The Religious Experience Research Centre was founded by the distinguished marine biologist Professor

Alister Hardy Sir Alister Clavering Hardy (10 February 1896 – 22 May 1985) was a British Marine biology, marine biologist, an expert on marine ecosystems spanning organisms from zooplankton to whales. He had the artistic skill to illustrate his books with h ...

FRS in 1969 as The Religious Experience Research Unit. He and his co-researchers began to gather a unique archive of accounts of

religious experience A religious experience (sometimes known as a spiritual experience, sacred experience, mystical experience) is a subjectivity, subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. The concept originated in the 19th century, a ...

and to publish research into the area. The maintenance of both the archives and the research and publications have continued. The centre organises conferences and produces both books and a series of Occasional Papers on religious experience and spirituality. Sir Alister was awarded the ''

Templeton Prize The Templeton Prize is an annual award granted to a living person, in the estimation of the judges, "whose exemplary achievements advance Sir John Templeton's philanthropic vision: harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest ques ...

for Progress In Religion'' in 1985 and the centre has since received a grant from the

Templeton Foundation The John Templeton Foundation (Templeton Foundation) is a philanthropic organization founded by John Templeton in 1987. Templeton became wealthy as a contrarian investor, and wanted to support progress in religious and spiritual knowledge, espec ...

for the computerisation of the archives. The centre was located at Manchester College, Oxford, from 1969 to 1989 and from 1989 to 1999 at

Westminster College, Oxford Westminster College, originally the Westminster Training College, was a teacher training college and college of higher education in England. The college was founded in London in 1851 as a training institute for teachers for Wesleyan Methodist ...

. In 2000 the centre moved to the

University of Wales, Lampeter University of Wales, Lampeter () was a university in Lampeter, Wales. Founded in 1822, and incorporated by royal charter in 1828, it was the oldest Academic degree, degree awarding institution in Wales, with limited degree awarding powers sinc ...

(presently

University of Wales, Trinity Saint David The University of Wales Trinity Saint David () is a public university with three main campuses in South West Wales, in Carmarthen, Lampeter and Swansea, a fourth campus in London, and learning centres in Cardiff, and Birmingham. The universit ...

). The directors of the centre are currently Greg Barker, Bettina Schmidt and Sally Wilkinson.

References

External links

Religious Experience Research Centre
1969 establishments in the United Kingdom Harris Manchester College, Oxford University of Wales, Lampeter Religious practices Schools of religion {{Reli-studies-stub