270 NONMONOTHEISTIC CONCEPTIONSTwo counterbalancing considerations
It is sometimes suggested that those who have had religious experiences
are the real experts as to what those experiences show – as to what they
are evidence for. This claim is often made regarding enlightenment
experiences. While perhaps, just by virtue of having them, persons who
have enlightenment experiences are experts about what it is like to have
the sort of religious experience they have had, this does not tell us
anything about whether such experiences are self-authenticating
relative to any religious claims based on such experiences, or whether
these experiences provide evidence for the beliefs based on them.
If some have claimed that religious experiencers – those who have
had religious experiences – are thereby experts about the reliability or
veridicality of those experiences (about whether or not they correctly
represent the world), it should be noted that others have claimed that
religious experiencers are the last people one should expect to have any
such expertise. They have argued that the very having of such
experiences – experiences that are often emotionally very powerful and
that sometimes result in instantaneous conversions or redirections of a
life – renders them in no position to evaluate the cognitive significance
of such experiences objectively. Further, particularly in the traditions
that center on enlightenment experience, the investment in having such
experiences is great. One walks for years in a loin cloth from one end of
India to the other, begging one’s bread. Or one spends years learning the
meanings of ancient arcane texts under the relentless guidance of
demanding gurus. Or one spends a near lifetime on good works, in each
case instead of devoting oneself to seeking pleasure, wealth, and power.
Also the status given to those who attain the goal is high (being
elevated to a semidivine status where others bow in your presence or
dare not even look you in the face). The investment and rewards are just
too great for anyone who claims to have had any such experience to be
trusted to be at all rational in his reasoning or judgment regarding its
cognitive significance.
Whatever weight either sort of consideration has is balanced by the
other sort, and neither sort justifies concluding either that religious
experiencers are the experts regarding what their experiences
evidentially justify or that if those experiences serve as evidence they
can only do so for those who have them.