What was religious experience prior to organized religion?

“religious experience” means:

Encounter something “numinous” (Lat: numen)

A moment when time “stops” (eternal Now)

The “all at once” awareness of birth-death-life

“awesome” – literally “full of awe”

“sacred” or separate from everyday routine

Non-ego awareness of connecting to others

Immersion versus hearing about

Participant versus spectator

Disneyland versus watching cartoons

Avatar DVD versus 3D Imax

Opinion versus evidence

Belief versus gnosis (“getting it”)

“organized religion” means:

Having a defined dogma (Greek: fixed belief)

Having a system of communication

Having internal political arrangements (hierarchy)

Allied with powers of enforcement (state police)

Building its own places of worship, running schools, promoting itself (proselytizing)

We are looking at a historical process The process seems to have phases The process touches the foundations of

evolutionary psychology (our own culture) The process may also reflect personal

psychology (individual as a fractal of whole) Timelines may be useful, but don’t assume

the process had to go the way it went

Mystery religions: post-Olympic Greek-Mediterranean religion prior to consolidation of Christian teachings [primal phase]

Consolidation phase when world scriptures were edited and selected (Library at Alexandria) [emergent phase]

The launching of official (organized) Christianity, Pauline mission [consolidated]

Mediterranean with main focus on Greece (Athens and Greek colonies), 300 BC, but including Turkey (Anatolia) and Egypt

Alexandria (northern Africa), Egypt, 10 CE, founded by Alexander in 332 BC, Great Library

Remains of Roman Empire, 300 CE, Rome and Constantinople

Ancient mysteries: Burkert, Turcan, Meyer Gnostic gospels: Freke, Pagels Unifying Greek philosophy: Plotinus, Pseudo-

Dionysius (into the Middle Ages)

Contemporary questions: Pope Benedict, Bart Ehrman

Ancient mysteries: development of experiential, immersive theater experience

Gnosis: Personal experience (insight) about big truths (“Life is an incredible miracle!” “All is one!” “It’s great to be alive!”)

Unifying philosophy: The experience of oneness is the highest value in art, religion, and politics. Constantine unifies Empire in 330 CE under one religion (325 CE bishops at Council of Nicaea)

The ancient mysteries created a shared space for an intense private experience (epiphany, gnosis) of life’s big truths.

Gnosis (English: “know,” realize, taste); Personalrealization was the point of parables, stories, and descriptions of the life of Christ.

Philosophy: truth can be stated in words and organized in a set of principles. Stories, pictures, and drama are merely myth, less reliable than concepts.

The ancient (pagan) mysteries provided the component myths for Christianity.

The life of Christ was written as a parable for personal realization, not as a literal history of facts. Biblical statements are not an accurate historical chronicle or even logically consistent.

The achievement of political and social unity in the revived Roman Empire required religiousexperience to be formulated in a universal way so that it could become equivalent to affirming or denying of a set of propositions (“X is true” –“Y is false”). Faith became a system of beliefs.

Realization through stories, pictures, and theater is radically different from asserting a general truth.

Spreading a realization through government and its policies presents major challenges for religious belief.

Thoughts may change as they are realized through institutions.

We are looking at a historical process The process seems to have phases The process touches the foundations of

evolutionary psychology (our own culture) The process may also reflect personal

psychology (individual as fractal microcosm) Timelines may be useful, but don’t assume

the process had to go the way it went

Use timelines where possible (locate which phase: primal, emerging, consolidated)

Understanding through images & stories is more basic than conceptual understanding and explanations

In consolidated phase, the images and stories generate symbols or become symbols [a symbol suggests a larger social-cultural accretion of meaning and understanding]

Scholars of ancient mysteries: Walter Burkert, Robert Turcan, Marvin Meyer, Angus

Clement of Alexandria (Apostolic Father of Church), Tertullian (first theologian) – in Loeb Library Plotinus, founder of Neo-Platonism (O’Neill and Loeb

Library) Scholars of Gnostic Gospels: Elaine Pagels, Bart

Ehrman Scholars of early Church formation (behind the

official myth): Tim Freke and Peter Gandi, Doherty

1945 discovery of “Gnostic Gospels” Most complete find in 2,000 years Buried in Egypt Proto-orthodox documents Orthodoxy was stabilized circa 325 CE Formation of canon (“measure”) Q: What was canonized and why? Forgeries and “apostolic succession”

This stash of papyrus documents – hidden in the desert – opened many questions about the formation of early Christian experience and the organization of the early Church. There is much, much controversy about the meaning of the documents and there has been serious political scholarly wrangling about the translation and publication of these texts, including the “Gnostic Gospels.”

Gnostic gospels and Gnostic ideas in St. Paul Religious experience poured into Greek

concepts of unity (the One) Plotinus and Neo-Platonism (Greek Philos.) Dionysius the Areopagite (Greek pseudo-

disciple of St. Paul) but 8th century CE Pope Benedict XVI reflects on Dionysius and

the need for ecclesiastical humility

Teleste, initation, (initium = beginning) Telesterion, chamber or theater Myestes, initiate, “person with closed mouth” Mysterion, mysteria, secret things Incubation, dream chamber, visitations Hades, unseen world, invisible, under earth Dios, theios, daylight, splendor Demeter, Persephone, Orpheus

Men’s movement: (Franciscan retreat master) Richard Rohr’s Quest for the Grail: non-clerical myth, story over fixed dogma, initiation ritual, prescription for silence (don’t talk about it)

Women’s movement: (Jungian psychiatrist) Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World

Find a key concept Trace it in our texts Research it for images and web ideas Write it up on a single page End it with a thesis statement

Short declarative sentence

Provocative, non-trivial (arguable) sentence

Share your page in class or via email (Thursday noon prior to next meeting)

Burkert’s Ancient Mystery Cults Pp. 4-10