An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

Lynn Bridgers
 
(1956–)
Lynn Bridgers herself had a profound conversion experience which 
changed her life and brought her to the work of William James. In her 
Contemporary Varieties of Religious Experience
, published in 2005, she 
has taken another look at William James’s work in the light of modern 
research and theory. In a wide-ranging reappraisal of James’ methodol-
ogy Lynn Bridgers examines the personality types of the prophet, monk 
and the mystic, on which James’s work was based. She finds them still 
valid in the light of modern research. In particular, she finds a link between 
trauma and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and sudden conversion 
experiences. She shows the traumas in the lives of the great mystics, which 
may well have triggered their experiences.
She suggests that the churches would do well to pay more atten-
tion mystical experience. People reporting such experiences are often 
innovators and are necessary for the healthy development of religious 
institutions.
Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941)
Mysticism
was published ten years after William James’s work. Evelyn 
Underhill moved beyond his four criteria, and proposed ‘four other rules 
or notes which may be applied as tests to any given case which claims to 
rank among the mystics’.
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First, mysticism is seen as active and practical, involving the whole self 
and not just the intellect. Second, it is not concerned with this universe 
but has wholly transcendental and spiritual aims, so that although not 
neglecting his duties, the mystic’s ‘heart is always set on the changeless 
One’. Third, this One, for the mystic, is more than mere Reality, it is ‘a 
living and personal Object of Love.’ Finally, it is a living union with this 
One which is the aim of the spiritual process of the Mystic Way. Intellec-
tual realization and emotional longing are part of this, but not enough. 
An ‘arduous psychological and spiritual process’ leads to the transforma-
tion of the mystic’s consciousness and to the Unitive State, summarized as 
a gradual process of a growing relationship with the Absolute.
Evelyn Underhill also highlights a central issue within mysticism: the 
apparently contradictory doctrines of ‘Emanation’ and ‘Immanence’. 
Simply expressed, the former envisages the divine as completely separate 
from the human, the latter sees humans and the universe as infused with 
the divine. She notes, however, that some mystics in fact combine both.

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Interpretation of Experience
245
Some of the least lettered and most inspired amongst them – for instance 
Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich – and some of the most learned, 
as Dionysius the Areopagite and Meister Eckhart, have actually used 
in their rhapsodies language appropriate to both the theories of Ema-
nation and of Immanence.
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