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Secular Society, Religious Meanings: A Contemporary Paradox
Abstract
A random sample of the adult population of an English industrial city was interviewed to ascertain the proportion of people reporting certain types of human experience which are commonly given a religious interpretation. Whilst the number claiming active membership of a religious institution was very low, a majority of people (62%) said they had this type of experience at least once or twice in their lives. Respondents were asked to give descriptions of their experiences and it was possible to classify these. The coded categories were found to relate to the extent to which an experience was, in fact, interpreted religiously. Furthermore, the more important an experience was judged to be by the individual, the more likely it was to be interpreted religiously. The hypothesis is proposed that interpretations of these experiences are given according to the sector of society within which the experiencer finds himself. There is evidence of a strong taboo against the public admission of these experiences, perhaps because they conflict with currently dominant secular models of reality.
... Another highly regarded survey of 1,467 participants (Greeley, 1975) had coding and classification findings that overlap partially with the Hardy study but also differ in many respects. A later study that used a derivative of the Hardy advertisement failed to classify any responses as non-symbolic (Hay & Morisy, 1985). One that was worded to specifically attract people with non-symbolic experiences produced a 65% affirmative response from participants, but additional analysis revealed that only a little over 9% may have actually had a non-symbolic experience (Hay, 1979). ...
Non-symbolic experiences have been reported for millennia and generally attributed to spiritual and religious contexts, although atheists and agnostics also report them. Popular terms for them include: nondual awareness, enlightenment, mystical experiences , peak experiences, transcendental experience , the peace that passeth understanding, unity consciousness, union with God, and so forth. Most are temporary, but some individuals report a persistent form of them. Some scholars have argued that these experiences represent advanced stages of human development and placed them atop existing levels in various domains of developmental psychology such as cognitive or ego development. There is little evidence for this view. Moreover, several problems with it are pointed out in the present work.
The primary goal of this study is to test the above taxonomy by comparing ego development and Mysticism Scale measurements from a diverse population of individuals who report persistent non-symbolic experience. This investigation first hypothesized that individuals who report persistent non-symbolic experience would exhibit a range of psychological developmental levels, specifically tested here as a composite, ego development, using the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT). Second, it hypothesized that individuals who report persistent non-symbolic experience would score higher on Hood's Mysticism Scale than those who do not report such experiences. Third, it hypothesized the absence of a simple or linear relationship between scores on the WUSCT and Mysticism Scale for those who report non-symbolic experience.
These hypotheses were examined in 36 adults (F=9, M=27) reporting persistent non-symbolic experience. The first hypothesis was supported: ego development stages ranged from 5 (Loevinger and Cook-Greuter's "Self Aware" stage) to 10 (Cook-Greuter's "Unitive" stage). The second hypothesis was also supported: average and median Mysticism Scale scores notably exceeded those reported in studies of other populations. The third hypothesis could not be adequately tested because the Mysticism Scale score distribution was strongly skewed upwards, making most statistical comparisons unworkable. Overall, this study provides the first strong evidence that persistent non-symbolic experience does not represent higher levels of ego development.
... Adding a more systematic approach, the Alister Hardy foundation collected thousands of accounts of experiences from people who had responded to the questions, "Have you ever had the feeling of being close to a powerful spiritual force that seemed to lift you out of yourself?" or "Have you ever been aware of or influenced by a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday self?" (Hardy, 1979;Hay & Morisy, 1985). These studies replicated previous findings that religious, spiritual, and mystical experiences are relatively common, and not the rare, esoteric experiences that some mistakenly suppose (Scharfstein, 1973). ...
Mystical experiences are often described as “ineffable,” or beyond language. However, people readily speak about their mystical experiences if asked about them. How do people describe what is supposedly indescribable? In this study, we used quantitative linguistic analyses to interpret the writings of 777 participants (45.5% female, 51.0% male) who recounted their most significant spiritual or religious experience as part of an online survey. High and low scorers on a measure of mystical experiences differed in the language they used to describe their experiences. Participants who have had mystical experiences used language that was more socially and spatially inclusive (e.g., “close,” “we,” “with”) and used fewer overtly religious words (e.g., “prayed,” “Christ,” “church”) than participants without such experiences. Results indicated that people can meaningfully communicate their mystical experiences, and that quantitative language analyses provide a means for understanding aspects of such experiences.
... hile people claiming active membership of a religious institution in England is very low, many people report that they have had a spiritual experience at some time or another (Hay & Morisy 1985). When given the chance, people will talk about such seemingly common experiences. ...
... Mystical experiences can influence a person's religious beliefs and a person's religious beliefs apparently can affect the occurrence of mystical experiences and/or the perception that transcendent experiences are religious experiences (Hay and Morisy, 1985;Spilka, Hood, and Gorsuch, 1985:Chapter 8). This is another situation when it is difficult to sort out the direction of causation. ...
A model developed in an investigation of the effects of transcendent experiences on subjective well-being may provide insight into the weak, positive correlation between religious commitment and well-being. This model suggests that religious commitment influences a person's sense of meaning in life, which, in turn, influences well-being. The model also suggests that transcendent experiences can affect religious commitment, which then influences meaning in life and well-being. The data from a convenience sample of 182 people are very consistent with this causal chain model. More importantly, numerous other studies of the relationships between specific components of the model are consistent with the model. However, the available data and structural equation methods are ambiguous about the direction of causation along this chain path, and reciprocal or bi-directional causation is likely. Although the direction of causation may vary, the intervening or mediating roles appear to apply with either causal direction.
... While traditional beliefs and institutional religion have declined, spiritual experience has risen: 39.5% affirmed they had experienced a spiritual presence or power different from their everyday self, compared with 32.8% in 1991. Although this statistic is lower than the 62% reported in England when respondents were interviewed face-to-face and the interviewer could explain the question (Hay & Morisy, 1985), it is consistent with questionnaire responses -36.4% from England and 35% from the United States (Greeley, 1974;Hay & Morisy, 1978). That 21.9% chose the 'Not sure' option suggests the proportion could be higher. ...
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... Folk religion differs by being only loosely coupled with most formal religious doctrines, as it is primarily communicated and maintained informally among believers as they apply cognitive religious schema to experience (Bowman, 2004). 4 Folk religion is syncretistic, unsystematic, informal, and largely anecdotal (Ackerman, 2001;Hay and Morisy, 1985;Kaneko, 1990;Trachtenberg, 2004;Williams, 1980). It typically involves the intervention of miraculous phenomena in daily life, as in cases of illness, bereavement, and other personal tragedies for which a society's major institutions fail to provide satisfactory solutions (Wuthnow, 1987). ...
Belief in angels and their intervention in the material world is prevalent in the United States. Theoretically, the concept of folk religion offers an instructive lens into the popularity of these beliefs, which exist inside, outside, and across official religious doctrines, and are therefore able to transcend the boundaries of specific religious traditions by appealing to a diverse array of believers. Empirical analyses from a recent national survey support the application of the concept of folk religion, demonstrating that these beliefs are present in substantial proportions across disparate subgroups. Belief in angelic intervention is prevalent among conservative and “mainline” Protestants, Catholics, those with high levels of conventional religious practice, biblical literalists, and even those who strongly believe in “paranormal” phenomena such as Bigfoot and ESP. Belief in angels and claims of angelic protection provide compelling and flexible narratives, ready cognitive attributions, and emotional comfort. Consequently, these views have strong memetic appeal and are transposable into multifarious subcultures.
The study of human biology includes exploration of all the genetic and environmental influences on human variation and life history, including impacts of sociocultural and physical environments. Religious practice and spirituality may be one of these influences. There are more than 5.8 billion religiously affiliated adults and children, accounting for 84% of the world's 6.9 billion people. Furthermore, 70% of Americans consider themselves spiritual in some way, including 22% who do not consider themselves religious, and the numbers for Europe are lower but proportionally similar. Such a high rate of religious affiliation and spiritual belief suggests that religion and spirituality could be sociocultural influences on human variation, but human biologists have scarcely attended to their impacts, as indicated by the limited numbers of relevant articles in the two flagship human biology journals. In this article, we discuss why human biologists may have overlooked this important force for human variability and highlight foundational work from human biology and other disciplines that can give our colleagues directions forward. We review the impacts of religion and spirituality at population and individual levels and call for human biologists to attend to the many aspects of religion and spirituality that can impact human biology and are much more than simply influences of denominational affiliation.
Conflict and crisis are common phenomena in many countries
of the world, including Nigeria. They are perceived and
analyzed differently by people. Conflict and crisis are two
interrelated concepts used to describe occurrences in
traditional human society. In Nigeria, religious, ethnic and
political conflicts are common occurrences. This paper, therefore, examines the concept of conflict, its prevention
and management, and the role of Christian religion towards
achieving this in Nigeria. The paper employs descriptive
and evaluative methods to achieve its aim.
This paper, therefore, recommends that Christians should
employ the principle of the universal brotherhood of humanity
in the prevention and management of conflicts and crisis in
Nigeria. The paper concludes that combined efforts of
government, religious leaders and groups, humanist groups,
civil society and individuals are required for a sincere and
consistent implementation of these preventive and managerial
measures.
The purpose of this study was to introduce the Mysticism Scale on a Hungarian population and to investigate the meaning and nature of reported mystical experiences (ME) from three different aspects: their associations with religious attitudes, the big five personality traits, and the need for cognitive closure. The sample consisted of 240 respondents who completed the Mysticism scale, the Post Critical Belief Scale, the Big Five Inventory, and the Need for Cognitive Closure Scale using an online questionnaire. Results indicated that ME positively correlated with the two dimensions of the Post Critical Belief scale, as well as with Openness to Experience. Moderate but significant positive correlations were found between ME and Agreeableness. Finally, ME negatively correlated with the need for cognitive closure (NFC) and with three of the NFC subscales (Close-mindedness, Preference for Order, and Preference for Predictability). Regression analysis using the above as variables highlighted that the acceptance of Transcendence and Openness to Experience were the main predictors of mystical experiences, whilst Symbolic interpretation might also have contributed, although to a lesser extent.
Alister Hardy’s initiative in starting a programme of empirical research into religious experience in the UK employing the methods of the social sciences continues through the work of the Religious Experience Research Centres. John Greer initiated a similar research tradition through his questionnaire surveys of the incidence and nature of religious experience among children and young people in Northern Ireland. Leslie Francis and Tania ap Siôn replicated Greer’s classic surveys, with ap Siôn extending Greer’s analysis into nine categories of religious experience (Guidance and help, Exam concerns, God’s presence, Answered prayer, Death, Sickness, Conversion, Difficulty of description, and Miscellaneous), while also noting their setting and frequency. This paper develops the Greer tradition further, drawing on more recent data from pupils in the Republic of Ireland, and arguing for a modified analytical process in order to provide a more nuanced understanding of reports of religious experience.
Kwalitatief exploratief interview onderzoek naar zingeving in een geseculariseerde wereld. In welke opzichten gaat de these van Th.Luckmann van ' the invisible religion' op?
Psychotherapeutic groups are a regular component in the treatment of schizophrenia. The most popular empirically tested approaches are social skills groups, and psycho-educational, cognitive dysfunctions, and cognitive-behavioral approaches. In contrast, psychodynamic approaches have not yet been empirically investigated. Furthermore, there are several methodological problems concerning the examination of the therapeutic efficacy of group therapy with schizophrenic patients, e.g. the investigation of the specific effectiveness of the group component. There is a lack of empirical evidence on several aspects relevant to clinical practice, e.g. outcome predictors or structural characteristics of the therapy. The need to re-evaluate psychodynamic approaches and to investigate the therapeutic processes that are involved in groups with schizophrenic patients are emphasized.
Parece existir una conexión entre síntomas esquizotípicos y experiencia espiritual según la cual, en la población normal, individuos con experiencias espirituales también indican niveles relativamente altos de experiencias y pensamiento esquizotípico. Sin embargo, en la esquizotipia hay características positivas dominantes –por ejemplo, ideación mágica y experiencias perceptuales inusuales– que son sustancialmente opuestos de los síntomas negativos, tales como anhedonia, dificultades afectivas y déficit interpersonal. Para este estudio, se comparó a una muestra de estudiantes de psicología “no espirituales” (N= 71) y “espirituales” (N= 131) de ambos sexos; 24% varones y 76% mujeres, con un rango etario 17-57 años (Media= 24.31; SD= 6.78). La espiritualidad
aquí se definió como el conjunto de pensamientos, ideas, y actitudes no estructurados, asociados
al sentimiento místico y de unidad, sin conexión con doctrina religiosa alguna. Se plantean tres hipótesis: (1) que se encontrará una diferencia significativa de síntomas positivos de esquizotipia entre los dos grupos de estudiantes, pero (2) se encontrará una diferencia no significativa en los negativos; y (3) que experiencias paranormales usualmente asociadas a la esquizotipia (tales como la telepatía, ver el aura, experiencias fuera del cuerpo, sensación de presencia y ver apariciones) correlacionarán positiva y significativamente con síntomas positivos de esquizotipia en lugar de los negativos. Se encontró una diferencia significativa en síntomas positivos de esquizotipia
entre el grupo de estudiantes “espiritual” (Media= 14.32) y “no espiritual” (Media= 12.63) (p = .02), aunque no significativo para los sintomas negativos; se encontró además que todas las experiencias paranormales correlacionaron significativamente con síntomas positivos de esquizotipia (telepatía r= .25, ver el aura r= 15, experiencias fuera del cuerpo r= 25, sensación de presencia r= 33; y ver apariciones r= 28; todas p < .001, a dos colas). Aunque fenómenos paranormales tales como telepatía y ver el aura no correlacionaron con los síntomas negativos de esquizotipia, sin embargo, se encontró una correlación significativa entre experiencia fuera del cuerpo (r= .07; p =
.03), sensación de presencia (r= .11; p = .002) y ver apariciones (r= .12; p < .001, a dos colas) con los síntomas negativos, aunque sustancialmente más bajas que en los síntomas positivos. Posiblemente las experiencias y creencias esquizotípicas benignas podrían no sólo no ser patológicas, sino positivas y provechosas para el individuo.
The marketing of religion remains a large research area to explore, simply because the studies that have been conducted are mostly applications of a marketing mix to the religious offer. In the context of globalization, it is surprising that the internationalization of religious organizations remains an uncovered subject because Christian religions have a biblical mission to become international. This paper explores the phenomenon of the internationalization of religious organizations in order to better understand their preferred expansion modes in Ivory Coast, since Western evangelist Christian communities in West Africa have flourished in recent decades. The current analysis allows us to draw a conclusion that the process of religious expansion is truly the result of a strategic reflection supported by marketing tools and communication. This emphasizes the role of marketing as a leverage for profit and nonprofit organizations, as well as its growing importance as a means for appealing to the masses among new Christian communities of Third World countries. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The 1988 Education Reform Act requires, and recent DES and government publications advise, that a significant portion of the primary and secondary curriculum should be devoted to the religious dimension of human experience. In spite of this emphasis, religious education continues to be a Cinderella subject in many schools.
The thesis presented here is that this paradox is rooted in an ambivalence about religion that first became prominent during the European Enlightenment. Socially powerful scientific critiques of religion and religious experience have come to threaten its plausibility and therefore the autonomy of religious education as a valid part of the curriculum.
The first part of the paper presents empirical data, drawn from large‐scale surveys in three Western nations, which test the validity of the following critical conjectures about the nature of contemporary religious experience:
1 Religious experience is very infrequently reported in modern Western societies.
2 Supposed religious experience is an illusion generated by either social or personal pathology.
3 Supposed religious experience is in fact ‘effervescent’ feelings experienced by people at large‐scale religious gatherings.
None of these conjectures is supported by the data. Between one‐half and two‐thirds of the adult populations of Britain, the USA and Australia would probably report religious experience; it is usually more commonly reported in the sectors of society that are least oppressed; it appears to be significantly linked with good mental health; the great majority of these experiences take place when the individual is alone.
The second part of the paper discusses the significance of the empirical data for education. Although the findings do not affect the ontological argument about religious experience, it is argued that they validate and give plausibility to recent practical developments in Religious Education. One example of these approaches is provided by the work of the Religious Experience and Education Project at Nottingham University.
Religious experience is an important but understudied aspect of religion. Sociologists need a theoretical approach that appreciates the existence of and variation in the social distribution of religious experiences. Recognizing that theories are interpretive frameworks through which we view the world, and understanding that ''every way of seeing is a way of not seeing,'' we examine two potential ''ways of seeing'' religious experience in modem society and explore their ability co shed light upon recent surveys which suggest that as much as half the United States adult population has had what can be called ''religious experiences. '' As the dominant views in sociology largely exclude from consideration the experiential dimension of religion, we turn to perspectives that take religious experience more seriously, what Lindbeck (1984) calls the ''experiential-expressive'' and ''cultural-linguistic'' views. While the former is an advance over the dominant views, it too has liabilities. We advocate the cultural-linguistic theory as die most sophisticated way of seeing religion. As a preliminary test of this view, we examine the relationship between ''ecstatic'' religious experience and ''conventional'' religiosity, predicting that the most contentional worshipers will have ecstatic experiences most frequently. Logistic regression analysis of General Social Survey data supports this prediction.
This review outlines Hardy's hypothesis that religious experience involves a kind of awareness that has evolved through natural selection because of its survival value to the individual. A description is given of attempts to test it in comparison with competing hypotheses about religious experience that derive from Marx, Durkheim, and Freud. The research has brought to light evidence that strengthens the plausibility of Hardy's hypothesis while not supporting the rival explanations. These developments have taken place in a social context where post-Enlightenment, secular models of reality have come to dominate contemporary understanding. It is contended that this historical process has led to a failure on the part of many scientists to attend seriously to the phenomenology of religious experience. This has produced a distorted under- standing and dismissal of what appears to be a widespread and normal field of human experience. The practical implications of this for human welfare, along with recent empirical research in adjacent fields, provide reason for investigating Hardy's thesis more extensively.
he publication of the Handbook of Religious Experience , edited by Ralph W. Hood (1995), demonstrates the growing importance of this area of study within the psychology of religion. This comprehensive review also highlights some of the major weaknesses in the current basis of empirical knowledge about the incidence and correlates of religious experience. In par- ticular two problems frustrate the synthesis and evaluation of the empirical studies conducted in the field. The first problem concerns the definition of religious experience and the operationalisation of the construct in ways appropriate to empirical investi- gation. As long as different surveys concerned with religious experience elicit information by asking a variety of different questions it remains problematic to integrate the findings from such surveys. For example, the study by Hoge and Smith (1982) was driven by the question 'Has there been any particular event or experience in your life which has changed your feelings about God and the Church?' The study by Hay and Morisy (1985) was driven by the somewhat different question 'Have you ever been aware of or influenced by a presence or a power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday self?' The second problem concerns the different methods of sampling, the different populations studied, and the different techniques employed for eliciting information by different projects. For example, the original data assembled by the Religious Experience Research Unit in Oxford and dis- cussed by Robinson (1977a, b, 1978) was elicited by requests published in the national press, Hoge and Smith (1982) administered questionnaires to churchgoers, and Hay and Morisy (1985) interviewed a random sample of adult residents in Nottingham. One helpful response to these two problems is demonstrated by John E. Greer's programme of research in Northern Ireland, which has employed the same question in a series of studies among well defined cross-sectional sam- ples of secondary school pupils. These studies have consistently employed the question 'Have you ever had an experience of God, e.g. his presence or his help or anything else?'
Over 200 married adults were selected purposively from the 20 major U.S. religious denominations in two midwestern cities and surveyed via self-report questionnaires as to the influence of religious belief and practice on family satisfaction. The ma- jority of respondents reported that religion was helpful to family life. Assistance was primarily in the form of enhancing the family's social network and by encouraging family members to petition God for help with family problems. Those who reported more social support and divine intervention reported higher levels of family satisfaction. Implications are suggested for use by family professionals. Today's families face a myriad of problems including economic dif- ficulties, physical health addic- tion problems, and many stressful work related issues. Those who work with and for families-therapists, social workers, family life educators, psychologists, and government policy- makers-continue to look for new ways to assist families. In these efforts to promote family well-being, an addi- tional resource that is readily available to many families, but seldom recog- nized nor utilized by family profes- sionals, may be religion.
This article reports findings from a study of headteachers and spirituality. It is intended to give some insight into the importance of spiritual experience as a phenomenon which enables leaders to be better resourced internally and find deeper meaning, and to provide evidence of the significance and influence of spiritual experience for educational leadership in schools. The study draws on survey and interview data from secondary and primary headteachers in three local education authorities in England. (Contains 6 tables, 1 figure and 10 notes.)
A sample of 2,359 sixth-form pupils (between the ages of 16 and 18 years) in Northern Ireland (1,093 attending seven Protestant schools and 1,266 attending nine Catholic schools) responded in 1998 to Greer's classic question 'Have you ever had an experience of God, for example, his presence or his help or anything else?' Religious experience was reported by 29% of Protestant males, 29% of Catholic males, 39% of Protestant females and 38% of Catholic females. Compared with earlier data these figures reveal a particularly marked decline in reported religious experience among Catholic females (64% in 1981, 56% in 1984, 61% in 1992 and 38% in 1998). The content of the reported religious experience is analysed and illustrated within nine descriptive categories characterised as: help and guidance, exams, God's presence, answered prayer, death, sickness, conversion, difficulty in describing, and miscellaneous.
It is only recently that the spirituality of children as distinct from their religion has appeared as a subject of academic interest. This development permits us to investigate children's spirituality as an aspect of a more general category than that of religion. Spirituality is characterised here as a natural form of human awareness. Research evidence is offered to demonstrate that the ‘natural’ hypothesis is more resilient to scientific testing than other more reductionist interpretations of spirituality. The conceptual underpinning of a study of children's spirituality based on the hypothesis is described. The hypothesis appears to offer a fruitful way forward for research.
Drawn from research in England in the 1990s,1 this article revisits the recent history of RE, injustices caused by legislation to minority groups, and the shift in emphasis in RE from concepts of religion to concerns of religions. Recognising the need for moves to alleviate the injustices, and suggesting that the move towards the systematised study of religions is counter‐productive, it moves on to discuss wider forms of disparity of esteem experienced by the majority of participants in RE. These people are pupils and teachers who might be described as belonging to the ‘religions of the silent majority’, but who might also describe themselves as ‘nothing’. Using John Wolffe's categorisation of these religions, it then illustrates the concerns and experiences of these people by introducing the reader to a ‘fictional’ pupil and her teacher. Moves towards pedagogies for RE are indicated, based on mutual understanding and exchange in which the minority groups (including Christian communities) and the majority can formulate and experience a religious education for all.
This paper draws on a wide range of researches to stress the importance of social context to the sociological understanding of religious experiences. It argues that individualistic definitions fail to take into account real group experiences such as those resulting from the reforms of Vatican II. For the sociologist, it is important to explore general patterns of group experiences and the meanings attributed to them. The paper discusses some of the methodological and conceptual problems in this area before considering evidence for the patterning of religious experience according to differences of generation, gender, class, level of urbanization, institutional involvement, and status inconsistency. The paper concludes by locating religious experiences in the context of modernity. In contrast to related theories of secularization, it draws attention to the recent work of Hervieu-Léger which suggests that utopian future expectations create space which can only be met by new forms of religious experience.
The Historical Context of Modern Empirical ResearchThe Beginnings of Modern ResearchThe Empirical Study of Religious or Spiritual Experience after 1960A Biological PerspectiveTesting the Biological Hypothesis against Alternative Naturalistic HypothesesLooking Ahead
Working in Britain and in Poland, the authors independently arrived at an interpretation of spirituality as a natural phenomenon. From the point of view of the British author, spirituality is based on a biological predisposition that has been selected for in the process of evolution because it has survival value. In several important ways this approach is in harmony with the psychological perspective of the Polish author that sees spirituality as a socioculturally structured and determined attempt to cope with the existential human situation. Thus interpreted, spirituality is a human universal appearing in many secular as well as religious forms, although its most typical manifestations have been in religious experience. In this essay we discuss research data in support of this theoretical point of view and highlight some of the issues in bringing the two theoretical perspectives together.
The concept of relational consciousness emerged during an investigation of the plausibility of the hypothesis that Darwinian natural selection underlies the cultural
phenomenon of religion. This conjecture originated with Sir Alister Hardy FRS, who was the Head of the Zoology Department
in Oxford University between 1946 and 1961 and founder in 1969 of the Religious Experience Research Unit, originally based
in Manchester College Oxford. Hardy’s initiative is not well known in the United States, so I will begin with some background
information as a preliminary to clarifying my own hypothesis about the connection of relational consciousness with altruism.
Research evidenced in both Britain and the United States over the past 15 years suggests that reports of ‘religious experience’ are much more widespread than was previously suspected. The concept of ‘religious experience’ has its origins in Protestant Christianity, but has come to refer to a realm of experience believed by some scholars to be common to all members of the species. It would seem that recent proposals to make comparative investigations of religious experience across a number of different religious cultures require an assumption of the validity of the ‘common core’ view. Some of the difficulties involved in this assumption are discussed, and suggestions made for a continuing research programme.
The natural science base of modern medicine influences the way in which medicine is delivered and may ignore the spiritual factors associated with illness. The history of spirituality in healing presented here reflects the growth of scientific knowledge, demands for religious renewal, and the shift in the understanding of the concept of health within a broader cultural context. General practitioners have been willing to entertain the idea of spiritual healing and include it in their daily practice, or referral network. Recognizing patients' beliefs in the face of suffering is an important factor in health care practice.
Studies in the United States show that "ecstatic," "paranormal," or "religious experience is much more widespread than contemporary descriptions of reality would lead us to suppose. Despite differences in methodology, trends seem to be emerging and a recent national survey in Great Britain suggests that these findings may not be peculiar to North America. The paper outlines points of convergence and divergence between the British and American work on the occurrance of such experience and its relation to psychological well-being, and explores theoretical perspectives which may illuminate the information gathered in these surveys.
Recent large scale studies of reports of "religious experience" have the shortcoming that they give only limited indications of the substantive content of such experience. This paper presents a descriptive account of reports of religious experience amongst a random sample of post-graduate students. A very high proportion of students claimed experience, and their statements were found to have certain consistent characteristics and to be amenable to classification. It seems possible that by taking descriptions of this kind seriously, some problems in the scientific study of religion may receive clarification.
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