ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on critical assessments of mainstream psychology that broaden the horizon of empirical study. It examines the conceptualization and measurement of mystical experience and survey reports on the facilitation, expression, and evidential value of religious experience. The chapter suggests empirical research possibilities. It aims to move from mainstream social psychology to empirical work that is legitimated by contemporary postmodern reconceptualizations of methodology and theory construction. The complex issues involved in debate suggest a broader context within which to place the empirical study of mysticism. Mysticism is regarded as a way of life that acknowledges the validity of personally experienced mystical states. The inductive approach to the evidential value of religious and mystical experiences suggests propositions certain to enliven research on mysticism. If psychologists would abandon the limited constraints of attempting to study mysticism only with concepts derived from its own mainstream discourse, the empirical study of mysticism would be broadened, as would the horizon of those who explore it.
