I’ve had two conversations in the last several days about what we might call “religious experience.” This specific topic was not a major part of either of these conversations, nor was there mention of my own. But, I felt called to address it here and see where that leads.

I’m immediately reminded of an incident from 1978. At that time, I was a brand new teacher, having just improbably arrived at the University of San Diego High School (Uni as it was called and Catholic) as a member of the Religion Department. Now, this was bizarre on so many levels that I still shake my head at the wonder of it. Aside from the fact that I had no training as a teacher and no religious upbringing and that I’d only been an official Catholic for about a year and that, to a degree, because I saw being Catholic at the time as a means to end and that I beat out twelve other candidates for the position and that I hardly knew anything at all about Roman Catholicism as I’d only just begun a masters in Religious Studies at the adjacent Catholic university, I guess this was completely understandable. (I really got the job for a couple of good reasons, not the least of which was because the chair of the Social Science Department had seen my name and remembered that she was the graduate assistant for a top professor in the UCSD History Department and she’d read a paper I’d written on the Chinese Revolution four years before and said we need to hire him and get him over to her department when there was an opening. Another was that they saw me as one who could hopefully update a curriculum that was currently teaching French kissing and wearing a bikini as a mortal sin.) Oh, my, how prevenient grace works!

But, I digress. I was in my first department meeting of the ten or so teachers, three of whom were priests, two of whom were very old priests. One of these older ones complained vociferously that heresy was occurring in the Science Department in that they were teaching evolution. The other shook his head and said that it was terrible that another teacher was discussing the importance of religious experience as he (the priest) had never had a religious experience in his life (something I’d had on a number of occasions in the previous few years). I’m sure I said to myself some variation of “Dude, we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Either that, or “What in heck have I got myself into?!”

So, all of that aside, what is meant by religious experience, how can we understand it, is it reliable, and what does it have to do with our faith or belief?

I’m going to make some really broad statements here because this is a very complex subject. Back in the day, I read more than a couple of books and who knows how many articles on the topic and have probably spent about a gazillion hours in discussion about it. To compound things, we could easily skid over into Freudian psychoanalysis, biochemistry (I had one professor when I was getting my masters in Theology who raised aloud the question of whether salvation was biochemical or not and this was at a Catholic university but it was also not that long after the 60s) or the radical behaviorism of the anti-free will psychologist B.F. Skinner. In other words, there’s a whole lot of technical debate on the topic but, then again, it’s a pretty important topic when you get down to it.

For starters, is it legitimate for someone to say that he or she has experienced God?

When this question is asked, people will normally pause and seek clarification. After all, typical experience involves our normal sensory processes. We see, hear, feel, taste, touch. Those senses make connections and we process those connections. Hence we “experience” them, often both cognitively and emotionally … while perhaps one of those is stronger than the other.

But, God? Now, that’s a problem. We frequently hear of people who testify that God told them something. I guess that’s an experience, although we can certainly ask what they mean by being “told.” I’ve heard said that, “God has changed my heart.” Whatever a changed heart is, I imagine we can chalk that up to an experience if it’s tied to God. We hear (especially from those practicing more traditional eastern religions) that in meditation on what they might call the Divine, an intense feeling of peace or awareness arrives, sometimes with unbelievable power. The widely popular Transcendental Meditation movement of the 60s and 70s (full disclosure: I was trained in and practiced it for awhile in college) was designed to “lift” us out of this base place and to transport us (transcend) to a higher plane. Extremely experiential. The Self-Realization and Spiritualist movements are centered in religious experience. Most of the pantheistic religions (Hinduism and primitive religions of ancient peoples) are big on experience and promoting practices that emphasize experience.

The modern monotheistic religions, living aside science and skepticism, have often shied away from emphasizing experience, instead promoting practical systems requiring allegiance to sets of precepts. With some very notable and popular exceptions, experience is often viewed skeptically because, of course, it’s tough to prove, proof being a big thing in a world driven by science. Nevertheless, experience is as much a part of reality as any other thing!

Typically, then, religious experience can loosely be described as an apprehension (grasping) of the other, or Other. It is an intersection of sorts with a thing that cannot be described by purely natural language, hence it is with something we can call Supernatural or Transcendent. People described as religious mystics are said to attain a kind of knowledge or awareness not normally available to the regular intellect. They become “absorbed” in a different reality.

Now, while this may seem goofy to many, it is a common thread throughout the history of our species. I have heard it described countless times in conversations, have read about it in most of the major faith traditions and have had my own share of specific experiences, most of which I’ve shared over the years and on these pages. It is no wonder that this is one way people describe believing or knowing that God (or some deity) actually exists.

For those who cannot put a finger on having their own specific experience of a kind of transcendence, it’s hard to actually come to grips with what is happening. And for those who’ve had such experience, it’s common to resort to metaphors and analogies because the thing cannot be easily described in many cases.

Which begs the question, can we understand these things as reliable? We have at one end of the spectrum the skeptic or atheist who pooh poohs these as delusional while at the other end, those who live in the midst of experience as if it’s some kind of a drug. What gives? And, what’s someone who may not have had a powerful experience to make of it all? The stern priest I mentioned previously thought the whole thing more than a little ridiculous (interesting given the substantial … although not mainstream … history within Roman Catholicism of mysticism). We also seem to have so many people on a quest for religious experience that it has fueled a latter day explosion of avenues designed to get us there.

Goodness! We have locations described as particularly “spiritual” where we are told we have a better shot at engaging the Other. We are asked to buy things like crystals and pyramids and to arrange our spaces Feng Shui. The Occult is a big sell these days as is connecting with deceased ancestors, performing magic, finding our Chi, channeling our Chakras, becoming one with the Om. There is a hunger to break out of the mundane (normal, routine, boring) into the exceptional (exciting, wonderful, extraordinary). Is all of this just a craven effort to avoid reality or is a hardwired call we have for something greater than we normally see?

I’m betting on the latter. I’m for the hardwiring.

You see, while I don’t believe that what we can commonly describe as religious experience is necessary for belief, I believe it can be a welcome byproduct and it can be a sign that points us in the right direction. And, here, I must draw a line that will separate me from some others who are engaged in spiritual paths. It is not easy for me to draw this line and I will refrain from being too explicit.

Like most of the rest of humankind, I believe in a supernatural reality. I have a scientific and rational mind and I see absolutely no contradiction, to which a few of my naturist and atheist friends would disagree. I also believe that it’s not only possible to “understand” that this supernatural reality exists but to experience it. Of course, since I claim I have, that’s not a surprise!

The question then arises as to what’s really going on here? Without going into tremendous detail, I think it can be answered by what we think that supernatural reality really is. I’m not kidding or avoiding the question.

Since I believe all of the evidence supports my contention that there is a loving and just, all powerful God (expressed in three persons as Father/Creator, Son and Holy Spirit) and that he/they know me and want me to know him/them, then one way that happens is by actually “experiencing” God while on this side of things (the other side showing up after I depart from this side). Therefore, authentic religious experience is of that God. All other religious experience, while “authentic” in the sense that it may be of the supernatural, is not of and from the God I bow to. That statement will give pause to some and may even seem hostile. I have to be OK with that, however. It is a common refrain these days that “all paths lead to the same point/mountaintop.” I’m sorry, I respect others’ rights to believe that but I don’t, which I hope they will respect as well! The “religious” systems of the world, although most reflect some similarities in some ways, are truly contradictory. You can’t have them all be equally true! And, that’s OK. 🙂

As far as Christianity is concerned, I believe it’s possible to be a “Christian,” one who actually embraces the fundamental tenets, but who would be hard pressed to describe having an experience of God. It’s possible but I would have to ask why that’s the case and isn’t such a Christian missing a huge piece of the whole deal?

Because, when we surrender to God and accept that Jesus is who he says he is, then something remarkable occurs. We are inviting him inside. And, when we make the choice to invite God inside and take over our lives from the things that have previously driven us, the world shifts and I testify that experience flows.

Like with the two men I’ve spoken with in the last couple of days, our experience of God has given us assurance that he is real. While different, each of us believe it’s as real as anything else we know. The two men are career scientists, while I only dabble in it. To them (and me) these experiences are intensely real and line up quite nicely with other “data” which we commonly accept in our daily lives.

I need to say something else about these experiences. For me, and others with whom I’ve spoken, there’s a curious fact that they arrive unbidden. It’s not as if we’ve sat down, closed our eyes, prayed really hard for God to show up and then, wham-o, we’re suffused with some divine or supernatural essence. It just does not seem to work that way … at least with the God I know. (The practitioner of many of the Eastern traditions might disagree as intense meditation has as perhaps its main objective to release one from the illusions of this world in order to merge with the great Other which is all things.)

No, the times I’ve been overwhelmed with an experience of God, in retrospect, I was primed and ready but not necessarily consciously so. Certainly, I was not asking to be overwhelmed, so when it arrived, I was truly shocked. As in shock and awe. Ironically, it was wham-o! My major ones probably lasted a few minutes in real time but were so intense that the reverberations lasted hours and even days and mind-boggling so. While the effects wear off over time, the memory and knowledge remain. They are unlike anything else, truly.

We may call these things “peak experiences” as they would be graphed as a massive spike on the intensity scale of the things to which we pay attention. Which raises an interesting set of questions.

Are we able to “experience” God in ways that are less intense? Is it possible, over time, to raise the bar in a general way on the one hand and on the other hand to raise the frequency?

To which I say to both: Yes.

It has been over a dozen years since my greatest and most profound experience which, by the way, was not the first as I have written before. (Without a doubt, my first was when I was 13 and it blew me away. To say that it was unbidden is an understatement as I had no concept of the divine at that point.) Since then, I have had one other truly peak experience which occurred about eight years ago.

Those aside, there is no question but I am able to see and know God in many, many ways that were unavailable a relatively short time ago. I am aware of his presence in both profound and subtle ways. Not in every waking moment, mind you, as I am a forgetful and neglectful man.

The best way to describe this is to share the lyrics from one of my favorite songs, entitled, Breathe.

This is the air I breathe

This is the air I breathe

Your holy presence living in me

This is my daily bread

This is my daily bread

Your very word spoken to me

And I, I’m desperate for you

And I, I’m lost without you

(These words are repeated in various ways throughout the piece)

When God is like the air we breathe, both fully life-giving and the most natural thing in our life, we are transformed. We leave a world of theology and institutionalized religion. We see, hear and feel things differently. Yes, we still suffer but it’s a different kind of suffering. The simplest way I can describe it is like when Diane looks at my glasses and remarks, “How can you possibly see out of those things? They’re filthy!” And, then I clean them and, voila! I see things with a new clarity that makes me wonder, indeed, how I was functioning with dirty lenses. That, times 100.

So, yes, by surrendering and seeking a deeper relationship with God, we open ourselves to a life of abundance that he promises. I do not mean material abundance but spiritual abundance that is reflected in experience. It is also good to talk about these things and to share with others as we tread forward in our lives, making our way in this world.

God bless.