EXAMINING THE STRUCTURE AND ROLE OF EMOTION: CONTRIBUTIONS OF NEUROBIOLOGY TO THE STUDY OF EMBODIED RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
March 1, 2005 R. Norris
The body and emotions are fundamental to how religious knowledge is transmitted and religious states develop. Recalled emotion is automatically refelt in the present, a universal process that allows emotions to be cultivated despite their culturally specific triggers. Religious traditions educate feeling and develop religious experience through sacred images, ritual posture, gesture, and repetition. Neuroscience illuminates the emotional processes involved when emotions are evoked, refelt, and developed, as neurobiological processing parallels lived experience. Keeping experience central enables a nonreductive integration of religion and neuroscience in studying spiritual experience.