Where the Spirit Meets the Bone: Embodied Religiospiritual Cognition from an Attachment Viewpoint
Religions April 27, 2023 Anja L. Winter, Pehr Granqvist
Attachment theory can help explain how people think about religion and spirituality in bodily, physical ways—through metaphors, rituals, and imagining God or spirits as attachment figures. Embodied cognition also plays a role in mystical experiences and altered states, whether inside or outside religious settings. The term religiospiritual cognition is proposed to capture this broader view. The paper reviews attachment theory, connects it to embodied religious and spiritual thought, and suggests future research directions. Psychedelic science is highlighted as a promising area for studying how attachment relates to embodied religiospiritual cognition.