An Enquiry into the Mystical Experiences of Julian of Norwich and Epistemic Injustice in Relation to Illness

Abstract

The focus of this paper is the epistemic injustice of automatically not believing someone’s testimony of a mystical experience simply because they had an illness at the time. This can lead to people diminishing the subject’s perceived epistemic credibility as they may be stereotyped as not being able to reason effectively due to their illness. This is epistemic injustice as a subject’s words are silenced because they are believed to be an untrustworthy knower due to a negative prejudice associated with a disadvantaged group to which they belong (such as having an illness). The revelations of Julian of Norwich provide the central focus of this paper, and I utilise research from a range of subjects, such as theology, philosophy, psychiatry and history, to reach my conclusion. I argue that not all people who are ill and claim to have had a mystical experience (such as Julian of Norwich) should be regarded as unreliable knowers, and that there can be experiences of God that have been triggered by an illness. This argument has important ramifications for how people with illnesses should be treated epistemically as well as the position that religion can have in medicine.