God put a thought into my mind: the charismatic Christian experience of receiving communications from God

Abstract

The agentive aspects of communicative religious experiences remain somewhat neglected in the social sciences literature. There is a need for phenomenological descriptions of these experiences and the ways in which they differ from culturally defined psychopathological states. In this semi-structured interview study, eight congregants attending an evangelical church in London were asked to describe their experiences of God communicating with them. Communications from God were related to current events rather than to the prediction of future events. These communications were received as thoughts and do not generally reveal metaphysical insights, but rather they relate to the mundane world. They provided direction, consolation and empowerment in the lives of those receiving them. Individuals recounted that on occasion God sometimes speaks audibly, or accompanied by supernatural phenomena, but in the vast majority of cases, the way God speaks is through thoughts or impressions. In all instances, agency is maintained, individuals can choose to obey the thoughts/voices or not. The findings are discussed in relation to externalisation of agency and the phenomenon of thought insertion in schizophrenia.

Hearing Voices, Demonic and Divine

“…Similar findings were subsequently obtained by Dein and Cook in a study of a smaller sample drawn from a charismatic evangelical Anglican church in East London (Dein and Cook, 2015). Interviewees reported that God generally communicated with them through thoughts or mental impressions which were understood to provide direction, consolation, and empowerment in the context of the mundane affairs of their daily lives.…”

“…Simon Dein and Roland Littlewood (2007), in a study of a Pentecostal church in northeast London, identified 25 individuals (out of 40 who completed questionnaires) who reported that they heard God's voice in answer to their prayers. Similar findings have been reported by Tanya Luhrmann (2012) in her more extensive studies of two charismatic churches in the USA, and in a smaller study by Cook and Dein (Dein and Cook, 2015). 7 There seems to be a general lack of scientific research on voice hearing in religious traditions other than Christianity, and published contemporary accounts of voice hearing from within other faith traditions are relatively uncommon.…”

Theology and Science of Mental Health and Well‐being

“…We now know much more about hearing voices, partly as a result of an extensive research program at the University of Durham (Fernyhough ). Hearing the voice of God is a common feature of the religious life (Dein and Cook ).…”

Identity and schizophrenia: Who do I want to be?

“…Conversion to a new religion is often experienced as a transformational change, and has been described with vocabulary that is similar to that used to describe an episode of psychosis. Conversion is said, for instance, to give people a new sense of life’s meaning and a new relationship to God[72-77]. Individuals with psychotic illness use very similar terms when they talk about their beliefs, making it difficult to distinguish religious conversion from delusional thinking.…”