2021/09/23

Unitive/mystical experiences and life changes. Schneeberger. PhD thesis 2010.

Unitive/mystical experiences and life changes

Unitive/mystical experiences and life changes
A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Psychology 
Susan F. Schneeberger
=== 

ABSTRACT 

Schneeberger, Susan F. Unitive/Mystical Experiences and Life Changes. Published Doctor of Psychology dissertation, 
University of Northern Colorado, 2010. 

The purpose of this study was to explore life changes in beliefs, philosophy, and behavior in individuals who reported having a unitive/mystical experience (U/ME). A unitive mystical experience is a generally spontaneously occurring state of consciousness characterized by a sense of unity or “oneness” that transcends sensory or cognitive apprehension (Stace, 1960). 

There is often an ineffable certainty that an ultimate truth has been perceived and can be applied to one’s life. The experience may be accompanied or followed by feelings of joy and bliss. 

One hundred sixty adults from a broad range of demographic characteristics participated in a one-time web-based survey. 

The concept of a unitive mystical experience was based on the mysticism theory of Stace. Hood’s Scale-Research Form D (1975, 2005) was used to assess the intensity and degree of reported unitive mystical experiences since it is an operationalization of Stace’s theory. Life changes were assessed using Greyson’s Life Changes Inventory-Revised (Greyson & Ring, 2004). Participants also answered 10 demographic questions. 

Four research questions were addressed using correlational methodology. These questions explored the type of changes reported after a unitive mystical experience, the relationship of the intensity of the U/ME to the changes, perceptions of the overall quality of respondents’ lives after the U/ME, and the relationship of the changes to selected demographic variables. iv 

Results of the study indicated that there were significant increases in participants’ concern with social and planetary values, self-acceptance, spirituality, quest for meaning and sense of purpose, concern for others, and appreciation for life.

 Respondents reported a significant decrease in concern with worldly achievement. The area of religiousness showed no change. Results also indicated that a more intense unitive/mystical experience was associated with a greater degree of change overall and with a significant increase in appreciation for life specifically.

 Participants indicated that their overall quality of life had changed significantly after their unitive/mystical experience in a direction perceived as beneficial. There was no significant relationship between reported changes and demographic variables. Limitations of the study, suggestions for future research, and implications of the findings were discussed


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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................... 1 
Rationale for the Study.......................................................................... 5 
Purpose of the Study ............................................................................ 9
Research Questions.......................................................................... 9 Delimitations of the Study............................................................... 9 
Definition of Terms.................................................................. 10 

CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE.................................. 12 
Definitions of Unitive/Mystical Experience..................................... 12 Examples of Unitive/Mystical Experiences ........................................ 14 
Theoretical Conceptualizations and Characteristics of Unitive/Mystical Experiences...... 18 
Shamanism, Paleolithic Cave Art, and the Earliest Unitive/Mystical Experiences... 22 
 Prevalence and Predisposing Factors of Unitive/Mystical Experiences......... 27 The Good Friday Experiment .................................... 28 
Grof’s Holotropic Breathwork.......................................... 29 
Rhea White: Exceptional Human Experiences.......................... 30 Understanding Unitive/Mystical Experiences............................................... 36 Transpersonal Psychology.............................................................. 38 Neurophysiological Aspects of Unitive/Mystical Experiences...................... 39 Psychopathology and Unitive/Mystical Experiences..................................... 44 Research on the Effects of Unitive/Mystical Experiences............................. 45 Conclusion................................................................................ 51

===
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  • motivations for organized cycling: the development of the Cyclist Motivation Instrument (CMI). Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 8, 211-218.
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  • Carpenter, D. (1994). Spiritual experiences, life changes, and ecological viewpoints of contemporary pagans. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Saybrook Institute, San Francisco, CA.
  • Clydesdale, T. T. (1997). Family behaviors among early U.S. baby boomers: Exploring the effects of religion and income change, 1965-1982. Social Forces, 76, 605-635.
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  • Coxhead, M. (1985). The relevance of bliss. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
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  • Doblin, R. (1991). The Good Friday experiment: A long-term follow-up and methodological critique. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 23(1), 1-28.
  • Freud, S. (1961). Civilization and is discontents. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 21, pp. 59-145). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1930).
  • Greeley, A. M. (1975). The sociology of the paranormal: A reconnaissance (Sage Research Papers in the Social Sciences, Vol. 3, Series No. 90-023). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
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===

2010. 

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Practical theology - Wikipedia

Practical theology - Wikipedia

Practical theology

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Practical theology is an academic discipline that examines and reflects on religious practices in order to understand the theology enacted in those practices and in order to consider how theological theory and theological practices can be more fully aligned, changed, or improved. Practical theology has often sought to address a perceived disconnection between dogmatics or theology as an academic discipline on the one hand, and the life and practice of the church on the other.[1]

As articulated by Richard Osmer, the four key tasks or questions to be asked by practical theology are:

  1. What is going on? (the descriptive-empirical task)
  2. Why is this going on? (the interpretative task)
  3. What ought to be going on? (the normative task)
  4. How might we respond? (the pragmatic task)[2]

Definition[edit]

Gerben Heitink defines practical theology as “the empirically oriented theological theory of the mediation of the Christian faith in the praxis of modern society.” Practical theology consists of several related sub-fields: applied theology (such as missions, evangelism, religious education, pastoral psychology or the psychology of religion), church growth, administration, homiletics, spiritual formation, pastoral theology, spiritual direction, spiritual theology (or ascetical theology), political theology, theology of justice and peace and similar areas.[3]

Ray Anderson writes that the first person to give practical theology a definition, C.I. Nitzch, defined it as the “theory of the church’s practice of Christianity.” Anderson quotes John Swinton as defining practical theology as “critical reflection on the actions of the church in light of the gospel and Christian Tradition.”[4] Swinton cites Don Browning's definition of practical theology as “the reflective process which the church pursues in its efforts to articulate the theological grounds of practical living in a variety of areas such as work, sexuality, marriage, youth, aging, and death.”[5]

History[edit]

Practical theology was first introduced by Friedrich Schleiermacher in the early 1800s as an academic discipline encompassing the practice of Church leadership in his Brief Outline of the Study of Theology. Schleiermacher viewed practical theology as one of three theological sciences, along with philosophical theology and historical theology, together making theology whole.[6]

Theologian Elaine Graham posits that practical theology has evolved over time. Originally focused more towards church leaders, she argues that it has become more personal and autobiographical.[7]

Application[edit]

Other fields of theology have been influenced by practical theology and benefit from its usage, including applied theology (mission, evangelism, religious education, pastoral psychology or the psychology of religion), church growth, administration, homiletics, spiritual formation, pastoral theology, spiritual direction, spiritual theology (or ascetical theology), political theology, theology of justice and peace and similar areas.[8]

Practical theology also includes advocacy theology, such as the various theologies of liberation (of the oppressed in general, of the disenfranchised, of women, of immigrants, of children, and black theology). The theology of relational care, which concerns ministering to the personal needs of others, may also be discussed as a field of practical theology.[citation needed]

"Convergent practical theology" has emerged from the combined studies and practice of missiology with organizational development since the publication of Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America.[9] This new perspective is described by Christian Boyd as "living our theology (primary and secondary) and practicing social science theologically, [so that] our minds are renewed and the community formed nurtures a new imagination for being and doing church."[10]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Theresa F. Latini, The Church and the Crisis of Community: A Practical Theology of Small-Group Ministry (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2011)
  2. ^ Osmer, Richard Robert (2008). Practical Theology: An Introduction. William B Eerdmans. p. 4. ISBN 9780802817655. The Core Tasks of Practical Theological Interpretation
  3. ^ Gerben Heitink, Practical theology: history, theory, action domains: manual for practical theology (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999) [1]
  4. ^ Swinton, John (2016). Practical theology and qualitative research. Harriet Mowat (2nd ed.). London: SCM Press. ISBN 978-0-334-04988-3. OCLC 897443171.
  5. ^ Anderson, Ray (2001). The Shape of Practical Theology: Empowering Ministry with Theological Praxis. InterVarsity Press. pp. 23–26. ISBN 0-8308-1559-7.
  6. ^ Chang Kyoo Lee, "Practical Theology as a Theological Discipline: Origins, Developments, and the Future."[2]
  7. ^ Graham, Elaine L. (2017-04-21). "On becoming a practical theologian: Past, present and future tenses". HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies. 73 (4): 9 pages. doi:10.4102/hts.v73i4.4634. ISSN 2072-8050.
  8. ^ Gerben Heitink, Practical theology: history, theory, action domains: manual for practical theology (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999) [3]
  9. ^ Darrell Guder et al., Missional church: a vision for the sending of the church in North America (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1998)
  10. ^ Christian Boyd, "Formed and Always Being Reformed as a Community Under the Cross," Luther Seminary, Doctoral Thesis, May 30, 2010. p. 9-11; 30-34.

External links[edit]

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William Law - Wikipedia

William Law - Wikipedia

William Law
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This article is about the British theological writer. For other people, see William Law (disambiguation).

William Law
Born 1686
Kings Cliffe, Northamptonshire
Died 9 April 1761
Kings Cliffe, Northamptonshire
Venerated in Anglican Communion
Feast 10 April


William Law (1686 – 9 April 1761) was a Church of England priest who lost his position at Emmanuel College, Cambridge when his conscience would not allow him to take the required oath of allegiance to the first Hanoverian monarch, King George I. Previously William Law had given his allegiance to the House of Stuart and is sometimes considered a second-generation non-juror. Thereafter, Law first continued as a simple priest (curate) and when that too became impossible without the required oath, Law taught privately, as well as wrote extensively. His personal integrity, as well as his mystic and theological writing greatly influenced the evangelical movement of his day as well as Enlightenment thinkers such as the writer Dr Samuel Johnson and the historian Edward Gibbon. In 1784 William Wilberforce (1759–1833), the politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to stop the slave trade, was deeply touched by reading William Law's book A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1729).[1] Law's spiritual writings remain in print today.


Contents
1Early life
2Bangorian controversy and after
3Writings on practical divinity
4Mysticism
4.1Law's Admiration for Isaac Newton and Jakob Böhme
5Veneration
6List of works
7Notes
8References
9External links


Early life[edit]

Law was born at Kings Cliffe, Northamptonshire, in 1686. In 1705 he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge as a sizar, where he studied the classics, Hebrew, philosophy and mathematics. In 1711 he was elected fellow of his college and was ordained. He resided at Cambridge, teaching and taking occasional duty until the accession of George I, when his conscience forbade him to take the oaths of allegiance to the new government and of abjuration of the Stuarts. His Jacobitism had already been betrayed in a tripos speech. As a non-juror, he was deprived of his fellowship.[2]

For the next few years Law is said to have been a curate in London. By 1727 he lived with Edward Gibbon (1666–1736) at Putney as tutor to his son Edward, father of the historian, who says that Law became the much-honoured friend and spiritual director of the family. In the same year he accompanied his pupil to Cambridge and lived with him as governor, in term time, for the next four years. His pupil then went abroad but Law was left at Putney, where he remained in Gibbon's house for more than 10 years, acting as a religious guide not only to the family but to a number of earnest-minded people who came to consult him. The most eminent of these were the two brothers, John and Charles Wesley, John Byrom the poet, George Cheyne the Newtonian physician, and Archibald Hutcheson, MP for Hastings.[2]

The household dispersed in 1737. Law by 1740 retired to Kings Cliffe, where he had inherited from his father a house and a small property. There he was joined by Elizabeth Hutcheson, the rich widow of his old friend (who recommended on his death-bed that she place herself under Law's spiritual guidance) and Hester Gibbon, sister to his late pupil. For the next 21 years, the trio devoted themselves to worship, study and charity, until Law died on 9 April 1761.[2]
Bangorian controversy and after[edit]
Further information: Bangorian controversy

The first of Law's controversial works was Three Letters to the Bishop of Bangor (1717), a contribution to the Bangorian controversy on the high church side. It was followed by Remarks on Mandeville's Fable of the Bees (1723), in which he vindicated morality; it was praised by John Sterling, and republished by F. D. Maurice. Law's Case of Reason (1732), in answer to Tindal's Christianity as old as the Creation is to some extent an anticipation of Joseph Butler's argument in the Analogy of Religion. His Letters to a Lady inclined to enter the Church of Rome are specimens of the attitude of a High Church Anglican towards Roman Catholicism.[2]

Writings on practical divinity[edit]

A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1729), together with its predecessor, A Practical Treatise Upon Christian Perfection (1726), deeply influenced the chief actors in the great Evangelical revival.[3] John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Henry Venn, Thomas Scott, and Thomas Adam all express their deep obligation to the author. The Serious Call also affected others deeply. Samuel Johnson,[4] Gibbon, Lord Lyttelton and Bishop Home all spoke enthusiastically of its merits; and it is still the work by which its author is popularly known. It has high merits of style, being lucid and pointed to a degree.[2]

In a tract entitled The Absolute Unlawfulness of the Stage Entertainment (1726) Law was agitated by the corruptions of the stage to preach against all plays, and incurred some criticism the same year from John Dennis in The Stage Defended.[2]

His writing is anthologised by various denominations, including in the Classics of Western Spirituality series by the Catholic Paulist Press.

The devotional writer Andrew Murray was so impressed by Law's writings that he republished a number of his works, stating "I do not know where to find anywhere else the same clear and powerful statement of the truth which the Church needs at the present day."[5]
Mysticism[edit]

Böhme's cosmogony: The Philosophical Sphere or the Wonder Eye of Eternity (1620).

In his later years, Law became an admirer of the German Christian mystic Jakob Böhme. The journal of Law's friend John Byrom mentions that, probably around 1735 or 1736, the physician and Behmenist George Cheyne had drawn Law's attention to the book Fides et Ratio, written in 1708 by the French Protestant theologian Pierre Poiret. It was in this book that Law came across the name of the mystic Jakob Böhme.[6][7] From then on Law's writings such as A Demonstration of the Errors of a late Book (1737) and The Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regeneration (1739), began to contain a mystical note.[8] In 1740 appeared An Earnest and Serious Answer to Dr. Trapp and in 1742 An Appeal to All that Doubt. The Appeal was greatly admired by Law's friend George Cheyne, who wrote on 9 March 1742 to his good friend, the printer and novelist Samuel Richardson: "Have you seen Law's Appeal ... it is admirable and unanswerable". John Byrom wrote a poem based on An Earnest and Serious Answer, which was found among the manuscripts of Samuel Richardson after his death in 1761.[9]

Law's mystical tendencies caused the first breach in 1738 between Law and the practical-minded John Wesley after an exchange of four letters in which each explained his own position.[10] After eighteen years of silence Wesley attacked Law and his Behmenist philosophy once again in an open letter in 1756 in which Wesley wrote:

Lime Grove Putney (1846), home of the Gibbon family where William Law walked with John Byrom and other friends.


I have scarce met with a greater friend to darkness except 'the illuminated Jacob Behmen'. But, Sir, have you not done him an irreparable injury? I do not mean by misrepresenting his sentiments; (though some of his profound admirers are positive that you misunderstand and murder him throughout) but by dragging him out of his awful obscurity; by pouring light upon his venerable darkness. Men may admire the deepness of the well, and the excellence of the water it contains: But if some officious person puts a light into it, it will appear to be both very shallow and very dirty. I could not have borne to spend so many words on so egregious trifles, but that they are mischievous trifles: ... bad philosophy has, by insensible degrees, paved the way for bad divinity.[11]

Law never responded to this open letter, though he had been deeply upset, as was testified by John Byrom.[12]

After seven years of silence Law further explored Böhme's ideas in The Spirit of Prayer (1749–1750), followed by The Way to Divine Knowledge (1752) and The Spirit of Love (1752–1754). He worked on a new translation of Böhme's works for which The Way to Divine Knowledge had been the preparation.[13] Samuel Richardson had been involved in the printing of some of Law's works, e.g. A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection (second edition of 1728), and The Way to Divine Knowledge (1752), since Law's publishers William and John Innys worked closely with Samuel Richardson.[14]

Title page of the Johann Georg Gichtel (1638–1710) edition of 1682, printed in Amsterdam.

Law had taught himself the "High Dutch Language" to be able to read the original text of the "blessed Jacob". He owned a quarto edition of 1715, which had been carefully printed from the Johann Georg Gichtel edition of 1682, printed in Amsterdam where Gichtel (1638–1710) lived and worked.[15]

After the death of both Law and Richardson in 1761, Law's friends George Ward and Thomas Langcake published between 1764 and 1781 a four-volume version of the works of Jakob Böhme. It was paid for by Elizabeth Hutcheson. This version became known as the Law-edition of Böhme, even though Law had never found the time to contribute to this new edition.[16] As a result of this it was ultimately based on the original translations made by John Ellistone and John Sparrow between 1645 and 1662,[17] with only a few changes.[18] This edition was greatly admired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Blake. Law had found some illustrations made by the German early Böhme exegetist Dionysius Andreas Freher (1649–1728) which had been included in this edition. Upon seeing these symbolic drawings Blake said during a dinner party in 1825 "Michel Angelo could not have surpassed them".[19]

Law's Admiration for Isaac Newton and Jakob Böhme[edit]

Law greatly admired both Isaac Newton, whom he called "this great philosopher" and Jakob Böhme, "the illuminated instrument of God". In part I of The Spirit of Love (1752) Law wrote that in the three properties of desire one can see the "Ground and Reason" of the three great "laws of matter and motion lately discovered [by Sir Isaac Newton]". Law added that he "need[ed] no more to be told that the illustrious Sir Isaac [had] ploughed with Behmen's heifer" which had led to the discovery of these laws.[20]

Law added that in the mathematical system of Newton these three properties of desire, i.e. "attraction, equal resistance, and the orbicular motion of the planets as the effect of them", are treated as facts and appearances, whose ground appears not to be known. However, Law wrote, it is in "our Behmen, the illuminated Instrument of God" that:


Their Birth and Power in Eternity are opened; their eternal Beginning is shown, and how and why all Worlds, and every Life of every Creature, whether it be heavenly, earthly, or hellish, must be in them, and from them, and can have no Nature, either spiritual or material, no kind of Happiness or Misery, but according to the working Power and State of these Properties. All outward Nature, all inward Life, is what it is, and works as it works, from this unceasing powerful Attraction, Resistance, and Whirling."[21]

Aldous Huxley quotes admiringly and at length from Law's writings on mysticism in his anthology The Perennial Philosophy, pointing out remarkable parallels between his ( Law's ) mystical insights and those of Mahayana Buddhism, Vedanta, Sufism, Taoism and other traditions encompassed by Leibniz's concept of the Philosophia Perennis. 

Huxley wrote:

Granted that the ground of the individual soul is akin to...the divine Ground of all existence...what is the ultimate nature of good and evil, and what the true purpose and end of life? The answers to these questions will be given to a great extent in the words of that most surprising product of the English eighteenth century, William Law...a man who was not only a master of English prose, but also one of the most interesting thinkers of his period and one of the most endearingly saintly figures in the whole history of Anglicanism.[22]

Veneration[edit]

Law is honoured on 10 April with a feast day on the Calendar of saints, the Calendar of saints (Episcopal Church in the United States of America) and other Anglican churches.

William is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on 10 April.[23]

List of works[edit]

-----
Notes[edit]

^ "BBC - Religions - Christianity: William Wilberforce".
^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Chisholm 1911.
^ In A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life Law urges that every day should be viewed as a day of humility by learning to serve others. Foster, Richard J., Celebration Of Discipline, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988, p.131.
^ "I became a sort of lax talker against religion, for I did not think much against it; and this lasted until I went to Oxford, where it would not be suffered. When at Oxford, I took up Law's Serious Call, expecting to find it a dull book (as such books generally are), and perhaps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an overmatch for me; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion after I became capable of rational inquiry.", Samuel Johnson, recounted in James Boswell's, Life of Johnson, ch. 1.
^ Murray, Andrew (1896). The Power of the Spirit. London: James Nisbet. pp. ix.
^ Joling-van der Sar 2003, pp. 112–113.
^ Joling-van der Sar 2006, pp. 442–465.
^ Joling-van der Sar 2003, pp. 120 ff.
^ Joling-van der Sar 2006, pp. 454–456.
^ Joling-van der Sar 2006, pp. 448–452.
^ J. Wesley, Works, Vol. IX, pp. 477-478.
^ Joling-van der Sar 2006, pp. 460–463.
^ Joling-van der Sar 2003, pp. 138 ff.
^ Joling-van der Sar 2003, pp. 118–120, 138.
^ This edition is the Theosophia Revelata. Das isst: Alle Göttliche Schriften des Gottseligen und hocherleuchteten Deutschen Theosophi Jacob Böhmens, 2 Vols., Johann Otto Glüssing, Hamburg, 1715.
^ This William Law edition is available online, see http://www.jacobboehmeonline.com/william_law.
^ Joling-van der Sar 2003, p. 144.
^ Joling-van der Sar 2003, pp. 138–141.
^ Joling-van der Sar 2003, p. 140.
^ Joling-van der Sar 2003, p. 133.
^ William Law, Works, 9 volumes, (reprint of the Moreton ed., Brockenhurst, Setley, 1892-93 which was a reprint of London edition of 1762), Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene, Oregon, U.S.A., 2001, Vol. VIII, pp. 19-20.
^ Huxley, Aldous 'The Perennial Philosophy', first edition pub. Chatto and Windus 1946.
^ "The Calendar". The Church of England. Retrieved 27 March 2021.


References[edit]

Abby, Charles J., The English Church in the 18th Century, 1887.
Foster, Richard J., Celebration Of Discipline, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988.
Huxley, Aldous, The Perennial Philosophy, 1945.
Joling-van der Sar, Gerda J. (2006). "The controversy between William Law and John Wesley". English Studies. Informa UK Limited. 87 (4): 442–465. doi:10.1080/00138380600757810. ISSN 0013-838X.
Joling-van der Sar, Gerda J. (2003). The spiritual side of Samuel Richardson : mysticism, Behmenism and millenarianism in an eighteenth-century English novelist (Thesis). University of Leiden. ISBN 90-90-17087-1. OCLC 783182681. Retrieved 28 June 2020.
Lecky, W.E.H, History of England in the 18th Century, 1878–90.
Overton, John Henry, William Law, Nonjuror and Mystic, 1881.
Stephen, Leslie, English Thought in the 18th century.
Stephen, Leslie (1892). "Law, William" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 32. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Tighe, Richard, A Short Account of the Life and Writings of the Late Rev. William Law, 1813.
Walker, A.Keith. William Law: His Life and Work SPCK, 1973.
Walton, Christopher, Notes and Materials for a Complete Biography of W Law, 1848.

Attribution:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Law, William". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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