The Religious Experience: Definition, Types & Examples

Question 

Are religious experiences functions of the brain or are consequences of social interactions? 

Quotations 

“ The clinical knowledge that brain seizures are often linked to religious experiences is also long standing. Against this historical backdrop, recent neuroscience has used functional brain imaging to clarify further that religious and spiritual experiences, like all other human experiences, are grounded in neural processes” (p. 92). 

“ Whether drug-induced, seizure related, magnetically stimulated, or born of normal brain processes, our religious states and experiences are clearly intimately tied to our physical brain” (p.97) 

“ In our view, religion cannot be reduced to a primary form of cognitive activity, such as can be done for language (which has identifiable neural systems and structures). Rather, “religion” is more like “baseball”-a cultural and social phenomenon that includes a variety of individual and group experiences, events, and activities” (p.99) 

Reflection 

As I went through the reading, I was actually tempted to go towards that path of self-discovery. Although religion turns out to be a sensitive issue among different people, especially when provoked along the lines of the different religious ideologies, it turns out that in almost every religion, there are concepts of God who is the Supreme Being, angels, and even Satan and ghosts. As I mused over the different arguments and information presented in the reading, one question that lingered in my mind is, in the absence of the various religious denominations, and sects would it be possible for people to automatically perceive religiosity in the same manner? From the reading, one important thing I gathered is that even in the absence of religious sects, there would be some form of religious and even mystical experiences. The mystical and religious experiences would not have to be similar to the way people experience religion in the conventional sense, but at an individual level, at least people’s minds would wonder about various mysterious experiences, and try to join the dots. 

Taking the example of individuals who are overcome by seizures, indeed some parts of their brain, which normally would have been dormant, become excessively active. In particular, when seizures happen, certain patterns of electrical activity, which involves the temporal lobes, cause intense personally significant experiences that are often described as religious experiences. But does this mean that this is an abnormal experience? Definitely, people with seizures seek treatment because in the conventional sense, people should not have such states of mind. If such states persist and the victims narrate their religious and mysterious experiences, some of the listeners could think they are mad. However, why is it that people with seizures commonly have these so-called religious experiences? Doesn’t it mean that there is a part of the brain that is uniquely associated with religiosity, and that during normal life events, it only works partially? Taking also the example of dreams and nightmares, they mainly happen when we are asleep, and obviously when our brains have stopped focusing on real daily events. Consequently, the brain could venture into the unknown, and that is what people commonly refer to us religious experiences. Even when people take hallucinogens, these drugs change the way networks in the cerebral cortex give attention to sensory information. For instance, the networks could blur one’s vision or the sense of hearing, and on the other hand, activate other parts of the brain that are always partially dormant. Therefore, drugs could only act as stimulants or triggers of certain areas that are passive to become active. 

When the brain is altered in some form, definitely people do not perceive the reality. This means that they drift into some other state or world. Perhaps this shows that there are so many things that the brain is capable of doing and that people have not discovered all the potential. What people could be doing currently is to wrongly label other people as either normal or abnormal based on the conventions. From a religious perspective, I think God created human beings with a lot of potential and powers to do anything. As the Bible records, God was always in contact with the first inhabitants of the universe, and it was only after they had sinned that the presence to some extent declined. However, as the Bible records, God has always manifested Himself to various people in the Bible in various forms. For instance, people would get visions through dreams, and those who believed in these visions and acted on what they said turned out to be right. One of the questions I have been asking myself for a long time is that, has the world turned too much on science that people no longer believe in visions or various “religious experiences”? 

Science has not definitely discovered everything. Even in the reading, various scientists and researchers only speculate the cause(s) of the various religious experiences. There is no conclusive explanation of these phenomena. Although various researchers in the reading describe the effects of various substances and conditions to the brain, as well as how the brain functions, one thing that stands out is that the brain is quite dynamic; when certain conditions or substances affect some regions, people drift into another state. One would expect that the brain shuts down altogether, but it is not the case. Maybe some brain states are actually true visions from God, but we are not quite ready to believe they are. Perhaps with more discoveries, we will find out the implications of various states of the brain. 

Reference 

Jeeves, M., & Warren Jr, B. (2009).  Neuroscience, psychology, and religion: Illusions, delusions, and realities about human nature . Templeton Foundation Press.