The introduction of the psychology of religion to The Netherlands: ambivalent reception, epistemological concerns, and persistent patterns

Between 1905 and 1910, several Dutch scholars independently "discovered" the rapidly growing psychology of religion. The "empirical" character of this psychology as developed in America provoked very diverse reactions, the differences in which arose from the very different mentalities existing within religiously different segments of Dutch society. This paper focuses on an illustrative example: a dissertation by Johannes G. Geelkerken (1879-1960), which remains one of the best sources of information on the presuppositions and foundations of the early empirical psychology of religion. The ideological, institutional, and national context of Geelkerken's work is discussed. Although the pattern of early development of psychology of religion in The Netherlands was atypical for Europeanized cultures, it has persisted into the present.