Religious experience reconsidered [electronic resource] : a building block approach to the study of religion and other special things / Ann Taves.

9781400830978 (electronic bk.)
9780691140872

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2009.

English

1 online resource (xv, 212 p.)

BL53 .T39 2009eb

The essence of religion was once widely thought to be a unique form of experience that could not be explained in neurological, psychological, or sociological terms. In recent decades scholars have questioned the privileging of the idea of religious experience in the study of religion, an approach that effectively isolated the study of religion from the social and natural sciences. Religious Experience Reconsidered lays out a framework for research into religious phenomena that reclaims experience as a central concept while bridging the divide between religious studies and the sciences. Ann Taves shifts the focus from "religious experience," conceived as a fixed and stable thing, to an examination of the processes by which people attribute meaning to their experiences. She proposes a new approach that unites the study of religion with fields as diverse as neuroscience, anthropology, sociology, and psychology to better understand how these processes are incorporated into the broader cultural formations we think of as religious or spiritual.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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