Phenomenology, Women and Re-thinking Religious Experience

Reading Katherine K. Young’s essay, “From the Phenomenology of Religion to Feminism and Women’s Studies,” is encouraging. After having struggled with my own stance towards the role(s) of absolutism and relativism in scholarship last week, I found being introduced to phenomenology helpful.

At the beginning of her article, Young outlines the defining features of the phenomenological approach to religion, stating that it originally involved “synchronic or cross-cultural comparisons and the search for essences, or types (in other circles, this was called comparative religion), but also the historical study of religions with an emphasis on philology and the texts” (Young 18). A lot is said in this one statement.

The idea of searching for “essences” is what first grabbed my attention. I have been reading a lot of David Lewis-Williams lately and thinking about one of his main hypotheses, namely that religious experience is a universal, neurological phenomenon. [Without getting into the details of his argument here, I will just say that I recommend The Mind in the Cave and Inside the Neolithic Mind to anyone interested in neurological explorations of humanity’s history with religious experience]. In spite of the controversy surrounding this hypothesis, I am finding Lewis-Williams’ presentation relevant to my interest in Marian apparitions, particularly in my pursuit of answering why, if this type of religious experience (i.e. the supernatural vision) is indeed available to everyone, is it so heavily stigmatized in contemporary Protestant circles? Is this stigma predominantly rooted in the fact that the apparitions are of a controversial female figure within the Christian tradition? Or is its main locus in the West’s esteem for that which is rational and scientifically verifiable?

What I find so attractive about a phenomenological approach to the study of religion is the way in which it attempts to accommodate and address the extremes of human experience, even if those extremes are classified as “supernatural.” Young says, “because phenomenology allowed for a focus on direct experience, it created scope for scholars to appreciate claims of religious experience by individuals (what became known as the discipline of the psychology of religion)” (Young 20). For me, the idea that an empirically based philosophy can offer the “scope” needed to “appreciate” phenomena like Marian apparitions is incredibly valuable. Admittedly, one could argue that “appreciate” need not equal “scientifically legitimate” and indeed, this has been demonstrated by various psychological studies intent on equating religious experience with pathological experience. Yet, for me, the possibility of a different kind of “appreciation”—one that is capable of employing critical (and practical) methods that do not seek to reduce religious phenomena to “nothing but products of the mind,” one that is capable of “accept[ing] everything that comes into view as tentative fact—cannot be overestimated (Young 19, 23).

At this point, I am reminded of one of the comments that James made on my blog last week. It was well-put and well-taken: “Which is better: (a) because we can't prove something exists we take it not to exist, or (b) because we can't prove something exists we take it to exist. […] Acknowledging that something we cannot prove is real is poor scholarship.” I agree. To proclaim that something is real or fact simply because one is unable to prove otherwise is not responsible. What I am currently grappling with though, is what one is able to say about something that cannot be proven or disproved. If we refuse to subscribe to the “idealism” that Young draws our attention to, namely, categorizing religious experiences as psuedo-psychotic episodes, and instead, treat these phenomena with due complexity, what are we “allowed”/able to say about them (Young 23)? Are we justified in talking about them at all?

Embedded within this week’s descriptions of Gender and Women’s Studies are, I think, several suggestions for how one might answer this last question. Some might rightly shrug this question off, simply claiming their right to study whatever interests them or choosing to avoid what they feel is beyond scholarly discussion in academia. For whatever reason, I am unable to do either of these things and have been thinking about why I feel the need to have a methodological/theoretical justification for studying religious experiences. I am still in the process of formulating my thoughts about this, but I thought that I would include two examples of how Gender and Women’s Studies have been helping me think more about what constitutes a “legitimate” area of study and perhaps more importantly, a “legitimate” mode of study.

The first is derived from Elizabeth A. Clark’s essay, “Engendering the Study of Religion.” In section two, she makes reference to historian Judith Bennett’s argument that gender history “reminds us that many seemingly ‘natural’ ideas about women and men are, in fact, socially constructed” (Clark 237). While it might be a bit of a stretch, I cannot help but think if the same might be said about contemporary Western views on religious experience. Is it possible, in other words, that our ideas of what is “natural” and similarly, what is “not natural,” have been socially constructed? Notably, this question is not meant to revise religious experience as “natural” in the sense of that which is “common.” It is rather, to suggest that experiences like Marian apparitions may be legitimate reasons for academic (and non-academic) communities to revise what they view as “natural” in the sense of that which is “experientially possible” and subsequently, worthy of “serious” scholarship.

The second is derived from David Kinsley’s article, “Women’s Studies in the History of Religions.” In his section on “Engaged Scholarship,” Kinsley makes a point of describing how Women’s Studies has changed the way in which individuals conduct scholarly research. He says, “Women’s studies has also placed a good deal of emphasis on the fact that all scholarship is subjective to some extent. It has raised doubts concerning the possibility (and the desirability) of totally disinterested, objective, detached scholarship. […] The aim is to undertake engaged scholarship—scholarship that is aware of its agenda and pursues it with passion” (Kinsley 10). To take this challenging statement as a license to conduct (and endorse) thoughtlessly biased, non-critical work would be a mistake. But would it be a mistake to read this viewpoint as a theoretical justification for individuals pursuing articulate, intelligent and academically responsible discussions of subjects that extend beyond the realm of what is scientifically verifiable? Clearly I personally do not think that it would…I think that there is definitely more to think about here.