Mapping the Boundaries between Science and Religion

Abstract

In contemporary religious landscapes, entanglements between the field of religion and the field of psychology and psychiatry are manifold.In this paper, the psychological school of "Transpersonal Psychology" (TP) and specifically the work of the psychiatrist and LSD researcher Stanislav Grof is introduced in order to illuminate the interferences between psychological or therapeutic discourses and religious discourses.Of particular interest are psychological approaches to Near-Death Experiences (NDE) and the way in which they become productive of religious imaginary.In this way, this paper will outline the boundaries between science and religion, or rather the fluidity of such boundaries, using the example of a specific discourse as manifested in scholarly approaches to Near-Death Experiences in Transpersonal Psychology.