RESEARCH: "Responses to the Mystical Scale by Religious Jewish Persons: A Comparison of Structural Models of Mystical Experience"

Abstract

This study examined various structural models of mystical experience. Confirmatory factor analysis of the responses of a sample of 191 religious Jewish persons residing in Israel to the Mystical Scale (Hood, 1975) was used to examine and compare various models of mystical experience. In general, multidimensional models provided a better fit to the relations between the Mystical Scale items than did a unidimensional model. Models based on Stace's (1960) conceptualization of mystical experience that associates ineffability with interpretive religious experience fitted the data more closely than did Hood and Williamson's (2000) conceptualization that associates this feature with noninterpretive dimensions of mystical experience. Finally, models in which the unity relevant features were independent of the interpretive dimension fitted the data more closely than did models that did associate unity features with the interpretive dimension. The latter finding provided support for the purported universality of Stace's "unity thesis."