Examine the main characteristics of both visions and conversion experiences (30 marks)
Visions and conversions are both a type of religious experience. A religious experience is concerned with the interpretation and transformation of the life of an individual; when they realise that there is more to life than just the physical world and consequently reach out to truths which lie beyond, and they are changed spiritually.
According to William James a 20th century philosopher; all religious experiences have four characteristics. Ineffability, these experiences cannot be expressed or indeed it is challenging to express them; noetic, people often gain an insight or they learn something from the experience of how to carry on their life; transiency, although to the experient it may seem to last a long time, in reality it will only have been a couple of minutes; and passivity, the experient feels helpless and they weren’t expecting it or looking for it.
A vision is an experience of seeing something in the mind’s eye; it is perceived as though the vision is just as real as anything in the physical world, although it comes with awareness that what is alleged does not physically exist. There are three types of vision: corporeal visions; imaginative visions and intellectual visions.
A corporeal vision is something which is seen or heard for which there is no apparent explanation, it is likely that not everyone sees it but only one person or a select group. An example of this is the Virgin Mary being seen in the 1980s at in Medjugorje where a young girl appeared to see an apparition of the Virgin Mary, it transgressed and through the next 3 days a select few others saw her too.
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Death has been a fascination for humanity since the beginning of time. Death is in fact life's greatest mysteries, as it has been common belief that no one can return after death to re-tell what has happened to them. However, this general idea about death is starting to change in the Western world with the phenomenon of the near death experience. The near death experience has enabled human beings ...
Imaginative visions are those where a figure is seen in a dream or a state of unconsciousness. The person who sees the vision is aware that they aren’t really there outside the dream or imagination. These visions are appeared to have been occurred by a supernatural agent and their reason is to supposedly demonstrate religious truths to those who have difficulty grasping them any other way. Famous examples of these types of vision include Joseph being told not to divorce Mary because she was pregnant; and Peter in Acts 10 about the treyfah foods that they were all created by God so are equal.
Thirdly there is an intellectual vision and this causes the person to become aware of an abstract concept such as the ‘grace of God’. These are often accompanied by a light, a sense of inner peace or a call toward religious life. In the video ‘Glimpses of God’ we learnt about an example of an intellectual vision in modern society. Margaret Comer, whose mother, father and friend all died in the war had an intellectual vision one morning. During this she saw the grace of God and felt that she “hardly dare walk along the path for fear of trampling the life out of it”. Her religious belief took on a new approach; it gave her hope and reassured her she would be okay.
There may also be visionary experiences where people believe they see the face of Christ in everyday life, such as in places as expected as a church where Christ may appear in the brickwork, or somewhere as unexpected as on the bottom of a frying pan or burnt onto a chapatti. These are still a form of vision as although they may not comply with the main characteristics of a religious experiences, people often learn from them and it may give them the power to ‘go on’.
A conversion experience is one in which the ‘goal’ is to change one set of belies from another. The process of this is a double action; one must turn away from a previous lifestyle and turn to a new state of being. The development of conversion can be a sudden experience or a gradual one and the end result is usually a greater understanding of faith.
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America may be experiencing the worst financial crisis this year. People may worry about losing jobs and missing opportunities for bigger earnings. But at age eighteen and fresh from high school graduation, I am all hopes and all set to start the best years of my life. Just a few years back, I was enjoying the comforts of home in Wooster, Ohio, simply unconcerned about my future. My parents were ...
People may convert for several reasons, and each as individual as the convert themselves. It may be about years of searching for a spiritual home, or about a moment of inspiration that has caught them by surprise; sometimes it involves the pain of breaking away from a previous path, a sense of loneliness and wrestling with doubt. Dr Davies a professor at the University of Durham states that “conversion takes place when one’s identity is perceived to be inadequate and so one moves to being in a state when adequacy is met.” This may not have always been the case, someone may be content yet may suddenly be up-rooted and disorientated by a bereavement, divorce etc. And they may possibly find that contentment again in religion. This is as conversion allows one to have a new identity and this identity is ‘holy’.
There are four main stages identified by Peter Clarke which can lead to a conversion experience and these are: a prior interest in religious questions and other related issues; the influence of other cases of conversion; a crisis situation, involving physical and emotional upset, possibly a revulsion in one’s current life and a sense of being sinful; and the moment of conversion which brings about a radical change in feeling and outlook.
There are also four characteristics of conversion experience and these are: the loss of all worry, and the gain of a sense of peace; the sense of perceiving certain things to be true which one had not before; a perceived change regarding the world, everything seems much more distinct; and the sense of happiness which is produced.
There are two distinct types of conversion; volitional and self-surrender. The volitional type features a gradual change and consists of the slow development of new moral and spiritual habits. The convert may suddenly become aware of the change one day and this has been described as ‘once born’- one has probably been born into that religion yet now sees it in a new light.
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Sub-saharan Africa has undergone changes with religion such as the changing of religious affiliation to Christianity and the practices of cosmology and ontology, however, Sub-saharan Africa has also remained constant with their thoughts being focused on various beliefs like a creator and evil. Christianity was predominantly the main religion in Sub-saharan Africa opposed to the Muslims of North ...
The second, self-surrender type is one which is a more involuntary and subconscious. It is described as ‘twice-born’ as the recipient emerges as a new person, with a new orientation and these are often triggered by a crisis. An example of this is St Paul (Acts 9 and Acts 22) who on the road to Damascus was blinded by Christ and when healed by a Christian immediately converted to Christianity. He described himself as “a new man, a new creation” These two broad categories of conversion can be characterised in six main types: intellectual, conversion comes through reading books and attending lectures; mystical, the person has a religious experience, causing them to reassess their life; experimental, this is when someone has initiated contact with a religion motivated by a desire for faith; affectional, a person is attracted by people the know within that faith; Revivalist; a person responds to being targeted in some way; and coercive, a much stronger version of revivalist often operated by cults.
The question arises as to how permanent is conversion? It is likely that those who has undergone a gradual conversion are more likely to be permanent as the slower procedure is more likely to be ore thorough, and those which have had a sudden conversion may know very little and may change their mind as they learn more about the religion and if something they believe in contradicts what they think they have come to believe in.
