James V. Spickard has been a professor in sociology and anthropology at the University of Redlands since 1989. He was the research director at the Cultural Development Institute. He received his BA from Stanford, his MA from the New School for Social Research, and his PhD from the Graduate Theological Union. He taught sociology and anthropology for several years at the College of Notre Dame in Belmont, California. His research interests include social influences on religious experience and relativism in the social sciences.