Reflection: The Archive of the Religious Experience Research Centre
This week I continue my series on Religious Experience, by describing the archive of Accounts of Religious Experience that we have at the Lampeter Campus of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David – at the Religious Experience Research Centre (RERC).
This centre was originally set up (in Oxford) by Sir Alister Hardy when he retired from his post as Linacre Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford. He had had a life-long interest in spirituality, having had such experiences in his youth. As mentioned previously Hardy describes religious experience as ‘a deep awareness of a benevolent non-physical power which appears to be partly or wholly beyond, and far greater than, the individual self’.[i] For the details of the history of the archive and the development of the Centre, the reader is referred to books by Rankin, Hay and Franklin.[ii] In essence, the archive of accounts of religious experience has been established (now numbering over 6000 accounts) and is continuing to develop as a result of answers to the question: ‘Have you ever been aware of or influenced by a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday self?’[iii]
A number of these accounts contain references to the ability of art to inspire such awareness and in view of my specialist interest in this area I have selected below one or two such accounts.[iv] The usual social science methodology used in analysing such accounts would be an empathetic ethnographic approach where items of interest in an account would be identified and the respondent then questioned about those items, the eventual aim being to establish a common core related to a particular type of experience. The RERC digital database has been rendered anonymous and hence there is no opportunity to follow this methodology and the extracts from the accounts given below have been chosen as evidence of the occurrence of the phenomena of an experiences outside the norm which have been occasioned by an encounter with art. I have not undertaken an exhaustive search of the database which could itself be the subject of a separate, and very extensive study, but included below are a few extracts from the archive which are relevant to the subject of art and experience.
The first, sent in to the centre in 2005 is from a female artist aged 49 who finds that the act of creating a work of art is akin to meditation and is consistent with the thoughts of William Rothenstein and Ben Nicholson mentioned previously. For this respondent there is a sense of oneness between her creative self and the material world around, referring to an experience of unity with the forces of both the material world around and the spiritual world within. In writing that she feels ‘continuously a part of the material and spiritual world’ she is surely expressing a sentiment that is very similar to that description of the mystical state expressed by Happold and Nicholas of Cusa (1400-1464) – ‘unifying vision of the One in All and the All in One’. This is an experience which has resulted from the act of creating a work of art and from her description would appear to be a rare example of an experience that can be induced and, indeed, can be repeated. She does not make it explicit that the experience is the same each time she sets out to work but the suggestion of repeatability is implicit. She writes:
“What is Creativity and what is the Creative Process Like? My route into this subject is through art. Or more precisely the experience of producing art. A Buddhist colleague at work recently said, “Art is like meditation; it’s a change of awareness”. I agree with that. The experience starts with the drive towards the natural concentration you have as an artist to represent the natural world as you see it. So you start off this way with the concentration and focus. I always work outdoors, just wherever you are. I don’t believe in the “studio picture”. You sit in one position and you try to get on with it. Then your concentration builds as you are trying to see what is out there in the natural world, adopt the best artistic conventions and techniques, and then reconcile all the aesthetic issues in order to complete the finished result. And it ends with an intense awareness of the unity of all material and spiritual things. Also your awareness is that all is continuous. And that there is an extreme continuity between you and the material world around you. You have an extremely heightened awareness of your material surroundings, the ground around your feet, the grass just next to you, the shells on the beach, the interaction of earth, air, ground, sky and water, and the sea rolling in miniature tidal waves onto the beach. Not only are your senses heightened. But also it seems to be beyond that, also an experience of unity with the forces of both the material world and the spiritual world within that. It is not a precise, illuminating sort of experience. It is rather more generalised. You could not say from this experience that life had a special meaning and purpose. You could only say: “Life has a meaning, and it is this: We are continuously a part of this material and spiritual world”. It is not that, “There is a transcendent world. And I have discovered and know about that which will come in the future”. I don’t think we need to go so far as to say this is a vision of a new world, nor of a new heaven and earth. In fact, as an artist, I would not worry about that aspect. We don’t have to look at future aspects nor where we will be after personal death. What is important is the enhancement of creativity and awareness in the moment. The reason we don’t have to do that, “transcendent-for-evermore” bit, is because, by this means, we can have great, great eternity in one great, great, moment. “Eternity in the palm of your hand… Heaven in a wild flower”. Time and space seem to spread out sideways indefinitely to the extent of an awareness of great vastness and great and endless time…[v] (The above is a short extract from the much longer account.)
The next short extract, from an account reported by a 69 year old male writing in 1970, also relates to the experience of creating art but, in addition, is suggestive of a dreamlike state. Later in the account the respondent refers to a Jungian state of mind:
“A painter friend of mine of some note said that in forty-odd years he had thoroughly mastered the techniques involved. He could let his brushes ‘sing his song’ for him, and his best work was when he was in a state of complete abstraction – the moment he started to think about what he was doing then or in the next moment, the painting remained adequate because of his skill but was not good. More and more I see dreams as the linkage between the conscious and the sub- or un-conscious world of the individual.[vi]
The third extract is taken from a 1500 word account written as a letter to Hardy in which numinous experience played a significant role in guiding the respondent (a Christian male) to a career as an artist and ordained minister. The letter was written in May 1974 and although the artist’s age at the time of writing is not known the reference to war service suggests that he was in his middle fifties. He would certainly have been a most interesting subject to have interviewed at the time of his writing, but if enquiries were made at this juncture as to his identity, he may well be too old to wish to get involved.
“Painting and 20th cent(ury) art movements absorbed all my thought, and I had the inevitable fantasies of becoming a successful artist. At about 16 I was working hard to develop my work and also was striving to grasp the significance of the work of the most admired artists such as Picasso and the Surrealists. One evening I was drawing, struggling with perhaps more than my usual intensity, and feeling that I didn’t really know what I was doing, when, quite suddenly, I had a totally new sensation that I had broken through a kind of barrier of incomprehension. I had a surge of elation that I was getting through my problems. I felt everything was going to be alright, though I equally realised that the drawing I was doing was nothing very wonderful. The strangest thing to me then was that I found myself praying, thanking God for my experience, – the God who had, in the previous three years or so, completely disappeared from my life …. After war service I attended College of Art full time, and qualified as an art teacher, and, while training, I many times had the feeling that my best work, especially abstract work, came, as it were, ‘out of the blue’. I would literally clear my mind of previous ideas and try to work almost without conscious control, and there was growing in my mind the notion that one had to have a kind of humility and honesty for whatever ‘design’ was emerging to have its fullest realisation. I would not suggest, nor did I then think that the resultant work was ‘received’ in the sense of a Christian fundamentalist’s view of the scriptures, but rather that the need for an openness and honesty came from outside one’s general understanding of the requirements of artistic training and were not normally expected in the usual modes of artistic development. A quotation in your article in the ‘Times’ speaks of ‘the humility of helplessness’ and of responding ‘to this power’. I would say, looking back, that that expressed my feelings at that time very closely. While at School of Art my religious awareness was also developing and eventually I was ordained…
I based my ‘college sermon’ on the relationship between the roles of the prophet and the artist, since it seemed to me that in both cases there was a quality of revelation in their inspiration and work. It seems to me that both for the ‘true’ artist (as against one working for commercial ends, or the amateur artist whose art is a mode of escape), and the man of religion, he has to see himself as a vehicle, expressing in words or visual imagery, concepts that come from right outside himself, apparently. Both have to be honest and humble enough to reject any previously held ideas and modes of expression, if they do not seem appropriate to the new idea that is borne in upon him. In this context Roger Fry {1866-1934, Painter and art critic, member of the Bloomsbury Group. DMG} said somewhere that the art critic has to be prepared to abandon any or all previously acquired notions when faced with some new form of art. And both prophet and artist may find themselves having to reflect or comment on aspects of life around them that will not readily be accepted by their audiences. Thus the artist, like the prophet, may not just be a ‘barometer’ of the contemporary scene and its ethos, but also finds himself creating an ordering of reality unrealised by others who are totally immersed in living through the seeming shaplessness {sic} and meaninglessness of day-to-day life…
The 20th cent. artistic scene may in one sense reflect only the dehumanising of man and the breakdown of all accepted values and traditions, and yet some abstract work, as you suggest, does seem to have a ‘Mystery’, a timeless quality of underlying order, and that is not without precedents. Looking back on the many aspects of art of the past that seemed important to me at various times, I now find only a very few things that have these qualities, and which suggest that the artist was motivated by more than merely fulfilling a commission or giving a slightly new expression to some well worked style from the past. I think now of some Byzantine work, some Russian icons, some portraits by Rembrandt, and some of his drawings and etchings, Piero dell Francesca’s ‘Resurrection’, and some of Blake’s works, and all have in one way or another a quality of abstraction, I find. They have, too, I think, an ability to point one outside themselves and outside one’s own personal and artistic consciousness. They seem, in short, to point one towards what may be called religious experience.[vii]
The next experience from a Christian female relates to the lasting effect of viewing a portrait of Christ, the crucifixion and the dramatic sense of absolution which is achieved one year later:
“My First Experience, in January 1968 I was on a short course at Cambridge which was held in one of the men’s Colleges. All meals were taken in the huge panelled dining hall from whose walls hung portraits of the previous masters. It was a lively course and I was enjoying myself immensely. On the last day I went early to lunch … I sat quite alone at the extreme end of one of the long sides of the middle table. The waiter brought my soup & disappeared. Later he returned with the second course and went away. As I helped myself & began to eat I was wondering how I could visit “The Backs”, which I had been told was a “must”, and catch a certain train. Also my luggage was a problem too. I was deep in superficial thoughts. Then I glanced up and the portrait on the wall before me caught my eye. It was a good face. I could see wisdom, charity and humour in it. Suddenly the head moved and inclined itself towards me. There was a compassionate half smile as he spoke. “Carry on.” He said no more and receded into the background of the portrait. I fought back the tears, hurriedly finished my lunch and went out into the cold rain and wandered through some of the College buildings and grounds crying quietly to myself. This incident was followed by months of suffering but always, when I was very near to despair, I would see in my mind’s eye the Master’s face and hear his gentle voice, “Carry on”. I did, and I have come through. My Second Experience, in June 1969. One June evening the School concert was to take place. My husband was torn in his loyalties, ought he to stay with me or attend the concert with my daughter? I assured him I would be all right and I saw them off. It was a lovely evening, the sun low in the sky and the air warm & still. So I sat by the back door on a garden seat & looked down the sloping lawn to the trees in the valley and the hills beyond. A blackbird rang loud & clear from the top of a nearby tree. “This is my concert”, I thought. Then I strolled down the garden and paused to look at the wide spreading apple tree. Suddenly I was aware of something rushing towards me. An inner voice said, “Turn”. I turned towards whatever was approaching. From the lighter sky a long dark beam was coming straight to me at a great rate. It passed straight through me & out from between my shoulder blades. In the instant of passing through my body I saw Jesus on the Cross, head down & his body writhing in agony. For a brief instant I felt that agony. Then all was normal and I felt at peace. As I thought about this strange happening I suddenly realised that Christ’s Crucifixion is symbolic of our suffering through life. He suffered and came through, so I must do the same. Always now, at the mention of the Crucifixion I see it in a three dimensional way. It is much more real and I believe I understand so much more. One must suffer in life and come through without bitterness.[viii]
So, there we have five extraordinary accounts of very different religious experiences which I feel need no comment from me. Just accounts of experiences to contemplate.
Dr David Greenwood d.greenwood@uwtsd.ac.uk October 2021
[i] Rankin M. quoting Hardy An Introduction to Religious and Spiritual Experience London Continuum 2008. p.5
[ii] Rankin M. quoting Hardy An Introduction to Religious and Spiritual Experience London Continuum 2008.
Hay, D. God’s Biologist A life of Alister Hardy London Darton Longman Todd 2011.
Franklin, J. Exploration into Spirit (The History of the AHRERC) Lampeter Alister Hardy Society 2006.
[iii] Rankin, M. p. 3.
[iv] The archive has recently been digitised and is available on-line to members of the Alister Hardy Society for the Study of Spiritual Experience and the Alister Hardy Trust, now amalgamated as the Alister Hardy Trust. The search process at present is a fairly elementary single word search on subject and text and it is anticipated that a more sophisticated search process will be introduced in the future.
[v] Account no. 200025 in the Alister Hardy Archive of Religious Experiences held at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. (Account from 49 year old female, no religious allegiance reported in 2005.)
[vi] Ibid. Account no. 000652 Christian male aged 69 reporting in 1970.
[vii] Ibid. Account no. 003163 Christian male reporting in May 1974, age at the time of writing unknown but possibly of around 50-60 years.
[viii] Ibid. Account no. 000863 Christian female aged early 50’s writing in 1969.
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