The Neural Basis of Religious Cognition brings together leading researchers from psychology, neuroscience, and theology to identify the neural circuits underlying various aspects of religious behavior and cognition. The book presents cutting-edge research in the cognitive neuroscience of religion, demonstrating how brain research techniques can illuminate the puzzles and complexities of religious experience.
The work argues that understanding the neural foundations of religious cognition holds both historical significance and contemporary relevance for human understanding, potentially revealing insights into uniquely human aspects of social brain functioning. Through in-depth explorations of diverse topics including prayer, psychedelic experiences, and the impact of neurodegenerative disorders on religious cognition, the book provides comprehensive coverage of this emerging interdisciplinary field. The research presented offers valuable knowledge about how the brain processes religious thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, contributing to broader understanding of human consciousness and spirituality.
The book provides in-depth explorations of various topics within cognitive neuroscience of religion, including prayer, psychedelics and the impact of neurodegenerative disorders, making it a must-read for all researchers of the psychology of religion.
This book brings together leading researchers from psychology, neuroscience, and theology to identify the neural circuits underlying various aspects of religious behavior and cognition. It presents cutting-edge research in the cognitive neuroscience of religion.
Preface
1. Emotional Intelligence and the Emotional Connection to God:
Insights from Traumatic Brain Injury Research
2. Religion and Spirituality in
Parkinsons Disease: A Qualitative Evaluation
3. Selflessness as the
Neuropsychological Foundation of Spiritual Transcendence
4. The bodily
instantiation of spiritual feelings: self-transcendence and the predictive
processing of body signals
5. Redemptive Turning Points, Spiritual
Experience, and Decentering: Spiritual experiences and narrative identity
construction in spiritual life history interviews
6. The God receptor:
naturalistic, psychotic and entheogenic neurocognition in the origins and
phenomenology of spiritual and religious thought
7. Religious cognition in
dreams: Attributing agency and meaning to(lucid) dreaming
8. REM sleep
contributes to the neural basis of religious and spiritual experiences
9.
Embodied Representation of the Divine Index
Jordan Grafman is Director of Brain Injury Research at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago, IL, USA, and Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA. CoPI Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Cognition (CNRC) Project (cognitiveneuroscienceofreligion.org).
Patrick McNamara is Professor of Psychology at National University, San Diego, California, USA, and Associate Professor of Neurology at Boston University, Boston, MA, USA. CoPI CNRC Project (cognitiveneuroscienceofreligion.org).
