This is a short, useful article to use with students when introducing the topic of ‘religious experience’. The author grapples with his friend’s account of a religious experience and his own feelings of envy at the immense sense of peace he describes. Interesting points for students to discuss are: why it is important that the author views his friend as ‘rational’, the fact he was not being subject to any conversion attempt, and why he was inclined to attach a name of ‘God’ to the experience he had.

Burton delves into the world of belief and experience in the (seemingly) increasing secular society of the USA. She unpicks the complexity behind the so-called ‘rise of the nones’ (people without a religious affiliation), as 70 per cent of Americans still claim to believe in a higher power of some sort. Young Americans are quenching a deep-rooted desire for spiritual nourishment through an increasingly diverse set of communities – whether these are social justice groups, CrossFit or witchcraft. As Burton puts it, people are seeking the feelings of meaning, purpose and ritual through seeking 'spiritual paths driven by intuition, not institution'. This book would inform an interesting lesson discussion of what we really mean by ‘religious experience’ – does the numinous or inexpressible truly exist in a protest on climate change, or in the midst of the increasingly popular ultra-marathons? It would be useful to discuss these after studying William James' and Rudolf Otto’s classic definitions of religious experience.

James – 'the father of American psychology' – takes a pragmatic view of religious experiences and the benefits they can offer. This book comprises an edited version of his Gifford Lectures on natural theology, delivered at Edinburgh University in 1901 and 1902. James suggests that the effectiveness of an experience is more important than the authenticity or the method used to induce such a feeling (such as drugs or prayer). In the later lectures, he outlines the mystical nature of these experiences as being characterised by the ‘ineffable’ (not able to articulate the feeling in words) and ‘noetic’ (influencing our intellect or knowledge). Students can use these concepts to identify in various case studies what made the experience mystical in this way.

Modern health diagnosis posed as a theory behind the miracles described in the Bible, back before scientific discovery.