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.
"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
"In the context of the "return of religion," this book offers both a timely and necessary contribution to confront the peculiarities of religious experience. Providing readers with applied phenomenological descriptions in an interdisciplinary spirit, these debates will prove stimulating for a resurgent field of research that is starting to refine its conceptual devices and methodological presuppositions." University of Vienna.

Olga Louchakova-Schwartz, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy of Religion, and Clinical Professor at the University of California at Davis. She received awards from Spitzer and Zimmer Foundations; her research was featured on BBC, Science Daily, and other important forums. She is the Founding President of the Society for the Phenomenology of Religious Experience.

Part I. Chapter 1. Religious Interiorities (Olga Louchakova-Schwartz).- Chapter 2. Reconnecting the Self to the Divine: The Body's Role in Religious Experience (Shogo Tanaka).- Chapter 3. Crystallizing Metaphysics Through the Invocation of the Divine Name and Mantra in Sufi Gnosis and Hindu Non- Dualism (Patrick Laude).- Chapter 4. Epoché and Appresentation: A New Way of Looking at the Sacred and the Profane in Religious Experience (Michael Barber).- Chapter 5. Concluding Reflections: Passivity and Activity in Religious Experience (Olga Louchakova-Schwartz).- Part II. Chapter 6. The Other as Trace of Infinity. Phenomenology and Religious Experience in the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas (Massimo Mezzanzanica).- Chapter 7. Toward a Nondogmatic Phenomenology of Religion: On Husserl, Derrida, and the Gospels (Peter Costello).- Chapter 8. Living the Epoché: A Phenomenological Realism of Religious Experience (Sam Mickey).- Chapter 9. Concluding Reflections: Religious Experience and Transcendence (or the Absence of Such) (Olga Louchakova-Schwartz).- Part III. Chapter 10. Revelation of God as Immanent Trinity in Jean-Luc Marion's Phenomenology (Adrian-razvan Sandru).- Chapter 11. A Kierkegaardian Phenomenology of Divine Presence (Joshua Cockayne).- Chapter 12. Sight and Sacrament: Nature, Liturgy, and Earthly Life (Christopher DuPee).- Chapter 13. Concluding Reflections: Revelation and the Region(s) of Religious Intuition (Olga Louchakova-Schwartz).- Part IV. Chapter 14. On Vocation and Identity in Western Mysticism (Jana Trajtelova).- Chapter 15. Mystical Experience as Existential Knowledge in Raimon Panikkar's Navas¿tr¿ni (Leonardo Marcato).- Chapter 16. Religious Experience as Experience of Repentance (Bianca Bellini).- Chapter 17. Transformative Impact: How to phenomenologically Approach a Religious Conversion (Martin Nitsche). Chapter 18. Concluding Reflections: Religious Experience and the Practice of Psychology (Olga Louchakova-Schwartz).