The authenticity of religious experience

pp. 65-68

in: Graham Richards, Psychology, religion, and the nature of the soul, Berlin, Springer, 2011

Abstract

As we have seen Psychology was originally welcomed by many believers as promising a scientific vindication of the authenticity of religious experience. In this chapter I wish, somewhat perfunctorily, to summarise what I take to be the status of the authenticity issue. Although its prominence as a topic has oscillated considerably over time it is one which has guaranteed that the two camps remain unsevered, not least because it bears most directly on the mythos versus logos tension. On the religious side the promise persists, on the Psychological side the nature of religious experience is unambiguously a part of its subject matter.