David Hay

Dr David Hay is a former Director of the Religious Experience Research Unit (RERU) in Oxford (now based in the University of Wales). Like Sir Alister Hardy FRS, who founded the RERU in 1969, he is a zoologist, studying as an undergraduate in Aberdeen University. Hardy had been Professor of Zoology and Head of Department in Oxford University. He was convinced that spiritual awareness has evolved through the process of Natural Selection, underlies all genuine religion, and is necessary for the wellbeing of the human community. Much of Hay’s academic career has been spent exploring the plausibility of Hardy’s conjecture and this has led him to publish numerous scientific articles and seven books on the subject The latter include Exploring Inner Space: Scientists and Religious Experience (1987); Religious Experience Today: Studying the Facts (1990); The Spirit of the Child (with Rebecca Nye) (2006), and Something There: the Biology of the Human Spirit (2006, 2007). His latest book is a biography entitled God’s Biologist: a Life of Alister Hardy (2011). Towards the latter part of his formal career, David was appointed Reader in Spiritual Education in Nottingham University and Visiting Professor in the Institute for the Study of Religion at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Currently he holds an Honorary Senior Research Fellowship in Aberdeen University, and also an Honorary Research Fellowship in the University of Wales at Lampeter