Religious experience
experience which has a strong, mystical character and a lasting impact on the subject / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sometimes people make experiences which they see in the context of a belief system. They call these experiences religious experiences, spiritual experiences, sacred experiences, or mystical experiences. William James made the concept popular, in the 19th century.[1] He did this to fight the growing rationalism of Western society.[1]
In many religions, such experieces are called revelations. This also applies to the knowledge that comes from them. These religions say that a god or gods caused these revelations, and that they are not a result of a natural cause. They are considered real encounters with God or gods, or real contact with higher-order realities of which humans are not ordinarily aware.[2]
Skeptics say that these religious experiences are a normal feature of the human brain. As such, they can be studied in the same way other features of the brain are studied.[note 1] To better be able to study them, scholars have classified such experiences in different ways.[3]