Body Posture and the Religious Altered State of Consciousness
Journal of Humanistic Psychology July 1, 1986 F. Goodman 21 citations
Experiments with student volunteers showed that adopting postures from religious rituals, such as those used in Pentecostal services, produced physical changes and self-reported experiences similar to those observed in religious altered states of consciousness. Earlier experiments had inconsistent results, which the author hypothesized was due to neglecting posture as a component. In five subsequent experimental series, ritual postures from ethnographic literature yielded striking agreement between ethnographic data and subjects' self-reports, while neutral control postures did not. The method allows investigation of religious altered states without relying on religious dogma.