The neural correlates of religious experience according to Eugene d’Aquili and Andrew Newberg
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14422/pen.v82.i319.y2026.003Keywords:
Neurotheology, religious experience, myth, ritual, meditation, Absolute unitarian Being, Andrew Newberg, Eugene d'AquiliAbstract
The paper explains Eugene d’Aquili and Andrew Newberg's fundamental ideas about the neural basis of religious experiences, examining their ideas about why the brain creates myths and why rituals are so important. It also explains their hypothesis about what would happen in the brain during the most intense moments of the meditation experience, both in the negative and positive pathways, what they call the Absolute Unitarian Being (AUB). The experimental work they produced to find empirical support for this hypothesis is reviewed, as well as the authors’ interpretations of their results. Their proposal is criticized, especially from a philosophical point of view.
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