Theoretical Challenges in Studying Religious Experience in Gnosticism
A Prolegomena for Social Analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.v42i1.8Keywords:
Gnosticism, Nag Hammadi, religious experience, social psychology, attachment theoryAbstract
Several theoretical impediments face the ancient historian who wishes to embark on the study of religious experience within ancient cultures. While many of these difficulties face other religious studies scholars, the historical quality compounds these challenges. This paper explores several of these theoretical difficulties with a specific focus on the Valentinian, Sethian, and other so-called “Gnostic” groups in late antiquity. Specifically, the study of religious experience tends to give privileged interpretative position to insiders (evoking the etic/emic problem) and psychological analyses due to the “personal” or “individual” quality of such experiences (typified by perennialist approaches) (Otto, Wach, Eliade, Smart), or, following James and Jung, focus on the initial charismatic moment’s effect upon subsequent social structures. In contrast to such tendencies I suggest, by building on Fitzgerald’s lead in the Guide to the Study of Religion and largely agreeing with constructivist approaches, that we re-direct our focus toward the external social forces at play that discursively facilitate, shape, and direct experiential moments within the confines of social identity construction. This article builds on attachment theory from social psychology. Such analysis will allow us to better appreciate the experiential aspects of “Gnosticism” while appreciating the individual, communal, and (most importantly) discursive quality of the intersection of the individual and communal. Specific examples of such social facilitation will be briefly explored from Nag Hammadi, where ritual, narrative, and mythological discourse function to enable, and thereby define, religious experience.
References
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Alexander, Torin Dru. 2010. “What Meaneth This? A Postmodern ‘Theory’ of African American Religious Experience.” Ph.D. diss., Rice University.
Ainsworth, Mary. 1969. “Object Relations, Dependency, and Attachment: A Theoretical Review of the Infant-Mother Relationship.” Child Development 40: 969–1025.
———. 1985. “Attachments Across the Life Span.” Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 61: 792–812.
Bagger, Matthew C. 2004. Religious Experience, Justification, and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Barton, Stephen C. 2011. “Eschatology and the Emotions in Early Christianity.” Journal of Biblical Literature 130: 571–91.
Batluck, Mark. 2010. “Religious Experience in New Testament Research.” Currents in Biblical Research 9: 339–63.
Bloch, Maurice. 1992. Prey into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience. Lewis Morgan Lectures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bowlby, John. 1969. Attachment and Loss. Volume 1: Attachment. New York: Basic Books.
———. 1973. Attachment and Loss. Volume 2: Separation, Anxiety, and Anger. New York: Basic Books.
———. 1980. Attachment and Loss. Volume 3: Loss. New York: Basic Books.
Bretherton, Inge. 1992. “The Origins of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.” Developmental Psychology 5: 759–75.
Buckham, John Wright. 1921. “Mysticism and Personality.” Journal of Religion 1: 608–15.
Bush, Stephen S. 2008. “Experience and Power: The Theory and Ethics of Religious Experience.” Ph.D. diss., Princeton University.
Couliano, Ioan P. 1992. The Tree of Gnosis: Gnostic Mythology from Early Christianity to Modern Nihilism. Translated by H. S. Wiesner. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Day, Matthew. 2010. “Magic Feathers, Wittgensteinian Boxes and the Politics of Deeming.” Religion 40: 293–95.
Dunderberg, Ismo. 2008. Beyond Gnosticism: Myth, Lifestyle, and Society in the School of Valentinus. New York: Columbia University Press.
Eisenstadt, S. N., ed. 1968. Max Weber on Charisma and Institution Building: Select Papers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Eliade, Mircea. 1959. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Translated by Willard R. Trask. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company.
Eliade, Mircea, and Ioan P. Couliano. 2000. The HarperCollins Concise Guide to World Religions. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Fitzgerald, Timothy 2000 “Experience.” In Guide to the Study of Religion, edited by Willi Braun and Russell T. McCutcheon, 125–39. London: Cassell.
———. 2010. “ ‘Experiences Deemed Religious’: Radical Critique or Temporary Fix? Strategic Ambiguity in Ann Taves’ Religious Experience Reconsidered.” Religion 40: 296–99.
Gold, Jerry. 2011. “Attachment Theory and Psychotherapy Integration: An Introduction and Review of the Literature.” Journal of Psychotherapy Integration 21: 221–31.
Griffin, Nicholas. 1995. “Bertrand Russell as a Critic of Religion.” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 24: 47–58.
Harré, Rom, and Luk van Langenhove, eds. 1990. Positioning Theory: Moral Contexts of Intentional Action. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
———. 1992. “Varieties of Positioning.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 20: 393–407.
Harwood, Larry D. 1997. “Russell’s Reticence with Religion.” Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 17: 27–41.
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Hick, John H., ed. 1964. The Existence of God. New York: Macmillan.
———. 1983. Philosophy of Religion. 3rd edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
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Jonas, Hans. 1958. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity. 2nd edition. Boston: Beacon Press.
Jung, Carl Gustav. 1938. Psychology and Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Kaler, Michael. 2008. “The Prayer of the Apostle Paul in the Context of Nag Hammadi Codex I.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 16: 319–39.
King, Karen L. 2001. “The Politics of Syncretism and the Problem of Defining Gnosticism.” Historical Reflections/Refexions historiques 27: 461–79.
———. 2003. What is Gnosticism? Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Kirkpatrick, Lee A. 1995. “Attachment Theory and Religious Experience.” In Handbook of Religious Experience, edited by Ralph W. Hood, Jr., 446–75. Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press.
———. 2005. Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion. New York: Guilford Press.
Knott, Kim. 2010. “Specialness and the Sacred: Ann Taves, Religious Experience Reconsidered.” Religion 40.4: 305–07.
Lüdemann, Gerd, and Martina Jansen. 1998. Suppressed Prayers: Gnostic Spirituality in Early Christianity. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International.
Markin, Rayna D., and Cheri Marmarosh. 2010. “Application of Adult Attachment Theory to Group Member Transference and the Group Therapy Process.” Psychotherapy Theory, Research, Practice, Training 47: 111–21.
McCutcheon, Russell T. 1997. Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2010. “Will Your Cognitive Anchor Hold in the Storms of Culture?” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78.4: 1182–93.
——— 2012. “A Tale of Nouns and Verbs: Rejoinder to Ann Taves.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80.1: 236–40.
Merkur, Dan. 1993. Gnosis: An Esoteric Tradition of Mystical Visions. Albany: SUNY Press.
Miles, T. R. 1972. Religious Experience. London: St. Martin’s Press.
Okozi, Innocent F. 2010. “Attachment to God: Its Impact on the Psychological Wellbeing of Persons with Religious Vocation.” Ph.D. diss., Seton Hall University.
Otto, Rudolf. 1950. The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational. Translated by John W. Harvey. 2nd edition. London: Oxford University Press.
Painchaud, Louis and Michael Kaler. 2007. “From the Prayer of the Apostle Paul to the Three Steles of Seth: Codices I, XI and VII from Nag Hammadi Viewed as a Collection.” Vigiliae Christianae 61: 445–69.
Pagels, Elaine. 1979. The Gnostic Gospels. New York: Random House.
———. 2003. Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas. New York: Random House.
Pearson, Birger A. 1990. Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
———. 2004. Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt. Studies in Antiquity and Christianity. New York: T & T Clark.
Perkins, Pheme. 1980. The Gnostic Dialogue: The Early Church and the Crisis of Gnosticism. New York: Paulist Press.
Poloma, Margaret M. 1995. “The Sociological Context of Religious Experience.” In Handbook of Religious Experience, edited by Ralph W. Hood, Jr., 161–82. Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press.
Proudfoot, Wayne. 1985. Religious Experience. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Reinert, Duane F., and Carla E. Edwards. 2009. “Attachment Theory, Childhood Mistreatment, and Religiosity.” Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 1: 25–34.
Richards, David A., and Aaron C. H. Schat. 2010. “Attachment at (Not to) Work: Applying Attachment Theory to Explain Individual Behavior in Organizations.” Journal of Applied Psychology 96: 169–82.
Robinson, James M., editor. 1990. Nag Hammadi Library in English. Revised edition. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Runyon, Theodore. 1992. “The Role of Experience in Religion.” Philosophy of Religion 31: 187–94.
Sharf, Robert H. 1998. “Experience.” In Critical Terms for Religious Studies, edited by Mark C. Taylor, 94–116. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Smart, Ninian. 1969. The Religious Experience of Mankind. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
———. 1996. Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World’s Beliefs. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. 2000. Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Beliefs. 3rd edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Spickard, James V. 2010. “Does Taves Reconsider Experience Enough? A Critical Commentary on Religious Experience Reconsidered.” Religion 40.4: 311–13.
Taves, Ann. 2009a. “William James Revisited: ReReading The Varieties of Religious Experience in Transatlantic Perspective.” Zygon 44.2: 415–32.
———. 2009b. Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 2010. “Experience as Site of Contested Meaning and Value: The Attributional Dog and its Special Tail.” Religion 40.4: 317–23.
———. 2012. “Response to Russell T. McCutcheon’s Review Essay: ‘Will Your Cognitive Anchor Hold in the Storms of Culture?’ ” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80.1: 233–35.
Thomassen, Einar. 2006. The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the ‘Valentinians.’ Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 60. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.
Tite, Philip L. 2000. “Paul, Prayer of the Apostle.” In Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, edited by D. N. Freedman, 1020–21. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
———. 2001. “Categorical Designations and Methodological Reductionism: Gnosticism as Case Study.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 13: 269–92.
———. 2004. “Naming or Defining? On the Necessity of Reduction in Religious Studies.” Culture and Religion 5: 339–65.
———. 2009 Valentinian Ethics and Paraenetic Discourse: Determining the Social Function of Moral Exhortation in Valentinian Christianity. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 67. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.
———. 2012. The Apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans: An Epistolary and Rhetorical Analysis. Texts and Editions for New Testament Studies, 7. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.
Turner, John D. 2001. Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition. Bibliothéque Copte de Nag Hammadi, section “Études,” 6. Quebec/Louvain: Les Presses de l’Université Laval and Éditions Peeters.
Van der Leeuw, Gerardus 1963. Religion in Essence and Manifestation. 2 Volumes. Translated by J. E. Turner. New York: Harper & Row.
Van Oort, Johannes, ed. 2008. Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica. Collected Essays of Gilles Quispel. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 55. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.
Wach, Joachim. 1944. Sociology of Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1958. The Comparative Study of Religion. New York: Columbia University Press.
Weber, Max. 1964. Basic Concepts in Sociology. New York: The Citadel Press.
Weidlich, Thom. 2000. “Did Russell Have a Personal Religion?” Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies. 20: 176–81.
Weiss, Robert S. 1973. Loneliness: The Experience of Emotional and Social Isolation. Cambridge: MIT Press.
———. 1982. “Attachment in Adult Life.” In The Place of Attachment in Human Behavior, edited by C. M. Parkes and J. S. Hinde, 174¬–84. New York: Basic Books.
Whitehead, Alfred North. 1959. Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect. New York: Capricorn Books.
Williams, Michael Allen. 1996. Rethinking “Gnosticism”: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Williams, Raymond. 1985. “Experience.” In Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Revised edition, 126–29. London: Oxford University Press.
Alexander, Torin Dru. 2010. “What Meaneth This? A Postmodern ‘Theory’ of African American Religious Experience.” Ph.D. diss., Rice University.
Ainsworth, Mary. 1969. “Object Relations, Dependency, and Attachment: A Theoretical Review of the Infant-Mother Relationship.” Child Development 40: 969–1025.
———. 1985. “Attachments Across the Life Span.” Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 61: 792–812.
Bagger, Matthew C. 2004. Religious Experience, Justification, and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Barton, Stephen C. 2011. “Eschatology and the Emotions in Early Christianity.” Journal of Biblical Literature 130: 571–91.
Batluck, Mark. 2010. “Religious Experience in New Testament Research.” Currents in Biblical Research 9: 339–63.
Bloch, Maurice. 1992. Prey into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience. Lewis Morgan Lectures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bowlby, John. 1969. Attachment and Loss. Volume 1: Attachment. New York: Basic Books.
———. 1973. Attachment and Loss. Volume 2: Separation, Anxiety, and Anger. New York: Basic Books.
———. 1980. Attachment and Loss. Volume 3: Loss. New York: Basic Books.
Bretherton, Inge. 1992. “The Origins of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.” Developmental Psychology 5: 759–75.
Buckham, John Wright. 1921. “Mysticism and Personality.” Journal of Religion 1: 608–15.
Bush, Stephen S. 2008. “Experience and Power: The Theory and Ethics of Religious Experience.” Ph.D. diss., Princeton University.
Couliano, Ioan P. 1992. The Tree of Gnosis: Gnostic Mythology from Early Christianity to Modern Nihilism. Translated by H. S. Wiesner. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Day, Matthew. 2010. “Magic Feathers, Wittgensteinian Boxes and the Politics of Deeming.” Religion 40: 293–95.
Dunderberg, Ismo. 2008. Beyond Gnosticism: Myth, Lifestyle, and Society in the School of Valentinus. New York: Columbia University Press.
Eisenstadt, S. N., ed. 1968. Max Weber on Charisma and Institution Building: Select Papers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Eliade, Mircea. 1959. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Translated by Willard R. Trask. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company.
Eliade, Mircea, and Ioan P. Couliano. 2000. The HarperCollins Concise Guide to World Religions. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Fitzgerald, Timothy 2000 “Experience.” In Guide to the Study of Religion, edited by Willi Braun and Russell T. McCutcheon, 125–39. London: Cassell.
———. 2010. “ ‘Experiences Deemed Religious’: Radical Critique or Temporary Fix? Strategic Ambiguity in Ann Taves’ Religious Experience Reconsidered.” Religion 40: 296–99.
Gold, Jerry. 2011. “Attachment Theory and Psychotherapy Integration: An Introduction and Review of the Literature.” Journal of Psychotherapy Integration 21: 221–31.
Griffin, Nicholas. 1995. “Bertrand Russell as a Critic of Religion.” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 24: 47–58.
Harré, Rom, and Luk van Langenhove, eds. 1990. Positioning Theory: Moral Contexts of Intentional Action. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
———. 1992. “Varieties of Positioning.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 20: 393–407.
Harwood, Larry D. 1997. “Russell’s Reticence with Religion.” Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 17: 27–41.
Heath, P. L. 1972. “Experience.” In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volumes 3 and 4: Epicetus to Logic, edited by Paul Edwards, 156–59. London: Collier MacMillan.
Heimola, Minna. 2011. Christian Identity in the Gospel of Philip. Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 102. Helsinki: Finish Exegetical Society.
Hick, John H., ed. 1964. The Existence of God. New York: Macmillan.
———. 1983. Philosophy of Religion. 3rd edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
James, William. 1902. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Longmans.
Jonas, Hans. 1958. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity. 2nd edition. Boston: Beacon Press.
Jung, Carl Gustav. 1938. Psychology and Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Kaler, Michael. 2008. “The Prayer of the Apostle Paul in the Context of Nag Hammadi Codex I.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 16: 319–39.
King, Karen L. 2001. “The Politics of Syncretism and the Problem of Defining Gnosticism.” Historical Reflections/Refexions historiques 27: 461–79.
———. 2003. What is Gnosticism? Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Kirkpatrick, Lee A. 1995. “Attachment Theory and Religious Experience.” In Handbook of Religious Experience, edited by Ralph W. Hood, Jr., 446–75. Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press.
———. 2005. Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion. New York: Guilford Press.
Knott, Kim. 2010. “Specialness and the Sacred: Ann Taves, Religious Experience Reconsidered.” Religion 40.4: 305–07.
Lüdemann, Gerd, and Martina Jansen. 1998. Suppressed Prayers: Gnostic Spirituality in Early Christianity. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International.
Markin, Rayna D., and Cheri Marmarosh. 2010. “Application of Adult Attachment Theory to Group Member Transference and the Group Therapy Process.” Psychotherapy Theory, Research, Practice, Training 47: 111–21.
McCutcheon, Russell T. 1997. Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2010. “Will Your Cognitive Anchor Hold in the Storms of Culture?” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78.4: 1182–93.
——— 2012. “A Tale of Nouns and Verbs: Rejoinder to Ann Taves.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80.1: 236–40.
Merkur, Dan. 1993. Gnosis: An Esoteric Tradition of Mystical Visions. Albany: SUNY Press.
Miles, T. R. 1972. Religious Experience. London: St. Martin’s Press.
Okozi, Innocent F. 2010. “Attachment to God: Its Impact on the Psychological Wellbeing of Persons with Religious Vocation.” Ph.D. diss., Seton Hall University.
Otto, Rudolf. 1950. The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational. Translated by John W. Harvey. 2nd edition. London: Oxford University Press.
Painchaud, Louis and Michael Kaler. 2007. “From the Prayer of the Apostle Paul to the Three Steles of Seth: Codices I, XI and VII from Nag Hammadi Viewed as a Collection.” Vigiliae Christianae 61: 445–69.
Pagels, Elaine. 1979. The Gnostic Gospels. New York: Random House.
———. 2003. Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas. New York: Random House.
Pearson, Birger A. 1990. Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
———. 2004. Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt. Studies in Antiquity and Christianity. New York: T & T Clark.
Perkins, Pheme. 1980. The Gnostic Dialogue: The Early Church and the Crisis of Gnosticism. New York: Paulist Press.
Poloma, Margaret M. 1995. “The Sociological Context of Religious Experience.” In Handbook of Religious Experience, edited by Ralph W. Hood, Jr., 161–82. Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press.
Proudfoot, Wayne. 1985. Religious Experience. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Reinert, Duane F., and Carla E. Edwards. 2009. “Attachment Theory, Childhood Mistreatment, and Religiosity.” Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 1: 25–34.
Richards, David A., and Aaron C. H. Schat. 2010. “Attachment at (Not to) Work: Applying Attachment Theory to Explain Individual Behavior in Organizations.” Journal of Applied Psychology 96: 169–82.
Robinson, James M., editor. 1990. Nag Hammadi Library in English. Revised edition. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Runyon, Theodore. 1992. “The Role of Experience in Religion.” Philosophy of Religion 31: 187–94.
Sharf, Robert H. 1998. “Experience.” In Critical Terms for Religious Studies, edited by Mark C. Taylor, 94–116. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Smart, Ninian. 1969. The Religious Experience of Mankind. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
———. 1996. Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World’s Beliefs. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. 2000. Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Beliefs. 3rd edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Spickard, James V. 2010. “Does Taves Reconsider Experience Enough? A Critical Commentary on Religious Experience Reconsidered.” Religion 40.4: 311–13.
Taves, Ann. 2009a. “William James Revisited: ReReading The Varieties of Religious Experience in Transatlantic Perspective.” Zygon 44.2: 415–32.
———. 2009b. Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 2010. “Experience as Site of Contested Meaning and Value: The Attributional Dog and its Special Tail.” Religion 40.4: 317–23.
———. 2012. “Response to Russell T. McCutcheon’s Review Essay: ‘Will Your Cognitive Anchor Hold in the Storms of Culture?’ ” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80.1: 233–35.
Thomassen, Einar. 2006. The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the ‘Valentinians.’ Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 60. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.
Tite, Philip L. 2000. “Paul, Prayer of the Apostle.” In Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, edited by D. N. Freedman, 1020–21. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
———. 2001. “Categorical Designations and Methodological Reductionism: Gnosticism as Case Study.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 13: 269–92.
———. 2004. “Naming or Defining? On the Necessity of Reduction in Religious Studies.” Culture and Religion 5: 339–65.
———. 2009 Valentinian Ethics and Paraenetic Discourse: Determining the Social Function of Moral Exhortation in Valentinian Christianity. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 67. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.
———. 2012. The Apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans: An Epistolary and Rhetorical Analysis. Texts and Editions for New Testament Studies, 7. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.
Turner, John D. 2001. Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition. Bibliothéque Copte de Nag Hammadi, section “Études,” 6. Quebec/Louvain: Les Presses de l’Université Laval and Éditions Peeters.
Van der Leeuw, Gerardus 1963. Religion in Essence and Manifestation. 2 Volumes. Translated by J. E. Turner. New York: Harper & Row.
Van Oort, Johannes, ed. 2008. Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica. Collected Essays of Gilles Quispel. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 55. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.
Wach, Joachim. 1944. Sociology of Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
———. 1958. The Comparative Study of Religion. New York: Columbia University Press.
Weber, Max. 1964. Basic Concepts in Sociology. New York: The Citadel Press.
Weidlich, Thom. 2000. “Did Russell Have a Personal Religion?” Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies. 20: 176–81.
Weiss, Robert S. 1973. Loneliness: The Experience of Emotional and Social Isolation. Cambridge: MIT Press.
———. 1982. “Attachment in Adult Life.” In The Place of Attachment in Human Behavior, edited by C. M. Parkes and J. S. Hinde, 174¬–84. New York: Basic Books.
Whitehead, Alfred North. 1959. Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect. New York: Capricorn Books.
Williams, Michael Allen. 1996. Rethinking “Gnosticism”: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Williams, Raymond. 1985. “Experience.” In Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Revised edition, 126–29. London: Oxford University Press.
Published
2013-03-08
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Tite, P. (2013). Theoretical Challenges in Studying Religious Experience in Gnosticism: A Prolegomena for Social Analysis. Bulletin for the Study of Religion, 42(1), 8-18. https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.v42i1.8
