The neural correlates of religious experience

Abstract

McNamara's claim that there is overlap between the brain sites implicated in religious experience and those implicated in the sense of self and self-consciousness rests on two postulates: (1) that the ‘executive Self’ can be identified as a neural entity in specific regions of the brain; and (2) that the neural correlates of religious experience can be identified as a consistent set of activations in these regions. Although McNamara is clearly well informed in terms of functional neuroanatomy, he fails to make a convincing argument for his first postulate regarding the existence of the self as a controlling entity at the neurological level. This is unfortunate because his claim that religious experience decenters the self from its control over body and cognition in order to contemplate and optimize the self rests on this assumption. Furthermore, with respect to his second postulate, since the data currently available do not afford a description of religious experience as a uniform category, it is difficult to see how this evidence can support McNamara's general understanding of the nature and function of religious experience. McNamara may be right that some religious practices are intimately related to the transformative processes of the self, but only future studies can tell whether this idea can be supported by the neurosciences.

Keywords:

• Patrick McNamara
• neuroscience
• religious experience
• neurology
• self