Thinking about thinking: the mind's porosity and the presence of the gods

Abstract

The Mind and Spirit project found that the way a social world invites its members to experience thought appears to have consequences. When the boundary between inner awareness and outer world is culturally represented as porous, so that thoughts can be construed to move in and out of the mind as if they had agency and power, people are more likely to describe their experience of invisible others as if those others could be experienced with the senses. They are more likely to say that a god or spirit spoke in a way they could hear with their ears, or that they sensed a presence in the room.

Which psychology(ies) serves us best? Research perspectives on the psycho-cultural interface in the psychology of religion(s)

“…Contrary to the supporters of the dimensional approach, which argues for a continuous spectrum of psychotic symptoms (Johns & Os, 2001), Luhrmann in her typology distinguishes between pathological and non-pathological hallucinations, claiming that other approaches risk mistaking religious experiences with mental disorders. 8 Luhrmann's research because of its intercultural scope and interdisciplinary character is of particular importance both to psychology and anthropology -it is currently conducted as part of The Mind and Spirit project leaded by Stanford University (Luhrmann, 2020a(Luhrmann, , 2020bWeisman & Luhrmann, 2020). Nevertheless, the hypothesis that the experience of communicating with God and feeling His presence is possible due to a learned ability acquired through 'religious mind training' is problematic, or even -according to some philosophers interested in religious experiences (Rea, 2018) -creates more problems than it actually solves.…”

“…They have announced 'the return of the ostracised', meaning quasi-sensory experiences (visions), to their field of interest (Hood et al, 2018, p. 336), because psychology started to see voice hearing as an anomalous experience (Cardena et al, 2014). Taking cultural concepts into account when studying voice hearing allowed scholars to overcome the WEIRD bias, dominant in experimental psychology, gave new rank to qualitative and interdisciplinary research (Anczyk et al, 2019;Weisman & Luhrmann, 2020), and expanded the number of countries and cultures subject to analysis (Luhrmann, 2020a(Luhrmann, , 2020b. Research into voice hearing needs to be continued, however.…”

“…Luhrmann’s research because of its intercultural scope and interdisciplinary character is of particular importance both to psychology and anthropology – it is currently conducted as part of The Mind and Spirit project leaded by Stanford University (Luhrmann, 2020a, 2020b; Weisman & Luhrmann, 2020). Nevertheless, the hypothesis that the experience of communicating with God and feeling His presence is possible due to a learned ability acquired through ‘religious mind training’ is problematic, or even – according to some philosophers interested in religious experiences (Rea, 2018) – creates more problems than it actually solves.…”

The Good, the Dead, and the Other: Chronicles of a Nepali Phantasmicide

“…Actually, the neat separation between what is in the mind and what is in the world , so deeply engrained in the Euro‐American modern secular theory of mind to the point of appearing obvious, is instead a habit of thought deriving from a specific historical process (Luhrmann 2011, 6; also 2020). In medieval ontology, for instance, “the real” was not associated with an external objective realm opposed to an illusory subjective sphere, since these were considered inextricable (see Ingold 2013).…”

“…As Luhrmann has argued (2020, 157), regardless of what one may think of the ontological turn, the crucial question it has put forward is paramount for psychological anthropology—namely, to what extent cultural differences shape the very experience of “reality” itself. Nevertheless, to conceive the spirit that tormented Laxmi as the almost palpable shape of an emotional reaction that was eventually eliminated—rather than a psychological event transferred outside—is not so obvious in the current intellectual landscape.…”