Atheism and Theism 45There are all sorts of possible explanations of the numinous. Here is an
example. I love the hills. Hills at the top of a glen can look a bit like huge
crouching animals, and this may make us feel towards them as one would
towards conscious beings, even though we know that they are solid rock and
have no personality whatever. With this ‘as if ’ feeling there can be one that
I am inclined to describe as numinous. It presumably arises from some neuro-
logical harmoniousness that comes from the fact that the structure of our
brains is largely that of our early prehistoric ancestors and so is adapted to
surrounds of wilderness, or something like wilderness (even though the hills
had been cleared for sheep). I do not put this forward as a serious piece of
psychology, as a good explanation for the sort of case that I have in mind.
I am neither a psychologist nor an anthropologist. It obviously will not do as
a general explanation, since many mystics have hardly been hill persons or
lovers of wilderness. I put it forward as a suggestion that naturalistic explana-
tions of mystical experiences need not be too hard to come by. I do not want
to decry the experiences: the experiences can certainly be valued, and as I said
in an earlier section, contemplation of the laws of nature can certainly induce
religiousemotions, and these should be prized. As a philosopher I often
wonder what it would be like to spend all one’s life on practical and human-
centred concerns, such as politics, economics, town planning, and all sorts of
business, administrative and managerial activities, with no time and leisure to
indulge the philosophic and scientific impulse to contemplate the universe at
large. It is fortunate indeed that most people do not have this impulse, for
they are the people who make the world go round. In hospital I do not want
too dreamily philosophical a nurse or physician. One of the virtues of organ-
ized religion is that whether it is true or false it does to a certain extent cater
for the speculative and even to some extent cosmic impulses in a wide section
of the population, despite a certain anthropocentricity in some features of
some of the world’s religions.
Religious experience does of course often take specific forms depending on
particular religions or cultural circumstances. Catholic peasants may report an
encounter with the Virgin Mary, whereas Muslims, Jews or Buddhists would
hardly do so. Again particular circumstances may have something to do with
it, as in the case of Paul on the road to Damascus, feeling turmoil and guilt
about his previous activities of persecuting Christians, seeing a great light and
seeming to hear the voice of a risen Jesus. (Acts xii, 3–19; xxii, 6– 21; xxvi,
12–18. In the first of these passages Paul’s companions are said to hear the
voice, but not in the second. Perhaps the light could have been an unusual
light in the atmosphere. A sceptic would have to take the companions having
heard the voice too as an embellishment of the story in later years, or of the
companions’ recollection soon afterwards.) Joan of Arc heard voices, and
some have put this down to tuberculosis affecting her brain. The point is not