Religious and spiritual experiences from a neuroscientific and complex systems perspective

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Evolution
• Evolutionary Medicine

Background:

• Spiritual and religious practices represent a significant cognitive transition in human evolution.
• These experiences are intrinsically linked to complex brain structures, their dynamics, and plasticity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the neural mechanisms underlying spiritual and religious experiences.
• To address neurophilosophical and neurotheological questions regarding the neurobiological basis of these experiences.
• To review current knowledge on the neuroscience of various spiritual/religious phenomena and related brain changes.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing literature on the neuroscience of meditation, prayer, near-death experiences, ecstatic epilepsy, psychedelic experiences, and brain lesions.
• Discussion of predictive processing theory in relation to ecstatic states.
• Examination of evolutionary medicine context for spiritual practices.

Main Results:

• Summarizes expanding knowledge on the neural correlates of diverse spiritual and religious experiences.
• Discusses the potential of ecstatic states as a form of impaired prediction.
• Highlights beneficial and therapeutic effects of spiritual practices.

Conclusions:

• Neurospirituality research is valuable when avoiding excessive reductionism and dualism.
• An integrative, non-localisationist approach using dynamical systems, complex systems, and network theory is recommended.
• Limited reductionism, balanced with holistic perspectives, is key for advancing the field.