An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

Implicit Religion
This is a way of looking at people’s ultimate values and concerns outside 
formal religion. As religious observance declines and contemporary soci-
ety seems to be increasingly secular, is there anything which elicits a spir-
itual response in people? Implicit religion is the exploration of this invisible 
or hidden side of life. 
Edward Bailey (1935–)
In 
Implicit Religion: an Introduction
Edward Bailey, Founding Director of 
the Centre for the Study of Implicit Religion and Contemporary Spiritual-
ity, suggests three definitions of the concept which he established. These 
are ‘commitments’, referring to what is of importance in someone’s life; 
‘integrating foci’ meaning human interaction – individual and social; and 
‘intensive concerns with extensive effects’, things which matter deeply and 
have a far-reaching impact. What implicit religion is really about, is what 
makes people tick, what means most to them. This may include religious 
experience, but is more likely to arise from their ordinary, daily living.
Implicit religion, then, is as real as these moments of heightened con-
sciousness, whether they are understood in terms of transcendence, values 
or religion. But it is not restricted to such ‘surconscious’ experiences.
Don Cupitt (1934–)
This thinker does away with transcendent reality altogether, finding God 
within everyday life. Religious and mystical experiences are stripped of a 

---

Interpretation of Experience
253
metanarrative perspective and brought into the real world. In 
The Sea of 
Faith
Don Cupitt begins with Matthew Arnold’s poem 
Dover Beach
to 
illustrate the dying of religion. In Cupitt’s view, metaphysics has had its 
time. Non-realist Christianity retains moral and religious truths but they 
are viewed from a different perspective. God is not a separate entity but a 
religious ideal, the sum of our values and thus a human construct. He 
gave a postmodern interpretation of religious experience in 
Mysticism 
After Modernity
.