Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences
Abraham H. Maslow
Appendix C. Ethnocentric Phrasings of Peak-Experiences
It has been demonstrated again and again that the transcendent
experiences have occurred to some people in any culture and at
any time and of any religion and in any caste or class. All these
experiences are described in about the same general way; the language
and the concrete contents may be different, indeed must be different.
These experiences are essentially ineffable ( in the sense that
even the best verbal phrasings are not quite good enough), which
is also to say that they are unstructured (like Rorschach ink-blots).
Also throughout history, they have never been understood in a
naturalistic way. Small wonder it is then that the mystic, trying
to describe his experience, can do it only in a local, culture-bound,
ignorance-bound, language-bound way, confusing his description
of the experience with whatever explanation of it and phrasing
of it is most readily available to him in his time and in his
place.
Laski (42) discusses the problem in detail in her chapters on
"Overbeliefs" and in other places and agrees with James
in disregarding them. For instance, she points out (p. 14), "To
a substantial extent the people in the religious group knew the
vocabulary for such experiences before they knew the experience;
inevitably when the experiences are known, they tend to be recounted
in the vocabulary already accepted as appropriate."
Koestler (39) also said it well, "But because the experience
is inarticulate, has no sensory shape, color or words, it lends
itself to transcription in many forms, including visions of the
cross, or of the goddess Kali; they are like dreams of a person
born blind.... Thus a genuine mystic experience may mediate a
bona fide conversion to practically any creed, Christianity,
Buddhism or Fire-Worship" (p. 353). In the same volume, Koestler
reports in vivid detail a mystic experience of his own.
Still another way of understanding this phenomenon is to liken
the peak experiences to raw materials which can be used for different
styles of structures, as the same bricks and mortar and
lumber would be built into different kinds of houses by a Frenchman,
a Japanese, or a Tahitian (45).
I have, therefore, paid no attention to these localisms since
they cancel one another out. I take the generalized peak-experience
to be that which is common to all places and times.