Abstract

Discussions of the evidential import of religious experiences have tended to focus on the intra-cultural variety: that is, experiences the content of which accord with the religious/cultural background of the experiencer (eg. someone raised in a Buddhist culture might experience the oneness of all, whereas someone from a Christian background might have a vision of Jesus). But what of counter-cultural experiences? That is, experiences which fall outside of the individual's religious/cultural background? Little attention has been paid to these, though such experiences are far from unheard of in the case study literature. In this paper I explore some preliminary questions surrounding the evidential import of counter-cultural religious experiences