Psychology of Religion and Neurobiology: Which Relationship?

Abstract

Given that (a) psychologists of religion as a scientific community so far have shown little interest in neurobiology, and (b) neurobiology may become important for our field in the not too distant future, an attempt is made to present and discuss neurobiology and its conceivable interactions with psychology of religion. The long-standing debate about the philosophical grounding of the mind-body problem is recalled, as well as the scope of neurobiology and its research methods. Psychology of religion may assist neurobiology by providing research data that could serve as material for constructing testable neurobiological hypotheses, data resulting, for instance, from studying an individual's perception of God and the numinous, the psychological characteristics of meditation, deep prayer, contemplation, etc. Psychology of religion could benefit from neurobiology, (a) for assessing differing theoretical concepts regarding, for instance, religious experiences, and (b) for constructing dynamic models of religious development. Possible roadblocks on the way to connecting psychology of religion and neurobiology are pointed out and literature for further reading is provided. * An earlier version was presented at the session "Religion, cognitive science and neuroscience" of the Glasgow Conference for the Psychology of Religion, August 28-31, 2003. I thank Max Velmans, the session participants, especially Nina P. Azari, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments thereon.

Epilepsy and religiosity: A historical overview

“…Some clinical observations seem to support the relationship between religious experiences during, after, and in between seizures; 0.4%–3.1% of partial epilepsy patients were reported to have ictal religious experiences, 3.9% of epilepsy patients reported religious auras, while the frequency of postictal religious experiences was 1.3% of all epilepsy patients and 2.2% of temporal lobe epilepsy patients (Devinsky & Lai, 2008). However, there is a relative lack of support for drawing a direct link between epilepsy and religiosity (Azari & Slors, 2007; Reich, 2004; Tucker et al, 1987; Vliegenthart, 2011). Instead of this, the possibility of religious experiences with epilepsy, and especially temporal lobe epilepsy remains a popular research question (Devinsky & Lai, 2008; Dong & Zhou, 2016; Greyson et al, 2015; Newberg et al, 2002; Ogata & Miyakawa, 1998; Tedrus et al, 2015; Trimble & Freeman, 2006).…”

Extending the Psychology of Religion: A Call for Exploration of Psychological Universals, More Inclusive Approaches, and Comprehensive Models

“…Reich, 2003) and scientists grapple with, so far with limited success: the mind/brain or body/soul problem. Th e reason to bring it up here is its importance for the psychology of religion (e.g., Reich, 2004). Significant psychological universals underlying the psychology of religion, a more comprehensive approach to it, and constructing more overarching models for it could all benefit, if conscious experience were better understood, specifically as regards the "truth value" of visions associated with meditative and mystical states (e.g., Hunt, 2006;Martin, 2005).…”