Music as a trigger of religious experience: What role does culture play?
Psychology of Music June 27, 2018 Sarah Demmrich
Religious music can trigger religious experiences, but this effect is at least partly dependent on cultural background. In a cross-cultural experiment with 84 Turkish and 63 German participants, religious music elicited religious experiences more strongly in some cultural contexts, while certain types of religious music failed to trigger such experiences regardless of culture, suggesting a possible neuropsychological component. Positive emotions felt during music strongly predicted religious experience. The findings indicate that both cultural and neuropsychological factors play a role.