 Such an approach can admit of corruptions, as when the believer seeks out certain exalted experiences, and takes pride in them because they are thought to signify intimacy with God, or perhaps takes pleasure in them simply because of their thrilling or in other ways pleasing phenomenological feel. David Pugmire (1998) speaks of “dramaturgical” and “narcissistic” cases of emotional experience where, respectively, the emotion is taken to signify one’s superior status in some respect, or where it is valued because of its pleasant phenomenological feel. And we might think of some religious experiences in similar terms. However, these cases are presumably corruptions, and the tradition that has evolved the language of “spiritual sensations” need not as such have any tendency to value religious experience for these reasons.