section_path: Contemporary spirituality/Spiritual experience
section_name: Spiritual experience
paragraph_text: Spiritual experience
  
  Spiritual experiences play a central role in modern spirituality. Both western and Asian authors have popularised this notion. Important early-20th century Western writers who studied the phenomenon of spirituality, and their works, include William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) and Rudolph Otto, especially The Idea of the Holy (1917)
  
  James' notions of "spiritual experience" had a further influence on the modernist streams in Asian traditions, making them even further recognisable for a western audience.
  
  William James popularized the use of the term "religious experience" in his The Varieties of Religious Experience. He has also influenced the understanding of mysticism as a distinctive experience which allegedly grants knowledge.
  
  Wayne Proudfoot traces the roots of the notion of "religious experience" further back to the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), who argued that religion is based on a feeling of the infinite. Schleiermacher used the idea of "religious experience" to defend religion against the growing scientific and secular critique. Many scholars of religion, of whom William James was the most influential, adopted the concept.
  
  Major Asian influences on contemporary spirituality have included Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) and D. T. Suzuki. (1870–1966) Vivekananda popularised a modern syncretic Hinduism, in which an emphasis on personal experience replaced the authority of scriptures. Suzuki had a major influence on the popularisation of Zen in the west and popularized the idea of enlightenment as insight into a timeless, transcendent reality. Other influences came through Paul Brunton 's A Search in Secret India (1934), which introduced Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) and Meher Baba (1894–1969) to a western audience.
  
  Spiritual experiences can include being connected to a larger reality, yielding a more comprehensive self; joining with other individuals or the human community; with nature or the cosmos; or with the divine realm.