This essay is an introduction to systematic nonsectarian psychology of religion—its nature and scope, and its history. Among major issues, the study of motivation for being religious and stages of religious development are discussed, as well as counseling and psychotherapy. I summarize current trends.

On the centennial of the death of William James (1842-1910), I approached faculty members at eighteen major theological centers of learning requesting them to identify the twelve most important books in the field of the psychology of religion written between James' 1902 classic The Varieties of Religious Experience up to Peter Homan's 1970 Theology After Freud. The request was for each faculty member (by agreement to remain anonymous) to identify the twelve books during that time period (1902-1970) which, (...) in their opinion, constituted major contributions to the development of the discipline of psychology of religion. By mutual agreement, James was credited with being the purported founder of the psychology of religion and Homans the quintessential culmination of the discipline's respectability. Though obviously subjective, the survey did register a consensus of scholars teaching in the field and what follows is a critical assessment of the merits of those books which they selected. (shrink)

This article aims to introduce, in brief, studies on psychology of religion in Turkey from 1949 to 2012 using literature survey methodology. The historical development of psychology of religion in the West will first be presented before focusing on the historical development of such studies in Turkey. Thereafter, the number of academic psychologists of religion in Turkey is listed. In addition, some information is given about journals, articles and academic dissertations covering scientific studies on the (...) psychology of religion in Turkey. Finally, information about professional conferences regarding this field of study held in Turkey will be given. (shrink)

Jewish spirituality and religion include dynamics that are different from other traditions and have important implications for relational forms of spirituality. Certain approaches to relational Judaism (e.g. Mussar) have offered insights for understanding the folk psychology of relational spirituality in Jewish contexts but have not generated empirical research. Existing research in the psychology of Jewish religion and spirituality draws on several theoretical frameworks and has generated helpful findings. In this synthetic review, we foreground the role of (...) theory in psychological research and offer a brief review of several theoretical frameworks used in research on the psychology of Jewish religion and spirituality (cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, cultural psychology of religion, and positive psychology). The relational spirituality model (RSM) is summarized as a conceptual framework that could be useful for future research in this area. We use the RSM as a heuristic organizing framework to review several lines of prior empirical research on the psychology of Jewish religion and spirituality that fit within the RSM domains of spiritual dwelling, seeking, and struggles. The final section outlines future directions in research in this area based on the RSM, with particular attention to dimensions of diversity (e.g. gender, sexual orientation), diverse contexts of Jewish spirituality, Jewish spirituality in relation to both mental health suffering and flourishing, and historical trauma. We also highlight the need for research on Jewish spiritual development in communal settings (e.g. congregations, seminaries) to provide a deeper understanding at both individual and communal levels, and interdisciplinary integration with Jewish theology. (shrink)

Psychology of religion as a branch of religious studies, in contrast to the philosophy and sociology of religion, focuses attention mainly on the problems of individual religiosity - the phenomena of religious experience, religious beliefs, mechanisms of the emergence and development of religious experience. The psychology of religion studies the experience of the supernatural person, the psychological roots of this experience and its significance for the subjective. Since a person is formed and operates in a (...) society, the study of religious experience must include its social sources. (shrink)

In this paper we will show you a part of a course “Clinical Psychology of Religion” that has been developed in the Netherlands for introducing mental health professionals in the field of clinical psychology of religion. Clinical psychology of religion applies insights from general psychology of religion to the field of the clinical psychologist. Clinical psychology of religion can be defined as that part of the psychology of religion (...) dealing with the relation between religion, worldview and mental health. Like the clinical psychologist, the clinical psychologist of religion deals with psychodiagnostics and psychotherapy, but concentrates on the role religion or worldview plays in mental health problems. The relation between religion and mental health has been a subject for study since the start of the psychology of religion at the end of the last century. A number of authors have elaborated on the ways in which religion can be beneficial or detrimental to psychological health. In recent research we have found that there is a great need among psychotherapists to become better equipped in this field. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Study of the Growth of Religious Consciousness The author of the following pages has thought in his modesty that, since his name is as yet unknown to fame, his book might gain a prompter recognition if it were prefaced by a word of recommendation from some more hardened writer. Believing the book to be valuable, I am glad to be able to write such a preface. Many years ago Dr Starbuck, (...) then a student in Harvard University, tried to enlist my sympathies in his statistical inquiry into the religious ideas and experiences of the circumambient population. I fear that to his mind I rather damned the whole project with my words of faint praise. The question-circular method of collecting information had already, in America, reached the proportions of an incipient nuisance in psychological and pedagogical matters. Dr Starbuck's questions were of a peculiarly searching and intimate nature, to which it seemed possible that an undue number of answers from egotists lacking in sincerity might come. Moreover, so few minds have the least spark of originality that answers to questions scattered broadcast would be likely to show a purely conventional content. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This article presents the basic achievements of the psychology of religion in the Lvov-Warsaw School of K. Twardowski, their developments and significance for the contemporary psychology of religion. Twardowski’s School existed parallel to other European psychological schools: the Würzburg School, founded by Oswald Külpe, and the Dorpat School of the Psychology of Religion, founded by Karl Girgensohn. The article presents two research trends in the psychology of religion resulting from Twardowski’s works, specifically (...) research on mental acts and religious beliefs with use of introspection and research in the field of cultural-historical psychology. The theory of acts and products, and the theory of cratism/power played crucial roles here. Psychological investigations into religious beliefs were also dominated by the psychological principle of contradiction, and the obtained results also seem to be important today. (shrink)

Psychology of religion tries to understand the cause-effect relationships of religious experiences and religious consciousness so as to be able to predict behaviors. It aims to study the religious consciousness with investigations in religious behavior patterns. -/- The major systems of psychology are: structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and Gestalt School of Psychology. Obviously, each system has its own way of understanding religious consciousness.

The effectiveness of modern religious studies is largely determined by how deeply rooted in it the anthropological dimensions of cultural phenomena, their meaningful renewal. In this context, great opportunities open up to one of the basic structural religious entities - the psychology of religion, where the semantic nucleus of religiosity is most clearly highlighted. After all, if we try to look at the process of secularization, then we will undoubtedly pay attention to the fact that for the longest (...) time religion is "delayed" in the sphere of the inner life of man, at the level of his experiences. It is here that religion acts as a factor that mitigates borderline situations of human existence. (shrink)

Given that psychologists of religion as a scientific community so far have shown little interest in neurobiology, and neurobiology may become important for our field in the not too distant future, an attempt is made to present and discuss neurobiology and its conceivable interactions with psychology of religion. The long-standing debate about the philosophical grounding of the mind-body problem is recalled, as well as the scope of neurobiology and its research methods. Psychology of religion may (...) assist neurobiology by providing research data that could serve as material for constructing testable neurobiological hypotheses, data resulting, for instance, from studying an individual's perception of God and the numinous, the psychological characteristics of meditation, deep prayer, contemplation, etc. Psychology of religion could benefit from neurobiology, for assessing differing theoretical concepts regarding, for instance, religious experiences, and for constructing dynamic models of religious development. Possible roadblocks on the way to connecting psychology of religion and neurobiology are pointed out and literature for further reading is provided. (shrink)

After a brief review of the history of the psychology of religion and its nature, we introduce this special section by presenting various themes of ongoing research and pointing out differentially the desirability of continued efforts in these areas. We then assess the field, its growth, increased interdisciplinary opportunities, lesser marginalization, and improved research methodology but also the challenge of arriving at theoretical coherence, studying all types of religious and spiritual understanding and experience, and researching the richness and (...) complexity of the religious variable itself. The six articles that follow detail possible new developments, as covered in our concluding overview. (shrink)

Extensions of ongoing research identified in the introduction to this special issue are discussed here with farther reaching objectives: researching more intensely psychological universals thought to underlie religion, taking a more inclusive approach to psychology of religion, and constructing more comprehensive models. All three involve conscious experience, to which some observations are devoted. Remarks about the relationships between these research areas conclude the article.

. I challenge the psychology of religion to move beyond its merely descriptive status and, by focusing on spirituality as the essential dimension of religion, to approach the traditional ideal of science as explanation: a delineation of the necessary and sufficient to account for a phenomenon such as to articulate a general “law” relevant to every instance of the phenomenon. An explanatory psychology of spirituality would elucidate the scientific underpinnings of the psychology of religion (...) as well as that of the social sciences in general, all of which grapple with the issues of human meaning making. Three prevalent and debilitating errors preclude that achievement: the confounding of the spiritual and the divine and the importation of “God” into psychology, the uncritical association of any spiritual phenomenon with spirituality, and the attempt to eschew value judgments from the study of religion and spirituality. To confirm the possibility of avoiding these errors in the face of radical postmodernism, I build on Bernard Lonergan's analyses of intentional consciousness, or human spirit, and thus intimate a psychology of spirituality that is fully nontheological and potentially explanatory. (shrink)

This article distinguishes between three projects in Ernest Becker's later work: his psychology of “religion,” his psychology of religion, and his psychology of Religion . The first is an analysis of culture and civilization as immortality projects, means by which to deny death. The second, which overlaps with the first, is a characterization of religion-as-practiced as a particularly effective immortality project vis-à-vis death anxiety. The third is less social scientific and more theological; Becker (...) argues for a view of God that is in the tradition of Søren Kierkegaard and Paul Tillich . Focusing on the second of these projects—as much has already been written on the first, and little can be said about the third—this article evaluates Becker's claims about religion-as-practiced in light of recent developments in social cognitive psychology. (shrink)

This article, based on extensive empirical research and occasioned by the centennial of both the present journal Archiv für Religionspsychologie and its owner, the International Association for the Psychology of Religion, deals extensively with the activities in the psychology of religion of Wilhelm Stählin, the prime force behind the IAPR and founding editor of the AfRp. The article discusses Stählins profound methodological contributions to the literature. It analyses the rather informal “founding” of the IAPR on June (...) 10, 1914 and describes its aims and first activities. Sadly, what had started so promising was destroyed by World War I: the most active members of the board were drafted into the army and had no time left at all for any activities in the field of the psychology of religion. As a consequence of the economic misery in Germany after the war, there was even no paper available to print a next volume of the AfRp until 1921. In the preface to that volume, Stählin articulated his inability to say anything about a possible future of both AfRp and IAPR. Paradoxically, the beginning had become an end, and should only in 1928 be followed by a new start. (shrink)

The following reviews recent developments in the cognitive and evolutionary psychology of religion, and argues for an adaptationist stance.

Lee Kirkpatrick's approach to the psychology of religion involves two main theoretical positions, attachment theory and evolutionary psychology. It is argued that the former is more fruitful than the latter because it stays closer to empirical data and suggests further hypotheses for investigation. An evolutionary approach to the psychology of religion suffers from the same problem as most evolutionary psychology of not being readily testable; also some common assumptions about the evolution of religion (...) may be less compelling than is often supposed. (shrink)

As the Archive for the Psychology of Religion transitions to the SAGE publishing house, this editorial outlines the current vision and principles guiding the way forward. This includes a strong emphasis on publishing work that demonstrates transparency, precision, breadth, and depth in areas of theory, research, and pedagogy. The primary article types are described and the submission practicalities are addressed.

The historical importance of The Netherlands for the International Association for the Psychology of Religion (IAPR) is connected to the beginning of the current form IAPR. Four years pause between the Gdańsk conference (2019) and the Groningen conference (2023) due to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the online organization of the 2021 conference. The 2023 conference is being presented in a hybrid format in order to make use of the additional opportunities that the online format provides. Results of (...) the members questionnaire are presented. They provide characteristics of the current composition of IAPR members because of their education, academic positions, and research interests. (shrink)

In 1891 Thέodore Flournoy became the first Professor of Psychology to be appointed at the University of Geneva, and his teaching regularly included references to religion. His successor, Georges Berguer, who taught psychology of religion, began as privat-docent in 1910 and received a full professorship in Religious Psychology and the History of Religion in 1928. French-speaking Switzerland is one of the rare places in the world where psychology of religion has been taught (...) continuously since the very beginning of the 20th century. The aim of this article is to shed light on this tradition and especially on Georges Berguer and Edmond Rochedieu who succeeded Flournoy. This historical enterprise concludes with some reflections on the role of the psychology of religion at the intersection of psychology and the study of religions. (shrink)

Should psychology of religion undergo a disciplinary renaissance and, if so, what might it look like? In this paper we explore that question by discussing the benefits of a better grounding of the field within mid-level theories from general psychology that provide it with greater conceptual depth. Such discussion will focus on three already existing and variously productive lines of research as case studies: attribution processes, attachment styles, and religious coping. These case studies represent lines of research (...) at three developmental stages: 1) infancy, with little visible return but with signs of promise , 2) adolescence, with dividends already yielded but also with promise not yet fully realized , and 3) maturity, where a fruitful harvest has already been experienced but yet without decline . Regardless of developmental position, it is argued that research in psychology of religion will be enhanced to the extent that it achieves conceptual depth by being framed in terms of mid-level theories. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This is an in-depth study of the Canadian philosopher George Grant's intellectual development and his contribution to understanding the philosophical and political implications of contemporary technology.

In 2014, the International Association for the Psychology of Religion will have its centennial, and so will its scientific journal, the present Archive for the Psychology of Religion [ Archiv für Religionspsychologie, ARp]. This first article on IAPR's history analyses the fate of the forerunner of ARp, which was published from 1907-1913. When psychology in general began to develop as an empirical, research-based “scientific discipline” since the midst of the 19th century, the psychology of (...) religion became a prominent application of that “new” science of psychology, involving many of the founding fathers of present day psychology. Shortly after evoking these beginnings, the focus of the present article turns to the development of early scientific infrastructure for the psychology of religion. While the psychology of religion was initiated by European scholars such as Fechner and Wundt, it was the organizer of American psychology in general who started the first journal in this field, G. Stanley Hall. Through his European admirer Gustav Vorbrodt, Hall's journal may have been an inspiration to the founding of the first European journal for the psychology of religion, the German-speaking Zeitschrift für Religionspsychologie. Most likely the psychiatrist Johannes Bresler took the initiative to start this journal and had invited pastor Gustav Vorbrodt, who had already repeatedly and vigorously called for psychological study of religion, to join him as editor. Consequently, the subtitle of the journal was ‘Grenzfragen der Theologie und der Medizin [ Boundary Questions in Theology and Medicine].’ The present paper discusses both Vorbrodt's and Bresler's work in the realm of the psychology of religion, as it does the contributions of two further editors; the philosopher-historian of religion Georg Runze, an honorary professor at Berlin University, and Otto Klemm, a collaborator of Wilhelm Wundt and later the director of the latter's psychological laboratory in Leipzig and the first to hold a professorship for applied psychology. Several reasons are discussed to answer the question why the Zeitschrift für Religionspsychologie ceased publishing. Based on empirical-archival research, special attention is given to scholarly disagreements behind the transition of the Zeitschrift für Religionspsychologie to the new Archiv für Religionspsychologie. (shrink)