Characteristics Of Mysticism

Although not the first scholar to examine the idea of religion, Jones utilizes the concept from the study of Self Psychology in order to determine if “transformative religious experience is mature or unhealthy” (Jones 2002). In chapter 5 of his text, Jones

Craig Martin is the Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College. He serves upon the North American Association for the Study of Religion, and is the author of five books that primarily deal with the complex relationship between society and religion and the “religious experience”.

For William James, his perspective on religious experience was skeptical. He divided religion between institutional religion and personal religion. For institutional religion he made reference to the religious group or organization that plays a critical part in the culture of a society. Personal religion he defined as when an individual has a mystical experience which can occur regardless of the culture. James was more focused on the personal religious experience, “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in

In William James’ 1902 book “The Varieties of Religious Experience” he opens with depicting the approach of his review. He clarifies that it would be of little advantage to construct the examination with respect to regular people who have bound religious encounters and emulate customs which have been passed on to them. Rather, he centers the review around 'religious virtuosos '. In addition, as he clarifies in his second address, the attention must be on individual religious experience instead of corporate, in light of the fact that it is more central. Actually, it is out of the extreme encounters of a little few that most religious developments (or "factions" as he terms them) have created. Part 3 builds up that individuals appear to have the ability to encounter the concealed furthermore an inclination to see it as being more genuine than things seen, listened, touched or tasted.

In using Maslow 's theory of self actualization and definition of religious experience types (confirming, responsive, ecstatic, and revelational), found no differences between type of religious experience and self actualization. The concern itself is only with the incidence and centrality of a person 's self defined spiritual experience. It is hypothesized that the more people get older the more he or she finds his or her spiritual experience to be a central part of his or her life, the higher they will score on the self-actualization measure.

2016). What I found after the research is that medicine men and woman, or spiritual leaders of the Native American tribes had the ability to assist in areas of healing, or called the spirits to offer good weather, etc. This is important because this indicates a leadership ability, and those that are wise, knowledgeable, and have experience were entitled to this position (Britanica). What I find fascinating about this aspect of their religion, is that it connects to many of the other aspects they share. In order for them to connect to nature, perform rituals, find a vision quest and connect to the spirit world, all these combinations are intertwined (Britanica). What I was able to find, is that the spirit world guided the Native Americans to become connected with their practices. Whether they wanted to have a better hunt, or prosperous crops, healthy tribe members, everything was connected through the spirits that guided them. Although they did not have many references to death and the afterlife, the spirit was mentioned many times as it still remained, as long as those that are living still remembered the dead. What I also found unique and interesting is that the basic religious functions are performed by every member of the group, meaning that there was not much distinction between the tribe in terms of who was able to perform what duties, as there was a little need for trained professional needed to perform these rituals (Hopfe et al. 2016). Despite their religious practices, when they were driven by the European man, slowly the population died off and converted to Native American

Prior to understanding and describing religious experiences, it’s important to define the terms and typology of religious experiences. A point of contention for theologians is whether or not mystical or out-of-body experiences are religious in nature. To understand what the role religion plays in these experiences, for this context, you must define and understand what religion is and the major components that make it up. James states that religion “cannot stand for any single principle or essence, but is rather a collective name” (35). If you were to ask someone about the essence of an object or a concept, different people would provide various components or parts of it. You would end up of with a list ranging from objective and subjective responses, but it would provide a better understanding of it because, like religion, no one thing or person can be summed up in a sentence or a word.

James conceived a more practical, and dynamic view of how human beings act. He developed a distinguishable definition of psychology, which identified pragmatism. He defined psychology as the science of mental life, regarding both its phenomena, and conditions (James, 1998, p. 139). The phenomena accounts for what is found in the soul, while the conditions were the antecedents of this mental life. James evaluated the spiritualist, and associationist schools of thought as the two most influential processes which explain the phenomena, and conditions.

Within the works of both Abraham Heschel and Paul Tillich, there is a main focus on what faith is and what the components of faith are. The books Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion and Dynamics of Faith, written by Heschel and Tillich respectively, both share a common ideology about the faith expressed by man in relation to the divine. However, there are a few points of contention within their beliefs that cause the reader to realize that though they may seem to have the same thoughts about faith at a cursory glance, they are not completely the same. These deviations emphasize the difference in their development of faith, and how their fundamental views of the divine are the cause of this variance. By bringing attention to these differences,

Upon reading William Clifford’s essay “The Ethics of Belief” and George Santayana’s essay on James in “Character and Opinion in the United States”, we now critically analyze James’s argument in favor of religious belief in his essay “The Will to Believe”. After briefly explaining the underlying descriptors that are entrenched in formulating a hypothesis in becoming a firm belief, we’ll further follow up on applying them to his notion of religion and the potential it has on an individual, as well as the antithetical approach provided by William Clifford.

William James was an American psychiatrist and philosopher, born in 1842 and touted as the leader of the philosophical movement of Pragmatism and of the psychological movement of functionalism (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014). James’ rebuttal to the Clifford’s Ethics of Believe, was the famed Will to Believe.

When discussing religion, many people have different perspectives about religion beliefs and how to approach it. Religion is grouped in different sections such as, religion and spirituality, religion and philosophy, and religion and politics. Religion has many different views from different cultures because everyone approaches it differently with different beliefs also. To make something religion, is to have some type of belief in God, but everyone’s belief is different depending on the culture someone is located in. In society back then and today, religion has no set essence of a definition because of the different aspects people group religion in. This paper will explain the different aspects of what people believe constitutes different types of religion.

Finally, we can see how William James takes an objective point of view from a few quotes in his book “The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy”. One of these quotes was, “ That is why I call pessimism an essentially religious disease.”Now although this may seem to go against his view of allowing people to believe their own thoughts, it is actually the contrary. This is because pessimism is essentially the belief of seeing things negatively or viewing things in a negative light. But, I thin this leads to the point in which William James says that religion is personal. Along with this, he stated, “Be not afraid of life. Believe

For example, William James studied religious experience and suggested that the spiritual process works to curtail people's negative behaviors (James, 1936). For James, spirituality helps individuals recognize their own earthly suffering as either a consequence of individual pathology or addictive behavior, or both. When people begin to criticize or consciously reject problematic individual behaviors as a permanent way of being, then they become open to the possibility of rising to a higher awareness. This higher awareness of his or her own behavior is then integrated as a part of the person's psychology. James was already considering the role religion plays in a person's consciousness early in the twentieth century.

Moreover, Durkheim compares religion to society. He says that society is the cause of the unique sensations of the religious experiences, so called “sui generis” (Ritzer, 84). This concept