Authentic religious experience or insanity?
Journal of Clinical Psychology May 1, 1999 S Sanderson, B Vandenberg, P Paese
Mental health professionals judge the religious authenticity and mental health of religiously motivated behaviors based on how conventional those behaviors are, not on the specific dimensions of religious experience. The more a behavior deviates from conventional religious beliefs and practices, the less authentic and mentally healthy it is considered. This finding suggests that clinicians may conflate religious unconventionality with psychopathology.