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The rhetoric of experience and the study of religion
Journal of Consciousness Studies
Format: Journal Article
Publication Year: 2000
Pages: 267-287
Sources ID: 22017
Visibility: Private
Abstract: (Show)

The use of the concept ‘religious experience’ is exceedingly broad, encompassing a vast array of feelings, moods, perceptions, dispositions, and states of consciousness. Some prefer to focus on a distinct type of religious experience known as ‘mystical experience', typically construed as a transitory but potentially transformative state of consciousness in which a subject purports to come into immediate contact with the divine, the sacred, the holy. We will return to the issue of mystical experience below. Here I would only note that the academic literature does not clearly delineate the relationship between religious experience and mystical experience. The reluctance, and in the end the inability, to clearly stipulate the meaning of such terms will be a recurring theme in the discussion below.

Subjects: 
Philosophical Context
Buddhist Contemplation
Contemplation by Tradition