This special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies (JCS) is concerned with interdisciplinary research on religious experience. Philosophical contributions are presented together with others, some of which provide an immense wealth of empirical material. For instance, the review article by editor Jensine Andresen, entitled »Meditation meets behavioural medicine«, presents us with references to almost 600 seminal publications. Other contributions include empirical studies on visions of Christ (by Phillip Wiebe), and on Mexican shamanism (by Stanley Krippner).

The philosophical debate – represented by authors such as Arthur Deikman, Christian de Quincey, and Ken Wilber – revolves around the possibilities and limits of an integral theory of religious experience. As in most issues of JCS, we also find articles on the neuro-psychology of religious experience, by James Austin, Andrew Newberg, and Eugene d'Aquili.