THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES AND THE REST OF LIFE EXPERIENCE. AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STUDY

Abstract

Introduction This article is about relationships between religious experiences and everyday life. It is an attempt to answer the question of how religious experiences influence an individual's psychology and Investigators' opinions differ in their understanding of relationships between religious experiences and the rest of the life experience. Some authors emphasize the extraordinary, short-time, episodic nature of these experiences. They claim that religious experience is something special and unexpected, occurring rarely over the span of one's life. An example here is Hardy (1979:29) who described these experiences as follows: At certain times in their lives many people have had specific, deeply felt, transcendental experiences which have made them all aware of the presence of this power ... Although Hardy concentrated on an analysis of particular experiences shared by the respondents, his study provides evidence that there is a close relationship between life before and after the experience. Other authors who have analyzed specific aspects of particular religious experiences also report evidence of the impact of religious experience on the rest of one's life. Their analysis, however, has been confined to a particular issue, such as the structure of religious experience (Girgensohn 1921, Gruehn 1926), the essence of the experience (Otto, 1950), similarities between and generalizations about different experiences (Hay & Morisy, 1978), or a chemical ecstasy (Clark 1969, Huxley 1954, Smith 2000). Karl Girgensohn (1921) might be mentioned as one example of a researcher studying episodic religious experiences. Girgensohn and his co-workers analyzed reports of religious experiences the subjects had had during and after reading different religious texts. His goal was to find out and explain the functions of the emotional, rational and sensational components of a religious experience. Although Girgensohn acknowledged the impact of religious experiences on human psychology and behavior in everyday life, he primarily studied particular religious experiences manifested in an experimental situation. Other authors relate religious experiences to the larger psychological context. This means that religious experience is not studied as a separate phenomenon but as part of one's lifelong experience. One good example of this is the study of Spilka, Brown and Cassidy (1992) on the structure of religious experience in relation to one's lifestyle before and after the experience. Their general conclusion was that it is evident that reported mystical experiences, as theorized, relate to remembered pre-experience life circumstances and present perceptions of one's thinking and behavior. Hjalmar Sunden (1966, 1969) understood religious experience to be a process of learning in which there is a need for preparation by getting to know the roles of man and God described in a religious narrative. Sunden relates religious experiences directly to the rest of the experiences during one's life. First, learning the description of the roles through religious narratives is a long process lasting from childhood to death. Second, religious experiences may appear and will appear in ordinary life situations. Third, personal motivation is needed to experience the role of God in certain situations. Therefore, according to Sunden, religious experience is very much a part of one's total life experience. Paul Pruyser's (1976) criteria of pastoral diagnostics have affected later investigations of religious experiences from a lifelong perspective. He described seven dimensions of Christian faith that are most closely related to everyday life: awareness of the holy, acceptance of God's grace, being repentant and responsible, knowing God's leadership and guidance, involvement in organized religion, experiencing fellowship, and a sense of vocation. These dimensions, which have personal meaning, will determine the portrait of one's religious life. …