Bishop Grosseteste University is excited to announce the launch of a new research centre, the Alister Hardy Religious and Spiritual Experience Research Centre.

The Alister Hardy Religious and Spiritual Experience Research Centre is a collaborative research project with the Centre for Mind and Culture, Boston University, USA. The project, sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation, is designed to build on the pioneering research initiated by Sir Alister Hardy in Oxford 1969 into the science of religious and spiritual experience. The project will be led by Professor Jeff Astley, the Alister Hardy Professor of Religious and Spiritual Experience at BGU.

Signing off the project alongside Professor Leslie J Francis, Chair of the Alister Hardy Trust, BGU Vice-Chancellor the Reverend Canon Professor Peter Neil said:

“BGU is proud of this opportunity to collaborate with Boston University in the USA to open up a new era in the science of religious and spiritual experience.”

Professor Francis added:

“Professor Astley’s appointment at BGU earlier this year as the Alister Hardy Professor of Religious and Spiritual Experience came at an opportune time to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Alister Hardy Archive of Religious and Spiritual Experience. This new project is designed to explore the question of how Sir Alister would design a new Archive now, given the advances in knowledge about religious and spiritual experience. Such an initiative in BGU is also consistent with the vision of Bishop Robert Grosseteste who in the thirteenth century was eminent as both theologian and scientist.”

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