I became a student of the history of religion. I am…

I'm interested in the origins of the religious experience, how the history of religion has evolved over the last umpteen thousand years, and where…

— Reza Aslan

When I was 17, I had an experience that I later learned could be called a 'mystical experience.' It was almost violent. No faces,…

— Barbara Ehrenreich

Perhaps the attempt to achieve grace by identification with the animals was the most sensitive thing which was tried in the whole bloody history…

— Gregory Bateson

The starting point is the recognition that throughout history, religion has been a cause of bloodshed, and it remains so today. Because religion has…

— John C. Danforth

“He (Abraham Lincoln) is one of the few men in history, our own history and all history, whose religion was great enough to bridge…

— Dean sperry

You can't understand European history at all other than through religion, or English literature either if you can't recognise biblical allusions.

— Richard Dawkins

What was even more germane was my study of the history of religion. It was one of the few things in school I was…

— John Irving

“The history of religion is the history of appalling violence, slaughter and sexual abuses, rationalised by the fairy tales of religious delusions.”

— Peter B. Lockhart

Religion is part of the human make-up. It's also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the…

— Christopher Hitchens

A lot of religious belief - even the majority - involves making factual claims about the world which do come into conflict with science…

— Julian Baggini

Racial history is therefore natural history and the mysticism of the soul at one and the same time; but the history of the religion…

— Alfred Rosenberg

“also review the general history of religion and how we saw a rapid acceleration of intellectual and social human progress only after religion’s influence…

— Alan Jeskin

What was considered a peak mystical experience a few years ago is today the basic platform of sanity from which our exploration begins.

— Arjuna Ardagh

For the person who wants to get to the mystical experience directly, Tantric Buddhism is the path.

— Frederick Lenz

Videos are tricky because stuff sounds amazing on paper and it seems like it's going to be this mystical experience and you're going to…

— Aaron Bruno