Religious Experience in the Christian Life

Carl Jung once wrote, “No matter what the world thinks about religious experience, the one who has it possesses a great treasure.” Although fewer people than ever go to church, research indicates that perhaps as many as 66% of the population in secularized English-speaking countries are having significant religious experiences. This book explores the causes, nature, and effects of such experiences whether theistic or non-theistic, while indicating how those which are theistic can animate Christian spirituality, theology, piety, and churchgoing, while improving the psychosomatic health of those who enjoy them. This well-informed, wide-ranging study is a fascinating apologia which advocates the importance, beauty, and life-transforming power of a vital but often neglected dimension of human existence. It also sounds a cautionary note by pointing out that the orthodoxy of religious experience must be measured against the parameters of traditional Christian teaching in the belief that while dogmatic faith without religious experience is lifeless, religious experience without dogma is blind.

Pat Collins, C.M., BA, MA, STL has been a school teacher, a member of a parish mission team, a college lecturer in spirituality and the psychology of religion. He has spoken at conferences in 26 countries, published 30 books, many of which have been translated, and hundreds of articles as well as appearing regularly on radio and TV. Pat, a committed ecumenist, helped to introduce the Alpha Course into Ireland and is one of the founders of the New Springingtime Community in his native Dublin. In 2020 he established an online school of evangelisation.