Religious experiences and mind-brain sciences in the 21st century

Abstract

The classical work by William James in context of current ideas in religion and modern psychology points to the difference between a "moralist" and a religious or mystical understanding. James described that specific psychological mechanisms related to religious experience ("re-unification") are compensatory influences on divided consciousness or heterogeneous self, which is determined by a conflict between moral and immoral behavior symbolized by a personified evil as for example the 'Satan7. According to recent findings there is not widely accepted evidence about specific neural mechanisms of these processes related to psychological integration and re-unification. Nevertheless recent findings indicate very specific and significant influences of these specific experiences related to meditation on brain functions and morphology.