Women Who Hear Voices: The Challenge of Religious Experience

More than a few people today scoff at the notion of "religious experience." What the believer accepts as God acting in human lives, the skeptic attributes to delusion or hysteria-especially when the believer is a woman. Indeed, the possibility of self-deception in the realm of religious experience is sufficiently great that even devotees tread softly around it. At what point does mindless enthusiasm come to an end and actual, transcendent reality begin?

Sidney Callahan, a psychologist, autho...