THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES AND THE REST OF LIFE EXPERIENCE. AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STUDY

The purpose of this article is to describe how the religious experiences are related to the rest of the life experience.Its subject matter is the fact that religious experiences are normally studied as single selected events whereas this study states as its main thesis that religious experiences may be best analyzed in the lifelong perspective.On the basis of thirteen different religious autobiographies, the way one's religious experiences are linked with one's past, present and future is described.The past-related religious experiences may appear as learning from what happened in previous times, understanding or feeling that one's life has been in God's hands, religious illumination after intellectual struggles, or a religious solution after emotional tension.The presentrelated experiences describe particular life episodes in which the divine presence was felt or understood.Religious experiences may also change one's attitudes or actions in the future.about different experiences (Hay & Morisy, 1978), or a chemical ecstasy (Clark 1969, Huxley 1954, Smith 2000).Karl Girgensohn (1921) might be mentioned as one example of a researcher studying episodic religious experiences.Girgensohn and his co-workers analyzed reports of religious experiences the subjects had had during and after reading different religious texts.His goal was to find out and explain the functions of the emotional, rational and sensational components of a religious experience.Although Girgensohn acknowledged the impact of religious experiences on human psychology and behavior in everyday life, he primarily studied particular religious experiences manifested in an experimental situation.Other authors relate religious experiences to the larger psychological context.This means that religious experience is not studied as a separate phenomenon but as part of one's lifelong experience.One good example of this is the study of Spilka, Brown and Cassidy (1992) on the structure of religious experience in relation to one's lifestyle before and after the experience.Their general conclusion was that "it is evident that reported mystical experiences, as theorized, relate to remembered pre-experience life circumstances and present perceptions of one's thinking and behavior".Hjalmar Sundén (1966Sundén ( , 1969) ) understood religious experience to be a process of learning in which there is a need for preparation by getting to know the roles of man and God described in a religious narrative.Sundén relates religious experiences directly to the rest of the experiences during one's life.First, learning the description of the roles through religious narratives is a long process lasting from childhood to death.Second, religious experiences may appear and will appear in ordinary life situations.Third, personal motivation is needed to experience the role of God in certain situations.Therefore, according to Sundén, religious experience is very much a part of one's total life experience.Paul Pruyser's (1976) criteria of pastoral diagnostics have affected later investigations of religious experiences from a lifelong perspective.He described seven dimensions of Christian faith that are most closely related to everyday life: awareness of the holy, acceptance of God's grace, being repentant and responsible, knowing God's leadership and guidance, involvement in organized religion, experiencing fellowship, and a sense of vocation.These dimensions, which have personal meaning, will determine the portrait of one's religious life.Pruyser's