The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience

Decentering and the Self

Patrick McNamara

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781108833172
• Edition: 2
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108968492
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Cognitive Psychology & Cognition
• Index: Psychology

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience, now updated and expanded in a new edition, updates key topics covered in the first edition including: decentering and self-transformation, supernatural agent cognitions, mystical states, religious language, ritualization, and religious group agency. It expands upon the first edition to include major findings on brain and religious experience over the past decade, focusing on methodology, future thinking, and psychedelics. It provides an up-to-date review of brain-based accounts of religious experiences, and systematically examines the rationale for utilizing neuroscience approaches to religion. While it is primarily intended for religious studies scholars, people interested in comparative religion, philosophy of religion, cultural evolution, and personal self-transformation will find an account of how such transformation is accomplished within religious contexts.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface to Second Edition
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1 Introduction: Assumptions and Reasons
• Chapter 2 On Decentering
• Chapter 3 On the Self and the Divided Self
• Chapter 4 The Cultural and Evolutionary Background to the Neuroscience of Religion
• Chapter 5 Neurology of Religious Experiences
• Chapter 6 Psychedelics and Religious Experiences
• Chapter 7 Mystical Experiences
• Chapter 8 Religious Experiences and Transformative Experiences
• Chapter 9 Supernatural Agents and God Concepts
• Chapter 10 Ritual
• Chapter 11 Religious Language
• Chapter 12 Group Effects and Religion
• References
• Index