Psychology of religion and skeptical naturalism

James H. Leuba

1868 – 1946

James Henry Leuba was a Swiss-born American psychologist who pioneered the scientific study of religious experience and mysticism, arguing in The Psychology of Religious Mysticism (1926) that mystical states are explicable through psychological and physiological mechanisms rather than supernatural causes. His surveys of the religious beliefs of American scientists — showing declining belief among more eminent researchers — were influential early contributions to the empirical study of religion. His naturalistic framework for analyzing mystical experience provided a skeptical counterpoint that serious esoteric scholarship had to engage with.