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Religious Experience- Rudolph Otto and William James



             intellectual quality. The mystic does not think that they have just had an experience they feel that some knowledge of the divine has been .
             revealed to them, reducing the epistemic distance. He says that for those of us who have not had an experience of this kind may find it difficult to accept the accuracy of the account, however, for the mystic there is no doubt to what they have experienced. We may describe the experience as being perceptual in nature. That is to say that there is no doubt that the mystic experienced something but what they experienced is to be questioned. .
             Another is that the experience is transitory. The mystic seems unable to maintain the experience for a great length of time. Although James does not go into the factors of why it cannot be sustained many different religions have tried to. Many have said that it is the intensity of the experience and also that by prolonged exposure to the divine will reduce the epistemic distance which causes a problem to the "God of the Gaps". .
             During a religious experience James describes the mystic as being passive this is to say that although the mystic is fully aware of what is going on they tend to "lose themselves" in the experience. The will of the mystic is described as being passive but it is more that the mystical experience is an interruption. The consciousness of the mystic becomes blended with the reality of the divine. This relates to the experience being transitory because if the mystic is not in control of the experience then they cannot prolong it. .
             With these four points being his base James then goes on to outline the different experiences he would consider as mystical. One of which he describes as being a revelation, which is a representative of some deepened sense of the significance of an aphorism or formula. On the other end of the spectrum James places the mystical experience as the feeling of deja vu. The value of these expereinces is that they bring a mystery to our view of reality.


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