Continuing The Heritage William James, Alister Hardy and The Work of The Religious Experience Research Centre
Keywords:
religion, experience, spirituality, multi-disciplinary, scienceAbstract
This article seeks to examine the relationships of the work on religious experience of the American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842-1910) and that of the marine biologist Professor Sir Alister Hardy FRS (1896-1985). It includes reference to James’s dependence on the psychologist Edwin Starbuck (1866-1947) and what might be considered ‘scientific’ and multi-disciplinary in both their enterprises and that of Hardy. The main source of James’s ideas in this area is the published version of his Edinburgh Gifford lectures The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Hardy founded a unit for the study of religious experience (RERU) in Oxford in 1969 and described the first years of its research findings in The Spiritual Nature of Man (1979). Under later directors, researchers and lecturers the work extended into different methods and cultures. Since 2000 The Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre (RERC), has been based at University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter.References
Argyle, M. 1977 or 1997 check? Quotation in text says 1997
Barton, M. 1998. Liberation Spirituality As A Signal of Transcendence: Christian and Muslim Women in Bangladesh 2nd. series occasional papers 18: Oxford: RERC.
Brooke, J.H. 2003. Can Scientific Experience Be A Religious Experience? 2nd series of occasional papers 38. Lampeter: RERC.
Carrette, J. R. ed. 2005a William James and the Varieties of Religious Experience: A Centenary Celebration. Abingdon: Routledge.
Carrette, J.R. and R. King, 2005b. Selling Spirituality: The Silent Take Over of Religion. London: Routledge.
Carette, J.R. 2013. William James’s Hidden Religious Imagination: A Universe of Relations. London: Routledge.
Chatterjee, M. 1989. The Concept of Spirituality. New Delhi: Allied Publishers Private Ltd.
Davis, C. F. 1989. The Evidential Force of Religious Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Durkheim, E. 1915. The Elementary Forms of The Religious Life. tr. J. Swain London: Allen and Unwin.
Eyre, A. 1997. Football and Religious Experience: Sociological Reflections. 2nd Series of Occasional Papers 11. Oxford: RERC.
Fox, M. 2014. The Fifth Love. Birmingham: Spirit and Sage Ltd.
Franklin, J. [2006] 2nd. ed. 2014. Exploration Into Spirit: A History of The Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre and Society. Lampeter: The Alister Hardy Society.
Halliwell, M. and J. D. S. Rasmussen eds. 2014. William James and The Transatlantic Conversation. Oxford: OUP.
Hardy, A. 1965. The Living Stream London: Collins.
Hardy, A. 1966. The Divine Flame. London: Collins.
Hardy, A, 1979. The Spiritual Nature of Man. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hardy, A. 1959. The Open Sea: Its Natural History Part II Fish and Fisheries London: Collins.
Hardy, A. 1984. A Cotswold Sketchbook. Stroud: Alan Sutton.
Hay, D. 1990. Religious Experience Today. London: Mowbray.
Hay D. and R. Nye [1998] revised edition 2006. The Spirit of The Child. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Hay, D. 2011. God’s Biologist: A Life of Alister Hardy. London: Darton, Longman and Todd.
James, William The Varieties of Religious Experience
London: Longmans, Green and Co.
Fontana: 1977. Fount paperback. London: Collins.
Centenary edition London: Routledge.
James, W. 1909. A Pluralistic Universe. London: Longmans Green and Co.
James, W. 1920 Letters Atlantic Monthly Press. ed. H. James. London: Darton, Longman and Todd.
Jamison, K. R. 1993. Touched With Fire New York: Simon and Schuster Inc.
Moore, E.C. 1966. William James New York: Washington Square Press quotes Henry James jr. 1946 1:45.
Müller, F. M. 1873. Introduction to The Science of Religion. London: Longman and Green
Rodwell, J. 1998. The Experience of Passion in Creation. 2nd. series occasional paper 21. Oxford: RERC.
Robinson, E. 1977. This Time-Bound Ladder. Oxford: RERU.
Robinson, E. 1978. Tolerating The Paradoxical. Oxford: RERU.
Robinson, R. 1987. The Language of Mystery London: SCM Press.
Robinson, R. 1993. Icons of The Present: Some Reflections on Art, The Sacred and the Holy London: SCM Press.
Schleiermacher, F. [1799]. 1996. R. Crouter tr. On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers. Cambridge: CUP.
Shaker, M.K. 2005. Spirituality and Prayer in Shiite Islam. 2nd series occasional paper 42. Lampeter: RERC.
Sharpe, Eric. [1975] 2nd ed. 1986. Comparative Religion: A History. London: Duckworth.
Sjørup, L. 1998. Oneness: A Theology of Women’s Religious Experiences. Leuven: Peeters.
Sjørup, L. Mysticism and Gender. 2nd. series occasional paper 30. Lampeter: RERC.
Starbuck, E. [1899] 1908. The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Study of the Growth of Religious Consciousness. Walter Scott Publishing Co. Ltd and Charles Scribner.
Ward, K. 2005. Is There A Common Core of Religious Experience? 2nd series occasional paper 44. Lampeter: RERC.
Taylor, C. 2002. The Varieties of Religion Today: William James Revisited. Cambridge USA: Harvard University Press.
Yaran, C.S. 2004. Muslim Religious Experiences. 2nd series occasional paper 41. Lampeter: RERC.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The Journal for the Study of Religious Experience is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal. All journal content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the authors and the Journal for the Study of Religious Experience. Â Authors would need to request the reuse of the article in case they want to publish it elsewhere and they should acknowledge the initial publication in JSRE.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) a link to the Journal’s website where the article may be downloaded for free.
Authors are responsible for ensuring copyright clearance for any images, tables, etc. which are supplied from an outside source.
Â
