Religion Brain & Behavior
June 5, 2018
91 citations
A new model, the Interactive Religious Experience Model (IREM), proposes that general religious beliefs (e.g., God exists) are mostly acquired from culture, while personal religious beliefs (e.g., God appeared to me last night) arise from agency-detection intuitions and other low-level experiences. IREM inverts the standard Hyperactive Agency-Detection Device Theory: rather than agency-intuitions causing general religious belief, general belief in supernatural agents leads people to seek situations that trigger such intuitions, enabling personal beliefs. The model incorporates philosophical work on indexical belief, addresses empirical and conceptual problems with earlier theories, and suggests future research directions.
Religion Brain & Behavior
April 8, 2014
Bruce Greyson, Donna K. Broshek, Lori L. Derr et al.
45 citations
Alterations of consciousness are central to diagnosing epilepsy, and some patients report unusual experiences during seizures that might resemble spontaneous mystical states. This study used a validated Mysticism Scale to assess such experiences in 98 epilepsy patients, 86 of whom had EEG recordings. Fifty-five percent recalled some subjective experience during seizures, but none met criteria for a mystical experience. While some features, especially those of introvertive mysticism, were reported, they were not linked to any specific brain lobe or hemisphere. Mysticism Scale scores showed no significant association with demographics, medical history, seizure risk factors, or seizure characteristics.
Religion Brain & Behavior
December 22, 2017
David L. R. Maij, Michiel van Elk, Uffe Schjoedt
32 citations
In a field study at a Dutch festival, 193 participants were led to believe a placebo brain stimulation device (the God Helmet) could induce mystical experiences. Participants reported a range of extraordinary experiences, including out-of-body sensations, involuntary movements, and sensing invisible beings. Self-identified spiritualism predicted these experiences, but neither objective nor subjective alcohol intoxication increased susceptibility to the suggestion. The authors discuss methodological limitations that may explain the lack of an alcohol effect and explore the God Helmet's usefulness for studying extraordinary experiences.
Religion Brain & Behavior
July 11, 2024
Ari Brouwer, Charles L. Raison, F. Leron Shults
3 citations
A theory-building paper compares the trajectory of psilocybin mushroom experiences—aversive comeup, awe-inspiring peak, relief and clarity in the comedown—with spiritual and incipient psychotic experiences. It argues that these shared trajectories inform cognitive scientific perspectives on religion. The authors propose a causal pathway where stress, uncertainty, and arousal increase perception of extra agency (PEA), which may lead either to states that downregulate PEA or to states that perpetuate it. Religions could modulate this pathway to promote social cohesion. The paper emphasizes the need for phenomenological nuance when comparing psychedelic, spiritual, and psychotic experiences.
Religion Brain & Behavior
June 29, 2023
Péter Rácz
1 citation
Possession trance, an altered state of consciousness where a person believes an alien spirit resides in them, is often pathologized in Western medicine but has been linked by anthropologists to social marginalization in complex, rigid societies. This study analyzes cross-cultural data from the Ethnographic Atlas and two cultural phylogenies using gradient boosting, Bayesian hierarchical models, and phylogenetic comparative methods. Results support a correlation between possession trance and several proposed social factors, but no evidence for co-evolution between possession trance and those factors was found.
Religion Brain & Behavior
March 31, 2026
Kurt Stocker, Matthias Hartmann, Frederick S. Barrett et al.
After administration of LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, or DMT, mystical oneness—the core of mystical experience—showed dose-sensitive strong correlations with luminous light and renewal, and a moderate-to-strong correlation with ego disintegration. These findings from 386 healthy participants across 15 studies support a broader, dynamic model of mystical experience, where mystical oneness unfolds with ego disintegration, renewal, and luminous light. The results offer insights for psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Religion Brain & Behavior
April 3, 2021
A. Petersen
A review of Ariel Gluklich's The Joy of Religion (2020) finds the book's ambitious attempt to bridge scientific and cultural approaches to religious joy ultimately unsatisfactory. The author argues that while Gluklich acknowledges pleasure as a biological fact amenable to cognitive science and evolutionary biology, he treats cultural pleasure as escaping scientific explanation. This creates an apologetic tenor that elevates philosophical phenomenology over science, reestablishing a dichotomy between explanation and interpretation rather than overcoming it. The reviewer concludes that the incommensurability between the two approaches prevents a persuasive synthesis.