Philosophy – Religious experience

Lived: 1842-1910
Wrote the book: 'The Varieties of Religious Experience'.
Attempted to construct an empirical study of the phenomenon of religious experience.
Focussed on personal religious experiences, rather than those associated with institutions.
Identified 4 key features of a mystical experience.
Described conversions as “a unifying of the inner self”.
Lived: 1515-1582
Claimed to have experienced a series of visions.
In Rome, there is a statue by Bernini of an angel holding a golden spear.
Wrote the book 'The Interior Castle'.
Described mystical thought in terms of four stages of the ascent of the soul.
Made a saint by Pope Gregory XV.
Lived: 1869-1937
Wrote the book 'The Idea of the Holy'.
Coined the phrase “the numinous”.
Argued that there is one common factor to all religious experience.
Analysed the religious experience in terms of mysterium tremendum.
Focused on the nonrational aspect, rather than the empirical method for interpreting religious experiences.