 In reply, many discount experiences of polytheistic gods straight away because of their being embedded in settings we today take to be bizarre, and because of the relative paucity of reports of actual experiences of such beings. Regarding clashing experiences within theistic settings, Richard Swinburne (1991, 266) has proposed an ascent to generality as a harmonizing mechanism. He believes that conflicting descriptions of the objects of religious experience pose a challenge only to detailed doctrinal claims, not to general claims of having experienced a supernal being.