Religious experience – terminological problems

The huge number of interpretations and approaches to religious experiences makes discourse in the scientific studies of religion on the scope and significance of these phenomena extremely difficult. Especially misleading is the identification of them with mystical experiences, as well as attempts to depreciate these types of experience that are alien to researchers. A possible solution is the introduction of a differentiated scale of religious experiences in which mystical experiences constitute their „climactic”, emotionally and cognitively most intensive form. Acknowledging Otto’s definition of sensus numinis, the content of the experience and its cognitive, motivational and physiological components become a problem. In this situation most promising is on the one hand the classical conception of Joachim Wach, which orders the discourse and proposes recognising research on religious experiences with one of the main disciplines of religious studies, and on the other Abraham Maslow’s concept of „peak experiences”and „plateau experiences”. Therefore, (1) religious experience is graded; (2) it is not exclusively the sense itself (sensus numinis), since it brings cognitive and volitional effects, (3) it need not have a personal character and (4) experiencing it usually leads to various, more or less successful attempts to express it, and this then happens by means of symbols and is organised in the form of myths.

The huge number of interpretations and approaches to religious experiences makes discourse in the scientific studies of religion on the scope and significance of these phenomena extremely difficult. Especially misleading is the identification of them with mystical experiences, as well as attempts to depreciate these types of experience that are alien to researchers. A possible solution is the introduction of a differentiated scale of religious experiences in which mystical experiences constitute their „climactic”, emotionally and cognitively most intensive form. Acknowledging Otto’s definition of sensus numinis, the content of the experience and its cognitive, motivational and physiological components become a problem. In this situation most promising is on the one hand the classical conception of Joachim Wach, which orders the discourse and proposes recognising research on religious experiences with one of the main disciplines of religious studies, and on the other Abraham Maslow’s concept of „peak experiences”and „plateau experiences”. Therefore, (1) religious experience is graded; (2) it is not exclusively the sense itself (sensus numinis), since it brings cognitive and volitional effects, (3) it need not have a personal character and (4) experiencing it usually leads to various, more or less successful attempts to express it, and this then happens by means of symbols and is organised in the form of myths.