An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

12. Fruits of Spiritual Experience
The evaluation of religious experience has frequently been through the 
effects on the lives of the experients. In the Bible Jesus says,
For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good 
fruit; each tree is known by its own fruit. . . . The good man out of the 
good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his 
evil treasure produces evil; . . . (Luke 6:43, 46)
William James too stresses the importance of fruits,
If the 
fruits for life
of the state of conversion are good, we ought to 
idealize and venerate it, even though it be a piece of natural psychol-
ogy; if not, we ought to make short work with it, no matter what 
supernatural being may have infused it.
. . .
The real witness of the spirit to the second birth is to be found only 
in the disposition of the genuine child of God, the permanently patient 
heart, the love of self eradicated. And this, it has to be admitted, is also 
found in those who pass no crisis, and may even be found outside 
Christianity altogether. 
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For those who are prepared to accept them, spiritual experiences are 
revelatory and of deep significance, and the result is an empowerment of 
the individual and enhancement of life. According to French social anthro-
pologist Emile Durkheim (1858–1917),
The believer who has communicated with his god . . . is 
stronger.
He feels within him more force, either to endure the trials of existence 
or to conquer them.
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Sir Alister Hardy found that religious experience was,
. . . being in touch with some Power which appears to be outside and 
beyond the individual self and from which he can receive grace: help in 

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the conduct of his life and a sense of renewed vitality . . .. On so many 
occasions men and women have achieved, by what they call divine 
help or grace, that which they, and others who knew them, would have 
regarded as being beyond their normal capabilities.
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One interesting result of a mystical experience was in the case of 
St Thomas Aquinas, learned theologian, author of many works, including 
the 
Summa Theologica
, which he worked on from 1265 to 1273. He did 
not complete it, however, for a vision during mass on 6 December 1273, 
the Feast of St Nicholas, resulted in him not writing any more. He pro-
claimed his theology mere straw in comparison to what had been revealed 
to him.
Many experiences lead to a complete change of attitudes to life and 
often in moral behaviour, as this account shows.
I find it difficult to describe my experience, only to say that it seems to 
be outside of me and enormous and yet at the same time I am part of 
it, everything is. It is purely personal and helps me to live and to love 
others. It is difficult to describe, but in some way because of this feeling 
I feel united to all people, to all living things. Of recent years the feeling 
has become so strong that I am now training to become a social worker 
because I find that I must help people: in some way I feel their unhap-
piness as my own.
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However, not everyone follows the promptings of such experiences. 
Here is one which was ignored, and the fruits, which may well have been 
to affect lives for the better, were not brought about.
In December 1983 I literally bumped into a woman who had often 
been seated near me on the evening commuter train; we apologized to 
each other with a smile. The next day the trains were in chaos and 
I found myself advising her which platform to head for. We soon dis-
covered that we were both Christians, and before long she confided in 
me that her husband, a deacon of their church, had deserted her and 
their children for another woman. My wife and I helped support her 
through the years of trauma that followed.
One day, when I had just bought Jack Dominian’s book 
Marriage, 
Faith and Love
, two words flashed into my mind, as if relating to their 
marriage, ‘Nox praecessit’. My Latin was already rusty, but I managed 
to confirm that they were real words; but what did they signify? Where 
did they come from? Eventually I decided that they would be found in 
the Latin Vulgate Bible in Romans 13, and knowing that there was a 

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copy in the library, I went there and opened it. There it was, 
nox 
praecessit
: ‘The night is far spent’ – and then it goes on, ‘daylight is at 
hand: let us therefore cast away the works of darkness, and let us put 
on the armour of light.’ I felt that these words were intended for my 
friend’s husband, and the conviction grew that I must write to him 
about them. I was astonished to find that he too had been given the 
same words (though he knew no Latin whatsoever) and taken them to 
Christian counsellors who had told him he must cast away the works 
of darkness and return to his wife! Unfortunately he chose to ignore 
what God was saying to him: ‘God will forgive me’, he said, and went 
on to divorce and remarriage. I have reason for believing that he deeply 
regrets doing so. ‘O God, why did I do it?’ he was heard to exclaim 
some years later as he revisited his old church. When his ex-wife visited 
him in hospital years later, they put their arms round each other; but, 
he said, ‘I could not stand another divorce.’ (005433)
Many works of art have been created in different media to express the 
spiritual. Writers, artists and musicians all move beyond the everyday 
world as they create, and those enjoying the results of their work respond 
on a profound level.