Mystical Encounters with the Natural World This page intentionally left blank Mystical Encounters with the Natural World Experiences and Explanations PAUL MARSHALL 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein OxfordNewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy JapanPoland PortugalSingapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork (cid:1)PaulMarshall2005 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2005 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Dataavailable TypesetbySPIPublishersServices,Pondicherry,India PrintedinGreatBritainby BiddlesLtd.,King’sLynn,Norfolk ISBN0–19–927943–8 978–0–19–927943–2 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Howcanthewholeworldbecomevisibletoasingleman? GregorytheGreat,Dialogues This page intentionally left blank Preface and Acknowledgements The present study is devoted to mystical experiences of the natural world and the disparate ways in which they have been explained. Typically,theseso-calledextrovertivemysticalexperiencesarechar- acterizedbysomecombinationofunity,deepenedknowledge,sense ofreality,alteredtime-experience,light,bliss,andlove.Theexperi- ences are well represented in modern collections of spiritual testi- monies,butunlikesomeotherextraordinaryexperiences,theyhave receivedlittlesustainedattentioninrecentyears.Asasteptowards redressing the neglect, I look at the experiences again—at their circumstances, characteristics, and consequences—and scrutinize a varietyofexplanationsputforwardoverthelasthundredyears. Why is renewed study of extrovertive mystical experiences desir- able? Apart from their significance as life-transforming events, the experiencesareofconsiderabletheoreticalinterest.Theyhavebeen importantinthemodernstudyofmysticism,constitutingoneofthe major types ofmystical experiencerecognizedbyscholarssince the earlydaysofstudy,andtheypromisetobeimportantinthefuture development of the field. Any theory of mystical experience with pretensions to generality must be able to account for extrovertive experiences. The experiences provide an important test case for evaluating explanations, including the currently fashionable ap- proaches that trace mystical experience to neuropsychology or to theconditioninginfluenceofreligiousbeliefandpractice.Extrover- tiveexperienceisalsoofinterestforthestimulusitcouldgivetothe studyofmind:theimmenseexpansionsofperceptionandcognition reported in some accounts raise questions about the nature of the perceptual process and the relation between mind and world. Are therenon-sensoryformsofcontactwiththeworld?Doesmindexist beyondthebrain? Extrovertivemysticalexperienceisalsoimportantinwaysthatare tangentialtothepresentstudybutwhichareworthnotingtounder- scorethepotentialbenefitsofamoresophisticatedunderstandingof viii PrefaceandAcknowledgements the experiences. By bringing together spirituality and the natural world, the experiences have a bearing on several topics, such as nature religions, spiritual ecologies, nature aesthetics, science–reli- gion relations, and writings in which nature and spirituality inter- fuse, including Romantic literature. It is perhaps surprising that extrovertive experience has received little attention in recent years, given the return of nature as an object of interest in religious and environmentalmovementsthatcallforthevenerationor‘resacrali- zation’ofthenaturalworld. Mystical Encounters with the Natural World is based on my doc- toral work at the Department of Religious Studies, Lancaster Uni- versity,whichwasmadepossiblebyfinancialsupportfromtheArts and Humanities Research Board. I am greatly indebted to Robert Segalforhisencouragementandinsightfulfeedbackthroughoutthe years of research, and to Patrick Sherry, Paul Fletcher, Gavin Hyman,andPeterMoorefortheirhelpfulcomments.Manythanks to those who kindly responded to requests for information or pro- vided assistance in other ways: Peter Connolly, Gordon Heald, Emily Williams Kelly, Irene and Les Lancaster, Roderick Main, Michael Medley, Peggy Morgan, John O’Neill, Ondine Park, Alex Ryan, Karen Selway, Timothy Sprigge, and Gillian Taylor. My gratitude goes to all those at Oxford University Press involved in publishing the book, especially Lucy Qureshi, Editor for Religion, andtheexpertsconsultedbythePress.Theirinvaluablesuggestions have added greatly to the book. Special thanks go to the ‘nature mystics’ who have made their personal experiences available for study, and to my parents, sister, and oft-neglected friends, who havecontributedinwaystoonumeroustorecount. I am grateful to the Alister Hardy Society and the Religious Experience Research Centre at the University of Wales, Lampeter, for permission to quote from their extensive archive of spiritual testimonies. The present study has benefited considerably from data made available by the Centre in several publications, particu- larlytheanthologySeeingtheInvisible,editedbyMegMaxwelland VerenaTschudin(1996).PermissiontoquotefromSeeingtheInvis- ible was kindly granted by Verena Tschudin. Accounts from the Religious Experience Research Centre collection are indicated here bytheabbreviation‘RERC’followedbytheofficialarchivenumber, ifknown,andthepublicationreference. Theauthorwouldalsoliketothankthefollowingforpermission to reproduce published material: extract from ‘A spiritual biog- PrefaceandAcknowledgements ix raphy’, De Numine, 28: 14–17, by John Franklin (copyright 2000), reproduced by permission of John Franklin; extract from Light of All Life by Raynor C. Johnson (copyright 1984), reproduced by permission of Pilgrims Book Services; extracts from Watcher on the Hills by Raynor C. Johnson (copyright 1959), reproduced by permissionofHodder&StoughtonLimited. P.M.