What Counts as Religious/Spiritual Experience in the US and India?
Despite the acknowledged role of traditions and cultures in determining what counts as a religious or spiritual experience, many researchers nonetheless stipulate definitions of religion and/or spirituality that potentially obscure as much as they reveal. To test this, we formulated competing hypoth...
| Authors: | ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2025
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| In: |
The international journal for the psychology of religion
Year: 2025, Volume: 35, Issue: 4, Pages: 174-198 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | Despite the acknowledged role of traditions and cultures in determining what counts as a religious or spiritual experience, many researchers nonetheless stipulate definitions of religion and/or spirituality that potentially obscure as much as they reveal. To test this, we formulated competing hypotheses based on definitions widely used in the scientific study of religion – a Tylorian spiritual agent hypothesis, a Jamesian self-transcendence hypothesis, and a Durkheimian variation hypothesis – that we explore by examining the extent to which religious and non-religious people in the US and India appraise specified items in the Inventory of Nonordinary Experiences as religious or spiritual (R/S). We found evidence for each of the hypotheses, which suggests the value of continuing to explore the variety of experiences that cultures and traditions appraise as R/S to better understand cross-cultural similarities and differences. |
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| ISSN: | 1532-7582 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The international journal for the psychology of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/10508619.2025.2523643 |
