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On a Sociological Challenge to the Veridicality of Religious Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 1998

JEROME GELLMAN
JEROME GELLMAN
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel
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Abstract

This paper replies to Evan Fales' sociological explanation of mystical experience in two articles in Religious Studies vol. 32 (143–63 and 297–313). In these papers Fales applies the ideas of I. M. Lewis on spirit possession to show how mystical experiences can be accounted for as vehicles for the acquisition of political power and social control. The rebuttal of Fales contains three main elements: (a) the presentation of specific examples of theistic mystical experience from Christianity and Judaism which provide counter-examples to Fales' theory; (b) the presentation of some general objections to its plausibility; and (c) an argument for the conclusion that the burden of proof lies with naturalistic, reductionist explanations of religious experiences rather than with theistic interpretations of those experiences.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , September 1998 , pp. 235 - 251
Copyright
© 1998 Cambridge University Press

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