Brill Research Perspectives in Religion and Psychology – serie

For over three decades, an Ideological Surround Model (ISM) has pursued theoretical and methodological innovations designed to enhance the ‘truth’ and ‘objectivity’ of research into psychology and religion. The foundational argument of the ISM is that psychology as well as religion unavoidably operates within the limits of an ideological surround. Methodological theism, therefore, needs to supplement the methodological atheism that dominates the contemporary social sciences. Methodological theism should operationalize the meaningfulness of religious traditions and demonstrate empirically that the influences of ideology cannot be ignored. The ISM more generally suggests that contemporary social scientific rationalities need to be supplemented my more complex dialogical rationalities. Beliefs in secularization should also be supplemented by beliefs in trans-rationality.

Fears and stories about an underground religion devoted to Satan, which demands and carries out child sacrifice, appeared in the United States in the late twentieth century and became the subject of media reports supported by some mental health professionals. Examining these modern fantasies leads us back to ancient stories which in some cases believers consider the height of religious devotion.Horrifying ideas about human sacrifice, child sacrifice, and the offering to the gods of a beloved only son by his father appear repeatedly in Western traditions, starting with the Greeks and the Hebrews. In Flesh and Blood: Interrogating Freud on Human Sacrifice, Real and Imagined, Beit-Hallahmi focuses on rituals of violence tied to religion, both imagined and real. The main focus of this work is the meaning of blood and ritual killing in the history of religion. The book examines the encounter with the idea of child sacrifice in the context of human hopes for salvation.

In Conjectures and Controversy in the Study of Fundamentalism, W. Paul Williamson takes a critical look at the sociohistorical emergence of fundamentalism and examines how historians constructed popular, though questionable, conceptions of the movement that have dominated decades of empirical research in psychology. He further analyzes the notions of militancy and anti-modernity as valid characterizations of fundamentalism and examines whether fundamentalism, as a Christian Protestant phenomenon, is useful in labelling global forms of religious extremism and violence. In observing the lack of theory-driven research, the publication offers theories that situate fundamentalism as a social psychological phenomenon as opposed to some personal predisposition. Students and scholars of fundamentalism will discover Conjectures and Controversy in the Study of Fundamentalism to be a provocative study on the topic.

In Terror Management Theory: A Practical Review of Research and Application, Robert B. Arrowood and Cathy R. Cox discuss relevant research from an experimental, existential psychology tradition. Outlining the past thirty years of research within terror management, the authors discuss such topics as religion, close relations, politics and law, existential growth, and physical and mental health.Although the inevitable outcome of all humanity is death, according to terror management theory, we adhere to cultural worldviews and establish close relations in order to boost our self-esteem. Through these defences, we deny our death and attain a degree of immortality, staving off existential fear by being part of an enduring cultural system that will outlive any individual member.

Psychoanalytic and Psychometric Perspectives on Religion suggests to combine perspectives from psychoanalysis and academic psychology, from nomothetic and idiothetic research, for more depth of vision for the current psychology of religion.In this interdisciplinary study, Barbara Keller demonstrates the potential of integrative perspectives by analysing topics such as religious development, religion and personality, and the process of working with religious issues in psychotherapy. Options for the study of lived “religion” are discussed, taking into consideration North American and European contexts of religious experience and of psychological and psychoanalytic discussion.

Although science was originally broadly conceptualized as a systematic, rigorous activity to produce trustworthy knowledge, psychologists adopted a single philosophy of science and strictly enforced natural science as the only proper “scientific” psychology. Qualitative research has been part of modern psychology from the beginning, but it was obscured for nearly a century as positivist epistemology came to dominate the field. Building culturally robust and intelligible theories capable of responding more effectively to complex problems faced by a rapidly changing world calls for openness in methodological diversity. Deeply rooted in a hermeneutic tradition, cultural psychology has challenged the appropriateness of seeking reductive knowledge because higher mental processes such as religious beliefs, values, and choices are bound by historical and cultural context. As greater interdisciplinary integration and methodological innovations are necessary to keep psychology of religion relevant, narrative inquiry has emerged as a promising integrative paradigm.

This book forms an introduction to the emerging discipline of “psychology of migration”, which is an interdisciplinary field of reflection and research, joining together diverse subfields of psychology with anthropological, sociological, demographic and historical inquiry on migration processes. The introductory chapter marks the borders of this borderline discipline, defines important notions and the subject of inquiry, and presents its main research themes together with prospective paths for the discipline’s development. The second chapter presents research methods applied in psychology of migration. Acculturation processes and their psychological analysis as well an impact on the mental health of migrants are the main topics of interest in the third chapter. The last chapter covers issues of mutual relations between religion and migration. Conclusive remarks on contemporary psychology of migration facing cultural and religious diversity in COVID-19 pandemic times are outlined, pointing at challenges the discipline will surely meet in the future.

“Parapsychology and Religion” is perhaps the most controversial research area in the psychology of religion. However, in recent decades, psychology of religion has witnessed a growing literature bearing on ontological issues including parapsychological topics such as distant healing and near-death experiences. This book argues that despite the methodological and theoretical controversies that still surround the field of parapsychology, the findings of research on alleged anomalous processes can inform the study of religious/spiritual experiences. Psychological literature on the paranormal is critically reviewed and it is argued that it became less a scientific endeavor and more an ideological program devised to denigrate paranormal believers and experiencers. This volume explores how an open-minded dialogue between parapsychology and psychology of religion might help us move beyond the present ideological disputes and reviewes the complex relations between parapsychology and religion over time as well as their implications for interdisciplinary research on religion and spirituality.

This book brings together the disciplines of history and psychology. It is the first study to apply attachment theory to self-narratives of the past, namely examples of life-writing (letters and proto-autobiographies) from medieval England, written in broad religious contexts. It examines whether God could appear as an adequate attachment figure in times of high mortality and often inadequate childrearing practices, and whether the emphasis on God’s proximity to believers benefited their psychological reorganisation. The main method of enquiry is discourse analysis based on the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) coding.

Contemporary psychology is highly influenced by positivism and scientific naturalism. Psychological studies make efforts to control the variables and provide operational definitions of subjective constructs in order to reach the most concrete conclusions. Such efforts are admirable in natural sciences since they have led to a better life. But, this worldview has deprived contemporary psychology of more qualitative sources of knowledge like waḥy (revelation). The present book introduces Islamic psychology as a paradigm, which can apply waḥy knowledge and consider religious/spiritual dimensions of humans in scientific exploration. The first part discusses the possibility, foundations, and characteristics of Islamic psychology. The second part introduces research methodology in Islamic psychology. The third part reviews the Quranic theory of personality and highlights the concept of shakeleh. Finally, the fourth part presents the theories and methods of religious psychotherapy in the Islamic tradition. Each part provides introductory content for readers interested in Islamic psychology.

Culture and personality are deeply related. Gerard Saucier articulates their interface, and new insights regarding the psychology of religion and spirituality. Rather than making assumptions of cultural homogeneity that promote stereotyping, Gerard Saucier applies a distributive model of culture which assumes heterogeneity, linking the otherwise separate compartments of culture and personality. Personality variation maps cultural non-uniformity, but variation in mindset (attitudes, beliefs, values) does so more directly. Studies of isms concepts embedded in natural language demonstrate that matters of religion and spirituality make up a substantial fraction of culture-relevant mindset, and empirical evidence shows these have a large effect-size contribution to cultural differences between nations around the globe. This book will be of much interest to specialists and (post-graduate) graduate students interested in culture, personality, and religion or spirituality.

This book brings together the theoretical and research perspectives of scholars who are looking for the right relationship between religiousness and spirituality. With this question as her basis, and backed by many years of research, Katarzyna Skrzypińska introduces the Meaning Making Beliefs-Spirituality-Religiousness (MM B-S-R) and the Threefold Nature of Spirituality (TNS) models. These points of view specify the psychological elements as well as hypothetical and researched mechanisms of spirituality, paving the way for further exploration in the field. The whole is a proposal for a new approach to the concept of the spiritual sphere as a multi-factorial, multi-level phenomenon, involved in cooperation with the cognitive system and personality – which are important in the process of searching for the meaning of life as they have behavioral consequences resulting from the attitude towards the sacred / a-sacred and life.

An International Review of Empirical Research on the Psychology of Fundamentalism is a sequel to Williamson (2020), who examined the sociohistorical emergence of fundamentalism and controversial conceptions of the movement that have dominated decades of empirical research in psychology. He concluded by calling for a critical review of this sizable literature, amassed from the early 20th century. In the present book, W. Paul Williamson and Sarah Demmrich respond by providing summaries and critical observations for 365 empirical studies, collected and organized from peer-reviewed journals. A summary of findings indicated that the largest share of statistical associations between study variables and fundamentalism was moderate in size, followed by those that were weak, and then by strong relationships, which were much less frequent. However, this observed pattern of relationships, particularly those characterized by moderate and especially strong associations, much reflected the findings from sexual bias studies. Finally, the authors offer critical considerations for sample selection, methodology, and theoretical applications in future fundamentalism research.

Since psychology and religion share the same ground in terms of providing explanations about the human being, many religious teachings also contain psychological descriptions. Islamic civilization, which has existed in vast geographies for centuries, offers unique sources to explain human feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Scientific Western psychology has asserted important theories and researches in understanding human beings. Today, Western psychology needs to be enriched with new perspectives to make more comprehensive explanations about people with different cultural backgrounds. Written by Sevde Düzgüner, this book is the product of an effort to discuss the human model of Islam and the human theories of psychology with a complementary approach. This book recommends methodological points that must be considered while studying both fields. It also attempts to draw a a road map for further studies by determining the areas where Islamic psychology could contribute to Western psychology.

Light of a divine or transcendent nature is widely revered in various religious and mystical traditions around the world, and luminosity with mystical qualities such as love, bliss, peace, and noetic realization is also frequently reported by contemporary experiencers. Despite being described as a profoundly significant, sacred, and transformative experience, mystical luminosity has received relatively little attention in modern scholarship and scientific study, and has only been examined empirically within isolated contexts, such as NDEs or contemplative practices. This study examines the phenomenology which binds mystical luminosity across various experiential contexts to construct a phenomenologically grounded theoretical model. A three-part mixed methods investigation using a new mystical luminosity experience scale based on this model is then summarized, with findings generally supporting and further clarifying the model.

In Spirit of the Mind, Sanaullah Khan delves into Islamic perspectives on the soul and its implications for spirituality and self-cultivation. Despite varying views on the soul's composition, a shared belief has persisted among theologians, scholars, preachers and reformists that it bears traces of the divine. Thus, drawing closer to God and gaining knowledge of nature involve returning to the soul's natural state of perfection. Central to Islamic thought is the struggle between the soul and the nafs (lower self), embodying carnal desires. In this context, achieving closeness to God requires purifying the soul to control the nafs. Khan traces a genealogy of the Islamic notion of the soul by exploring disturbances of the soul through Greek humoral theory, notions of spiritual weakness as deviation from perfection, the heart representing the seat of the soul, and the soul's aspiration for the divine light (nur) for its purification. Khan reflects on Islamic notions of the self through the tradition of the Perfect Man, which emphasizes spiritual ascent and divine proximity. Overall, the monograph offers a nuanced exploration of the soul's significance in Islamic thought, highlighting what thinkers have considered as the path to divine proximity and enlightenment.