An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

Acknowledgements
So many people on hearing about this project, immediately shared their 
experiences with me and allowed me to quote them. I am deeply grateful 
to all who have contributed to the book in this way as these accounts are 
very precious and many had not been shared before. Most of the new 
accounts are now recorded in the Alister Hardy Religious Experience 
Research Centre Archive held at the University of Wales, Lampeter and 
are quoted anonymously by reference number. My thanks also go to those 
who have sent their accounts to the RERC over the years, as I have been 
able to make use of the archive for this book. I have also been able to 
include data from the RERC Global Project. For information on China 
I thank Professors Paul Badham and Xinzhong Yao; for data and accounts 
from Turkey, Professor Cafer Yaran of the University of Istanbul and for 
details of the Tamil Nadu project in India, Revd Jonathan Robinson.
Very special thanks are due to Peggy Morgan, for her encouragement 
in my studies and for her role in my involvement with the Alister Hardy 
Society, as well as for her invaluable advice after reading the first draft of 
the book. Three professors have been particularly supportive: my former 
tutor Keith Ward in Oxford, Paul Badham in Lampeter and Hal French in 
South Carolina and I am deeply indebted to them. I am also most grateful 
for the suggestions made by Dr Wendy Dossett and Dr David Hay. 
I thank all at the RERC for their co-operation, particularly Jean Matthews 
for her patient work in adding so many new accounts to the archive, and 
to the members of the Alister Hardy Society for their companionship on 
my journey.
My husband John and daughter Eleanor lived with the idea of this 
book for a long time and I am deeply grateful to them both for their 
enthusiasm and support. Above all, I thank John for all his help while 
I was writing. I am particularly grateful to him for his comments on the 
text, but most of all for his constant love and encouragement.

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