Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology records

In 1943, the Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology was founded by members of the Religious Society of Friends to help individuals deal with the enormity of World War II and its effects on a personal and global scale. The Conference met for the first time at Haddonfield, New Jersey, over Easter weekend under the name Conference on the Nature and Laws of Our Spiritual Life. Three years later, the name was changed to its current title and the group became affiliated as an autonomous organization to the American Friends Fellowship Council. The semi-annual periodical Inward Light was also begun by the Conference at that time. Although the Conference is no longer officially connected with the Religious Society of Friends, most of its members are Quakers.

The primary role of the Conference is planning a yearly event over the Memorial Day weekend. At this three day gathering, a main speaker holds several plenary sessions with the attendees, about two hundred to two hundred and fifty in number. The rest of the conference is spent in small group sessions on various topics intended to explore the ways the religious and the psychological relate to each other with the ultimate goal of personal wholeness. Small group sessions are designed to incorporate a number of different modes of expression, including working with clay, dancing, painting, singing, and drumming. Jungian philosophies are used to address Quaker beliefs in the Inner Light and the presence of God inside the individual. The Conference maintains the Dora Willson Collection, a lending library in Philadelphia, and transports about 300 titles to the Memorial Day conference. Organization and administration of the Conference and its activities are provided by the volunteered time of members.

The Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology has met in many different locations over the years. Haverford College in Pennsylvania hosted the conference until the needs of the conference and the college facilities and schedule were no longer compatible. In 1986, the conference relocated to Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. In 1989, it relocated again to Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pennsylvania. Its sister conference, the Washington Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology, has met since 1977.