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Considering descriptions of religious experiences, there is a call for abstracts for discussion in October 2019 and I’m looking for what tools may exist to analyze these experiences in a logical and consistant way, so such phenomenon can be organized and qualified. An example may be a specifically worded interview technique used to inquire about alleged miracles which is effective at ranking the experience regardless of the belief system - including atheism.

Thanks!

Vogon Poet
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  • I'm struggling to imagine what you mean by 'analysis' here, other than reading and comparing. Could you add some more info? . –  Sep 22 '19 at 11:42
  • I'm not following the use of the word "constitutive" here myself. – virmaior Sep 24 '19 at 23:40
  • @virmaior - constitutive, “useful in organizing/constituting a system” – Vogon Poet Sep 25 '19 at 02:11
  • Fantastic question — particularly the intriguing call-for-abstracts. And Ive no idea how to even start on it. Thanks for bountying – Rushi Sep 25 '19 at 02:39
  • Biblical religious experiences are described as perception. To perceive means to see, know, understand, realize, become aware of or conscious of. *...when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the LORD, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord GOD! for because I have seen an angel of the LORD face to face.* And, *Hereby perceive we the love of God...* Perceptual acuity depends on the soundness of an individual's senses. **Sagacious** once meant acute in perception, with the senses. **Sage** meaning **wise** comes from the linguistic root *to know, to taste, to perceive.* To have good sense. – Bread Sep 27 '19 at 22:16
  • So you might begin with comparing perceptual ability / acuity among groups who report or believe in religious experiences compared with those who believe such experiences are completely impossible. https://books.google.com/books?id=3SyGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=perceive+acutely&source=bl&ots=ktuF6yvmHj&sig=ACfU3U38CVPtRGvcwE5OTntXnvS3X0dTNw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiO7KHcgfLkAhUEXa0KHbD9B20Q6AEwE3oECGMQAQ#v=onepage&q=perceive%20acutely&f=false – Bread Sep 27 '19 at 22:18
  • @Bread - Interesting take, so the recommended tool begins with perceptual acuity? A difficulty here will be normalizing that measurement for persons under high stress. A spiritual phenomenon will likely shake the observer's reality, and really distort their acuity. Similar to trying to use one's acuity measured in a lab to evaluate their response during an alleged hostage crisis. – Vogon Poet Sep 27 '19 at 22:26
  • "...will *likely* shake the observer's reality, and...distort their acuity." Science requires strict objectivity. 1. Just because "religious experiences" might subjectively shake your own reality and senses, doesn't mean it has the same effect on everyone. 2. Perceptual acuity *improves* under stress or pleasure, for many people. I predict that perceptual acuity under conditions of either stress or pleasure is relatively reduced in people whose perceptual acuity already measures very low to begin with. Perceptual acuity is rather easily measured and tested (hearing, peripheral vision, etc.). – Bread Sep 28 '19 at 14:37
  • *Attitudes* will obviously affect one's response toward such experiences. I doubt that anyone who is highly skeptical has ever had any *real* religious experiences, although they may sometimes be subjected to religiously themed hallucinations and delusions. But it isn't necessary to bring subjectivity into the scientific process. Just test the perceptual acuity of various groups: 1. Skeptics who have never had religious experiences; 2. Skeptics who report having religiously themed hallucinations or delusions; 3. Believers who have never had religious experiences; 4. Believers who have had them – Bread Sep 28 '19 at 14:46
  • There is the problem of the occasional delusional believer who often reports religious experiences. They typically show quite obvious signs of mental illness (I've met a least one, or a few, personally). So you may prefer to *omit everyone diagnosed with psychosis*, including all skeptics, in that category. I predict that all *normal (i.e sane) believers* will test higher in perceptual acuity, on average. I also advise testing younger, physically healthy participants for this (perceptual acuity is often damaged in unhealthy, injured, or aged individuals who otherwise may retain fine memories). – Bread Sep 28 '19 at 15:03
  • @Bread - That is a universal problem in any field involving testimony as evidence. I think tools exist for this. – Vogon Poet Sep 28 '19 at 15:12
  • The reason I predict healthy believers will test higher in perceptual acuity over healthy skeptics: Simple logic. Ask two healthy adults (one after the other) to go into your office and get a paper clip for you. Let's assume that one is able to quickly find a paper clip for you, but the other person fails to do so. The one who found it will say, "Here it is." But the one who couldn't find it despite it being there all along will argue, "It's not there, I know because I couldn't find it." The one who couldn't find it was the one with the skeptical attitude. – Bread Sep 28 '19 at 15:13

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This answer only provides some references that might be worth exploring in searching for the desired tools relevant to SOPHERE's conference call for abstracts. (The deadline for submissions was last July so I assume this question is to help the OP better explore this field.)

In Mark Wynn's overview of the phenomenology of religion, the bibliography cites one of the authors noted in the call for abstracts, Matthew Ratcliffe. Wynn notes Ratcliffe's concept of "existential feelings":

There are various ways of understanding the significance of this sort of shift in the world's appearance. One potentially helpful category is Matthew Ratcliffe's notion of “existential feelings.” Ratcliffe introduces the category in these terms:

First of all, they [existential feelings] are not directed at specific objects or situations but are background orientations through which experience as a whole is structured. Second, they are bodily feelings. (2008, [Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality, Oxford: Oxford University Press] p. 38, Ratcliffe's emphasis)

As an analogy (or perhaps more than an analogy) we could take the case of jet lag. When I am in a jet lagged state, the world in general can appear differently to me, and this is in part, no doubt, because of the associated change in my bodily condition. I may feel groggy (here is the bodily feeling to which Ratcliffe refers), and at the same time the world in general may take on a new appearance, so that it seems, for instance, out of focus. And we might speculate that, similarly, the convert has undergone a change in bodily condition, and that it is this change that accounts both for their feelings of elation, and also for the shift that they report in the world's appearance. It may be that, in some cases, whether by design or not, this bodily change is the product of a spiritual discipline. So here is another way in which feelings, including feelings of bodily condition, may be caught up into the phenomenology of the religious or spiritual life.

The other mentioned researchers are Anthony Steinbock, Jean-Luc Marion, Espen Dahl, Dan Zahavi, Stanley Cavell, and Evan Thompson.

The Society for the Phenomenology of Religious Experience (SOPHERE) has two conference proceedings available: Open Theology 2017 and Open Theology 2018. The articles appear to be open access and available for download.

One paper that might be useful is the last one from Open Theology 2018: James M. Nelson and Jonah Koetke, "Why We Need the Demonic: A Phenomenological Analysis of Negative Religious Experience". The reason this might be fruitful is one may complement any phenomenological tools provided in this paper with M. Scott Peck's psychotherapeutic study of evil as presented in his book People of the Lie.

Wynn, Mark, "Phenomenology of Religion", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/phenomenology-religion/.

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Frank Hubeny
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If you really want to "analyze" this, it would be better if you used the scientific method. But you could also try this. Test how religion, though based in just thought, can affect people in incomprehensible ways to atheists. Ex. Ask a group of Muslims if they were stranded on an island with nothing but beer to drink, would they do so? Then collect the results. The same could be asked with Christians and pork, or things like that. Or, if you had the materials and volunteers to do so, you could create simulations of such situations. Then, test the results to see how much people are affected by religion in such ways. Or you could test how unreasonably dedicated some are by giving multiple scenarios like this. With your results, you could try to figure it out.

I hope this helps!

Math Bob
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    More than a little prejudicial, I think – Vogon Poet Sep 25 '19 at 03:02
  • i follow a religion, im just saying the truth about how people are dedicated to their religion – Math Bob Sep 26 '19 at 02:21
  • i look at things from the viewpoints of many, not just myself – Math Bob Sep 26 '19 at 02:22
  • I don't think dividing along lines between atheist and theist can make an objective analysis tool. In fact it would be more scientific to not even consider the branch of faith in a phenomenological analysis as this inserts an unneeded bias as well as assumptions about expectations. If the interviewee happens to be Muslim but reports seeing a Marian apparition, of what use if their Muslim claim? This has happened many times - people seeing things outside their professed faith. – Vogon Poet Sep 26 '19 at 03:16
  • @VogonPoet It's usually good to collect whatever data you can whenever reasonably possible; the data can paint its own picture. – Nat Sep 26 '19 at 19:54
  • @nat - it actually sounds more like art. Allowing data to form its own metric does not really sound constitutive? – Vogon Poet Sep 27 '19 at 22:20
  • @VogonPoet Data is always a good thing; worst-case scenario, you may not end up needing all of it. Data analysis is a fundamentally destructive process; it's all about tearing down hypotheses whenever we can. More data means more critique, which is exactly what we want. – Nat Sep 27 '19 at 22:33