Religious Experience and Tradition

During the last century, religious experience has been studied extensively from different points of view, such as: the revitalization of religion; New Age movements; new social roles of religion; the place of different religions in society; neurosciences; ecumenism; (re)secularization as a part of modernization; religions and values, etc. Globalization offers a wide assortment of exotic religious practices sometimes covered under the diversity of physical or intellectual activities. Traditional faiths are confronted with new religious movements. Families uniting people from different countries face cultural and religious inadequacies in daily life. Consequently, scholars in the field of religion are facing new challenges, namely to rethink the importance of religious experience and its place in contemporary society with relation to its interconnection with the religious tradition.

This conference is the 3rd one dedicated to the research of religious experience and the religious consciousness. After discussing the phenomenon of mystical experience and relationship between East and West we direct our attention towards religious experience in relation to religious traditions. Some fundamental questions are: How do religious experiences correlate with religious traditions? Are religious experiences expressions of religious tradition or of human religiousness in general? How is the experience of Transcendence understood by the religious and nonreligious people? Is it possible that the expression of such experience stays beyond the concrete religious tradition? How is it possible (if at all) to express one’s personal experience of Transcendence?

Conference languages: English, Lithuanian, French, German.