Neural correlates of religious experience

Eur J Neurosci. 2001 Apr;13(8):1649-52.

( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...t_uids=11328359 )

Azari NP, Nickel J, Wunderlich G, Niedeggen M, Hefter H, Tellmann L, Herzog H, Stoerig P, Birnbacher D, Seitz RJ.

Department of Neurology, University Hospital Dusseldorf, Germany. [email protected]



The commonsense view of religious experience is that it is a preconceptual, immediate affective event. Work in philosophy and psychology, however, suggest that religious experience is an attributional cognitive phenomenon. Here the neural correlates of a religious experience are investigated using functional neuroimaging. During religious recitation, self-identified religious subjects activated a frontal-parietal circuit, composed of the dorsolateral prefrontal, dorsomedial frontal and medial parietal cortex. Prior studies indicate that these areas play a profound role in sustaining reflexive evaluation of thought. Thus, religious experience may be a cognitive process which, nonetheless, feels immediate.

Is a religious experience irrational? If one has a religious experience, as it has been explained, are these relaxed thoughts pertain directly to reality?