiences, strictly interpreted as involving:

   1. a. the sense of having apprehended an ultimate reality,

   2. b. the sense of freedom from the limitations of time, space, and the individual ego,

   3. c. a sense of “oneness”, and

   4. d. bliss or serenity.

Davis canvasses experiences in religions that extend beyond Christianity, which gives her classification greater scope than that found in Swinburne.

Robert Zaehner

Davis’s classification of mystical experiences is shaped in part by Professor Robert Zaehner, who, in the Gifford lectures for 1967–69 as Spalding Professor of Eastern Religion and Ethics at Oxford University, advanced a tripartite classification of mysticism, based upon his extensive experience with various kinds of consciousness reported in various religious traditions:Footnote ¹²⁴

1. 1. Nature mysticism: An experience in which the “I” is merged into the cosmic All, and where subject and object are obliterated, for example, the union between matter and spirit experienced in sexual acts, according to Walt Whitman.

2. 2. Monistic mysticism: An experience in which the soul is isolated from all that is in time and space. Here matter is repudiated, flesh is abhorred, and sex is the enemy of eternal peace, as described by the Buddha.

3. 3. Theistic mysticism: An experience of the ecstasy of eternal love, as the self is united with God.

Zaehner considered the last of these experiences to be superior to the others, for it is, in his view, the result of Divine grace. He is widely considered to have brought his Christian perspective into the assessment of experiences that come with the label “mystical,” but his acquaintance with Hinduism is also in evidence. A study that attempts to be exact would seemingly differentiate experiences from one another, and so bring numerous views into play, including those offered by religions and by recognized forms of mysticism and spirituality.

Near-Death Experiences (NDEs)

Raymond Moody, a medical doctor and philosopher, is widely credited with having first discovered the details of the phenomenological experience of recovering from what appeared to observers to be a state near death, primarily among people resuscitated by new life-saving equipment. His Life after Life, first published in 1975, has become a classic on the subject, but much more information has been gleaned since then, with International Association for Near-Death Studies and its Journal for Near-Death Studies serving as a vehicle for the dissemination of accounts and critical responses to them.

The following items are identified by Moody as having significance:Footnote ¹²⁵

1. 1. Hearing pronouncement of “death”

2. 2. Hearing an uncomfortable noise

3. 3. Feeling that one is moving through a long dark tunnel

4. 4. Finding oneself outside one’s own body, but capable of seeing one’s own body in the normal environment

5. 5. Emotional upheaval over resuscitation attempts

6. 6. Awareness of new body

7. 7. Awareness of strange properties of the new body

8. 8. Awareness of “spirits” of other already-dead people

9. 9. Inability to communicate with living, although often attempted

10. 10. Encounter with a “being of light”

11. 11. Evaluation of one’s life, and playback of major events

12. 12. Approach of a barrier incapable of being crossed

13. 13. Feeling required to return to normal life

14. 14. Reluctance to return

15. 15. Feelings of intense joy and peace

16. 16. Reunited with one’s physical body

17. 17. Reluctance to share experience

18. 18. Feeling the ineffability of the experience

19. 19. A profound impact of the experience on life

20. 20. New views of death

Moody creates what he describes as “A Theoretical Model”Footnote ¹²⁶ in which no single experience seems to have all of the above properties; no single property is found in all experiences; some near-death experiences have no features of the above kind in them at all; the order of events varies; and the completeness of an experience seems to depend on how far into the “death process” a person gets. Also, although the source is personal, some reports have corroboration in the experience of others, for example, where those undergoing resuscitation can later report on who was present in the room at the time.

Sir Alister Hardy

Hardy’s schema was based on a study of 3,000 first-hand accounts of religious or spiritual experience obtained over eight years by Hardy and research associates. The classification scheme created with the assistance of a curator includes more than 100 separate categories, but in order to make this classification system more workable here I will keep the twelve main categories as he presents them, and then add only some of the sub-categories that he identifies:Footnote ¹²⁷

1. 1. Sensory or quasi-sensory (SQS): visual

   1. a. Visions

   2. b. Illuminations

   3. c. OBE, etc.

2. 2. Auditory

   1. a. Voices guiding

   2. b. Gift of tongues, etc.

3. 3. SQS: touch

   1. a. Healing

   2. b. Comforting, etc.

4. 4. SQS: smell

5. 5. Supposed ESP

   1. a. Telepathy

   2. b. Precognition

   3. c. Clairvoyance, etc.

6. 6. Behavioral changes: enhanced, or “superhuman” power in humans

   1. a. Healing

   2. b. Exorcism, etc.

7. 7. Cognitive and affective elements

   1. a. Security

   2. b. Joy

   3. c. Reverence

   4. d. Hope

   5. e. Horror

   6. f. (Plus seventeen more)

8. 8. Development of experience

   1. a. Gradual growth in experience

   2. b. Identification with ideal human figure

   3. c. (Plus twelve more)

9. 9. Dynamic patterns in experience

   1. a. Being beyond the self

   2. b. Self-actualization, etc.

10. 10. Dreams

11. 11. Antecedents or “triggers” of experience

    1. a. Natural beauty

    2. b. Prayer

    3. c. Music

    4. d. Sexual relations

    5. e. Childbirth

    6. f. (Plus sixteen more)

12. 12. Consequences of experience

    1. a. Purpose in life

    2. b. Religious belief, etc.

The lists presented in this chapter suggest that experience and phenomena having RSM significance have only begun to be collected, and that some of the forms that are known, such as dreams, exorcism, and ESP, do not readily fall into some natural hierarchy or classification.

Emma Heathcote-James

The lists presented to this point indicate that the experience and phenomena having religious or spiritual significance have been widely noted by human beings, although exact description and appropriate terminology have not been fixed, and perhaps never will be. Moreover, since such phenomena are found all over the world, numerous distinct descriptions exist in various languages, some readily translatable from one language to another, no doubt, while others are likely not. My interest here is not primarily in language, but in the phenomena that have occurred and what they indicate, suggest, or imply about orders of reality beyond those that are open to a scientific public. We cannot ignore the language differences, of course, but we cannot make too much of them either, in view of the fact that satisfactory translation is often possible. Translatability suggests that similar perceptual cues are occurring across linguistic boundaries. Since “raw” experience is always susceptible to having conceptual frameworks imposed upon it, “exact descriptions” remain an ideal about which we can only fantasize. Still, discussion must begin somewhere.

In a study of contemporary encounters with angels,Footnote ¹²⁸ Emma Heathcote-James found 800 people in Britain who reported such experiences. This study is important because it focuses on one kind of experience, thereby allowing us to see the inevitable variations of RSM experiences. She earned a doctoral degree from the University of Birmingham for her work, which gives her study some credibility, for doctoral committees at public universities typically include people having varying beliefs about the possibility of such experience. She was not writing for an audience whose religious commitments discourage them from entertaining RSM experience as a serious phenomenon. Her chapter titles indicate that some angels were heard to speak, some were seen, some were touched, and so on.

Digression on Levitation

Levitation is generally considered to be the act of rising into the air, seemingly because of some “spiritual” power acting upon the levitator. I have mentioned above the references made to it by Poulain, by Davis, and by Rosemary Guiley in her Encyclopedia. Davis adds a curious qualification to her entry in listing levitation among RSM experiences, namely, “the sense of rising up.”Footnote ¹²⁹ In this remark Davis indicates that the perspective she prefers to take on experience is the phenomenological one, as this is present to a percipient. The phenomenon of levitation as seen from an external perspective is of course that of seeing (another) rising into the air. Although I have not made an effort to research levitation, and have not stumbled upon many actual allegations, I did come across one in the course of my research into Christic visions.Footnote ¹³⁰

Robin Wheeler indicated that he had experienced a Christic encounter that he wished to share, but he enigmatically added that his wife needed to be present when he gave his report to me. I understood later in the interview that he wished to refer to his experience of levitation, and hers. Robin reported that two beings repeatedly appeared to him in his bedroom in a series of events in which his destiny was seemingly being decided. One of these figures was (or was taken to be) the Christ, and the other was (or was taken to be) a demonic being that had the form of a human being without skin. Robin said that his struggles with these two beings lasted an entire night, and Robin’s wife reported that during these events, each lasting a half-hour or so, Robin “floated in midair in a horizontal position about a foot above the bed … his body … perfectly rigid,” and his head bent so far back that she thought his neck would break. Although she did not see the two figures that appeared to Robin, she could ask him what was happening as each event occurred, and he would describe the conflict taking place between them. Robin was not aware of his levitation, however, although during the fights he could see his wife seated near him as well as these two other beings, who seemed as real as ordinary persons. The place he seemed to be in did not fit with the physical description of their bedroom, however, and so belongs to visions in which extraneous elements are more-or-less blended in with ordinary ones. If we take the reports at face value, we see that some aspects of what Robin experienced were witnessed only by his wife, while other features were witnessed only by him. Robin had no sense of rising into the air, which Carolyn Davis identifies as central to the phenomenon of levitation, since his levitation was seen only by his wife. This case suggests that we cannot begin our description of experience simply with what is phenomenologically transparent to the experiencer, for Robin was unaware of his levitation. It also suggests that, wherever possible, we must examine what both experiencers and observers bring to events. The claim that Robin levitated is a conjecture, of course, made to interpret the reports of Robin’s wife.

A remarkable instance of levitation comes to us from the life of St. Joseph of Cupertino, who also allegedly performed miracles. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes the life of St. Joseph as “one long succession of visions and other heavenly favours. Everything that in any way had reference to God or holy things would bring on an ecstatic state.” It also states: “frequently he would be raised from his feet and remain suspended in the air.” This case is particularly interesting because witnesses to his levitation include a Pope, two kings, the Duke of Brunswick, and the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz.Footnote ¹³¹ Perhaps I am impressed by the witness of a fellow philosopher, for I expect philosophers to exercise impartiality, insofar as they are able, in their reports of remarkable phenomena. With levitation we are clearly near the domain of miracle, although the matter of physical laws being contravened or violated, if this is considered essential to miracle, is not as obviously present when a human levitates compared with a wooden stick becoming an asp after being thrown upon the ground, which Moses and Egyptian priests of his time are said to have done.Footnote ¹³² In reflecting on the action of gravity in some ordinary event we might consider a ball that is thrown into the air, where the momentum given to the ball by its thrower overcomes the gravitational power acting on the ball. Just as gravity is not suspended or violated as the ball ascends, so levitation, if it were to occur, might not mean that gravity is not in force, but only that some force greater than gravity is also present, perhaps from a source neither visible, nor tangible, nor perceptible to any other senses. St. Joseph’s levitation is generally construed as due to Divine influences in his life, probably because of the miracles of healing he is said to have performed. Once one spiritual Order is recognized as real, another comes into view begging to be recognized. Christianity deems some cases of levitation to be caused by powers that are diabolical, and the history of “miracle” in Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic contexts is fraught with uncertainty about the source of the unusual powers that are active in and around human beings.

Those of us with a scientific bent want to ask many questions about the circumstances in which unusual phenomena arise, but our normal ability to do so seems to be inexplicably limited. In the discussion that follows I will attempt to include as much in the matter of “description of experiences” as one can find, and not confine my attention only to the phenomenological feel of experiences. This creates complications, of course, but no harm comes, as far as I can see, from approaching an event from all perspectives on it that are available.