Religious Experiencing: A Phenomenological Analysis of a Unique Behavioral Event

Abstract

This article proposes a paradigm for understanding religious experience which is based on the S-O-R model of stimulus-response psychology. Religious experience is similar to other higher order experiences in that it includes organismic processing which mediates between a stimulus and a response. All three components (stimulus, organism, response) are necessary for these types of experiences to occur. In religious terms, God-Faith-Work (S-O-R) go together. This paradigm is discussed in terms of the thesis that religious experience is, however, distinct from other experience in both a qualitative and a quantitative sense. The object to which the organism responds in religious experience is trans-empirical and is thus perceived to be quite different from mundane reality. This is its qualitative distinction. The attitude toward and the feelings about such a reality are more encompassing and more intense than toward other stimuli. This is its quantitative distinction. Thus, a transactional and a phenomenological understanding provide a basis for a fuller perspective on this common human experience.