William James presented two fundamental qualities to describe a mystical experience: ineffability and noetic quality. The experience is beyond description while holding a revelational knowledge. Two secondary qualities can also accompany religious experience: transience and passivity. Secondary authority cannot be derived from a religious experience that is outside of conventional language and explanation. The noetic quality of the experience cannot be communicated due to the supposed ineffable quality inherent to the experience, thus rendering the experience incapable of authority over anyone outside of the experience. [1] As James postulates, the authority of religious experience is for the individual. James claims that mystical experience may offer hypotheses for reality, but cannot say anything of reality to the outsider.[2] With all that being said, there are fundamental problems with the quality of ineffability. There are many texts used to describe mystical experiences. These texts are both descriptive and evocative. Without these texts and descriptions, it would seem impossible to propose that all religion is rooted in experiences regardless of doctrine or culture.
While some scholars like Rudolph Otto followed similar patterns in describing religious experience[3], there are plenty who see otherwise. Wayne Proudfoot sees this quality of ineffability as not something that actually describes the experience as it is experienced, but as a quality applied in retrospect. By applying this quality, the one who has experienced has made the experience mystical. A religious person who wishes to have a religious experience would apply this label to the experience so that he or she may not have to face critique or explanation of the experience. The experience has been taken out of the realm of explanatory language and placed into a category protected from critical approach. By protecting the experience from scientific inquiry, it cannot be reduced by other areas of science.[4]
Jill Bolte Taylor experienced oneness with the universe. She gained knowledge through experience. She felt large yet aware of how small she truly was. Taylor was not touched by an angel; her brain was bleeding. Being a neurologist, Taylor was able to recognize her condition as medical not meta. Knowing this did not change the impact of the experience, but it did cause Taylor to take a different approach to her experience. While Taylor cannot find the words to exhaustively explain her experience, she does do an adequate job in conveying the emotion, feelings, and thoughts that accompanied her experience. Taylor’s perspective on her experience is different from someone who believes her experience to be from a spiritual causation. Rather than protect her experience with terms like ineffable, Taylor seeks to study her condition and share her experience through language.[5]
Taylor entered her experience with a scientific preconception which resulted in a scientific analysis of her experience. No doubt someone who enters a similar experience under the influence of religion will interpret her experience as religious. The doctrines one has already been exposed to will affect the way in which an experience is interpreted. As Sharf writes about alien abductees, the images and experiences described reflect the popular images of movies and comics that pre-dated the alleged abductions. These images were no doubt in the minds of these people before abduction. While some abductees claim to have not believed in aliens prior to the abduction, they were not ignorant of the alien abduction concept.[6] Religious preconceptions therefore could very well taint the interpretation of a religious experience, causing the experience to lack in both primary and secondary authority.
Schleieremacher, James, and Otto attempt to separate religion from the doctrines and dogmas that create belief systems. For this to be possible, it must be assumed that all experiences labeled ineffable are congruently ineffable. The Sufi and the Kabbalist may have experiences that are both ineffable, but this ineffability may prevent the noetic quality from being properly shared. The knowledge gained from the respective experiences, which are cultivated strictly according to tradition and mentorship, may differ. If this is the case, neither secondary nor primary authority can be taken from these experiences.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has beliefs that make mainstream Christians squirm in their pews. Those outside of the LDS church find it hard to believe that someone could believe LDS beliefs, but members of the LDS Church know the beliefs they hold to be true. Religious experience gives them this authority. The moment a prospective Mormon feels a “burning in the bosom”, that person knows that the teachings and authority of the LDS Church are true. Admittedly, the line between primary and secondary becomes fuddled here, but the secondary authority informs prior to primary authority. The burning of the bosom holds qualities of ineffability (it’s not like heartburn), noetic quality, passivity, and transience. These qualities pass James’ test, but along with this experience come doctrine and belief. This particular religious experience confirms that American Indians are descended from an evil race, spirit babies, and gays and lesbians can never be of equal standing as their straight counterparts. These beliefs are affirmed by a primary religious experience.
Scholars like Schleiermacher and James attempted to preserve religion by stripping it of its particulars and searching for the universal core. Religious experience seemed the most apparent common factor among world religions, but the idea of experience was a Western concept that was applied to non-Western systems.[7] Religious experience not subjective experience does seem to be cultivated by religious scholars as a means to protect religion from the reductionism of science and the scrutiny of critics. (Some suggest these scholars are interested in creating systems to ensure job security, but that would make them bureaucrats not scholars.) The authority derived from an already dubious concept is suspect. It seems impossible for religious experience as described by religious scholars to hold any authority for both the one who has experienced and the one to whom the experience is recounted.[1] Daniel L. Pals, Introducing Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) 121-24
[2] Pals, 191
[3] Ibid 212-29
[4] Wayne Proudfoot Religious Experience (Berkley: University of California Press, 1985) 124-27
[5] Taylor, http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
[6] Robert H. Sharf “Experience”, 108-110
[7] Sharf, 96
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