Some of the literature concerning religious phenomena and conversion experience is reviewed. Three cases have been described in which there are several common factors leading to religious conversion - a specific unconscious conflict, a conscious conflict with which the individual is actively struggling, adolescence, and a fundamentalist religious belief. The cases presented are examples of each of three possible solutions to the patient's conflictual dilemma. A central feature of the psychodynamics in these cases is the resolution of an (Edipal conflict through delayed identification with the parent of the opposite sex.