Special Issue: Religious Experience and Ecology (original) (raw)

2021, Journal for the Study of Religious Experience

issue is an exploration of a theme that was very close to the heart of the founder of our research centre-the relationship between ecology and religious experience. Indeed, Sir Alister Hardy (1896-1985) started his academic career as a marine ecologist, and in that field is most widely known for his contributions to the study of plankton and their many fundamental connections to other parts of marine ecosystems. Hardy is also credited with the invention of the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR), used for documenting plankton levels in the ocean, and his research is still the benchmark for current work in this area (Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey, 2021). Following his retirement in 1969, after a string of prestigious university posts, and in order to pursue another of his lifelong fascinations, Hardy established the Religious Experience Research Unit (RERU) at Manchester College, Oxford, and began the process of collecting, documenting and analysing contemporary reports of religious and spiritual experience. Today the archive is housed at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter campus (with the new name of 'Religious Experience Research Centre'), and contains over 6,000 first-hand accounts of religious experiences submitted by the general public (RERC, 2021). Hardy's fascination for religious experience co-evolved with his love for, and curiosity about, the natural world. In his autobiographical notes, Hardy recalls having powerful and transformative experiences in nature during his childhood years, which would have a significant impact on the later unfurling of his life and work. He explains how as a student he would occasionally slip into reveries while observing the behaviour of butterflies, or experience moments of ecstasy when walking along the banks of the river near his school in Oundle, Nottinghamshire. He writes: There is no doubt that as a boy I was becoming what might be described as a nature mystic. Somehow, I felt the presence of something which was beyond and