Hearing Voices, Epilepsy, and Religious Experience. McCauley and Graham’s New Solutions to Old Problems

CIGÁN, Jakub. Hearing Voices, Epilepsy, and Religious Experience. McCauley and Graham’s New Solutions to Old Problems. Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion. Sheffield (UK): Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2021, vol. 7, No 1, p. 85-93. ISSN 2049-7555. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.20219.

Basic information

• Original name: Hearing Voices, Epilepsy, and Religious Experience. McCauley and Graham’s New Solutions to Old Problems
• Authors: CIGÁN, Jakub (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, Sheffield (UK), Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2021, 2049-7555.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal (not reviewed)
• Field of Study: 60304 Religious studies
• Country of publisher: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14210/21:00123623
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jcsr.20219
• UT WoS: 000688436100009
• Keywords in English: brain disorder; mental illness; religious experience; mystical experience; epilepsy; St. Paul; CSR; McCauley; Graham
• Tags: rivok
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

Approaching religious or mystical experience in association with mental or brain disorder has been a widespread practice in psychology and neuropsychology, but not so much in the cognitive science of religion (CSR). By their recent book, McCauley and Graham balance the disproportion within CSR. In the commentary, I address McCauley and Graham’s solutions to fundamental problems typical for the psychiatric approach to a religious experience. This approach understands religious experience as a mental or a brain disorder, diagnoses the disorder based on insufficient data in historical cases, and neglects cultural and historical aspects of religious experience and mental disorders. McCauley and Graham handle the diagnosis problem by focusing on the particular aspect of the religious experience (e.g., “hearing voices”) and analyzing its pathological and non-pathological aspects, instead of simply assuming disorder. In regards to the neglect of historical and cultural aspects of religious experience and mental illness, McCauley and Graham stress the importance of the cultural domestication of unusual aspects of religious experience. In dealing with the psychiatric approach problems, McCauley and Graham introduce a new complementary and complex theoretical model for embracing mental abnormalities into the framework of CSR.