antiquity are based on actual subjective experience or literary imitation and
conventions has been discussed for some decades. Michael E. Stone has aptly
summarized the latter position, particularly in the context of apocalyptic
literature:
Indeed, it had long been a prevalent opinion of scholarship that pseudepigraphic
apocalypses are in some sense forgeries and that they present completelyfictitious
narratives about their claimed authors, with no roots in reality. (Stone, 2003,
p. 167)In this chapter, I defend the position that subjective religious experience
exists and motivates behavior. However, the role of literary genres and other
cultural patterns shall be by no means neglected. Psychological research on
memory, narratives, and reading, among others, provides important back-
ground knowledge for the study of subjective religious experience. Texts and
other forms of external representations interact with the beliefs held by every
individual in a society. Beliefs shape the memory of religious experience and
memories of the experience shape one’s beliefs. Moreover, as discussed in
section 7.1, the beliefs of the individual are likely to influence religious
experience from the start. Depending on which theory one follows, one
can argue about the exact timing of the interaction of beliefs with emotional
and sensory components, yet it seems inevitable that they influence the
emergenceofsubjectiveexperienceatanearlystage,verylikelybeforeit
enters working memory.
The anatomy of the human brain shapes both religious beliefs and subject-
ive religious experience. A caveat has to be added at this point concerning
neuro-
anatomybeliefstexts experiencememory of social environmentreligious
experience stimulationFigure 7.1.Religious experience in context.Religious Experience 147