Experiences of hearing the voice of God (or angels, demons, or other spiritual beings) have generally been understood either as religious experiences or else as a feature of mental illness. Some critics of traditional religious faith have dismissed the visions and voices attributed to biblical characters and saints as evidence of mental disorder. However, it is now known that many ordinary people, with no other evidence of mental disorder, also hear voices and that these voices not infrequently include spiritual or religious content. Psychological and interdisciplinary research has shed a revealing light on these experiences in recent years, so that we now know much more about the phenomenon of “hearing voices” than ever before.
The present work considers biblical, historical, and scientific accounts of spiritual and mystical experiences of voice hearing in the Christian tradition in order to explore how some voices may be understood theologically as revelatory. It is proposed that in the incarnation, Christian faith finds both an understanding of what it is to be fully human (a theological anthropology), and God’s perfect self-disclosure (revelation). Within such an understanding, revelatory voices represent a key point of interpersonal encounter between human beings and God.
Christopher C. H. Cook is Professor of Spirituality, Theology and Health in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University, an Honorary Minor Canon at Durham Cathedral, and an Honorary Chaplain with Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV). He trained in medicine, at St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, and then undertook postgraduate training in psychiatry at Guys Hospital, London. He was an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist with TEWV until 2017. Christopher was ordained as an Anglican priest in 2001. He has research doctorates in psychiatry and in theology and is Director of the Centre for Spirituality, Theology and Health at Durham University. He is the author of The Philokalia and the Inner Life (James Clarke, 2011) and co-editor of Spirituality and Narrative in Psychiatric Practice (with Andrew Powell and Andrew Sims, RCPsych Press, 2016) and Spirituality, Theology & Mental Health (SCM Press, 2013). He is a member of the core research team for the Hearing the Voice project at Durham University.
First published 2019
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Names: Cook, Chris (Christopher C.H.), author.
Title: Hearing voices, demonic and divine : scientific and theological perspectives / Christopher C.H. Cook.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018032892| ISBN 9781472453983 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780429750953 (pdf) | ISBN 9780429750946 (epub) | ISBN 9780429750939 (mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: Hearing—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Spirits. | Experience (Religion) | Auditory hallucinations.
Classification: LCC BV4509.5 .C6596 2018 | DDC 248.2/9—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018032892
“With expertise in both theology and psychiatry, Professor Christopher Cook is ideally placed to examine the complexities around the hearing of voices in spiritual and religious contexts. His book is an authoritative and comprehensive guide to the scientific and theological research in the area. It is also a delightfully engaging read.”
Charles Fernyhough, Director and Principle Investigator, Hearing the Voice, Durham University, UK
“Hearing Voices, Demonic and Divine, is a careful and comprehensive account of the voice-hearing phenomenon. Unlike other such surveys, Cook takes seriously the possibility that voices communicate divine intention. Cook explores the vexed problem of discerning whether and when spirit speaks with thoughtfulness, empathy and wise caution.”
Tanya Marie Luhrmann, Howard H. and Jessie T. Watkins University Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University, USA
“The experience of hearing voices is something that is common to religious experiences and to those experiences that some determine as unusual or pathological. Untangling the complex origins and meanings of voice hearing is not an easy task, especially if we take into consideration issues around religion and theology. The dual temptation to under or over spiritualise voice hearing is alluring and difficult to avoid. Christopher Cook recognises this difficult tension, but also realises that it is not enough simply to partition voices with some assumed to be the responsibility of psychiatrists and others open to the discernment of religion and theology. The phenomenon of voice hearing requires an integrated approach that takes seriously the insights that can be gleaned from disciplines such as psychiatry, psychology, biology and neurology, whilst at the same time taking equally as seriously the insights that theology and Christian tradition brings to the conversation. All of these perspectives in turn require to take cognisance of the profound importance of listening to the personal narratives of voice hearers. Voices do not occur apart from people. If we forget that we risk losing the soul of our therapeutic and scientific endeavours. It is within this crucial hospitable conversation that new insights and fresh possibilities emerge. This powerful and well-argued interdisciplinary reflection on hearing voices opens up vital space for re-thinking the phenomenon of voice hearing and opening up new possibilities for understanding and responding. This is a helpful and important book.”
John Swinton, Professor in Practical Theology and Pastoral Care and Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies, University of Aberdeen, UK
This book is dedicated to Andrew and Bibs, Beth and James, Rachel and Milo, Jonathan and Sarah, and to all our grandchildren.
