Alister Hardy was a marine biologist. When he decided to study religion, he thought: instead of dealing with dogmas and ritual, why don’t we do what we do in the sciences, namely, collect data first and study it? So, he advertised in the secular press, inviting people to send in reports of their religious experiences.
The response was far greater than he expected. Thousands of people wrote, describing their religious experiences—so much so that these were published in several volumes. The centre Hardy set up at Manchester College, Oxford, the Religious Experience Research Unit, continued his work. In an apparently secular country like Britain, there were more people with special experiences which they considered religious.
The first volume, The Spiritual Nature of Man: Study of Contemporary Religious Experience, carried short descriptions sent in by people who had had such experiences. The second volume, The Original Vision, was devoted to the spiritual experience of children. The accounts were written by adults of course, describing the mystical experiences they had had as children.
The world may not be as secular or as “godless” as it may sometimes look!
Fr Joe Mannath SDB
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