Dr Alastair Lockhart

Call for Papers: 'Religion and the Ending of War', 7-9 July 2021. Submission deadline: 7 May 2021.

Beckett House Conference, the 11th Annual Conference of the International Network for the Study of War and Religion in the Modern World.

Download here:

cfp_religion_and_the_ending_of_war.pdf

Psychology of Religion

Contemporary/20th century religious history

Apocalypticism and millenarianism

Biography

Alastair Lockhart studied BA Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Cambridge before completing an MSc in Computer Sciences and an MA in the Psychology of Religion, both at the University of London. His doctoral thesis on 'Religion, Psychology and Metaphysics in Interwar Britain' was completed at Cambridge in 2010.

He was a Research Associate in the Faculty of Divinity until 2014 and has continued as a member of the Faculty in different capacities since then.

He is a Fellow of Hughes Hall, a postgraduate college of the University, where he is Deputy Senior Tutor and Director of Studies for Theology, Religion, and Philosophy of Religion, and Academic Director at the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements in Bedford.

Research

Dr Lockhart carries out research in the field of contemporary and 20th century religion and belief with a special interest in new and non-mainstream religion, the psychology of religion, and apocalypticism and millenarianism.

With a special study of the Tavistock Clinic in the interwar period, his doctoral thesis, titled 'Religion, Psychology and Metaphysics in Interwar Britain', examined the interactions between the formation of psychological theory in late-Victorian Britain, the adoption of psychoanalytic approaches from the Continent, the emergence of new therapeutic forms of psychology and psychotherapy in the first half of the 20th century, and religious and metaphysical concepts of personhood rooted in Anglo-Hegelianism. He continues to work on historical and theoretical aspects of the relationship between religion and psychology.

More recently, he has worked on the archives of the Panacea Society,a millenarian religious group that was formed in England after World War I and continued until 2012. His first book, Personal Religion and Spiritual Healing was published by State University of New York Press in 2019.

Publications

Key publications:

Monograph

Lockhart, A (2019) Personal Religion and Spiritual Healing: The Panacea Society in the Twentieth Century. SUNY Press. Publisher’s website.

Edited work

Crossley, J. and A. Lockhart (eds.) (2021) Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements. www.cdamm.org. Open access.

Articles and chapters

Lockhart, A. (2020) ‘New Religious Movements and Quasi-religion: Cognitive Science of Religion at the Margins’ in Archive for the Psychology of Religion / Archiv für Religionspsychologie 42(1): 101-122. Open access.

Lockhart, A. (2020) ‘Demise and Persistence: Religion after the Loss of “Direct Divine Control” in the Panacea Society’ in Michael Stausberg, Stuart A. Wright and Carole M. Cusack (eds.) The Demise of Religion: How Religions End, Die, or Dissipate. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 83-96. Open access.

Williams, R.J., F. Watts, & A. Lockhart (2020) ‘Health Help-Seeking Behaviour in Spiritual Healing Practice: Records from the Panacea Society’s Healing Department, 1924–1997′ in Journal of Religion and Health (June 2020). doi.org/10.1007/s10943-020-01044-1

Lockhart, A. (2020) ‘Bishop William Temple and the Psychologists’ in Russell Re Manning (ed.) Mutual Enrichment between Psychology and Theology. Abingdon UK; New York NY: Routledge. pp. 35-46. Publisher’s website.

Lockhart, A. (2020) ‘Holy Places and Religious Language in New Religious Movements’ in New Blackfriars 101(1092): 163-181. doi.org/10.1111/nbfr.12543

Lockhart, A. (2019) ‘A Bud from the Tree of Life: William McDougall’s Response to Freud’ in History and Philosophy of Psychology 20(1): 28-33. Journal website.

Lockhart, A. (2017) ‘A Southcottian Healing Panacea, 1924-2012’ in J. Shaw and P. Lockley (eds.) The History of a Modern Millennial Movement: The Southcottians. London: I.B. Tauris. pp. 186-202. Publisher’s website.

Lockhart, A. (2015) ‘Religious and Spiritual Mobility in Britain: The Panacea Society and Other Movements in the Twentieth Century’ in Contemporary British History 29(2): 155-178. Open access.

Lockhart, A. (2013) ‘Heterodox Healing and Alternative Religion in the 20th Century: An English Spiritual Healing Practice in Finland’ in Suomen kirkkohistoriallisen seuran vuosikirja 2013. Helsinki: Suomen Kirkkohistoriallinen Seura/Societas Historiae Ecclesiasticae Fennica. pp. 74-97. Journal website.

Lockhart, A. (2012) ‘The “Para-Freudians”: A Project for a Spiritualized Psychoanalysis in Early Twentieth Century Britain’ in D. Henderson (ed.) Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 2-19. Publisher’s website.

Lockhart, A. (2010) ‘”The “Parson’s Clinic”: Religion and Psychology at the Interwar Tavistock Clinic’ in History and Philosophy of Psychology 12(2): 11-23. Journal website.

Other publications:

Lockhart, A. (2021) ‘Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM)’ in J. Crossley and A. Lockhart (eds.) Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements. 21 January 2021. www.cdamm.org/articles/censamm.

Lockhart, A. (2021) ‘Panacea Society’ in J. Crossley and A. Lockhart (eds.) Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements. 15 January 2021. www.cdamm.org/articles/panacea-society.

Lockhart, A. (2017) Review of Bruce K. Alexander and Curtis P. Shelton A History of Psychology in Western Civilization in History and Philosophy of Psychology 18(1): 49-51. Journal website.