Check out Olga Louchakova-Schwartz (ed.): The Problem of Religious Experience: Case Studies in Phenomenology, with Reflections and Commentaries. Two volumes.
The Problem of Religious Experience
Case Studies in Phenomenology, with Reflections and Commentaries. Two Volumes (Springer, 2019)
Editor: Louchakova-Schwartz, Olga (ed.)
Olga Louchakova-Schwartz is professor of philosophy of religion, spirituality, and human Development, HIBS; clinical professor, UC Davis, School of Medicine; and founding president of the Society for the Phenomenology of Religious Experience.
Louchakova-Svhwartz writes: ‘This is a handbook-style book which treats religious experience in the light of post-classical phenomenology’ and ‘draws connections between the constitutive phenomenology and the naturalistic understanding of Homo Religiosus’. The book ‘contributes towards an articulation of a descriptive psychology of religious experiencing, and sets new directions for religious experience as a subject of philosophical research’.
Review: “The two volumes offer an excellent interdisciplinary introduction to the phenomenon of religious experience. The case studies presented in them are arranged under the central topics of self, alterity, revelation, and psychological aspects of religious experience and provide outstanding examples of applied phenomenology.” Hans Rainer Sepp, Charles University, Prague, and Central European Institute of Philosophy
For a long time, the philosophically difficult topic of religious experience has been on the sidelines of phenomenological research (with a notable exception of Anthony Steinbock, who focused on mysticism). The book The Problem of Religious Experience: Case Studies in Phenomenology, with Reflections and Commentaries brings together preeminent as well as emerging voices in the field, with fresh views on the topic. Originating from dialogues of the Society for the Phenomenology of Religious Experience, these two volumes cover a spectrum of phenomenological approaches, with a thematization of the field in the form of case studies. Contributions from theology, comparative religion, psychology and the philosophy of religion come together in the commentaries and meta-narrative written by Olga Louchakova-Schwartz (the editor). Volume I, The Primeval Showing of Religious Experience, examines religious experience with regard to its lived “interiority”, in light of the problem of the ego cogito, including the recent research on the embodiment of subjectivity and phenomenological materiality. Volume I also sheds light on religious experience in regard for the problems of its constitution, passive synthesis, the world, and otherness. Volume II, Doxastic Perspectives in the Phenomenology of Religious Experience, addresses the phenomenology of revelation, shows how different approaches treat the question of essence in religious experience (i.e., what is it that makes religious experience religious?), and demonstrates how religious experience contributes to the psychological horizon of meaning. The book identifies the “growing edges” in the phenomenological research of religious experience and is useful for psychologists, philosophers, and theologians alike.
Check out The Problem of Religious Experience at Springer.com