I see Dead People
One day after a church service, as I stood in the back doing, what to me was the most awkward time on Sunday mornings, “shaking hands and kissing babies,” one of our elderly members greeted me with his usual gentle and kind handshake. “Charlton, my wife tickled my toes last night waking me from my sleep. She does this on occasion.” I could sense the conviction and love in his voice…the problem, his wife had been dead for several years. He then followed with, “I miss her so much.”
This beautiful man is not alone with visits from dead loved ones. It’s more common than not for those suffering loss. I would categorize his personal experience as supernatural or spiritual. Alongside his supernatural visit I’d place hearing and/or seeing gods, visits from angels and experiences with other supernatural beings in the same category.
During my time as a Christian I encountered many Christians whose confidence in God’s existence came down to a profound spiritual/supernatural experience they could not explain. For some, the experience even trumped their doubts regarding the errancy of scripture, the problem of evil and the slew of theological inconsistencies. It seemed the hinge upon which their faith hung.
I have no doubt such an experience feels objectively real and profoundly affects the lives of those who have them; the problem I have is with the authority attributed to such experiences - that a supernatural/spiritual personal experience proves the realty of the claims associated with that experience. Specifically in the Christian tradition: an individual’s experience of God’s presence, Christ’s voice, an angel’s message or a visit from a deceased loved one proves the existence of the Judeo-Christian God.
Experience V Experience
Let me stick with the Christian supernatural experience. If you argue for the objective reality of the Judeo-Christian God from personal experience without any outside criteria, evidence or data to confirm your experience - but is simply the authority of the experience itself, then you must give equal weight to ALL personal experience. If your personal experience is proof then…
The farmer abducted by aliens…aliens are real.
The hiker spotting Bigfoot…Bigfoot is real.
The 21st Century Bastet worshipper, converted because the Egyptian Cat-god visited him in a dream…Bastet is real.
The Muslim’s vision of Allah…Allah is real.
The family haunted by the ghost within their house walls…ghosts are real.
Zoroaster’s 7 visions…the god Ahura Mazda is real.
Joseph Smith’s encounter with the angel who directed him to the book of gold plates…The Book of Mormon is authoritative.
The many Catholics who’ve seen the Virgin Mary…Catholic Verniaration of Mary is legitimized.
Baha’u’llah’s supernatural visit from a maiden while in a dark prison cell…the Bahá’i faith is true.
But, it is impossible for all of these personal experiences to be objectively true since many of them contradict the others; they are mutual exclusive. If it is impossible for all personal experiences to be objectively true, then personal experience cannot be used as an authoritiave or persuasive argument for the reality of the Judeo-Christian God.
Perhaps, at this point, the Christian might be tempted to say, “But so-and-so’s experience doesn’t hold up when…” The moment you undermine the personal experience of another individual by subjecting it to outside scrutiny and thus negate the authority of the personal experience, then you have negated the authority of your own. It too must be subjected to outside scrutiny.
Theater of the Mind
So while for many the supernatural experience is a cornerstone of their faith, for me, the ubiquitous yet diverse and often contradictory spiritual experiences around the globe better serves as an argument for no go rather than a claim for one. It seems more likely to me that the “supernatural experience” is more easily explained by evolved traits among humans.
For example, the “rustling in the bush” theory. A human ancestor is walking through the dark savannah one night when she hears a rustling in a bush. Four scenarios:
She concludes: the rustling is just the wind blowing through the bush so stays the course. The reality: It is the wind. She survives.
She concludes: the rustling is just the wind blowing through the bush so stays the course. The reality: It is a predator. She dies.
She concludes: the rustling is a dangerous predator. She flees. The reality: It is just the wind. She survives.
She concludes: the rustling is a dangerous predator. She flees. The reality: It is a predator. She survives.
The best chance of survival is to assume the sound is a predator. Those who do so, survive at a higher percentage and thus pass down their genes. This leads to the human tendency to see things that are not really there. Ever wake up in the middle of the night to see the man standing in the shadows of your room to only realize it’s your hat and jacket left on top of your dresser?
This is only one example. Others include:
Patternicity, the human tendency to make connections and assign meaning to unrelated events.
Pareidolia - seeing faces in everyday objects.
Human aversion to randomness and the need to assign meaning to it.
The human brain’s necessity to interpret and predict sensory information due to its inability to absorb all information that constantly bombards an individual's sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.
Human propensity for inaccurate memories (memory misattribution and cognitive fluency).
Couple all of these with the human inclination toward confirmation bias, the power of grief, social pressure, and our culture-shaped meta-narrative…and perhaps we can form a hypothesis for spiritual experiences. It is a bi-product of our evolution and not an experience of objective reality. For me, the pervasive yet vastly diverse “spiritual/supernatural experience” among human beings is better explained as a natural human phenomenon than a supernatural manifestation of a deity.