An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

John Hick (1922–)
John Hick takes the Real in itself as unknowable, but suggests that all 
religions have a culturally based approach to it. All religious traditions 
are accepted as equally valid paths to the same goal. As this ultimate is 
considered in personal terms as God by some and as non-personal by 
others, it is often referred to as the Real or Ultimate Reality. Some 
criterion has to be drawn to rule out certain violent sects and so the fruits 
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Interpretation of Experience
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or consequences of the religions are the decisive factor. The pluralist 
perspective rules out exclusive truth claims by any faith.
There is a difference between our ordinary experience of the world 
around us which is universal and public, and religious experience, some 
of which is public but much of which is private, taking place within the 
psyche and so unknowable to others. The former is easily accepted and 
verifiable, the latter is more problematic. However, religious experiences 
can legitimately be considered as giving an awareness of the Real within 
a worldview which accepts the spiritual dimension.
Hick explains the phenomenon of religious experience:
The hypothesis I am proposing is that the universal presence of the 
Real, in which ‘we live, move and have our being’, generates within 
certain exceptionally open and sensitive individuals an unconscious 
awareness of an aspect or aspects of its meaning for our human 
existence. In cybernetic terms this is ‘information’ about the signifi-
cance of the Real for our lives. In order to be consciously received and 
responded to this information is transformed into inner or outer visions 
or voices, the psychological machinery which transforms the transcen-
dent information into such experiences consisting of the mystic’s own 
mind-set and creative imagination.
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