J.A. van Belzen

A mirror of society. The downfall of Rajneeshpuram in the print media: a cross-national study

After a short history of growth, controversy, and intense friction with its environment, the Bhagwan Rajneesh commune near Antelope, Oregon experienced a series of events leading to the defection of part of its leadership, to the forced departure of the Bhagwan from the United States, and to the communes collapse. This paper presents the results of a cross-national study of how the major print media in the United States, in West Germany, and in the Netherlands framed the events occurring in Rajneeshpuram. Similarities and discrepancies in the reporting styles of these three nations are discussed against a background of highly divergent societal responses to deviant new religious movements in each nation.

'In defense of the object: spirituality, culture and the psychology of religion'

The increase in attention to religion and spirituality nowadays within psychology is substantial, most notably in the field of psychotherapy and other mental health-related issues.1 Although favorable for the development of the psychology of religion as a subdiscipline, there are also reasons for concern. This article addresses some of them by asking whether parts of the contemporary psychological attention to religion and spirituality are not perhaps too focused on questions of mental health, in danger of being transgressive in nature, and biased in their conceptualizations of spirituality.

Developments in the International Association for the Psychology of Religion

Although the question of whether there is a need for an international organization for the psychology of religion has been raised from time to time, it is still difficult to answer. Diverse issues with respect to the discipline and its international history need to be considered. Several times during the 20th century, there have been initiatives to establish networks, organizations, journals, and series in or for the psychology of religion. Because this is not the place to report extensively on this history, let us look only at its outcome: Almost none of the initiatives survived, and after some years even the most laudable efforts decayed. In many respects, therefore, the field seems to be starting anew every couple of decades. This glance at history does not give the impression of a strong discipline with clear growth and progress. However, historical considerations alone will not answer our question. On the one hand, with so many initiatives having failed, one should be reluctant to start a new one; on the other hand, since there still exists no platform uniting psychologists of religion from different regions and with different orientations, and as interest in the field is at present clearly increasing, why not give it another try? Discipline-wide considerations do not clarify the issues for us either. For the development and prestige of the psychology of religion as a field of research, it might be better when its practitioners are involved in well-established disciplinary networks and when they publish their research in high-ranking journals. If a psyTHE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION, 11(1), 1–7 Copyright

The historicocultural approach in the psychology of religion : Perspectives for interdisciplinary research

The psychology of religion always having to orient itself toward a more general psychology and its object being very diverse, the branch of human science called hermeneutical psychology is suggested as the most appropriate and viable to study religiosity. After emphasizing that the subdisciplines object is a culturally constituted phenomenon to be understood by psychology in a historical perspective, special attention is given to the historical variant of cultural psychology. Three subvariants and their relation to the psychology of religion are pointed out. Psychohistory is presented both as an example of an older inclination within the psychology of religion to take the historical-cultural embeddedness of religious phenomena into account, and as an advanced possibility for conducting interdisciplinary research.

The Impact of Phenomenology on Clinical Psychiatry: Rumke's Position Between Jaspers and Kraepelin

The word ’phenomenology’ stands for a broad movement in philosophy, psychology and psychiatry.’ Often as vague as it is broad, the term means very dissimilar things: a method of exploring and describing subjective psychic experience as well as a transcendental philosophical approach.2 It is not at all clear what the connections are between the phenomenological movement in philosophy and that in psychiatry. What impact has the socalled phenomenological movement had on actual daily practice in psychiatric treatment and care and to what extent is it relevant there? The answers to these questions are widely divergent, each author and theoretician highlighting different aspects. In this essay it is our purpose to examine from this perspective the views of this century’s most important Dutch psychiatrist, H. C. Rümke (1893-1967), who for years determined the face of Dutch psychiatry abroad. Since some time ago a classic text authored by him was published in this journal,3 I will keep the presentation of the person of Rumke brief in this paper.

Religion, culture and psychopathology. Cultural-psychological reflections on religion in a case of manslaughter in The Netherlands

During one of the religious gatherings which for some time had been taking place in the evening at the home of farmer Martin Schroevers around 1900 in the Dutch village of Betuwe, Schroevers killed his own farmhand Peter, inasmuch as the latter was thought to be possessed by the devil. (All names of persons involved have been changed (also the name of the village). Evidently, quotations have been translated). Approximately a dozen persons—men, women, and children—were present at the scene, some of whom horribly maimed and mutilated the body. Martin was thereupon proclaimed the Messiah and taken in triumphal procession by his psalm-singing adherents from Betuwe, where he lived, to Diedenhoven, where he was acclaimed by his mother and his brothers as Gods Chosen One. Early in the morning Martin, along with his adherents, returned to Betuwe, where he was arrested by the police and brought to prison. Three other involved persons were taken to psychiatric institutions, to which Martin was later transferred as well. Just what happened here? Was it murder? A case of mental illness? If so, what did religion or religious notions have to do with it?

Pendeln zwischen Magie und Religion

Die Religionspsychologie hat ein gebrochenes Verhaltnis zur Magie. Das mag in erster Linie daran liegen, das die Religionspsychologie zu grosen Tei len immer christlich-theologisch impragniert gewesen ist, und christlichen Theologen meistens sehr daran gelegen gewesen ist, Magie strikt von Religion zu (unter)scheiden. Dass die Dinge aber nicht ganz so einfach sind, und dass man Magie von einer fachwissenschaftlichen Perspektive aus durchweg als reli gioses Phanomen interpretieren kann, zeigt die Definition eines bekannten und psychologisch unterlegten Religionsanthropologen (s. Van Baal 1946, Van Baal & Van Beek 1985): „By magic I mean all those acts and spells directed to wards furthering a certain aim by employing another reality than the empiri cally determinable one, in which process this other reality is not independently