In this clear and provocative account of the epistemology of religious experience, William P. Alston argues that the perception of God-his term for direct experiential awareness of God-makes a major contribution to the grounds of religious belief. Surveying the variety of reported direct experiences of God, Alston demonstrates that a person can be justified in holding certain beliefs about God on the basis of mystical experience.
"The elegant and comprehensive argument in this book is the definitive version of a position Alston has been developing over the past decade. It is arguably the most important investigation of the epistemology of mysticism from a sophisticated analytical-pragmatic perspective since James's Varieties."