Steps Toward a Sociology of Religious Experience: The Theories of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Alfred Schutz

Abstract

Sociologists of religion, in their concern for the social effects of religious institutions and the functions of religious meaning systems for people\u27s identities, have neglected to study religious experiences. This paper explores Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi\u27s theory of flow experiences and Alfred Schutz\u27s theory of the tuning-in relationship as possible approaches to studying the experiential dimension of religion. Csikszentmihalyi\u27s notion of “the flow experience,” while ultimately reductionist, focuses on the nonconceptual side of autotelic activities. Schutz\u27s analysis of musical performance elucidates the preconceptual sociality of all experiences shared in inner time. We suggest that both theories offer conceptual tools that can be applied to religious experiences. Taken together they suggest an approach for sociologists attempting to explore this hitherto neglected domain