The Supernatural Public Square: On Religious Experience in the Modern Age with Dale C. Allison, Jr.

October 7, 2026

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The Supernatural Public Square: On Religious Experience in the Modern Age

Dale C. Allison Jr., the Dearborn Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, has spent decades studying ancient texts about resurrection, visions, and angelic encounters. But in his 2022 book Encountering Mystery: Religious Experience in a Secular Age, he turns his attention to something closer to home: the extraordinary experiences that ordinary people—including secular academics, atheists, and his own family members—continue to report in the twenty-first century. The central claim of the book, and of this conversation, is not that these experiences prove the existence of God or the truth of any particular religion. It is that they are far more common than most educated people realize, and that the social pressure to remain silent about them distorts our understanding of what human life is actually like.

What Counts as a Religious Experience?

Allison declines to offer a strict definition of religious experience, following a Wittgensteinian approach: certain phenomena share a family resemblance, and we can talk about them usefully even without a precise boundary. He is interested in "non-ordinary phenomena to which people often, but not necessarily, give a religious meaning"—events that involve a sense of transcendence, presence, or communication from beyond the self.

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What you'll learn

1 (01:31) **What Counts as “Religious Experience”?** - Allison declines a formal definition, adopting a Wittgensteinian “family resemblance” approach focused on non-ordinary phenomena people often interpret religiously.
2 (04:27) **James’s “Sick Soul” and “Twice-Born” Still Illumines Today** - Allison defends William James’s typology as enduringly useful, using George Harrison as a vivid case study.
3 (06:40) **Same Experience, Different Interpretations** - The identical subjective event can be read as Hindu, Christian, or dismissed entirely—interpretation depends on worldview.
4 (10:12) **The Social Stigma of Telling Your Story** - Many people—even in religious communities—hide extraordinary experiences for fear of ridicule or dismissal.
5 (14:22) **Common Types of Religious Experience: Bliss and Terror** - Allison catalogs two major experiential families: overwhelming love/presence and oppressive evil presence.
6 (18:16) **Experiences in Prayer: Guidance and Inner Voices** - Prayer often generates a sense of guidance, sometimes through a voice or an overwhelming directive, which people interpret as divine response.
7 (23:20) **The Varied Inner Mechanics of Intercessory Prayer** - People visualize prayer in wildly different ways, from seeing faces to playing mental Tetris—and we know almost nothing about this.

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Show Notes

The old story in the academy was that as science and technology progressed, western society would grow more secular while the supernatural would disappear permanently from the public square. But nowadays re-enchantment is the new byword, from renewed public interest in traditional forms of religion to weirder phenomenon like ufology and psychedelics entering mainstream culture. However, the academy has been slow to catch up with this wider sea change.

So various scholars of religion have been putting forward new arguments for the legitimate study of the supernatural. One of these is Dale Allison, who is my guest today as we continue Season 6 to discuss modern religious experiences. Dale Allison is the Dearborn Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, and the author of books such as The Resurrection of Jesus (2021) and Encountering Mystery (2022).

We look at numinous events of bliss and terror, responses to prayers, out-of-body & near-death experiences, angelic encounters, and visions of dead loved ones. Along the way, we also discuss William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience, current research into psychedelics, George Harrison’s mysticism, David Hume’s borrowing from anti-Catholic arguments, Jesus Christ’s post-mortem appearances, and the emerging scholarship on supernatural phenomenon.

Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison’s Footnotes. Please share and enjoy.

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