WORSHIP AND THE SUPERNATURAL
by The Rev John Williamson MA. STh.
Evelyn Underhill begins her book Worship:
Worship, in all its grades and kinds, is the response
of the creature to the Eternal: nor need we limit this
 definition to the human sphere. There is a sense
in which we may think of the whole life of the Universe,
 seen and unseen, conscious and unconscious, as an act of worship.

A nagging guestion.
A question which keeps nagging at me is this
 -is the fact that I type on my word processor
and still believe in the supernatural a sign of schizophrenia?
 I suspect many would say that it is and that it would be
 better to stay with the modern world and abandon
belief in the supernatural. After all. the Church
has largely found it expedient to focus attention on
 spiritual qualities in this world and be a bit vague
about there being anything else 'beyond' that. And the
argument  that the Church must express the Christian
 faith in terms of our contemporary knowledge about
our world -and not have to retreat to a "religious ghetto"
 is pretty compelling.  But I wonder.

THEN.
In the times when the scriptures were written -there was
 only one world (a universe). What happened on this
planet was seen to be very much influenced by forces
beyond human understanding and control. The heavens
were part of the cosmos in which this planet existed
-a small speck in a vast universe. The sun, wind and
rain that came down from the heavens affected life on
earth, sometimes benignly, sometimes dangerously.
The wise men of those days sought to discover
the truth about life in the universe. The dominant belief,
influenced by that status of mathematics, was that the
way to truth was not by conducting experiments
(useful though these may be) but by thinking.
Human reason could discover truths that lay beyond
and behind ordinary everyday experience. That was
the proper order of enquiry. In fact, real knowledge
could only be about concepts.

But it was also believed that by stories and myths
humans could be in touch with realities beyond ordinary
experience. This kind of knowledge was achieved by
deeply personal awareness. True, this kind of knowledge
didn't give us exact descriptions, but they did convey
truths about human experience which when expressed
 in poetry, ordinary people could understand and relate to.

This was the wisdom of those days, and if you were
 inclined to be religious you could fit the idea of God
 into this generally accepted view of the universe.
Christians sought to express their beliefs in a way
that was consistent with the accepted view of the
universe at that time. And this belief led them to worship God.
There was nothing supernatural. In the one natural world
 there things visible and things invisible. The invisible
things did not belong to some "other" world. They were
 very much part of the one universe. As we still
say in the creed:  We believe in one God, the Father,
the Almighty, maker of haven and earth and all that is,
seen and unseen. Belief is not knowing in an objective way,
but accpeting the possibility that something could be true
and acting as though it were.

NOW.
Today we distinguish between the ‘natural’ and the
‘supernatural’. But we only need the word ‘supernatural’
because we have erected a fence to exclude from ‘reality’
 anything that can’t be scientifically proved to exist.
And we find that the language we use about this ‘reality’
is inadequate to talk about anything beyond our fence line.
We live in a technological environment, with sophisticated
means of travel, communication, engineering and medicine.
We are able to do this because of the vast amount
of knowledge about our world we have acquired and
put to practical use. Yet a contemporary scientist
[Murray Gell-Mann of the California Institute of Technology]
has reminded us that
"This search to understand the universe, how it works
and where it came from, is the most persistent and
greatest adventure in human history."  And he comments
 "It is difficult to imagine that a handful of residents of a
small planet circling on an insignficant star in a small galaxy
 have as their aim a complete understanding of the entire
universe, a small speck of creation truly belieinv it is
capable of comprehending the whole.
Our understanding of our universe has developed
spectacularly. But our efforts to control nature seem
less successful, even if initially they seem beneficial,
safe and promising."

So it is not surprising that in our scientifically sophisticated
world many people have experiences that can’t be proved
scientifically. There are many who regard all stories
of supernatural experience as the product of a distorted
mind or imagination – something which  sceptics
are continually reminding us. And we need that warning
because many stories of such experiences turn out to
be either a hoax or capable of some rational or scientific
explanation. Yet even if we set these aside as well as the
more bizarre stories of flying saucers and abductions
by aliens from another planet, there are well-authenticated
incidents which ought to be seriously considered.
An article by Nalor Hillary in  The Press of June 1992
about a visit to Port Arthur in Australia caught my attention:
"Port Arthur, with its elaborate ruins and tragic past cries
out for ghost stories. At the commandant’s house in the
nanny room at the back, an old rocking chair has been
involved in several incidents over the years. Among
them seems to be a determination on the part of the
chair –or whatever is in it – not to be photographed.
Many films have been ruined in the room and some
 are on display. This visitor, skeptical but amused by
 the whole business, photographed the chair. An hour
later, on the Isle of the Dead, the camera was used
again to photograph gravestones. For no discernable
reason the back of the camera sprang open, exposing
the film of the rocking chair. The film rewound, wiping
itself blank, and the camera refused to stop buzzing
until the batteries were removed. This sceptic is still
telling himself that mechanical contrivances are
unreliable – but the prickle at the back of the neck remains."

Then in  The Listener in March 1993 I read Jane Tolerton’s
account of the exhibition of  Te Maori in America
and some of the problems which arose, such as:
"A light meter that wouldn’t work until the piece being
photographed was told the picture was to be sent home
to show he was in good condition, or the gouges
that appeared in one piece – and disappeared again,
or the way on the last leg of the tour, the truck broke
down for no discernible reason and then went again
after O’Bisco had given the pieces an assurance
that their own people would escort them on their
Auckland-Wellington journey.When she tried to tell
one story to a reporter with a tape-recorder on
she was struck by a bout of nausea. There were
numerous instances of the pieces unleashing their power."

There are many stories like this in a book by  B.J.F. Laubscher:
Where Mystery Dwells. One I like is of someone visiting
St Mary’s Collegiate Church at Port Elizabeth in South
Africa. He went to a service there and afterwards enquired
from his host, the Rector, who the priest was that stood
in front of the altar during the anthem. The Rector assured
him it wasn’t him, and it couldn’t have been any other
of the parish clergy as they were away somewhere else.
The writer continues:
"After this we made many enquiries, and we came across
others who had seen him. Among them was one who told
us that the late rector had been devoted to music
and have given the organ to the Church. He also said that
 the place where he had been standing before the altar was his grave."

Whatever one makes of such experience, and even if
many of them are merely products of the imagination
[though it seems to me significant that the person
who reported this experience in the church at Port Elizabeth
hadn’t known the late rector and wasn’t expecting or hoping
to see him at the service!] it indicated that people do
have experiences like this, even if they don’t fit our
scientific criteria of truth.

It has always impressed me that artists often say that their
 creative work involves a dialogue with ‘something’ beyond
their own consciousness. Wagner once said of some music
he composed: " I was not shaping the quartet – it was shaping me."

They may attribute this to their own subconscious, to ‘the
 collective unconscious’ or God. Their work is a blend of material
(which can be scientifically analysed) and spiritual (which can’t).
The poem and the rational explanation exist in different genres,
each with its own criteria of truth. To reduce the poem to a
reasoned statement is to lose the poem. The ‘spiritual’ needs
to be incarnate in the ‘material’. So perhaps Evelyn Underhill
was saying something important when she wrote:

"Ritual, Symbol, Sacrament, and Sacrifice are more,
not less valid expressions of the Spirit of Worship, because
they belong at one and the same time to the world of sense
and the world of spirit: for this is the actual situation of the
amphibious creature by whom these means have been
devised and used. Taking from that sensible world which
surrounds us – and of which alone we have direct
experience – finite realities, to which they attach religious
significance, and which can therefore be used for the
conveyance of infinite truths."

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