religious experiences

a vision 

There are different types of visions that people can have :

• corporeal - live in the fresh 
• imaginative - they are in a dream or unconsious state 
• intellectual - the person learns something from the vision 

An example of a vision would be saul or st paul - he had an intellectual vision in which he knew about the plans of the christians in Damascus

As well, St Bernadette has a corporeal vision, this is where she saw mary in the flesh in the cave. 

In the bible, Joesph and Mary both had imaginitive visions. mary had the vision of the angel appearing to her and telling her of the arrival Jesus. Joesphs imaginitive dream was also intellectual but it was about moving to egypt with jesus. 

A conversion experience is an event in which changes someones life to a religious way of life

A conversion experience has many different sub-characteristics that help to define hat the individuals conversion was like, they include:

• active or passive - meaning the person is either ACTIVELY seeking the religious change in life or that a person is unaware of the change that is about to occur 
• volitional or self surrendering - meaning the person either freely has the choice to change or the person feels they have no other choice but to change thier ways, due to the circumstance

 The next catergory includes the type of transformation that a person has, they can be:

• atheist to faith - the case of nicki cruz
• faith believing to faith trusting - that of alec guinesses 
• one faith to another 

A conversion experience can be seen through that of saul to st paul, on the road to Damascus 

The religious experience of prayer is when a person feels that their prayer as been answered. 

a person may pray to god for themselves or for other people, often they will find that if they have a prayer answered then they will often become a stronger, more trusting faith believer. 

the lord promised to answer prayer of the prophet jeremiah "call to me, and i will answer you"

There are many examples of answered prayers, some examples are:

• John in the bible says "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
  
• an africian woman had a stomach tumor, she was given no chance in life and told she was going to die. that night she prayed t god and asked for his help. when she awoke, the tumour had disappered and doctors did not know how it happened 

A mystical experience is renouned as the closest anyone can get to the divine. the sense of unitiy is one of extreme intensity and only a few people will get to experience them.

the characteristics of a mystical experience (as made by Wiliam James and Ed Miller) are:

• ineffability - the way in which a person is unable to describe the exerience but understood that they did have one
• noetic quality - that the experience allows the individual to realise something from the experience and learn something new
• transcendance - that they only last for a short period of time but they have a huge influence on how we live the rest of our life
• passivity - that the individual doesnt have any feeling of reality and that the experience happens beyond the period of space and time

 St teresa of Avila had a mystical experience in which she felt in complete plesure with god and she came up with her own set of characteristics. they included the use of 12 mansions in which the last mansion involves ths marriage wth god. 

Freud

Freud offered a secular explanation for religious experience. For Freud, religious experience is a reaction to the hostile world – we feel helpless and seek a father figure in our lives and this leads us to project an image God who is able to provide us with security.

However, even if people do need a father figure – this does not mean that God does not exist. This might be an inbuilt mechanism programmed by God in order to bring us closer to him.

 ‘feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude of whatever they consider to be the divine'

Ineffable - Those experiences that are so extraordinary they cannot be described in a way that would make them intelligible to anyone who has not had such an experience

Noetic - These experiences provide some kind of insight or carry a message of revelation of truth

Transient - Brief experiences that do not last more than half an hour

Passive - Experiences that cannot be actively sought or created. Often people describe their bodies being ‘taken over’ by a superior presence.