How Psychedelic, Religious, Spiritual, Mystical Experiences Become Effective
Anne Koch
The Oxford Handbook of Psychedelic, Religious, Spiritual, and Mystical Experiences November 19, 2024 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192844064.013.36 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mystical experience |
| Key points | Argues that the efficacy of religious practices can be understood through predictive mind and embodied cognition, with aesthetic categories explaining how belief systems, healing narratives, healer charisma, and collective alignment contribute to perceived efficacy. |
Abstract
Abstract The concept of “efficacy” is dually grounded in theory and in individual experience. On the one hand, it is a key issue in many religious practices, from intercessory prayer to healing rituals. On the other hand, the concept concerns causality, belief, and intentionality and is here localized within recent discussions of predictive mind and embodied cognition and related to the construction of the “really real” within religions. The practices of gaining a new conviction, sensing a healing energy, or synchronizing heart rates raise the important question of how we come to have beliefs or give them up according to apparent evidence. Religions set frameworks for those processes whose underlying cognitive and psychophysiological mechanisms, as well as cultural aesthetic strategies, are elaborated against the background of placebo research, ritual theory, aesthetics of religion, and the cognitive study of religion. Basic aesthetic categories—like aestheticscapes, time perception, absorption, ritual enactment, evaluation, synchronous speech, and tool use—are expounded on to improve our understanding of components of efficacy, like, for example, the role of belief systems as expectations and prediction precision estimates, familiarity with the healing narrative, charisma of the healer, and collective alignment.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on mystical experience, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis | 1983 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Psychedelic Mystical Experience in the Human Encounter with Death | 1969 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Vectorial Cerebral Hemisphericity as Differential Sources for the Sensed Presence, Mystical Experiences and Religious Conversions | 1993 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The epistemic innocence of psychedelic states. | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mystical Experience and Religious Doctrine | 1982 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cites 8
- Brain Network Reconfiguration and Perceptual Decoupling During an Absorptive State of Consciousness. Cerebral Cortex July 1, 2016
- Mystical Experience in the Lab Method & Theory in the Study of Religion September 4, 2014
- Experience as event: event cognition and the study of (religious) experiences Religion, Brain & Behavior June 9, 2016
- Set and Setting in the Santo Daime Frontiers in Pharmacology May 4, 2021
- The Effects of Tai Chi Practice on Intermuscular Beta Coherence and the Rubber Hand Illusion Frontiers in Human Neuroscience February 16, 2016
and 3 more in the library