Introduction: Religion, Experience, and Narrative

Ulrike Popp-Baier

doi:10.3390/rel12080639

Abstract

At the end of his famous book Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem points to the important role stories have played in Hasidism, the latest phase in Jewish Mysticism, and he closes his lectures with the following story: When the Baal Shem had a difficult task before him, he would go to a certain place in the woods, light a fire and meditate in prayer—and what he had set out to perform was done [...]

Highlights

Religion, Experience, and NarrativeUlrike Popp-BaierDepartment of History, European Studies and Religious Studies, Faculty of Humanities, At the end of his famous book Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Gershom Scholem points to the important role stories have played in Hasidism, the latest phase in JewishMysticism, and he closes his lectures with the following story: Citation: Popp-Baier, Ulrike. 2021
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When the Baal Shem had a difficult task before him, he would go to a certain place in the woods, light a fire and meditate in prayer—and what he had set out to perform was done

Summary

Introduction

Experience, and NarrativeUlrike Popp-BaierMysticism, and he closes his lectures with the following story: Citation: Popp-Baier, Ulrike. 2021. In his article Narrative and Religious Experience, Yamane (2000) makes a distinction between “experiencing” and “experience” and argues that we cannot study experiencing, but only how an experience is made meaningful after the fact.

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Conclusion