Phenomenology of Religious Experience is the topic of a conference in philosophy of religion that will be held on November 4-5, 2016, at the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute in Berkeley (a GTU Affiliate). The conference is divided into two main sections: theologies and philosophies of religious experience, and the descriptive psychology and phenomenological method, with examples and case studies (in people and texts).

In the first section we welcome all those valuable contributions that focus on the relationship between phenomenology and metaphysics. These contributions can come from philosophical perspective as well as from the traditional religious scholarship, but the speakers are asked to self-identify their stance. In particular, we will be interested in reading papers that examine the existential status of the religious experience. The recent writings in philosophy of religion indicate that there is question if religious experience actually exist (e.g.constructivist perspectives such as e.g. Penner, or recent debates in cognitive science of religion). Besides, we welcome contributions on the views on religious experience in the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Walther, Hering, Stein, Henry, Levinas, Marion, Conrad-Martius, Ricoeur, and other phenomenological philosophers.

The second section is focused on descriptive phenomenological psychology. In this section we would like to read papers that discuss how phenomenology can increase our actual knowledge of religious experience. In this section we will be expanding from philosophy to phenomenological psychology, mysticism, and psychology of religion. In particular, we would welcome papers that develop two directions of inquiries: the phenomenological method through which it is possible to pursue the study of religious experience and the descriptive phenomenology of experience itself, which has been pitifully insufficiently pursued. The papers will be considered for further publication in De Gruyter Open Access topical issue.