Organizational religious activity—such as attending churches or temples—is positively linked to perceptual abnormalities and hallucinations in individuals at ultra-high risk for psychosis, and also to lower ideational richness. Intrinsic religious activity is negatively correlated with suspiciousness, while non-organizational religious activity is associated with higher ideational richness. These findings come from 79 ultra-high-risk and 110 control individuals in Brazil, where religious syncretism and Spiritism may normalize hallucinatory experiences. The results suggest that subclinical psychosis may lead people to use religious organizations to cope with hallucinations, and highlight the need to assess religion and cultural context when studying psychosis risk.
Mediums who claim to communicate with deceased persons or non-material entities carry specific genetic variants not found in their non-medium first-degree relatives. Whole-exome sequencing of 54 highly gifted mediums with over 10 years of experience and 53 relatives identified 15,669 variants exclusive to mediums, affecting 7,269 genes. Thirty-three genes were altered in at least one-third of mediums but in none of their relatives. The inflammatory pathway was most frequently affected (43.9%), with ZAP-70 translocation to the immunological synapse being particularly prominent. These genes are possible candidates for further investigations of biological underpinnings of spiritual experiences like mediumship.