An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

Transcendental Experience
Another term often used to designate this type of experience, is Transcen-
dental Experience. Alister Hardy, although frequently referring to reli-
gious experience, also uses the term as it enables him to distinguish the 
experience of a power beyond the individual self from the concept of 
religion.
At certain times in their lives many people have had specific, deeply 
felt, transcendental experiences which have made them all aware of the 
presence of this power. The experience when it comes has always been 
quite different from any other type of experience they have ever had. 
They do not necessarily call it a religious feeling. It often occurs to 
children, to atheists and agnostics and it usually induces in the person 
concerned a conviction that the everyday world is not the whole of 
reality: that there is another dimension to life.
. . .
Some people feel a personal devotional relationship with the power 
after their experience; some call it God, some do not. Some see it as 
an aspect of their wider self through which such an experience has 
come, whilst others see it as part of man’s general consciousness.
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The term has also been used by Michael Paffard in his research for 
Inglorious
Wordsworths 
in which he elicited descriptions of such experi-
ences from his sixth form boys using Wordsworth’s 
Tintern Abbey 
as a 
stimulus.
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Paranormal Experience
Another term for psychical experience is Paranormal Experience, which
 
usually refers to powers which have not yet been explained by science 
and are seen as beyond the norm. This includes such events as telepathy, 
telekinesis and clairvoyance. Psychical research concentrates on the 

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Terminology
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experiences as evidence of the paranormal rather than considering 
the effects on the lives of the experients. Spiritualists concern themselves 
with communications from beyond the grave and are often appealed to 
in times of bereavement. However, most of these experiences lack the 
spiritual dimension.