An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

Contemporary Accounts
Many people have sudden, unexpected experiences of being outside 
time and space, or an experience of the unity of all things including them-
selves, which they would term mystical. They try to describe what has 
happened to them, perhaps some time later, but find this difficult. Even if 
they do not talk about the experience it remains of great importance to 
them as an indication of having touched another dimension. The first two 
accounts although from the RERC archive, are taken from 
The Common 
Experience
by J. M. Cohen, J. M. and J-F. Phipps.
On the first occasion (aged 8–10) I was in the garden, muddling 
about alone. A cuckoo flew over, calling. Suddenly, I experienced a 
sensation I can only describe as an effect that might follow the rotating 
of a kaleidoscope. It was a feeling of timelessness, not only that time 
stood still, that duration had ceased, but that I was myself outside time 
altogether. Somehow I knew that I was part of eternity. And there 
was a feeling of spacelessness. I lost all awareness of my surroundings. 
With this detachment I felt the intensest joy I had ever known, and yet 
with so great a longing – for what I did not know – that it was scarcely 
distinguishable from suffering . . .
The second occurred a good while after the first. It was an abso-
lutely still day, flooded with sunshine. In the garden everything was 
shining, breathless, as if waiting expectant. Quite suddenly I felt con-
vinced of the existence of God; as if I had only to put out my hand to 
touch Him. And at the same time there came the intensest joy and inde-
scribable longing, as if in exile, perhaps, for home. It seemed as if my 
heart were struggling to leap out of my body.
How long I stood, or would have gone on standing, I do not know; 
the tea-bell rang, shattering the extra dimension into which I had 
seemed to be caught up. I returned to earth and went obediently in, 
speaking to no one of these things. [1263] 

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Mystics
183
The following occurred at a time when I had no feeling for religion. 
It was not the result of religious ecstasy or a joyous heightening of the 
spirit. A certain event had hurt and humiliated me. I rushed to my 
room in a state of despair, feeling worthless as an empty shell. From 
this point of utter emptiness it was as though I were caught up in 
another dimension. My separate self ceased to exist and for a fraction 
of time I seemed part of a timeless immensity of power and joy and 
light. Something beyond this domain of life and death. My subjective 
and painful feelings vanished.
The intensity of the vision faded, but it has remained as a vivid 
memory ever since. . . . [1146]
163
There are many experiences of a mystical nature in the archive.
I have experienced a heightened awareness and this has enabled me to 
become extra-sensitive to surroundings, people etc. This has given me 
an increased perception of being in a state of ‘Oneness’ with circum-
stances and people but at the same time I have at the same time a defi-
nite awareness of my ‘a-lone-ness’. At times I have an experience of 
expansion and a feeling of suffusion from within me – an expanding 
consciousness of myself and an intensification of my inner awareness 
which brings a feeling of union and relationship with creation. [0750]
It seemed to me that, in some way, I was extending into my 
surroundings and was becoming one with them. At the same time I felt 
a sense of lightness, exhilaration and power as if I was beginning to 
understand the true meaning of the whole Universe. [0712]
Rapt in Beethoven’s music, I closed my eyes and watched a silver 
glow which shaped itself into a circle with a central focus brighter than 
the rest. The circle became a tunnel of light proceeding from some 
distant sun in the heart of the Self. Swiftly and smoothly I was borne 
through the tunnel and as I went the light turned from silver to gold. 
There was an impression of drawing strength from a limitless sea of 
power and a sense of deepening peace. The light grew brighter but was 
never dazzling or alarming. I came to a point where time and motion 
ceased. In my recollection it took the shape of a flat-topped rock, sur-
rounded by a summer sea, with a sandy pool at its foot. The dream 
scene vanished and I am absorbed in the Light of the Universe, in Real-
ity glowing like fire with the knowledge of itself, without ceasing to be 
one and myself, merged like a drop of quicksilver in the Whole, yet still 

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Religious and Spiritual Experience
184
separate as a grain of sand in the desert. The peace that passes all 
understanding and the pulsating energy of creation are one in the 
centre in the midst of conditions where all opposites are reconciled.
164
We spent the latter half of August 2000 on a walking holiday in 
Galicia and Minho (the northern most part of Portugal). On our return 
I was interested in finding out a little more about the origin of Portugal 
as a nation. On Sunday 3 September I started to thumb through a 
history of Spain and Portugal. Eventually I found that Minho was the 
dowry given by a certain king Alfonso of Spain (or what is now part of 
Spain) to one of his daughters, when she married a French knight, in 
the twelfth century. Although the land was supposed to be subject to 
Castille, both the daughter and her husband had other ideas. As 
I understood it, on a rather hurried reading, they and their heirs subse-
quently carved out a country which is today Portugal.
While reading this account I suddenly saw the hot, dusty, country-
side where we had been staying a few days before, the sparse vegeta-
tion, the hills and small villages. I became aware of a man and a woman 
surveying the land and gradually conquering the surrounding area. 
History and life became part of a grand, sweeping, movement through 
time, with the general development, but probably not the details, 
preordained. This applied to everything, individuals, countries, the uni-
verse itself. It was as though events and particularly humans were 
waves of various size and duration on a limitless ocean. The waves 
were born, developed and died out, to be reunited with the ultimate – 
the universal ocean. Somehow this put everything that we experience, 
good, bad, indifferent, into its place. In a non-intellectual way every-
thing was ‘all right’.
I must stress that this experience was not deliberately sought and was 
not a vision, although I did see in my mind an area of countryside and 
was aware of two people in it. The experience can best be described as 
an overwhelming feeling, which though it gradually faded, stayed with 
me for several days and was (and is) immensely comforting. [005446]
Here is an account from someone who has had many mystical and 
religious experiences throughout life:
Since my youth I have had quite a number of what may be religious or 
mystical experiences. Some would say they are just imagination but to 
me they have felt like intense absolute reality.
It is difficult or perhaps impossible to express these experiences in 
words.

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Mystics
185
My best experiences may to some degree be ‘indicated’ by the 
following quotes.
Happold in ‘Mysticism’ (p.122) writes ‘Suddenly the timeless 
moment is there, the morning stars sing together, a sense of utter joy, 
utter certainty mingle, and in awe and wonder it murmurs I KNOW.’ 
Anne Miller writing (Aug.1998) on Zen Buddhism in the