This book was first published in 1997 and immediately became a scientific bestseller: it was the first attempt in domestic, and to a large extent in world science, to present religion as an integral psychological phenomenon. Outstanding religious scholar E. A. Torchinov ( 1956–2003) substantiated and developed a fundamentally new psychological approach to the interpretation of the phenomenon of religion, based on the concept of deep religious experience as a special psychological reality and actively using the developments of representatives of transpersonal psychology (S. Grof and his school). The book examines texts that record or describing so-called mystical practices and altered states of consciousness. The introduction examines the structure of religious experience and its types, the question of the interaction of religion with other forms of spiritual culture (mythology, philosophy, science). The first three parts are devoted to the consideration of specific historical forms of religious practice of changing consciousness (psychotechnics) with the aim of acquiring deep (transpersonal) experience. The forms of shamanic psychotechnics, the mystery cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, the most complex forms of psychotechnics developed in the religions of the East: Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism are considered. A special chapter is devoted to the “biblical revealed religions”: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Of particular interest is the chapter “Kabbalah and the East,” which draws parallels between Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah) and the religious and philosophical teachings of the Indo-Buddhist and Far Eastern traditions.