The psychology of religion

Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 2004

2022

The psychology of religion has stemmed from mainstream psychology. The increased interest by psychologists to study religion from a scientific perspective gave rise to the study of religion from a psychological point of view. This essay endeavors to establish the history of psychology of religion; the major historical developments and methodological approaches used by the American and European scholars. The essay acknowledges the interesting journey the field of psychology of religion and spiritualties has taken from a philosophical conception to psychology. It highlights the methodological challenges it has and still faces from the American and European perspectives. The psychology of religion is both an interesting and challenging field, which has undergone a lot of changes, denials, and shortcomings because of the nature of religion and spiritualties. However, this article establishes that a tremendous job has been done in both American and European efforts.

2017

Some remarks about psychology of religion meant as a specific and autonomous domain are reported. The need of defining the object of investigation (religion) in a proper way and of defending the peculiarity of the approach (psychology) against the neurobiological and sociological reductionisms is stressed. The psychologist is interested not in religion itself, but in what occurs in human mind when religion is encountered within a culture (that is, religiosity). It is argued that religion is different from spirituality, search for meaning, mindfulness and so on since it is characterised by the subjective conviction to be in relation with the Transcendent. Such a conviction is expressed in beliefs, feelings, interpersonal relationships, rituals, normative behaviours. On one hand these aspects concern individual experience and, on the other hand, they are instantiated in a specific culture, with its own institutions, symbols and language, which develop in a given spatial-temporal conte...

One Hundred Years of Psychology of Religion: Issues and Trends in a Century Long Quest, edited by P. H. M. P. Roelofsma, J. M. T. Corveleyn, & J. W. Van Saane. Amsterdam: VU University Press., 2003

In certain respects, developments in the psychology of religion have paralleled those in other subfields of psychology. But the field is distinguished fiom them by the uniqueness of its object, religion. It shares this object with other scholarly disciplines, especially the religious studies, whose proponents, more intimately acquainted with religion, are inclined to view psychological interpretations as reductionistic. Moreover, religion is seldom a topic that psychologists approach with a disinterested attitude; thus apologetics is also a danger. The earliest psychologists of religion were liberally disposed, interested in developing new understandings of religion appropriate to the twentieth century. But nfter a period of sharp decline, those drawn to the field tended to be relatively conservative and sought, rather, to defend traditional religion. The broad agendas put forward by William James and Theodore Floumoy were narrowed to looking for religion's fruits, mainly physical and mental health. A comparison of early and more recent definitions of rcligion makes evident this conservative turn in the psychology of religion. "Spirituality," too, hm become assimilated to traditional theistic piety, and Templeton-sponsored research on mainly Christian virtues is reshaping the landscape of the psychology of religion still further. A fresh start, beginning with James and Flournoy and canied out in the light of contemporary hermeneutical understandings, is recomnlended.

2012

JEAN-PAUL BACHAND GOD IS FLESH LUCIFER, a pure spirit PSYCHOLOGY AND RELIGION A Critical Look at our civilization Judeo-Christian-Greco-Roman facing the family, sexuality, society TEST FROM scattered texts Page 3 I dedicate this book First to my wife Jacqueline, first person to support my risky ideas and put them in practice in our family life, then our son Nicolas and our daughter Nadine, that are well pleased to have received free school at home and who, moreover, have always evolved well beyond what we could hope an education based on beliefs so little received.

International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 2003

The 'Psychological' and the 'Spiritual' ( in a .doc format), 2013

Religio: Revue Pro Religionistiku 2/2012, 2012

The study of religion is by its nature and by its history multi-disciplinary, incorporating diverse research paradigms ranging from historiography to experimental approaches and from scientific positivism to postmodern reflection. At a conference on the Past, Present, and Future in the Scientific Study of Religion (March 1-3, 2012), the keynote speakers pro- vided an assessment of the field of religious studies. While they agreed on the relevance of traditional methods (in particular those coming from history and anthropology) for the study of religion, the speakers also stressed the contribution of new research paradigms such as cognitive, evolutionary, and experimental approaches, which have rejuvenated the disci- pline by calling attention to a much neglected but certainly fundamental aspect of human culture (the mind) and bringing methodological rigour that is often lacking in the humani- ties. The Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion in Brno, who hosted this conference, is the product of these developments

2011

Religio, 2012

The study of religion today constitutes an academic field that incorporates thousands of scholars dedicated to describing, comparing, interpreting and explaining religious beliefs and practices. Although the first academic (non-confessional) religious studies departments did not appear in the Western world until the second half of the twentieth century, the academic study of religion already started formally in the nineteenth century with the world of such scholars as F. Max Müller, Edward B. Tylor, and James G. Frazer. Müller clearly envisioned a Comparative Religion, where scholars borrowed key theories and methods from comparative linguistics, philology, history, and philosophy. Religiosity was to be viewed as a wide spread human phenomenon that manifested itself culturally into diverse beliefs and behaviors. Intellectualists like Tylor and Frazer argued that religious beliefs and behaviors were a way in which pre-modern, prescientific cultures expressed an explanation about the physical environment. As Müller was a philologist, he favored linguistic and historical sources, while anthropologists like Tylor and Frazer preferred different patterns of cultural expression (proto-ethnography). Soon thereafter, towering figures in other disciplines attempted to provide their own explanations of religious phenomena. William James and Sigmund Freud provided psychological-philosophical accounts of religion; Max Weber studied it from an economic perspective; while another sociologist, Émile Durkheim, provided his own influential analysis of religion.