My understanding is that a theophany is an empirically detected divine manifestation. But there can be several interpretations of that phrase. Is Christ a theophany or was his empirical humanity just that with a non empirical awareness of his divinity in those who come to God through him
If you think all is God, how, even with an empirical encounter, can you say, that particular manifestation is exclusively God? I don’t begin to suppose your analysis answers these questions.
This strikes me as preposterous. You seem to be using 'empirical' in a sense that is totally contrary to its normal meaning. How the hell is anyone else supposed to evaluate your subjective theophany? Such an experience (like all of its kind) is the very essence of subjectivity; all any objective observer could detect is that the experiencer 'came over all funny'. And then that they reported afterwards, as you have done, that they believed that they experienced God. Nothing empirical about that at all.
Then we have Alan Burns' repeated anecdotal assurances from various quarters of people having emotional touches of the vapours, and are supposed to believe that all these are true evidence of divine experience. Having read a lot of the literature of this stuff from down the ages, and knowing how much these accounts differ in how they are related and how they are interpreted, I'm not persuaded by Alan's no doubt sincere attempts to convince us that his latter-day evangelical foamings have any more relevance than experiences of emotionally illiterate people who have been brainwashed into thinking that they've met God.
Now when I were nobbut a lad, I was convinced that I was able to project my astral body out of the window and through the roof and view magical landscapes as I flew (incidentally Melvyn Bragg testifies that he frequently had the same kind of out of the body experiences). Do you think I'm going to claim that these experiences could be empirically evaluated, just because Lord Bragg said he'd known something similar? All I can say is that the mind is capable of producing a vast array of extraordinary experiences which are far removed from our everyday lives, but whether they have any objective validity, or indeed humanitarian use, I very much doubt.
However, if one of Alan Burns' evangelical chums who'd previously been a wife-beater and serial rapist managed to change his behaviour to something a bit more civilised after his meeting with Jesus, I suppose that's not to be dismissed entirely. Chances are that the 'holy glow' will dissipate, as often happens in these cases, and "the last state will be worse than the first".
