Religious and Spiritual Experiences

What is the value of religious and spiritual experiences within human life? Are we evolutionarily programmed to have such experiences? How will emerging technologies change such experiences in the future? Wesley Wildman addresses these key intellectual questions and more, offering a spiritually evocative naturalist interpretation of the diverse variety of religious and spiritual experiences. He describes these experiences, from the common to the exceptional, and offers innovative classifications for them based on their neurological features and internal qualities. His account avoids reductionalistic oversimplifications and instead synthesizes perspectives from many disciplines, including philosophy and natural sciences, into a compelling account of the meaning and value of religious and spiritual experiences in human life. The resulting interpretation does not assume a supernatural worldview nor does it reject such experiences as positive affirmation of this-worldly existence.

List of figures	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgements	p. xiv
Exploring a strange yet familiar landscape: a strategy for interpreting religious and spiritual experiences	p. 1
Introduction	p. 1
Motivating concerns	p. 4
Theoretical issues	p. 14
Conclusion	p. 25
Spirituality and the brain: a revolutionary scientific approach to religious and spiritual experiences	p. 31
Introduction	p. 31
History of thought about spirituality and the brain	p. 32
Evidence for the neural mediation hypothesis	p. 41
Problems facing the neuroscience of religious and spiritual experiences	p. 48
Creative responses	p. 53
Conclusion	p. 67
A smorgasbord of dangers and delights: the phenomenology of religious and spiritual experiences	p. 69
Introduction	p. 69
Mapping the terrain of religious and spiritual experiences	p. 70
Basic distinctions in the map	p. 77
Exploring shared territory in more detail	p. 89
Conclusion	p. 101
Gateway to ultimacy: the importance of intense experiences	p. 104
Introduction	p. 104
Immediate responses to intense experiences	p. 108
Five core features of intense experiences	p. 115
The faces, functions, and cognitive value of intense experiences	p. 122
Evolution and the neurology of intense experiences	p. 135
Conclusion	p. 142
Can you trust your instincts? The cognitive reliability of religious and spiritual experiences	p. 144
Introduction	p. 144
Deepening the reliability question	p. 145
The perception analogy	p. 156
An ecological-semiotic theory of dynamic engagement	p. 166
The reliability of religious perceptual engagement	p. 178
Conclusion	p. 185
The brain-group nexus: the social power of religious and spiritual experiences	p. 187
Introduction	p. 187
A dynamical systems approach to the brain-group nexus	p. 189
Describing all equilibrium social arrangements since the Neolithic	p. 202
Evolutionary origins of the pre-Neolithic equilibrium	p. 211
Behind the ideological curtain	p. 218
Conclusion	p. 225
Make it start, make it stop! Religious and spiritual experiences in the future	p. 227
Introduction	p. 227
Past technologies, transformed in the present, hurtling into the future	p. 228
Unprecedented technologies	p. 236
Conclusion	p. 241
Brains in bodies, persons in groups, and religion in nature: an integrative interpretation of religious and spiritual experiences	p. 244
Introduction	p. 244
Five key controversies	p. 244
Five key affirmations	p. 252
Conclusion	p. 264
Glossary of key terms	p. 266
References	p. 271
Index	p. 300
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Religious and Spiritual Experiences

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