SSTH Volume 9, 2003/2004

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Neuro(psycho)logy and Religious Experiences

By Anne Runehov

The present paper aims to point out which problems we meet when we, without further analysis, accept that human experiences, specially religious ones, are but brain activity by showing what the neurosciences can tell us about these experiences, on the one hand, and what they cannot, on the other hand. To clarify what exactly is meant by religious experiences, the author divides religious experiences into three different types: RErl (the religious Erlebenis type), RErf (the religious Erfahrung type) and RIT (the religious ideology type). 

The present paper focuses on the work of the Neuropsychologist, Prof. M. A.  Persinger. According to him, mystical experiences (of the RErl type) are related to the right hemisphere of the human brain, while religious experiences (of the RIT type) are related to the left hemisphere. Furthermore, Persinger who is interested in the powerful effects that religious experiences have on a human being asserts that, if we know the neuro-cognitive processes that are involved in experiencing religiously, we could use the same processes in a clinical sense, thereby making psychiatric therapy more effective. What does Persinger mean by the ‘same’ processes? Persinger has studied and compared persons who practice religious meditation with persons who do not, on the one hand, and results of PET-scanning (Positron Emission Tomography) on schizophrenic and epileptic patients on the other hand. The latter studies measure the metabolic activity in the hemispheres ranging it on a scale from under normal to over normal activity. The paper will show the relevance of comparing these two apparently different studies as well as the problem when drawing not thoroughly reasoned conclusions.

The present paper compares religious experiences with the experience of pain. Experiences of pain, it is said are, neurologically speaking, ‘caused’ by the cerebral cortex in the brain. Likewise religious experiences, pain is reduced to brain activity. But why then does pain feel like pain does or why does it feel at all? Likewise we could ask, even though we know which processes of the brain that are involved in our experiencing religiously, why so-and-so brain processes are like religious experiences are or why these processes are at all.

The question which knowledge experiences of pain and religious experiences give us and which it does not, is analysed from a neuro(psycho)logical, a philosophical and a theological point of view.

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Key words: Religious experiences, religious Erlebenis, religious Erfahrung, religious ideology, neurosciences, neuropsychology, philosophy, theology, pain, PET