God, Philip Larkin and Prom 49

28th August, 2022

What is a religious experience? I think I may have had one.

I’m a sceptical sort, disbelieving to a fault; disbelieving of myself and of those around me. This general disbelief certainly carries over to my views on religion. People who knew me at school may remember that I was a teenage athiest of the most tedious variety; I watched videos of of Richard Dawkins hectoring the faithful to be less gullible, and of compilations Christopher Hitchens being rude to preachers (so called “Hitch-slaps”, a cringeworthy expression to me now, but ashamedly not so much when I was 16); I started arguments with religious schoolmates and, on one occasion, I wrote a screed in my Religious Studies work-book (for such a subject was apparently considered valuable by my school) in which I suggested religious belief was akin to supporting the Ku Klux Klan. I was, to put it far too mildly, a pain in the arse.

The aforementioned Hitchens often cited a favourite poem of his by Philip Larkin, Church Going, in which Larkin, an atheist, describes a church as “a serious house on serious earth”. What is the seriousness of the place to a non-believer? I have often asked myself this question myself: as I sat respectfully through Catholic weddings and funerals; as I participated in Anglican services at school (my general flippancy was always muted within the buildings themselves); as I marvelled while touring grand European cathedrals; as I was emotionally affected by religious art and music. These are all experiences which are almost unique to religious institutions and they seem to find some ascetic need for deep seriousness within us. God need not exist for these experiences to be felt.

I had a most jarring experience one day in 2015 as I was listening to Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis. The music made me feel something quite profoundly moving—my trunk was shaken to see if any roots would come out. And it seemed like they would when, out of the blue, a thought seemed to pop into my head: “God Exists”

Now, I remain an atheist to this day and this blog post is certainly not a place for ontological examinations of God, so let’s just marvel at the possibility that someone could have such a shocking thought while listening to a piece of music, especially a piece of secular, mid-twentieth-century piano music. If I had held on to that thought, then I could have converted to a religion that I previously had no intention to follow simply because of a piece of music. Thence comes the power of the idea of God: of a being which is able to feel profound and unexpected feelings to the extent that we would form a belief system around it. And this is something that music did to me. There are few things in life which can get us to be so serious about such vast and unimaginable experiences.

This has been present in my mind this week because of prom 49, which featured a performance of Mahler’s 2nd symphony by the LSO under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle and which I was exceedingly fortunate enough to attend. It was, for me, one those extremely rare occasions: an experience of jubilation and euphoria far beyond anything encountered in daily, mundane life. It was, I reflected as the applause thundered around the whole hall following the final bars of the piece, surely the same experience that believers have when fully enrapt in their religious practices, it was a kind of powerful emotional totality that one just simply doesn’t usually experience. I entered into communion with the musicians, the audience, Mahler, the music—I was overwhelmed beyond my wildest dreams.

Serious experiences are valuable and they are hard to come by, especially in secular life, hence why atheists visit churches and celebrate Christmas etc. Maybe, the feeling of powerful music can give us a hint as to how we can gain these experiences without feeing that we need to take brand new epistemological and ontological positions?