A scientist observes a captive tufted capuchin (monkey), who has turned her face away from the researcher.
Primatology is the scientific study of primates. Unlike branches of zoology focused on specific animal groups (such as ornithology,
the study of birds), primatology – and the primate order — includes
both human and nonhuman animals. Thus, the field entails significant
overlap with anthropology, the study of humans, and related sciences.
Primatology encompasses a broad swath of scientists from
different fields of study, each with distinct perspectives. For example,
behavioral ecologists may focus on ways primate species act in different environments or circumstances. Sociobiologists are concerned with genetic inheritance and primates' physical and behavioral traits. Anthropologists tend to focus on humans' evolutionary history; they look to primates for greater insights into how Homo Sapiens have evolved. Comparative psychologists study differences between human and nonhuman primate minds.
Some primatologists work in the field to study animals in their
natural environments; others work in academia in labs conducting
experiments. Many do a mix of both. In the 21st century, primatologists
have often blended approaches, incorporating both experimentation and
observational data to varying degrees.
Many primatologists work outside of academia. In places where
nonhuman primates are indigenous — Asia, Africa, and South America —
they often work in government to balance human-wildlife coexistence and promote conservation. Primatologists also work in animal sanctuaries, NGOs, biomedical research facilities, museums and zoos.
21st century "primatologies"
Primatology was established as a discipline in the 1950s in
America/Europe and in Japan. (See History below.) International programs
— in South America, Africa, and other parts of Asia — began taking off
in the 1970s.
Given the wide variety of disciplines involving primates, some
specialists speak of primatology not as a single discipline but of
multidisciplinary "primatologies." Primatology in the U.S. largely
originated with anthropology and its strong bent toward understanding
humans and defining human uniqueness. In contrast, "establishing the
human-animal divide is generally of little importance to non-Western
primatologies."
Researchers from Brazil, India, Vietnam, Africa and areas with
indigenous primates have adopted many Western practices while focusing
on objectives and approaches that reflect local challenges and cultural
traditions. Human populations in these countries have different
relationships and experiences with wild primates than do those in the
West. The human-primate "interface" (the scientific term for
human-nonhuman interactions) is thus a key point of research. Population
dynamics, with repeated conservation surveys, form a significant part
of research activities for Indian primatologists, for example. Primate
rescue centers are key research hubs in Vietnam. Ecology, demography,
human-wildlife conflict, and conservation of interconnected species and
ecosystems are all possible focal points.
Ethnoprimatology
is a 21st-century subdiscipline focused on the social, cultural, and
ecological contexts of human-primate interactions. (These interactions
have also been viewed as human-wildlife conflict and human-wildlife coexistence.) As habitat loss continues to worsen internationally, primatologists Agustin Fuentes
and Kimberley J. Hockings state that understanding which primates are
best able to adapt and interface with human populations, and how they
are able to do so, is a new frontier for primatology.
Charles Darwin's books On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man
(1871) drew widespread attention to humans' closest relatives. His
theory of evolution ignited public fascination with the relationship
between humans and monkeys, even a "gorilla craze." Zoologists Ramona and Desmond Morris
later credited Darwin for setting off two major trends. One: By
connecting humans with other animals, Darwin prompted researchers to
consider the behaviour of living animals, especially monkeys and apes,
as worthy of detailed scientific study. Two: Researchers inspired by
Darwin became prone to highly anthropomorphic interpretations of animal
behavior. Once animals were seen as related to humanity, they were
viewed as potentially highly rational creatures with exalted moral
codes.
A 1910 syndicated news story made R.L. Garner's interpretations of chimp behavior almost comical.
Richard Garner,
arguably among the first dedicated primate field researchers,
personified this tendency. Garner was an innovator in some ways: he
built a cage in the African forest to study gorillas in their natural
habitat. He recorded primate vocalizations and tested the animal's
responses when played back. But his writings included anthropomorphized claims about monkey and ape "speech," stories that provided fodder for outlandish newspaper headlines and illustrations.
While scientists from the late-19th and early-20th century were
deeply interested in researching evolution, they were wary of being seen
as peddling Garner-style primate folklore." In the early 1900s, many Western researchers discounted observational
studies as unprofessional and uncontrolled. They viewed lab experiments
as the scientific ideal but faced serious complications in building out
spaces suitable for primates. Primates are not indigenous to Europe or
North America and importing them was expensive.
In
the early 20th century, scientists struggled to keep captive primates
alive. Yerkes's Chim died a year after Yerkes purchased him. Here, Chim
copies humans, gently paging through a book.
More significantly, those hoping to study primates struggled to keep animals alive. The experience of American scientist Robert Yerkes is illustrative. Yerkes spent $2,000 in 1923 — most of his life savings at that point — to buy his first two ape
study subjects, Chim and Panzee. Within 5 months, Panzee was dead, and
by 12 months, Chim was too. From 1837 to 1965, the average primate in zoos survived about 18 months. Given that apes take a decade or more to reach adulthood, the poor care
practices for captive animals meant that studies were bound to be
short-term and largely restricted to juveniles.
Yerkes improved his animal care methods after traveling to Cuba to visit wealthy animal-keeper Rosalía Abreu, the first person to successfully breed chimpanzees in captivity. He documented Abreu's practices in Almost Human (1925), in which he identified several factors to improve captive primate care:
socially house animals in large, clean spaces with a choice of shade or
sunlight; fresh air; sunlight; a varied, appropriate diet and, where
possible, space for exercise.
Other early pioneers of primate research include:
Clarence Ray Carpenter,
an American student of Yerkes, was one of the first researchers to
scientifically record the behavior of wild primates in the 1930s; He
established rigorous methodologies for field scientists to follow.
Wolfgang Kohler, a German psychologist who conducted seminal experiments on ape cognition, described in his classic The Mentality of Apes (1917).
Élie Metchnikoff,
a Russian immunologist, in 1903 used chimpanzees and orangutans as the
first reliable animal models for studying the progression and treatment
of human disease, in this case, syphilus.
Racism in primate research
Early primate research used science to give cover to racist ideology, such as that popularized by Crookshank in his book The Mongol in Our Midst.
Primate research before the 1950s had roots in eugenics and scientific racism,
reflecting and amplifying racist tropes in Western popular culture.
Robert Yerkes, often considered the founder of American primatology,
promoted primate research in 1925 by arguing that it was the most
practical way to "wisely and effectively regulate or control individual,
social, and racial existence."
It was practical, he argued, because one could conduct experiments on
apes relatively efficiently (compared to humans) without "risk of social
censure or legal infringement."
Yerkes was a key American promoter of eugenics, an ideology
intended to improve the genetic quality of the human race. Eugenics
became hotly criticized and, in the US, started to wane in the 1920s. In
effect, Yerkes worked to build a new discipline (primatology) on the
remains of an old one (eugenics).
Yerkes was far from alone in this effort. Konrad Lorenz,
an Austrian zoologist whose work heavily influenced the development of
European primatology, was also an advocate of eugenics. In the early
1940s, Lorenz defended Nazi efforts to prevent interbreeding of
different human "races." Richard Garner, the attention-seeking professor of "monkey talk"
mentioned above, used his platforms to promote white supremacy in the
late 1890s and early 1900s. F.G. Crookshank, a Fellow of Britain's Royal College of Physicians,
published a book in 1924 claiming that white people descended from
chimpanzees, Black people from gorillas, and "yellow" (Asian) people
from orangutans. Crookshank, in line with other racial pseudoscientists, argued that
racial "mixing" was dangerous and destructive to the white race.
Significant change to anthropology — and, thus, primate research — came after WWII and the Nazi Holocaust.
In the wake of Nazi atrocities perpetrated by beliefs about racial
superiority, sciences studying humankind shifted dramatically away from
differences between races. Instead, scientists began stressing the unity
of the human species. The "new physical anthropology" promoted by Sherwood Washburn, a pioneer in baboon studies, had an antiracist ethos.
But while explicit racism in mainstream science waned after WWII, primatology's racist roots have continued to impact the field. Donna Haraway drew attention to the legacy of racism and sexism in primatology in her critical history of the field, Primate Visions (1989). In 2023, the American Journal of Biological Anthropology
published an editorial by Thomas C. Wilson, a Black primatologist,
outlining ways that the field's racist legacy (in which Black members
constituted only .9% of survey respondents) negatively impacts
contemporary research.
Establishing primatology in Japan
Japan is home to an indigenous species of macaques, which made it easier to develop field research there.
Primatology emerged as its own distinctive field in the 1950s. That decade saw the rise of primatology simultaneously — and largely
independently — in both Japan and in the West (North America and
Europe). Over time, the traditions blended, but Japanese scientific
practice initially differed from that of the Darwin-centered,
objectivity-focused researchers overseas. The relationship between humans and other living beings was a
deep-seated part of Japanese cultural and intellectual traditions, while
the quest for objectivity was not. Japanese scientists assumed monkeys were thinking animals because
nonthinking doesn't make sense from an evolutionary perspective. "The
problem of mind" in animals was not a problem for the Japanese in the
way it was for Western scholars. This opened up Japanese studies to criticism of anthropomorphism and
bias, even in cases where their ideas later proved correct.
Unlike Europe and the US, Japan was home to an indigenous monkey species, Japanese macaques,
making it relatively easy to observe subjects in the wild. In the
1950s, the tropical areas where most primates live were very difficult
(and expensive) for outsiders to access. So while primatology in the West focused on animals in captivity (in
zoos and labs), Japanese scientists focused on field research.
Kinji Imanishi and Junichiro Itani, founders of Japanese primatology, studied primate social groups, seeking insights into the origins of human society. They pioneered the following distinct techniques:
Provisioning: Researchers provided food for the monkeys as a short-cut to habituate them, making them easier to observe. This practice was later discouraged out of concerns that it warps natural behaviors.
Individual identification: Learning to identify every monkey in a
troop as an individual was seen as key to understanding the group's
dynamics. Japanese researchers also identified primate "personalities."
Long-term studies over many years and multiple generations were considered necessary to understand group dynamics and society.
The first scientific journal focused on primate research, Primates,
was published in Japan in 1957, with English translations. More
Japanese studies were translated into English in the 1960s, where they
eventually found an audience in the West. Many of their findings —
regarding dominance hierarchies, matrilineal residence, the existence of
a breeding season — provided foundational understandings of primate
socialization internationally.
Perhaps the most widely popularized reports of Japanese origin were those regarding macaque proto-culture. In 1954,Satsue Mito,
a field assistant, noticed that one of the female monkeys washed her
sweet potatoes before eating them — and that other monkeys in the group
were copying the habit. This led researchers to explore how learned
behaviors spread in populations, eventually igniting debates around
monkey and ape "culture," a subject popularized in the U.S. by Frans de Waal in The Ape and the Sushi Master.
Establishing primatology in Europe and North America
In the period after WWII, primate researchers in the West drew more
heavily upon captive animals than did their colleagues in Japan. So, in
the 1950s, Western primate research could be roughly lumped into two
categories: lab research and field studies. These approaches served
wildly different purposes, goals, and methods.
In Harry Harlow's experiments isolating baby monkeys from their mothers, an infant clings to a soft surrogate.
Innovations in captive animal care and breeding enabled new lines of
inquiry in the 1950s. Biomedical researchers saw monkeys and apes as
ideal animal models
for understanding human disease, and now had the resources to advance
experimental testing. Perhaps the most notable medical breakthroughs
were the use of Rhesus macaques in making the Salk polio vaccine and chimpanzees in developing the hepatitis B vaccine.
Silver Spring monkey, in a restraint chair in 1981 inside the laboratory at the Institute of Behavioral Research, Maryland, 1981
Monkeys and apes were seen as models not only for human anatomy but
psychology, and the 1950s and 1960s saw a proliferation of psychological
studies using primates. Of these, arguably Harry Harlow achieved the most fame and notoriety, as the initiator of "wire" monkey mother surrogate studies.[38]
His research was widely covered in mainstream media, ultimately leading
to broad shifts toward more nurturing methods of prenatal, pediatric,
and psychological care in humans. Harlow's habit of describing his work in gruesome detail came at a cost, however: it ended up inspiring an organized animal rights movement. This period was captured in a series of articles by Deborah Blum, later compiled into The Monkey Wars. (Blum's research on this controversy received the Pulitzer Prize in 1992.)
Scientific efforts to teach great apes human sign language
proved to be more popular with the larger public. Ape sign language
studies had their heyday in the early 1970s before a critical study in Science (1979) was seen as debunking the research. As a result, government and foundations cut funding for ape language research. The sign language studies ultimately illustrated a problem with
experimental psychology more generally: working with traumatized animals
in human-centered, unnatural conditions led to skewed results, even
accusations of "pseudoscience." Rather than trying to teach apes human language, 21st century explorations of primate communication focused on observing species in their natural habitats.
In the 21st century, many countries have banned or eliminated the use of great apes as biomedical subjects in response to public opposition and efforts such as Project R&R and Great Ape Project,
as well as pragmatic concerns. However, researchers continue to use
monkeys as experimental subjects, a practice that remains controversial.
Field research
Post-WWII
prosperity and improvements in international travel opened up new
opportunities for Westerners to study primates in natural environments
in the 1950s. R.L. Carpenter resumed research on rhesus macaques that he had translocated to Puerto Rico. Studies on baboons in Africa proliferated. (Unlike other monkeys, baboons live on savannah — not in trees — and thus were seen as better models of human origins.) Studies on "lower," arboreal primates — lemurs and langurs
— had a slower start but represented an important development in
studying animals for their own sake, not just as "little furry people."
Paleontologist Louis Leakey helped organize long-term studies of chimpanzees and gorillas in Africa with Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey in the 1960s. This work coincided with the rise of color television and a new vogue for nature documentaries. The airing of National Geographic's Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees
in 1965 thus introduced mass audiences to primate fieldwork. The
magazine continued to popularize a more naturalistic view of great apes
with Fossey's work, as well as that of Biruté Galdikas, who studied orangutans in Indonesia in the 1970s.
Field researchers in the 1980s and 1990s were increasingly forced
to confront the destruction of natural habitats, which had been
increasing over the century but had reached a fever pitch. Goodall's shift from scientific field work to international
conservation and education, reflected a shift in focus that many
researchers adopted.
Women in primatology
Primatology has long been subject to debates regarding researchers'
pre-existing opinions and biases. In particular, the use of
primatological studies to assert gender roles, and to both promote and
subvert feminism has been a point of contention.
The evolution of primatology
Early research on baboon society, starting with Solly Zuckerman's influential The Social Lives of Monkeys and Apes
(1932), emphasized male-male aggression and competition for females.
Females were described as dedicated mothers to small infants and
sexually available to males in order of the males' dominance rank. Female-female competition and choice was ignored. In the 1960s, as more women entered the field, primatologists started looking more closely at female behavior. Studies by Thelma Rowell, Shirley Strum, and Barbara Smuts
found that females are active participants, and even leaders, within
their groups. For instance, Rowell found that female baboons determine
the route for daily foraging. Shirley Strum
found that male investment in special relationships with females had a
greater payoff —in terms of producing offspring — than their rank in a
dominance hierarchy. A field researcher in Madagascar, Alison Jolly, found that females dominated lemur social groups.
In 1970, Jeanne Altmann
drew attention to representative sampling methods in which all
individuals, not just the dominant and the powerful, were observed for
equal periods of time. Prior to Altmann's review, primatologists used
"opportunistic sampling," which only recorded what caught their
attention, thus preferencing the more physically active and aggressive
males.
Sarah Hrdy,
a self-identified feminist, was among the first to apply
sociobiological theory to primates in her studies of infanticide in
langurs.
These female scientists — as well as National Geographic's Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey — forced a reanalysis of how aggression, reproductive access, and dominance affect primate societies.
In the 1970s, media and popular culture portrayed the field of
primatology as a science dominated by women. However, the numbers told a
more complicated story. A 2011 study found that primatology — like
nearly all animal-related studies — drew far more female than male
students. Yet most professors of primatology remained male.
A mystical or religious experience, also known as a spiritual experience or sacred experience, is a subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. In a strict sense, "mystical experience" refers specifically to an ecstatic unitive experience, or nonduality,
of 'self' and other objects, but more broadly may also refer to
non-sensual or unconceptualized sensory awareness or insight, while
religious experience may refer to any experience relevant in a religious
context. Mysticism entails religious traditions of human transformation aided by various practices and religious experiences.
The concept of mystical or religious experience developed in the 19th century, as a defense against the growing rationalism of western society. William James popularized the notion of distinct religious or mystical experiences in his Varieties of Religious Experience, and influenced the understanding of mysticism as a distinctive experience which supplies knowledge of the transcendental.
The interpretation of mystical experiences is a matter of debate.
According to James, mystical experiences have four defining qualities,
namely ineffability, noetic quality, transiency, and passivity. According to Rudolf Otto, the broader category of numinous experiences have two qualities, namely mysterium tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling; and mysterium fascinans, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel. Perennialists like William James and Aldous Huxley
regard mystical experiences to share a common core, pointing to one
universal transcendental reality, for which those experiences offer the
proof. R. C. Zaehner (1913–1974) rejected the perennialist position, instead discerning three fundamental types of mysticism following Dasgupta, namely theistic, monistic, and panenhenic ("all-in-one") or natural mysticism. Walter Terence Stace
criticised Zaehner, instead postulating two types following Otto,
namely extraverted (unity in diversity) and introverted ('pure
consciousness') mysticism.
The perennial position is "largely dismissed by scholars" but "has lost none of its popularity." Instead, a constructionist approach became dominant during the 1970s,
which also rejects the neat typologies of Zaehner and Stace, and states
that mystical experiences are mediated by pre-existing frames of
reference, while the attribution approach focuses on the (religious)
meaning that is attributed to specific events.
Correlates between mystical experiences and neurological activity
have been established, pointing to the temporal lobe as the main locus
for these experiences, while Andrew B. Newberg and Eugene G. d'Aquili
have also pointed to the parietal lobe. Recent research points to the
relevance of the default mode network, while the anterior insula seems to play a role in the ineffability subjective certainty induced by mystical experiences.
Terminology
Mystical or religious experience
The terms "mystical experience," "religious experience", spiritual experience and sacred experience have become synonyms, all referring to non-ordinary, numinous, subjective experiences which are typically interpreted in a religious framework. "Mystical experience" may specifically refers to unitive or nondual
experiences, but may also more broadly refer to non-sensual or
unconceptualized sensory awareness or insight, while religious
experience may refer to any experience relevant in a religious context. Jones and Gellman note that "few classical mystics refer to their
experiences as the union of two realities: there is no literal 'merging'
or 'absorption' of one reality into another resulting in only one
entity." According to them,
A more inclusive definition of
"mystical experience" is: A purportedly nonsensory awareness or a
nonstructured sensory experience granting acquaintance of realities or
states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of ordinary
sense-perception structured by mental conceptions, somatosensory
modalities, or standard introspection.
Experiences like visions, near death experiences and
parapsychological phenomena are excluded from this definition of
"mystical experience," but may be regarded as "religious experiences."
Mysticism as a historical religious tradition relates primarily to Christian mysticism,
and involves more than "mystical experience". According to Gellman, the
ultimate goal of mysticism is human transformation, not just
experiencing mystical or visionary states. According to McGinn, personal transformation is the essential criterion to determine the authenticity of Christian mysticism.
Gellman notes that the so-called mystical experience is not a
transitional event, as William James claimed, but an "abiding
consciousness, accompanying a person throughout the day, or parts of it.
For that reason, it might be better to speak of mystical consciousness,
which can be either fleeting or abiding." Parsons stresses the importance of distinguishing between temporary experiences and mysticism as a process, which is embodied within a "religious matrix" of texts and practices.Richard Jones does the same.
Related terms
Ecstasy, trance – In ecstasy the believer is understood to have a soul
or spirit which can leave the body. In ecstasy the focus is on the soul
leaving the body and to experience transcendental realities. This type
of religious experience is characteristic for the shaman.
Enthusiasm – In enthusiasm – or possession –
God is understood to be outside, other than or beyond the believer. A
sacred power, being or will enters the body or mind of an individual and
possesses it. A person capable of being possessed is sometimes called a
medium. The deity, spirit or power uses such a person to communicate to the immanent
world. Lewis argues that ecstasy and possession are basically one and
the same experience, ecstasy being merely one form which possession may
take. The outward manifestation of the phenomenon is the same in that
shamans appear to be possessed by spirits, act as their mediums, and
even though they claim to have mastery over them, can lose that mastery.
Spiritual awakening – A spiritual awakening usually involves a
realization or opening to a sacred dimension of reality and may be a
religious experience. Often a spiritual awakening has lasting effects
upon one's life. It may refer to any of a wide range of experiences
including being born again, near-death experiences, Liberation (moksha), and Enlightenment (bodhi).
Dan Merkur makes a distinction between trance states and reverie states. According to Merkur, in trance states the normal functions of
consciousness are temporarily inhibited, and trance experiences are not
filtered by ordinary judgements, and seem to be real and true. In reverie states, numinous experiences
are also not inhibited by the normal functions of consciousness, but
visions and insights are still perceived as being in need of
interpretation, while trance states may lead to a denial of physical
reality.
The concept of mystical or religious experience originated in the
19th century, as a defense against the growing rationalism of western
society. Wayne Proudfoot traces the roots of the notion of "religious experience" to the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher
(1768–1834), who argued that religion is based on a feeling of the
infinite. The notion of "religious experience" was used by
Schleiermacher to defend religion against the growing scientific and
secular critique. It was adopted by many scholars of religion, of which William James was the most influential.
The origins of the use of this term can also be dated further back. In the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, several historical figures put
forth very influential views that religion and its beliefs can be
grounded in experience itself. While Kant held that moral experience justified religious beliefs, John Wesley in addition to stressing individual moral exertion thought that the religious experiences in the Methodist movement (paralleling the Romantic Movement) were foundational to religious commitment as a way of life.
In mystic states we both become one
with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the
everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by
differences of clime or creed. In Hinduism, in Neoplatonism, in Sufism,
in Christian mysticism, in Whitmanism, we find the same recurring note,
so that there is about mystical utterances an eternal unanimity which
ought to make a critic stop and think, and which bring it about that the
mystical classics have, as has been said, neither birthday nor native
land.
This book is the classic study on religious or mystical experience,
which influenced deeply both the academic and popular understanding of
"religious experience". James popularized the use of the term "religious experience" in his Varieties,and influenced the understanding of mysticism as a distinctive experience which supplies knowledge of the transcendental:
Under the influence of William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience,
heavily centered on people's conversion experiences, most philosophers'
interest in mysticism has been in distinctive, allegedly
knowledge-granting "mystical experiences."
Other authors
Other scholars and writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
also began their studies on the historical and psychological descriptive
analysis of the mystical experience, by investigating examples and
categorizing it into types. Early notable examples include the study of
the term "cosmic consciousness" by Edward Carpenter (1892) and psychiatrist Richard Bucke (in his book Cosmic Consciousness, 1901); the definition of "oceanic feeling" by Romain Rolland (1927) and its study by Freud; Rudolf Otto's description of the "numinous" (1917) and its studies by Jung; Friedrich von Hügel in The Mystical Element of Religion (1908); Evelyn Underhill in her work Mysticism (1911); Aldous Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy (1945).
Influence
The concept of "mystical experience" has influenced the understanding
of specific subjective experiences as a distinctive experiences which
supply knowledge of a transcendental reality, cosmic unity, or ultimate
truths.
According to the Perennial philosophy, the mystical experiences in
all religions are essentially the same. It supposes that many, if not
all of the world's great religions, have arisen around the teachings of
mystics, including Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tze, and Krishna.
It also sees most religious traditions describing fundamental mystical
experience, at least esoterically. A major proponent in the 20th century
was Aldous Huxley, who "was heavily influenced in his description by Vivekananda's neo-Vedanta and the idiosyncratic version of Zen exported to the west by D.T. Suzuki. Both of these thinkers expounded their versions of the perennialist thesis", which they originally received from western thinkers and theologians.
Transcendentalism was an early 19th-century liberal Protestant movement, which was rooted in English and German Romanticism, the Biblical criticism of Herder and Schleiermacher, and the skepticism of Hume. The Transcendentalists emphasised an intuitive, experiential approach of religion. Following Schleiermacher, an individual's intuition of truth was taken as the criterion for truth. In the late 18th and early 19th century, the first translations of
Hindu texts appeared, which were also read by the Transcendentalists,
and influenced their thinking. They also endorsed universalist and Unitarianist ideas, leading to Unitarian Universalism,
the idea that there must be truth in other religions as well, since a
loving God would redeem all living beings, not just Christians.
The Theosophical Society was formed in 1875 by Helena Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge and others to advance the spiritual principles and search for Truth known as Theosophy. The Theosophical Society has been highly influential in promoting
interest, both in west and east, in a great variety of religious
teachings:
No single organization or movement has contributed so many components to the New Age Movement as the Theosophical Society ... It has been the major force in the dissemination of occult literature in the West in the twentieth century.
The Theosophical Society searched for 'secret teachings' in Asian
religions. It has been influential on modernist streams in several Asian
religions, notably Hindu reform movements, the revival of Theravada Buddhism, and D.T. Suzuki, who popularized the idea of enlightenment as insight into a timeless, transcendent reality. Another example can be seen in Paul Brunton'sA Search in Secret India, which introduced Ramana Maharshi to a western audience.
The interplay between western and eastern notions of religion is an
important factor in the development of modern mysticism. In the 19th
century, when Asian countries were colonialised by western states, a
process of cultural mimesis began. In this process, Western ideas about religion, especially the notion of
"religious experience" were introduced to Asian countries by
missionaries, scholars and the Theosophical Society, and amalgamated in a
new understanding of the Indian and Buddhist traditions. This amalgam
was exported back to the West as 'authentic Asian traditions', and
acquired a great popularity in the west. Due to this western popularity,
it also gained authority back in India, Sri Lanka and Japan.
Criticism of the notion of "experience" as insufficient for worldwide viewpoints
The notion of "experience", however, has been criticized in religious studies today. Robert Sharf points out that "experience" is a typical Western term,
which has found its way into Asian religiosity via western influences. The notion of "experience" introduces a false notion of duality between
"experiencer" and "experienced", whereas the essence of kensho is the
realisation of the "non-duality" of observer and observed. "Pure experience" does not exist; all experience is mediated by intellectual and cognitive activity. The specific teachings and practices of a specific tradition may even
determine what "experience" someone has, which means that this
"experience" is not the proof of the teaching, but a result of the teaching. A pure consciousness without concepts, reached by "cleaning the doors of perception", would be an overwhelming chaos of sensory input without coherence.
Constructivists such as Steven Katz reject any typology of experiences since each mystical experience is deemed unique.
Other critics point out that the stress on "experience" is
accompanied with favoring the atomic individual, instead of the shared
life of the community. It also fails to distinguish between episodic
experience, and mysticism as a process, that is embedded in a total
religious matrix of liturgy, scripture, worship, virtues, theology,
rituals and practices.
Richard King also points to disjunction between "mystical experience" and social justice:
The privatisation of mysticism –
that is, the increasing tendency to locate the mystical in the
psychological realm of personal experiences – serves to exclude it from
political issues as social justice. Mysticism thus becomes seen as a
personal matter of cultivating inner states of tranquility and
equanimity, which, rather than seeking to transform the world, serve to
accommodate the individual to the status quo through the alleviation of
anxiety and stress.
The American scholar of religion and philosopher of social scienceJason Josephson Storm has also critiqued the definition and category of religious experience, especially when such experiences are used to define religion. He compares the appeal to experience to define religion to failed attempts to defend an essentialist definition of art by appeal to aesthetic experience, and implies that each category lacks a common psychological feature across all such experiences by which they may be defined.
Characteristics
William James - mystical and religious experience
James emphasized the personal experience of individuals, and describes a broad variety of such experiences in The Varieties of Religious Experience. He considered the "personal religion" to be "more fundamental than either theology or ecclesiasticism", and defines religion as
...the feelings, acts, and
experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they
apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider
the divine.
According to James, mystical experiences have four defining qualities:
Ineffability. According to James the mystical experience "defies expression, that no adequate report of its content can be given in words".
Noetic quality. Mystics stress that their experiences give them "insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect." James referred to this as the "noetic" (or intellectual) "quality" of the mystical.
Transiency. James notes that most mystical experiences have a short occurrence, but their effect persists.
Passivity. According to James, mystics come to their peak experience not as active seekers, but as passive recipients.
James recognised the broad variety of mystical schools and conflicting doctrines both within and between religions. Nevertheless,
...he shared with thinkers of his
era the conviction that beneath the variety could be carved out a
certain mystical unanimity, that mystics shared certain common
perceptions of the divine, however different their religion or
historical epoch,
According to Jesuit scholar William Harmless, "for James there was
nothing inherently theological in or about mystical experience", and felt it legitimate to separate the mystic's experience from theological claims. Harmless notes that James "denies the most central fact of religion", namely that religion is practiced by people in groups, and often in public. He also ignores ritual, the historicity of religious traditions, and theology, instead emphasizing "feeling" as central to religion.
Rudolf Otto
The German philosopher and theologian Rudolf Otto
(1869–1937) argues that there is one common factor to all religious
experience, independent of the cultural background. In his book The Idea of the Holy (1923) he identifies this factor as the numinous. The "numinous" experience has two aspects:
mysterium tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling;
mysterium fascinans, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel.
The numinous experience also has a personal quality to it, in that
the person feels to be in communion with a holy other. Otto sees the
numinous as the only possible religious experience. He states: "There is
no religion in which it [the numinous] does not live as the real
innermost core and without it no religion would be worthy of the name". Otto does not take any other kind of religious experience such as
ecstasy and enthusiasm seriously and is of the opinion that they belong
to the 'vestibule of religion'.
Typologies
Mystical experience
R. C. Zaehner – theistic, monistic and panenhenic mystical experience
R. C. Zaehner
(1913–1974) distinguishes between three fundamental types of mysticism,
namely theistic, monistic, and panenhenic ("all-in-one") or natural
mysticism:
Theistic mystical experience includes most forms of Jewish,
Christian and Islamic mysticism and occasional Hindu examples such as
Ramanuja and the Bhagavad Gita.
Monistic mystical experience, the experience of the unity of one's soul in isolation (kayvala) from the material and psychic world, includes early Buddhism and Hindu schools such as Samkhya, yoga, and Advaita vedanta.
Panenhenic mystical experience refers to "an experience of Nature in all things or of all things as being one," and includes, for instance, Zen Buddhism, Taoism, much Upanishadic thought, as well as American Transcendentalism.
Within the monistic mystical experience, Zaehner draws a clear
distinction between the dualist 'isolationist' ideal of Samkhya, the
historical Buddha, and various gnostic sects, and the non-dualist
position of Advaita vedanta. According to the former, the union of an
individual spiritual monad (soul) and body is "an unnatural state of
affairs, and salvation consists in returning to one's own natural
'splendid isolation' in which one contemplates oneself forever in
timeless bliss."
Zaehner considers theistic mysticism to be superior to the other
two categories, because of its appreciation of God, but also because of
its strong moral imperative. Zaehner is directly opposing the views of Aldous Huxley.
Natural mystical experiences are in Zaehner's view of less value
because they do not lead as directly to the virtues of charity and
compassion. Zaehner is generally critical of what he sees as
narcissistic tendencies in nature mysticism.
Zaehner has been criticised by Paden for the "theological violence" which his approach does to non-theistic traditions, "forcing them into a
framework which privileges Zaehner's own liberal Catholicism."
Walter T. Stace – extrovertive and introvertive mysticism
Zaehner has also been criticised by Walter Terence Stace in his book Mysticism and philosophy (1960) on similar grounds. Stace argues that doctrinal differences between religious traditions
are inappropriate criteria when making cross-cultural comparisons of
mystical (unitive) experiences. Stace argues that mysticism is part of the process of perception, not
interpretation, that is to say that the unity of mystical experiences is
perceived, and only afterwards interpreted according to the perceiver's
background. This may result in different accounts of the same
phenomenon. While an atheist describes the unity as "freed from
empirical filling", a religious person might describe it as "God" or
"the Divine". In "Mysticism and Philosophy", one of Stace's key questions is whether
there are a set of common characteristics to all mystical experiences.
Based on the study of religious texts, which he took as
phenomenological descriptions of personal experiences, and excluding
occult phenomena, visions, and voices, Stace distinguished two types of
mystical experience, namely extrovertive and introvertive mysticism. He describes extrovertive mysticism as an experience of unity within
the world, whereas introvertive mysticism is "an experience of unity
devoid of perceptual objects; it is literally an experience of
'no-thing-ness'". The unity in extrovertive mysticism is with the totality of objects of
perception. While perception stays continuous, "unity shines through the
same world"; the unity in introvertive mysticism is with a pure
consciousness, devoid of objects of perception, "pure unitary consciousness, wherein awareness of the world and of multiplicity is completely obliterated." According to Stace such experiences are nonsensical and
nonintellectual, under a total "suppression of the whole empirical
content."
Characteristics of Extrovertive and Introvertive Mystical Experiences as in Stace (1960)
Characteristics of Extrovertive Mystical Experiences
Characteristics of Introvertive Mystical Experiences
1. The Unifying Vision - all things are One
1. The Unitary Consciousness; the One, the Void; pure consciousness
2. The more concrete apprehension of the One as an inner subjectivity, or life, in all things
2. Nonspatial, nontemporal
3. Sense of objectivity or reality
3. Sense of objectivity or reality
4. Blessedness, peace, etc.
4. Blessedness, peace, etc.
5. Feeling of the holy, sacred, or divine
5. Feeling of the holy, sacred, or divine
6. Paradoxicality
6. Paradoxicality
7. Alleged by mystics to be ineffable
7. Alleged by mystics to be ineffable
Stace finally argues that there is a set of seven common
characteristics for each type of mystical experience, with many of them
overlapping between the two types. Stace furthermore argues that
extrovertive mystical experiences are on a lower level than introvertive
mystical experiences.
Stace's categories of "introvertive mysticism" and "extrovertive mysticism" are derived from Rudolf Otto's "mysticism of introspection" and "unifying vision".
William Wainwright distinguishes four different kinds of
extrovert mystical experience, and two kinds of introvert mystical
experience:
Extrovert: experiencing the unity of nature; experiencing nature
as a living presence; experiencing all nature-phenomena as part of an
eternal now; the "unconstructed experience" of Buddhism.
Introvert: pure empty consciousness; the "mutual love" of theistic experiences.
Richard Jones, following William Wainwright, elaborated on the
distinction, showing different types of experiences in each category:
Extrovertive experiences: the sense of connectedness
("unity") of oneself with nature, with a loss of a sense of boundaries
within nature; the luminous glow to nature of "nature mysticism"; the
presence of God immanent in nature outside of time shining through
nature of "cosmic consciousness"; the lack of separate, self-existing
entities of mindfulness states.
Introvertive experiences: theistic experiences of
connectedness or identity with God in mutual love; nonpersonal
differentiated experiences; the depth-mystical experience empty of all
differentiable content.
Following Stace's lead, Ralph Hood developed the "Mysticism scale." According to Hood, the introvertive mystical experience may be a common
core to mysticism independent of both culture and person, forming the
basis of a "perennial psychology". According to Hood, "the perennialist view has strong empirical
support," since his scale yielded positive results across various
cultures, stating that mystical experience as operationalized from Stace's criteria is identical across various samples.
Although Stace's work on mysticism received a positive response,
it has also been strongly criticised in the 1970s and 1980s, for its
lack of methodological rigueur and its perennialist pre-assumptions. Major criticisms came from Steven T. Katz in his influential series of publications on mysticism and philosophy, and from Wayne Proudfoot in his Religious experience (1985).
Masson and Masson criticised Stace for using a "buried premise,"
namely that mysticism can provide valid knowledge of the world, equal to
science and logic. A similar criticism has been voiced by Jacob van Belzen toward Hood,
noting that Hood validated the existence of a common core in mystical
experiences, but based on a test which presupposes the existence of such
a common core, noting that "the instrument used to verify Stace's
conceptualization of Stace is not independent of Stace, but based on
him." Belzen also notes that religion does not stand on its own, but is
embedded in a cultural context, which should be taken into account. To this criticism Hood et al. answer that universalistic tendencies in
religious research "are rooted first in inductive generalizations from
cross-cultural consideration of either faith or mysticism," stating that Stace sought out texts which he recognized as an
expression of mystical expression, from which he created his universal
core. Hood therefore concludes that Belzen "is incorrect when he claims
that items were presupposed."
Religious experiences
Norman Habel - mediated and immediate
Biblical scholar Norman Habel
defines religious experiences as the structured way in which a believer
enters into a relationship with, or gains an awareness of, the sacred
within the context of a particular religious tradition. Religious experiences are by their very nature preternatural;
that is, out of the ordinary or beyond the natural order of things.
They may be difficult to distinguish observationally from
psychopathological states such as psychoses or other forms of altered awareness. Not all preternatural experiences are considered to be religious
experiences. Following Habel's definition, psychopathological states or
drug-induced states of awareness are not considered to be religious
experiences because they are mostly not performed within the context of a
particular religious tradition.
Moore and Habel identify two classes of religious experiences: the immediate and the mediated religious experience.
Mediated – In the mediated experience, the believer experiences the sacred through mediators such as rituals, special persons, religious groups, totemic objects or the natural world.
Immediate – The immediate experience comes to the believer without any intervening agency or mediator. The deity or divine is experienced directly.
Richard Swinburne - public or private
In his book Faith and Reason, the philosopher Richard Swinburne formulated five categories into which all religious experiences fall:
Public – a believer 'sees God's hand at work', whereas other explanations are possible e.g. looking at a beautiful sunset
Public – an unusual event that breaches natural law e.g. walking on water
Private – describable using normal language e.g. Jacob's vision of a ladder
Private – indescribable using normal language, usually a
mystical experience e.g. "white did not cease to be white, nor black
cease to be black, but black became white and white became black."
Private – a non-specific, general feeling of God working in one's life.
Swinburne also suggested two principles for the assessment of religious experiences:
Principle of Credulity – with the absence of any reason
to disbelieve it, one should accept what appears to be true e.g. if one
sees someone walking on water, one should believe that it is occurring.
Principle of Testimony – with the absence of any reason to
disbelieve them, one should accept that eyewitnesses or believers are
telling the truth when they testify about religious experiences.
Interpretation: perennialism, constructionism and contextualism
Scholarly research on mystical experiences in the 19th and 20th
century was dominated by a discourse on "mystical experience," laying
sole emphasis on the experiential aspect, be it spontaneous or induced
by human behavior. Perennialists regard those various experiences
traditions as pointing to one universal transcendental reality, for
which those experiences offer the prove. In this approach, mystical experiences are privatised, separated from the context in which they emerge. William James, in his The Varieties of Religious Experience,
was highly influential in further popularising this perennial approach
and the notion of personal experience as a validation of religious
truths.
The essentialist model argues that mystical experience is
independent of the sociocultural, historical and religious context in
which it occurs, and regards all mystical experience in its essence to
be the same. According to this "common core-thesis", different descriptions can mask quite similar if not identical experiences:
[P]eople can differentiate
experience from interpretation, such that different interpretations may
be applied to otherwise identical experiences".
Principal exponents of the perennialist position were William James, Walter Terence Stace, who distinguishes extroverted and introverted mysticism, in response to R. C. Zaehner's distinction between theistic and monistic mysticism; Huston Smith; and Ralph W. Hood, who conducted empirical research using the "Mysticism Scale", which is based on Stace's model.
The perennial position is "largely dismissed by scholars", but "has lost none of its popularity". The contextual approach has become the common approach, and takes into account the historical and cultural context of mystical experiences.
Steven Katz – constructionism
After Walter Stace's seminal book in 1960, the general philosophy of mysticism received little attention. But in the 1970s the issue of a universal "perennialism" versus each
mystical experience being was reignited by Steven Katz. In an
often-cited quote he states:
There are NO pure (i.e. unmediated) experiences.
Neither mystical experience nor more ordinary forms of experience give
any indication, or any ground for believing, that they are unmediated
[...] The notion of unmediated experience seems, if not
self-contradictory, at best empty. This epistemological fact seems to me
to be true, because of the sort of beings we are, even with regard to
the experiences of those ultimate objects of concern with which mystics
have had intercourse, e.g., God, Being, Nirvana, etc.
Social constructionism argues that mystical experiences are "a family of similar experiences
that includes many different kinds, as represented by the many kinds of
religious and secular mystical reports". The constructionist states that mystical experiences are fully
constructed by the ideas, symbols and practices that mystics are
familiar with, shaped by the concepts "which the mystic brings to, and which shape, his experience". What is being experienced is being determined by the expectations and the conceptual background of the mystic. Critics of the "common-core thesis" argue that
[N]o unmediated experience is
possible, and that in the extreme, language is not simply used to
interpret experience but in fact constitutes experience.
The principal exponent of the constructionist position is Steven T. Katz, who, in a series of publications, has made a highly influential and compelling case for the constructionist approach.
According to Katz (1978), Stace's typology is "too reductive and
inflexible," reducing the complexities and varieties of mystical
experience into "improper categories." According to Katz, Stace does not notice the difference between
experience and interpretation, but fails to notice the epistemological
issues involved in recognizing such experiences as "mystical," and the even more fundamental issue of which conceptual framework precedes and shapes these experiences. Katz further notes that Stace supposes that similarities in descriptive
language also implies a similarity in experience, an assumption which
Katz rejects. According to Katz, close examination of the descriptions and their contexts reveals that those experiences are not identical. Katz further notes that Stace held one specific mystical tradition to be superior and normative, whereas Katz rejects reductionist notions and leaves God as God, and Nirvana as Nirvana.
According to Paden, Katz rejects the discrimination between experiences and their interpretations. Katz argues that it is not the description, but the experience itself
which is conditioned by the cultural and religious background of the
mystic. According to Katz, it is not possible to have pure or unmediated experience.
Yet, according to Laibelman, Katz did not say that the experience
cannot be unmediated; he said that the conceptual understanding of the
experience cannot be unmediated, and is based on culturally mediated
preconceptions. According to Laibelman, misunderstanding Katz's argument has led some
to defend the authenticity of "pure consciousness events," while this is
not the issue. Laibelman further notes that a mystic's interpretation is not
necessarily more true or correct than the interpretation of an
uninvolved observer.
Robert Forman – pure consciousness event
Robert Forman
has criticised Katz' approach, arguing that lay-people who describe
mystical experiences often notice that this experience involves a
totally new form of awareness, which cannot be described in their
existing frame of reference. Newberg argued that there is neurological evidence for the existence of
a "pure consciousness event" empty of any constructionist structuring.
Richard Jones – constructivism, anticonstructivism, and perennialism
Richard H. Jones believes that the dispute between "constructionism"
and "perennialism" is ill-formed. He draws a distinction between
"anticonstructivism" and "perennialism": constructivism can be rejected
with respect to a certain class of mystical experiences without
ascribing to a perennialist philosophy on the relation of mystical
doctrines. Constructivism versus anticonstructivism is a matter of the nature of mystical experiences themselves while perennialism is a matter of mystical traditions and the doctrines they espouse.
One can reject constructivism about the nature of mystical experiences
without claiming that all mystical experiences reveal a cross-cultural
"perennial truth". Anticonstructivists can advocate contextualism as
much as constructivists do, while perennialists reject the need to study
mystical experiences in the context of a mystic's culture since all
mystics state the same universal truth.
The theoretical study of mystical experience has shifted from an
experiential, privatised and perennialist approach to a contextual and
empirical approach. The contextual approach, which also includes constructionism and
attribution theory, takes into account the historical and cultural
context. Neurological research takes an empirical approach, relating mystical experiences to neurological processes.
Wayne Proudfoot proposes an approach that also negates any
alleged cognitive content of mystical experiences: mystics unconsciously
merely attribute a doctrinal content to ordinary experiences. That is,
mystics project cognitive content onto otherwise ordinary experiences
having a strong emotional impact. Objections have been raised concerning Proudfoot's use of the psychological data. This approach, however, has been further elaborated by Ann Taves. She incorporates both neurological and cultural approaches in the study of mystical experience.
Many religious and mystical traditions see religious experiences (particularly that knowledge that comes with them) as revelations caused by divine agency rather than ordinary natural processes. They are considered real encounters with God or gods, or real contact with higher-order realities of which humans are not ordinarily aware.
Inducement and development
Mystical traditions offer the means to induce mystical experiences, which may have several origins:
Spontaneous; either apparently without any cause, or by persistent existential concerns;
Most mystical traditions warn against an attachment to mystical
experiences, and offer a "protective and hermeneutic framework" to
accommodate these experiences.
Empirical studies
The empirical study of mysticism today focuses on two topics:
identifying the neurological correlates of mystical experiences, and
demonstrating the purported benefits of meditation. Correlates between mystical experiences and neurological activity have
been established, pointing to the temporal lobe as the main locus for
these experiences, while Andrew B. Newberg and Eugene G. d'Aquili have
also pointed to the parietal lobe. Recent research points to the
relevance of the default mode network and the anterior insula, which may be related to the
experience of ineffability, the subjective sense of certainty induced by mystical experiences.
Early studies in the 1950s and 1960s attempted to use EEGs to study brain wave patterns correlated with spiritual states. During the 1980s Dr. Michael Persinger stimulated the temporal lobes of human subjects with a weak magnetic field. His subjects claimed to have a sensation of "an ethereal presence in the room." Some current studies use neuroimaging to localize brain regions active, or differentially active, during religious experiences.These neuroimaging studies have implicated a number of brain regions, including the limbic system, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, superior parietal lobe, and caudate nucleus. Based on the complex nature of religious experience, it is likely that
they are mediated by an interaction of neural mechanisms that all add a
small piece to the overall experience.
Neuroscience of religion, also known as neurotheology, biotheology or spiritual neuroscience, is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena. Proponents of neurotheology claim that there is a neurological and evolutionary basis for subjective experiences traditionally categorized as spiritual or religious.
The neuroscience of religion takes neural correlates as the basis
of cognitive functions and religious experiences. These religious
experiences are thereby emergent properties
of neural correlates. This approach does not necessitate exclusion of
the Self, but interprets the Self as influenced or otherwise acted upon
by underlying neural mechanisms. Proponents argue that religious
experience can be evoked through stimulus of specific brain regions and/or can be observed through measuring increase in activity of specific brain regions.
According to the neurotheologist Andrew B. Newberg
and two colleagues, neurological processes which are driven by the
repetitive, rhythmic stimulation which is typical of human ritual, and
which contribute to the delivery of transcendental feelings of
connection to a universal unity. They posit, however, that physical stimulation alone is not sufficient
to generate transcendental unitive experiences. For this to occur they
say there must be a blending of the rhythmic stimulation with ideas.
Once this occurs "...ritual turns a meaningful idea into a visceral
experience." Moreover, they say that humans are compelled to act out myths by the
biological operations of the brain due to what they call the "inbuilt
tendency of the brain to turn thoughts into actions."
An alternate approach is influenced by personalism, and exists contra-parallel to the reductionist approach. It focuses on the Self as the object of interest, the same object of interest as in religion. According to Patrick McNamara, a proponent of personalism, the Self is a neural entity that controls rather than consists of the cognitive functions being processed in brain regions.
A biological basis for religious experience may exist. References to the supernatural or mythical beings first appeared approximately 40,000 years ago. A popular theory posits that dopaminergic brain systems are the evolutionary basis for human intellectand more specifically abstract reasoning. The capacity for religious thought arises from the capability to
employ abstract reasoning. There is no evidence to support the theory
that abstract reasoning, generally or with regard to religious thought,
evolved independent of the dopaminergic axis. Religious behavior has been linked to "extrapersonal brain systems that
predominate the ventromedial cortex and rely heavily on dopaminergic
transmission." A biphasic effect exists with regard to activation of the dopaminergic
axis and/or ventromedial cortex. While mild activation can evoke a
perceived understanding of the supernatural, extreme activation can lead
to delusions characteristic of psychosis. Stress can cause the depletion of 5-hydroxytryptamine, also referred to as serotonin. The ventromedial 5-HT axis is involved in peripersonal activities such
as emotional arousal, social skills, and visual feedback. When 5-HT is decreased or depleted, one may become subject to
"incorrect attributions of self-initiated or internally generated
activity (e.g. hallucinations)."
Temporal lobe epilepsy has become a popular field of study due to its correlation to religious experience. Religious experiences and hyperreligiosity are often used to characterize those with temporal lobe epilepsy. Visionary religious experiences, and momentary lapses of consciousness, may point toward a diagnosis of Geschwind syndrome.
More generally, the symptoms are consistent with features of temporal
lobe epilepsy, not an uncommon feature in religious icons and mystics. It seems that this phenomenon is not exclusive to TLE, but can manifest in the presence of other epileptic variatesas well as mania, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia, conditions characterized by ventromedial dopaminergic dysfunction.
The temporal lobe generates the feeling of "I", and gives a
feeling of familiarity or strangeness to the perceptions of the senses. It seems to be involved in mystical experiences, and in the change in personality that may result from such experiences. There is a long-standing notion that epilepsy and religion are linked, and some religious figures may have had temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Raymond Bucke's book Cosmic Consciousness (1901) contains several case-studies of persons who have realized "cosmic consciousness"; several of these cases are also being mentioned in J.E. Bryant's 1953 book, Genius and Epilepsy, which has a list of more than 20 people that combines the great and the mystical. James Leuba's The psychology of religious mysticism
noted that "among the dread diseases that afflict humanity there is
only one that interests us quite particularly; that disease is
epilepsy."
Slater and Beard renewed the interest in TLE and religious experience in the 1960s. Dewhurst and Beard (1970) described six cases of TLE-patients who
underwent sudden religious conversions. They placed these cases in the
context of several western saints with a sudden conversion, who were or
may have been epileptic. Dewhurst and Beard described several aspects of
conversion experiences, and did not favor one specific mechanism.
Norman Geschwind described behavioral changes related to temporal lobe epilepsy in the 1970s and 1980s. Geschwind described cases which included extreme religiosity, now called Geschwind syndrome, and aspects of the syndrome have been identified in some religious figures, in particular extreme religiosity and hypergraphia (excessive writing). Geschwind introduced this "interictal personality disorder" to
neurology, describing a cluster of specific personality characteristics
which he found characteristic of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.
Critics note that these characteristics can be the result of any
illness, and are not sufficiently descriptive for patients with temporal
lobe epilepsy.
Neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick,
in the 1980s and 1990s, also found a relationship between the right
temporal lobe and mystical experience, but also found that pathology or
brain damage is only one of many possible causal mechanisms for these
experiences. He questioned the earlier accounts of religious figures
with temporal lobe epilepsy, noticing that "very few true examples of
the ecstatic aura and the temporal lobe seizure had been reported in the
world scientific literature prior to 1980". According to Fenwick, "It
is likely that the earlier accounts of temporal lobe epilepsy and
temporal lobe pathology and the relation to mystic and religious states
owes more to the enthusiasm of their authors than to a true scientific
understanding of the nature of temporal lobe functioning."
The occurrence of intense religious feelings in epileptic patients in general is rare, with an incident rate of about 2–3%. Sudden religious conversion,
together with visions, has been documented in only a small number of
individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy. The occurrence of religious experiences in TLE-patients may as well be explained by religious attribution, due to the background of these patients. Nevertheless, the Neuroscience of religion
is a growing field of research, searching for specific neurological
explanations of mystical experiences. Those rare epileptic patients with
ecstatic seizures may provide clues for the neurological mechanisms
involved in mystical experiences, such as the anterior insular cortex, which is involved in self-awareness and subjective certainty.
Anterior insula
The insula of the right side, exposed by removing the opercula
A common quality in mystical experiences is ineffability,
a strong feeling of certainty which cannot be expressed in words. This
ineffability has been threatened with scepticism. According to Arthur Schopenhauer the inner experience of mysticism is philosophically unconvincing. In The Emotion Machine, Marvin Minsky argues that mystical experiences only seem profound and persuasive because the mind's critical faculties are relatively inactive during them.
Geschwind and Picard propose a neurological explanation for this subjective certainty, based on clinical research of epilepsy. According to Picard, this feeling of certainty may be caused by a dysfunction of the anterior insula, a part of the brain which is involved in interoception,
self-reflection, and in avoiding uncertainty about the internal
representations of the world by "anticipation of resolution of
uncertainty or risk". This avoidance of uncertainty functions through
the comparison between predicted states and actual states, that is,
"signaling that we do not understand, i.e., that there is ambiguity." Picard notes that "the concept of insight is very close to that of certainty," and refers to Archimedes "Eureka!" Picard hypothesizes that in ecstatic seizures the comparison between
predicted states and actual states no longer functions, and that
mismatches between predicted state and actual state are no longer
processed, "block[ing] negative emotions and negative arousal arising
from predictive uncertainty," which will be experienced as emotional
confidence. Picard concludes that "[t]his could lead to a spiritual interpretation in some individuals."
Parietal lobe
Andrew B. Newberg and Eugene G. d'Aquili, in their book Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief, take a perennial stance, describing their insights into the relationship between religious experience and brain function. d'Aquili describes his own meditative experiences as "allowing a
deeper, simpler part of him to emerge", which he believes to be "the
truest part of who he is, the part that never changes." Not content with personal and subjective descriptions like these,
Newberg and d'Aquili have studied the brain-correlates to such
experiences. They scanned the brain blood flow patterns during such
moments of mystical transcendence, using SPECT-scans, to detect which
brain areas show heightened activity. Their scans showed unusual activity in the top rear section of the brain, the "posterior superior parietal lobe", or the "orientation association area (OAA)" in their own words. This area creates a consistent cognition of the physical limits of the self. This OAA shows a sharply reduced activity during meditative states,
reflecting a block in the incoming flow of sensory information,
resulting in a perceived lack of physical boundaries. According to Newberg and d'Aquili,
This is exactly how Robert and generations of Eastern mystics before him have described their peak meditative, spiritual and mystical moments.
Newberg and d'Aquili conclude that mystical experience correlates to
observable neurological events, which are not outside the range of
normal brain function. They also believe that
...our research has left us no
choice but to conclude that the mystics may be on to something, that the
mind's machinery of transcendence may in fact be a window through which
we can glimpse the ultimate realness of something that is truly divine.
Why God Won't Go Away "received very little attention from professional scholars of religion". According to Bulkeley, "Newberg and D'Aquili seem blissfully unaware of
the past half century of critical scholarship questioning
universalistic claims about human nature and experience". Matthew Day also writes that the discovery of a neurological substrate
of a "religious experience" is an isolated finding which "doesn't even
come close to a robust theory of religion".
Default mode network
Recent studies evidenced the relevance of the default mode network in spiritual and self-transcending experiences. Its functions are related, among others, to self-reference and self-awareness,
and new imaging experiments during meditation and the use of
hallucinogens indicate a decrease in the activity of this network
mediated by them, leading some studies to base on it a probable
neurocognitive mechanism of the dissolution of the self, which occurs in
some mystical phenomena.
A 2011 paper suggested that psychiatric conditions associated with psychotic
spectrum symptoms may be possible explanations for revelatory-driven
experiences and activities such as those of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and
Saint Paul. It also proposed that the behavior of the followers of these
religious figures could be explained through the lens of
psychopathology and group dynamics.
A number of studies by Roland R. Griffiths and other researchers have concluded that high doses of psilocybin and other classic psychedelics trigger mystical experiences in most research participants. Mystical experiences have been measured by a number of psychometric scales, including the Hood Mysticism Scale, the Spiritual Transcendence Scale, and the Mystical Experience Questionnaire. The revised version of the Mystical Experience Questionnaire, for
example, asks participants about four dimensions of their experience,
namely the "mystical" quality, positive mood such as the experience of
amazement, the loss of the usual sense of time and space, and the sense
that the experience cannot be adequately conveyed through words. The questions on the "mystical" quality in turn probe multiple aspects:
the sense of "pure" being, the sense of unity with one's surroundings,
the sense that what one experienced was real, and the sense of
sacredness. Some researchers have questioned the interpretation of the results from
these studies and whether the framework and terminology of mysticism
are appropriate in a scientific context, while other researchers have
responded to those criticisms and argued that descriptions of mystical
experiences are compatible with a scientific worldview.
In mystical and contemplative traditions, mystical experiences are
not a goal in themselves, but part of a larger path of
self-transformation. For example, the Zen Buddhist training does not end with kenshō, but practice is to be continued to deepen the insight and to express it in daily life.To deepen the initial insight of kensho, shikantaza and kōan-study are
necessary. This trajectory of initial insight followed by a gradual
deepening and ripening is expressed by Linji Yixuan in his Three mysterious Gates, the Five Ranks, the Four Ways of Knowing of Hakuin, and the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures which detail the steps on the Path.
Psychology
Several psychologists have proposed models in which religious experiences are part of a process of transformation of the self.
Carl Jung's
work on himself and his patients convinced him that life has a
spiritual purpose beyond material goals. One's main task, he believed,
is to discover and fulfil deep innate potential, much as the acorn
contains the potential to become the oak, or the caterpillar to become
the butterfly. Based on his study of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Taoism,
and other traditions, Jung perceived that this journey of
transformation is at the mystical heart of all religions. It is a
journey to meet the self and at the same time to meet the Divine. Unlike
Sigmund Freud, Jung thought spiritual experience was essential to
well-being.
The notion of the numinous
was an important concept in the writings of Carl Jung. Jung regarded
numinous experiences as fundamental to an understanding of the
individuation process because of their association with experiences of synchronicity in which the presence of archetypes is felt.
McNamara proposes that religious experiences may help in
"decentering" the self, and transform it into an integral self which is
closer to an ideal self.
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