Ann Taves

Ann Taves is a historian by training with long-standing interests in theory and method as they relate to the historical, comparative, and scientific study of non-ordinary experiences. Her work has focused on the way that cognitive and socio-cultural processes interact to produce experiences that are variously conceptualized—as religious, mystical, esoteric, magical, or pathological—and at times lead to the formation of new social movements each with their own distinctive practices. She is the author of several books, including Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, 1999), Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things (Princeton, 2009), and Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths (Princeton, 2016). In the past ten years, she has published numerous articles related to nonordinary experiences in psychological and religious studies journals. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2011) and past president of the American Academy of Religion (2010).