Tom Wolfe, author of ‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test’, once remarked that religions start with an experience in an individual or group of individuals. That this experience among the Merry Pranksters was induced by such substances as LSD was not unusual, said Wolfe. However very often the initiatory experience is spontaneous but similar to a psychedelic experience. And in religious groups where sacramental substances are used this practice often gives way to techniques designed to induce spontaneous experiences of the divine. For example the Soma Drinkers of the ancient Indies “graduated” to yogic techniques. This is, of course, not to be dismissive of the use of peyote as used in the context of the Huichol of Mexico or amongst the membership of the Native American Church.
The Zen school of Buddhism regards as very important the apostolic succession of the enlightenment experience from the Guatama Buddha to present day masters. The first Zen Master is said to have been Mahakasyapa who received enlightenment from the Buddha himself as he was handed a flower by the Compassionate One. Even if this legend is not literarily true the enlightened state of a present day master is objectively real and these people really do induce this experience in their students. This experience, which is disseminated outside the Buddhist scriptures, is considered to be the essence of Buddhahood.
The Roman Catholic Church and its closest allies make much of the concept of Apostolic Succession. However this refers to the authority to make pronouncements on doctrine, dogma and interpretation of scripture and is an aspect of what the catholic churches call Sacred Tradition. Few Catholics would deny that the Christian Church was in a sorry state by the 16th century but the response of the Protestant reformers to this situation was to claim that the essence of Christianity resided in Canonical scripture and that everyone had the right and, indeed, the duty to interpret these for themselves. The Bible was considered authentic as it is both ancient and tangible in a way that traditions are not. Of course most Protestants belong to churches that interpret scripture through the lens of a particular tradition (small “t”), a body of scholarship through which Scripture is understood and the contradictions contained in the Bible are resolved. On the other hand the vast majority of Protestant sects, those with small membership and constituting in total a small minority of Protestants, tend to impute infallibility to particular scriptural passages while often ignoring other aspects of scripture or denying that Scripture-as-a-whole proclaims Truth rather than asserting literally true statements.
My personal Unitarian response to these ideas would be as follows. Any scripture that has been tried and tested over long periods of time in actual use as scripture becomes highly recommended by definition, in the manner which a great philosophical work or any other type of book would be highly thought of and therefore useful. And similarly, a tradition is a tradition, just that, and accordingly should not be discarded needlessly. If it is tried and tested and useful then use it.
A series of similar acts will tend to produce a habit. Good habits in an individual will produce a strong character which will, in turn, have a positive influence on his/her destiny. Rituals designed to celebrate the divine are, of course, useful for this very reason. In the Dublin Unitarian Church services tend to follow a set formula and are, therefore, obviously ritualistic in nature, at least to some extent. Cork Unitarian services are more loosely ritualistic but still tend to follow a set pattern. A Presbyterian regards the Lord’s Supper, as an act of remembrance, to be a sacrament. Anglicans and Lutherans regard this act of remembrance as amounting to a form of ‘real presence’. And, while we may be dubious about the Catholic conception of this real presence, it must be remembered that the primary purpose of Holy Communion is to celebrate the sacred; the factual element of the proceedings being of secondary importance. Catholic belief in this area increases the perception of the sanctity of the ritual. Of course ritual, and not just Christian ritual, can tend towards the superstitious and the ridiculous but the other extreme, not uncommon among Unitarians, is that of atheistic literalism which holds that there is no reality other than surface appearance.
Unless the Christian religion has been, in total, one big “scam” its beginnings must have involved a direct experience of the divine, either by Jesus the prophet or Jesus the avatar, either conception of Jesus being unimportant compared to the reality of the actual experience. Some believe that the early Church used the character of a fictional, hypothetical, Jesus to illustrate its teachings through the use of stories of Jesus as valid scripture. But the essential, core element of Christian origins must have involved the experience of the divine. Did Jesus ‘hand a flower’ to Peter? It is often remarked by modern spiritual seekers that Christianity lost its true essence somewhere along the way, where no one is quite sure. Socrates remarked that “he knew that he knew nothing.” Here he was not glorying in his ignorance but recognising his actual, objective limits. This was his strength. And this is, also, the strength of the Unitarian movement. It can involve the recognition of our ‘lost-ness’ but not in any morbid Calvinist sense. Dogma and hearsay are rejected leaving a core of possible truth. Faith in scriptures and traditions are complemented by a doubt without which faith is blind.
Pythagoras, known today mostly for the mathematical theorem, was a mystic, a holy man. He founded a spiritual community in southern Italy which consisted of two types of followers, hearers and students, an inner circle of initiates and an outer circle. The hearers were taught doctrine while the students had the doctrines explained to them. Apostles and disciples perhaps? The purpose of the disciplines taught by Pythagoras was to enable his followers to escape the cycle of reincarnation as is the case with all eastern religions. And in eastern culture a basic distinction would be between those who have attained union with God, enlightenment, and the majority who aught to seek escape from the bonds of karma. Those who are serious about seeking enlightenment will avail of the services of a spiritual master.
The predicament of the materially wealthy West might be likened to an outer circle of religious seekers with no inner circle at all. Of course in Western religions the hope, and hopefully not a vain hope, of union with God, sudden or gradual, is after death. And the ethical and moral precepts and practices associated with ‘outer circle’ spirituality tends to be valuable regardless of the nature of any afterlife. It is still preparation for union with God. Within the context of Eastern thought the individual who is in a state of union with God actually is God. When Jesus held the bread he was about to eat and said “this is my body” perhaps what he meant was “thou art that”. If you were to swallow a morsel of food it would be a truism to say that it is actually becoming your body. But this is also so even before you put it in your mouth. That you would be dead without your heart or lungs is obvious. But the atmosphere around the planet and the sun in the sky are just as vital for your life. As is the food now growing in the fields. All these are part of your body just as your hands are. Appearances to the contrary are a relative truth required for functioning in the mundane world. The statement recited at Holy Communion services, “this is my body” attempts to describe the nature of the direct experience of Ultimate Reality, that All is One.
A large majority of humans claim to have experience either of God or of a ‘higher power’ of some sort. Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s mission to the poor of India began with a blissful encounter with Jesus. However for most of her life her faith in Jesus was just that, faith. While tirelessly working for the alleviation of the suffering of others her inner spiritual life was bleak, desolate. She almost always felt an overwhelming sense of the absence of God, while never ceasing her work. I have, on more than one occasion, heard accounts of ‘higher power’ experiences from friends. The people involved tell of ecstasy, rapture, at the time of the experience but only a memory remained later. The individuals have a rational knowledge of the reality of the experience but the memory of the bliss is no substitute for the experience itself.
One defining feature of human existence is that we experience God. There is evidence that religiosity existed even among the Neanderthals who buried their dead with ceremony. Direct experience of the divine involves intimations of immortality regardless of the existence of any, literally understood, life after death. Some deny that experiences of this sort exist or deny them validity if they do. A majority, in one way or another, hold that these sorts of experiences are the fundamental reality. Some because they experience them. And many because they yearn for them… one way or another.

Brendan Burke MA(Phil)
Cork 8th December, 2007.