Religious experiences, transformative paths and religious goals

Abstract

Though McNamara indicates that his focus is mainly on theistic forms of religious experience common in the West, it is important to consider how his broadly stated thesis might be affected by data from traditions other than those that are the focus of his book. Although he is right to call our attention to the processes through which religious traditions promote and religious practitioners cultivate experiential states, his approach is limited by his non-attributional conceptualization of religious experience as the culmination of one path toward one goal. A more nuanced approach would require attending more closely to: (1) the diversity of ‘experiences’ that religious traditions set apart as being of particular importance; (2) the diversity of practices that are prescribed as being efficacious towards the attainment of those experiences; and (3) the dynamic relationship between individual practitioners and authorities of a religious tradition, wherein questions of authenticity arise and experiences are deemed ‘religious’ or not.

Keywords:

• Patrick McNamara
• neuroscience
• religious experience
• path schema

Notes

¹He cites the following properties: (1) ‘unity or a sense of integration’; (2) ‘transcendence of time and space’; (3) ‘deeply felt positive mood’; (4) ‘a sense of sacredness’; (5) ‘a noetic quality’; (6) ‘paradoxicality or the ability to respectfully hold opposing points of view’; (7) ‘alleged ineffability’; (8) ‘transiency of euphoria’; (9) ‘persisting positive changes in attitudes and behavior’; (10) ‘enhanced sense of personal power’ or sense that ‘one has been specially blessed by God’; (11) enhanced ‘capacities to accurately guess the mental states and intentions of others’; (12) ‘changes in sexual behaviors’; (13) ‘changes in reading/writing behaviors’; (14) ‘enhanced awareness and appreciation of music’; (15) ‘complex visual and metaphoric imagery’; (16) ‘ritualization’; (17) ‘encounter with God or spirit beings’ (McNamara 2009: 15–16).