ABSTRACT
The actual experiences differ with the individuals and societies in question, but very generally speaking they do share certain common features. This chapter looks at various kinds of purported religious experience and provides a clearer idea of the problems associated with them. 'Experiences' must both conform to and support the tradition. The mystic is permitted to have visions of the appropriate saints or even the Virgin Mary, but 'messages' from renegade Protestant reformers have not been much in evidence with Catholics. Within Roman Catholicism, mysticism and mystical experiences may actually be encouraged providing both the form and the consequences of these experiences are in line with the tradition of the Church. The effect of the drug varies, but, in general, it produces in the subject a sense of well-being and perhaps even excitement. Mystical experiences, therefore, although essentially personal phenomena, usually derive from and conform to the expectations of a known religious tradition.
