Spiritual minds

We seek to understand spiritual experiences as meaningful acts of knowing whose careful interdisciplinary study can illuminate some important questions about the nature of mind and brain.

We have conducted research on spiritual voice-hearing among spiritualists, Christians and contemporary ayahuasca users.

We have also investigated how spiritual experiences have been represented and understood in historical, literary and psychological accounts from the Middle Ages to the modern day.

This CRIE project brings together disciplines as diverse as anthropology, art history, religious studies, theology, philosophy, social studies, psychology and neuroscience to forge a deeper understanding of these most human of experiences.