Are psychological studies of religion on the right track?

Abstract

Researchers in psychology of religion in America and Britain have inherited the theoretical and research traditions established by W. James, S. Freud and J. Dittes. New nomothetic or theoretical frameworks have been called for in order to organize a plethora of idiographic data. A response to the call has been slow, but Paul Pruyser designated at least six areas in which the development of psychology of religion might most fruitfully occur; and the suggestion has been that altered states of consciousness research is perhaps the most important item of all six to consider for research methodology. This particular item, it was broadly suggested, may possibly serve as a bridge between East and West, thereby bringing psychologists of religion out of the darkness of Western methodological ethnocentrism, and into the light of cross-cultural, universally-applicable concerns sought in the spirit of the scientific study of religion. Psychologists of religion must rely on the tradition of Religion-swissenschaft for much of the ‘non-reducible’ data they study. Although the preponderence of general activity in the field is occurring in America, little attention along these lines is evident there. In Britain, the discipline is floundering. Yet, in spite of its quandaries, recognition of the need to encounter Eastern psychologies and religions, perhaps by means of the ‘bridge’ of altered states of consciousness research, appears to be more clearly stated in Britain (though infrequent, often obscure) than it has been elsewhere.