The Beginning that Was an End: The Founding of the International Association for the Psychology of Religion

Abstract

This article, based on extensive empirical research and occasioned by the centennial of both the present journal Archiv für Religionspsychologie (AfRp, Archive for the Psychology of Religion) and its owner, the International Association for the Psychology of Religion (IAPR), deals extensively with the activities in the psychology of religion of Wilhelm Stählin (1883-1975), the prime force behind the IAPR and founding editor of the AfRp. The article discusses Stählins profound methodological contributions to the literature. It analyses the rather informal “founding” of the IAPR on June 10, 1914 and describes its aims and first activities. Sadly, what had started so promising was destroyed by World War I: the most active members of the board were drafted into the army and had no time left at all for any activities in the field of the psychology of religion. As a consequence of the economic misery in Germany after the war, there was even no paper available to print a next volume of the AfRp (which had been almost ready in summer 1914) until 1921. In the preface to that volume, Stählin articulated his inability to say anything about a possible future of both AfRp and IAPR. Paradoxically, the beginning had become an end, and should only in 1928 be followed by a new start. (For a more extensive abstract, also in English: see at the end of the article.)