Includes bibliographical references (p. 363-366) and index.

Introduction: Is our task impossible or impolite? -- The Experiential Data -- Religious experience, "East" and "West" -- Some basic epistemological concepts -- The Challenge from Ineffability -- The outlines of ineffability -- Ineffability relative to particular languages -- Reasons in ineffability's favor -- The Social Science Challenge -- Nonepistemic explanation of belief -- Nonreligious explanation of religious belief -- The Religious Challenge -- Self-authentication and verification -- Religious practices and experiential confirmation -- The Argument from Religious Experience -- The argument in twentieth-century philosophy -- The principle of experiential evidence -- The argument triumphant -- Enlightenment and Conceptual Experience -- Are enlightenment experiences evidence for religious beliefs? -- Conceptual experience and religious belief.

"This book addresses fundamental questions in the philosophy of religion. Can religious experience provide evidence for religious belief? If so, how?" "Keith Yandell argues against the notion that religious experience is ineffable, while advocating the view that strong numinous experience provides some evidence that God exists. He contends that social science and other nonreligious explanations of religious belief and experience do not cancel out the evidential force of religious experience. The core of Yandell's argument concerns the formulation and application of an appropriate principle of experimental evidence. A final chapter considers the relevance of non-experimental, conceptual issues." "An attractive feature of the book is that it does not confine its attention to any one religious cultural tradition, but tracks the nature of religious experience across different traditions in both the East and the West."--Jacket.