New generation of researchers -it is not necessary for them to have religious experiences .Any part of research demands an energy forces of mind which requires a deep study ,concentration a clear way of thinking not for the weaving mind but in well many cases they receive the help of their intuition which offers them the pathway of their research process .

To me in above line it is in an indirect mode of research experiences .

I am not sure you can read much into to Notre Dame response. I was recently told by UBC Press that they do not publish in psychology at all. I guess presses are free to specialize.

A fundamental assumption of psychology is that counselling is not advice giving - that answers are relative and found within the individual. This would make much pastoral counselling problematic, but I would agree, a psychological study of the enterprise would be interesting.

Will interest in the psychology of religious experiences expand?  Well from my perspective the answer is yes and no.  If we only look at experiences that have a specifically religious content, and research them from within a religious framework, then it is possible it will not expand. However if we place these experiences in a wider context of exceptional experience that are sometimes religious and sometimes non-religious, that can be benign or occasionally a symptom of mental illness, that sometimes spill over into the realm of  parapsychology, then I think there is still room for innovative research.

I suppose the question assumes that some "new generation" will bring new energies, insights, and approaches to the field of inquiry, but what I have noticed, in my own research, is that the newer generation of researchers tends to miss the treasure trove left for us by the older generations: William James, Charles Tart, and other transpersonal pioneers in psychology, along with parallel work done in anthropology, philosophy, and neuroscience.  Going back even further, we have the still-very-practical insights from ancient Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Kabbalistic, fourth-way, and shamanic traditions.  I have also found a great deal of relevant approaches in such virtually-discredited sources as Castaneda and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. 

Another important distinction is in whether an approach requires personal disciplines and practices for sufficient understanding; these include martial arts traditions, Sufi and Dervish disciplines, Xiao-Lin and Essene work, and practices from Christian and Hebrew mysticism.  This is why, in my own "handbook of higher consciousness" I require the reader to do the daily practices included at the end of each of the 20 chapters -- they build on the previous chapter's exercises and allow the reader a way to *organically* apprehend the text; you will find this in the works of many of the world's mystical teachers.

I question whether a new generation of researchers would be able to find funding for projects relating to the subject.  Funding and academic posts in general are dictated by what is currently fashionable, and by what is imagined to be politically or socially relevant.  In the Study of Religions, "religious experience" has become one of the great taboo subjects, to the extent that even the concept that there can be such a thing as an experience type commonly considered to be "religious" is seen as naive (see my recent paper in Method and Theory in the Study of Religion).  There is no  incentive to pursue such a subject, and indeed it has become a career liability.  Maybe it's different in psychology.

You are looking in the wrong discipline for an answer. Psychology does not have the vocabulary or research to explain religious experiences. Go to the Ancient Jewish Mystical Tradition (Kabbalah), the Science of Consciousness, and quantum physics to secure an understand of religious experiences.

Limited by my knowledge and experience in clinical psychology in the United States, I've seen the following trends in the past decades:

1. There is a vibrant division (Division 36 Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality) in APA (American Psychological Association);

2. APA has published many books and articles on integrating psychology/psychotherapy with spirituality and religion;

3. A number of universities focus their attention on integrating psychotherapy with religion and spirituality.

http://www.apa.org/about/division/div36.aspx

http://www.apadivisions.org/division-36/index.aspx

http://ish-tmc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Miller-Spiritualtiy-health-overview-AmPsy-2003.pdf

http://psycnet.apa.org/books/10859/013

http://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4317258.aspx

Thank you all for your thoughtful comments.

My own view is that new ideas and new measures both helpful in attracting graduate student dissertations and, thus, expanding the research field on the psychology of religion. Funding matters, but in my experience funding sometimes follows ideas, or as the saying goes, build it, and they will come. 

It seems to me there is significant negativity from colleagues about religion, and within the religion community, there is more interest in the humanities than the sciences,  more in the sciences than in psychology, and more in sociology than in psychology,   I ask myself, "in the last so many years, what has emerged from the study of religion that impacted the psychology field generally." 

I personally will work to attract graduate student interest. Again, thanks for the comments.

Add your answer

Steven, I am likewise seeking to develop the interest but from the other side.  I am currently working on a paper to challenge the basis for a lot of current theology (the resurrection of Jesus was not what we commonly think), to be followed up with a paper starting to rebuild theology with a more scientific basis, including psychology ("sin" is a psychiatric reality).  And if I get the cooperation I need (a good photographer, arranged if we can find the time to connect) and the results I expect (which would require a change in  how we perceive reality) from a hopeful experiment I will add even more fuel to the fire

The scientific community is interested in knowledge that is beneficial and adds value to the already expansive bodies of scientific knowledge.  Unfortunately, the biases of many in the scientific communities has caused matters of faith to be labelled as having little or no value.  Also, this viewpoint is held by many funding sources.

I am interested in how faith aids in resilience and overcoming the effects of trauma.  I do not see faith as simply a social construct or a phenomena that has a placebo effect.  

Anyone else interested?  (I am a graduate student majoring in professional mental health counseling at a Christian school. )

Psychology of religion is a developed form to dissect the religious experience from dogma. Late Ninan Smart was an exponent of this approach. It is a scientific approach to the core aspects of religious behaviour and historiography of religious experience. Also see William James' Varieties of  Religious Experience of Mankind (1902), also see his Essays in Radical Empiricism, Principles of Psychology ( check dates of publication). Durkheim, Husserl and Rorty were  influenced by his work among so many others. These three also speak about psychology of religion, and particularly Durkheim expands it to group psychology which he names in the context of larger body called society. 

I think that still survive some irrational prejudices against religion and related sciences coming from French Illustration. Religious experiences concern deeply human life. If we do not consider them, we shall commit distortions in psychological theory and practice.

Depending on one's focus and definitions, psychological incorporations of religious experience and spirituality are currently expanding significantly.

There is a burgeoning interest in "Positive Psychology" -- a more empirically focused incarnation of perspectives that were previously espoused by Humanistic Psychology.

There is significant incorporation of "mindfulness" in both research protocols and psychotherapy approaches (e.g., Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy; Dialectical Behavior Therapy; and Action and Commitment Therapy).

And there are increasing numbers of brain-imaging studies on meditative and contemplative prayer practices.

Also, last year the nearly 700 page second edition of the Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality was published (R. Paloutzian and C. Park, eds.)

I agree that important scholarship has been done.  Piedmont and Emmons, to name just two, have published high quality work.  Yet the psychology departments I know have little interest in religion.  Humanities dominates religious scholarship.  Positive psychology is very broad, much of it is secular,  and mindfulness is mostly secular.  There are religious people in psychology, of course, and the topic is so broad there are many studies, but I still think there is work to be done to build a psychological science. 

Why to talk regarding only researchers build a psychology of religious experiences can remain be a part of any programming activities pertaining to our intellectual mind process .

Religion experience is not only for the nature & god or any spiritual process as religion involve with the mind faculty ,will power ,inner faith which remain also the part of psychology which may also play a part of faith healing for our personal disturbing problems including our health care .

This is my personal opinion 

my book on religion jut won an award

Congrat Steven,  What is he book's title?