Religious Experience and the Self

Chuck Huff	Monday and Wednesday 2-3 PM	current as of 10/200/99
Holland Hall 314		Mail to the Prof
646.3169		Back to Class Menu

Required Texts
Paloutzian, Raymond	Invitation to the Psychology of Religion
Diana Eck	On Common Ground

Welcome to the second time this class has been offered. It is a pilot project for a regular offering in the Psychology Department, but the Paracollege is kind enough to host it.

The Class Day

Mondays and Wednesdays from 2-3. It will be a seminar format, so I expect you to carry the load of bringing up topics for discussion.

Personal Experience and the Journal

I will be requiring you to practice some form of personal practice every day. The point of this is not to convert you to any particular practice, but to give you experiential grist for your academic mill. The second day of class will consist of an introduction to a variety of these forms of personal practice. You should choose one (or consult with me on one we have not covered) and stick with that practice for the remainder of the class, doing it at least once a day. The practices we will introduce include:

• Morning and Evening Prayer from various denominational offices
• Compline (prayer before bedtime)
• Devotional reading and prayer
• Lexio Divina (a contemplative method of focussing on a scripture passage)
• Centering Prayer
• Simple Yogic forms
• Zazen
• Relaxation exercises
• and several more

You can see that I am not trying to limit your choices, I am trying to expand them. You need not do these alone. You can form groups to do, for example, morning and evening prayer together. Tai Chi and various forms of martial arts do not count as the personal practice I am looking for. Most practioners of the martial arts would agree that the art is not a form of contemplation, but can be paired with contemplation profitably.

Site Visits

We will be visiting several off campus places where people practice some sort of contemplative religious experience. You should consider these visits required for the class. I think you will find them exciting. The visit to the Benedictine Abbey and Monastery will involve an overnight stay and will cost about $30 per student.

A Final Paper

Your final paper will be an analysis of one aspect of your experience in the class. It might focus on your emotion, or your imagery, or your experience as understood by developmental stages, or your bodily sensations, or on any number of things. But it should use extensive excerpts from your journal as its jumping off point and should consist of psychological analysis using the concepts and theories we have learned.

Grading

Still clueless here.

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Schedule

Disclaimer