1. This is the answer What is the question
One third of adults in Britain, the USA and Australia 40% of people in Britain

2. What is a religious experience
A religious experience may be defined as:
an experience that has religious significance, such as an act of worship or pilgrimage
an experience that is believed to have brought closeness with or awareness of God, gods or the ultimate reality.

3. A religious experience is a non-empirical occurrence, and may be perceived as supernatural. It can be described as a ‘mental event’ which is undergone by an individual, and of which that person is aware. Such an experience can be spontaneous, or it may be brought about as a result of intensive training and self-discipline. Recipients of religious experiences usually say that what has happened to them has ‘drawn them into’ a deeper knowledge or awareness of God. The experience that each individual has is absolutely unique and cannot be shared with anyone.

4. Definitions of religious experience
Using your work from this lesson and your general knowledge think of a overall definition of religious experiences
Compare your definition with the one below
‘In general, religious experience involves:
A sense of wonder
A sense of new insight and values
A sense of holiness and profundity
A religious experience involves the whole of a person – mind and emotions, values and relationships – and seems to touch the most basic and fundamental sense of being oneself.’ Thompson

5. Vauxhall station on a murky November Saturday evening is not the setting one would choose for a revelation of God," runs one account. "The whole compartment was filled with light. I felt caught up into some tremendous sense of being within a loving, triumphant and shining purpose. All men were shining and glorious beings who in the end would enter incredible joy. In a few moments the glory had departed, all but one curious, lingering feeling. I loved everybody in that compartment. I seemed to sense the golden worth in them all."

6. Ninian Smart
‘A religious experience involves some kind of perception of invisible world, or involves a perception that some visible person or thing. Is a manifestation of the invisible world.’