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Prospectus for the PhD Track in Religion and Science through the Graduate Division of Religious Studies at Boston University
(a.k.a. constantly updated, hyperlinked "Green Book")

Contents | Rationale for Exam 3 | Reading Lists for Exam 3

Exam 3: Specialization Exam

Contents

Rationale for Exam 3

Suggested Reading Lists

• Cognitive and Evolutionary Study of Religion
• Philosophy and History of Religion-Science Interactions
• Psychology of Religion
• Spirituality, Medicine, and Health

Rationale for Exam 3

The Religion and Science track of the GDRS PhD in Religious Studies supports several specializations, as follows.

• Cognitive and Evolutionary Study of Religion
• Philosophy and History of Religion-Science Interactions
• Psychology of Religion
• Spirituality, Medicine, and Health

The third exam focuses on the student's chosen specialization. The student constructs reading lists in discussion with advisors. Starting suggestions are presented below for three of the four specializations.

Note: Students interested in a reading list for the core literature of religion-science dialogue can find one in an appendix to the Green Book.

Suggested Reading Lists for Exam 3

Remember that these are suggested reading lists. Students can use them freely in constructing their own specialization exam reading list in discussion with their advisors.

Suggested Reading List for Cognitive and Evolutionary Study of Religion

Atran, Scott. In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. New York: Oxford University, 2005.

Atran, Scott, and Jeremy Ginges. “Religious and Sacred Imperatives in Human Conflict.” Science 336, no. 6083 (2012): 855-57.

Atran, Scott, and Joseph Henrich. “The Evolution of Religion: How Cognitive By-Products, Adaptive Learning Heuristics, Ritual Displays, and Group Competition Generate Deep Commitments to Prosocial Religions.” Biological Theory 5, no. 1 (2010): 18-30.

Atran, Scott, and Ari Norenzayan. "Religion's evolutionary landscape: counterintuition, commitment, compassion, communion.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26, no. 6 (2004): 713-30.

Azari, Nina P.; J. Nickel, G. Wunderlich, M. Niedeggen, H. Hefter, L. Tellmann, et al. “Neural correlates of religious experience.” European Journal of Neuroscience 13, no. 8 (2001): 1649-52.

Barrett, Justin L., and Frank C. Keil. “Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts.” Cognitive Psychology 31, no. 3 (1996): 219-247.

Barrett, Justin, and E. Thomas Lawson. “Ritual Intuitions: Cognitive Contributions to Judgments of Ritual Efficacy.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 1, no. 2 (2001): 183-201.

Barrett, Justin L. Why Would Anyone Believe in God?. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2004.

Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books, 2001.

Bulbulia, Joseph, and Uffe Schjoedt. “The Neural Basis of Religion.” In The Neural Basis of Human Belief Systems, edited by Frank Krueger and Jordan Grafman, 169-90. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Bulbulia, Joseph, Richard Sosis, Erica Harris, Russell Genet, Cheryl Genet, and Karen Wyman, editors. The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, & Critiques. Santa Margarita, CA: Collins Foundation, 2008.

d’Aquili, Eugene, and Andrew B. Newberg. The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999.

Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man. 1871.

Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. 1912.

Fingelkurts, A. A., and A. A. Fingelkurts. "Is our brain hardwired to produce God, or is our brain hardwired to perceive God? A systematic review on the role of the brain in mediating religious experience.” Cognitive Processing 10, no. 4 (2009): 293-326.

Geertz, Armin W., editor. Origins of Religion, Cognition, and Culture. New York: Routledge, 2014.

Geertz, Armin W. “Too much mind and not enough brain, body and culture: On what needs to be done in the cognitive science of religion.” Culture and Research 4 (2015): 1-26.

Geertz, Armin W., and Guðmundur Ingi Markússon. “Religion is natural, atheism is not: On why everybody is both right and wrong.” Religion 40, no. 3 (2010): 152-65.

Graves, Mark. Mind, Brain and the Elusive Soul: Human Systems of Cognitive Science and Religion. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008.

Guthrie, Stewart. Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion. New York: Oxford University, 1993.

Harmon-Jone, Eddie and Piotr Winkielman. Social Neuroscience: Integrating Biological and Psychological Explanations of Social Behavior. New York: Guilford Press, 2007.

Inzlicht, Michael, Alexa M. Tullett, and Marie Good. “The need to believe: A neuroscience account of religion as a motivated process.” Religion, Brain and Behavior 1, no. 3 (2011): 192-212.

James William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. 1902.

Jeeves, Malcolm, Warren S. Brown. Neuroscience, Psychology, and Religion: Illusions, Delusions, and Realities about Human Nature. West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Foundation, 2009.

Journal of Cognition and Culture 5, no. 1-2 (2005).
McCauley, Robert N., and Harvey Whitehouse. “Introduction: New Frontiers in the Cognitive Science of Religion,” 1-13.
Barsalou, Lawrence W., Aron K. Barbey, W. Kyle Simmons, and Ava Santos. “Embodiment in Religious Knowledge,” 14-57.
Thagard, Paul. “The Emotional Coherence of Religion,” 58-74.
Livingston, Kenneth R. “Religious Practice, Brain, and Belief,” 75-117.
Bering, Jesse M., and Dominic D. P. Johnson. “‘O Lord… You Perceive my Thoughts from Afar’: Recursiveness and the Evolution of Supernatural Agency,” 118-42.

Lawson, E. Thomas, and Robert N. McCauley. Rethinking Religion: Connecting cognition and culture. New York: Cambridge University, 1990.

LeDoux, Joseph. The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. New York: Touchstone, 1996.

Lewis-Williams, David. Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion. London: Thames & Hudson, 2010.

Liénard, Pierre, and Pascal Boyer. “Whence Collective Rituals? A Cultural Selection Model of Ritualized Behavior.” American Anthropologist 108, no. 4 (2005): 814-27.

McCauley, Robert N. “Maturationally Natural Cognition Impedes Professional Science and Facilitates Popular Religion.” In Religion and Science as Forms of Life: Anthropological Insights into Reason and Unreason, edited by Carles Salazar and Joan Bestard, 25-48. New York: Berghahn Books, 2015.

McCauley, Robert N. Why Religion is Natural and Science Is Not. New York: Oxford University, 2011.

McCauley, Robert N., and E. Thomas Lawson. Bringing Ritual to Mind: Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms. New York: Cambridge University, 2002.

McNamara, Patrick. The Neuroscience of Religious Experience. New York: Cambridge University, 2009.

McNamara, Patrick, editor. Where God and Science Meet. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006.

Newberg, Andrew, and Eugene d’Aquili. Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science & the Biology of Belief. Ballantine Books, 2001.

Norenzayan, Ara. Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2013.

Norenzayan A., W.M. Gervais, and K.H. Trzesniewski. “Mentalizing deficits constrain belief in a personal God.” PLoS One 7, no. 5 (2012).

Panksepp, Jaak. Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions. New York: Oxford University, 1998.

Peterson, Gregory R. Minding God: Theology and the Cognitive Sciences. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003. (not in the field)

Pyysiäinen, Ilkka. How Religion Works: Towards a New Cognitive Science of Religion. Boston, MA: Brill, 2003.

Pyysiäinen, Ilkka. Supernatural Agents: Why We Believe in Souls, Gods, and Buddhas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Rappaport, Roy A. Ritual and Religion In the Making of Humanity. New York: Cambridge University, 1999.

Richerson, Peter J. and Robert Boyd. Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2005.

Rossano, Matt J. Supernatural Selection: How Religion Evolved. New York: Oxford University, 2010.

Shenhav A., D.G. Rand, and J.D. Greene. “Divine intuition: cognitive style influences belief in God.” Journal of Experimental Psychology. General 14, no. 3 (2012): 423-28.

Smith, Aaron C.T. Thinking about Religion: Extending the Cognitive Science of Religion. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Solomon, Sheldon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, Florette Cohen, and Daniel M. Ogilvie. “Teach These Souls to Fly: Supernatural as Human Adaptation.” In Evolution, Culture, and the Human Mind, edited by Mark Schall, Ara Norenzayan, Steven J. Heine, Toshio Yamagishi, and Tatsuya Kameda, 99-118. New York: Psychology Press, 2010.

Sosis, Richard, and Eric Bressler. “Cooperation and Commune Longevity: A Test of the Costly Signaling Theory of Religion.” Cross-Cultural Research 37, no. 2 (2003): 211-39.

Sosis, R., and C. S. Alcorta. “Signaling, solidarity and the sacred: The evolution of religious behavior.” Evolutionary Anthropology 12, no. 6 (2003): 264-74.

Steadman, Lyle B., and Craig T. Palmer. “Religion as an identifiable traditional behavior subject to natural selection.” Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 18, no. 2 (1995): 149-64.

Taves, Ann. Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things. Princeton: Princeton University, 2009.

Tooby, John, and Leda Cosmides. “The Psychological Foundations of Culture.” In The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, edited by Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby, 19-136. New York: Oxford University, 1992.

Van Slyke, James. The Cognitive Science of Religion. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011.

Visala, Aku. Naturalism, Theism and the Cognitive Study of Religion. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011.

Watts, Fraser, and Léon P. Turner, editors. Evolution, Religion, and Cognitive Science: Critical and Constructive Essays. New York: Oxford, 2014.

Whitehouse, Harvey. Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2004.

Whitehouse, Harvey. “Modes of Religiosity: Towards a Cognitive Explanation of the Sociopolitical Dynamics of Religion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 14, no. 3/4 (2002): 293-315.

Whitehouse, Harvey, Ken Kahn, Michael E. Hochberg, and Joanna J. Bryson. “The Role for Simulations in Theory Construction for the Social Sciences: Case Studies Concerning Divergent Modes of Religiosity.” Religion, Brain and Behavior 2, no. 3 (2012): 182-224.

Wildman, Wesley J. Science and Religious Anthropology: A Spiritually Evocative Naturalist Interpretation of Human Life. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009.

Wildman, Wesley J. Religious and Spiritual Experiences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Willard, Aiyana K., and Ara Norenzayan. “Cognitive biases explain religious belief, paranormal belief, and belief in life’s purpose.” Cognition 129 (2013): 379-391.

Suggested Reading List for Philosophy and History of Religion-Science Interactions

[There is no suggested reading list for this specialization; too much depends on the focus of research.]

Suggested Reading List for Psychology of Religion

Overview

Hood, R. W., Hill, P. C., & Spilka, B. (2009). Psychology of Religion, Fourth Edition: An Empirical Approach. Guilford Press.

Paloutzian, R. F., & Park, C. L. (2014). Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality. Guilford Publications.

Wulff, D. (1991). Psychology of Religion: Classic and Contemporary Views (1St Edition edition). New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Pargament, K., Exline, J. J., & Jones, J. W. (Eds.). (2013). APA Handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality (Vol 1): Context, theory, and research. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.

History of Psychology and Religion

Adler, A. (1979). Superiority and social interest. (H. Ansbacher & R. Ansbacher, Eds.) New York: W. W. Norton.

Allport, G. W. (1950). The individual and his religion. New York: Macmillan.
Erikson, E. H. (1958). Young Man Luther. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. London: Faber & Faber.

Erikson, E. H. (1969). Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Freud, S. (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams: The Complete and Definitive Text. (J. Strachey, Trans.). New York: Macmillan.

Freud, S. (1928). The Future of an Illusion. London: Hogarth Press.

Freud, S. (1930). Civilization and Its Discontents (Reprint edition). New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Freud, S. (1939). Moses and Monotheism. Knopf.

James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. New York: H. Holt and Company.

James, W. (1902). The Varieties of Religious Experience. London. Longman Publishing Group.

Jung, C. G. (1972). Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. New York: Princeton University Press.

Leuba, J. H. (1909). The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion

Psychodynamic Perspectives

Beit-Hallahmi, B. (1996). Psychoanalytic Studies of Religion: A Critical Assessment and Annotated Bibliography. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Fromm, E. (1950). Psychoanalysis and religion. New Haven: Yale University. 
Meissner, W. W. (1986). Psychoanalysis and Religious Experience. Yale University Press.

Rizzuto, A.-M. (2011). The Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study. University of Chicago Press.

Winnicott, D. W. (2012a). Playing and Reality. Routledge.

Winnicott, D. W. (2012b). The Family and Individual Development. Routledge.

Attachment Theory

Granqvist, P. (1998). Religiousness and perceived childhood attachment: On the question of compensation or correspondence. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 350–367.

Granqvist, P., & Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2013). Religion, spirituality, and attachment. In K. I. Pargament, J. J. Exline, & J. W. Jones (Eds.), APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality (Vol 1): Context, theory, and research (pp. 139–155). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.

Granqvist, P., Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2010). Religion as attachment: Normative processes and individual differences. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(1), 49–59.

Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2004). Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion (1 Ed.). New York: The Guilford Press.

Rowatt, W., & Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2002). Two dimensions of attachment to God and their relation to affect, religiosity, and personality constructs. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41(4), 637–651.

Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology

Atran, S. E. (2002). In Gods We Trust : The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. Oxford University Press, USA.

Barrett, J. L. (2004). Why Would Anyone Believe in God? Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

Boyer, P. (2002). Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought (Reprint edition). New York: Basic Books.

Bulbulia, J. A. (2008). The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, & Critiques. Santa Margarita, CA: Collins Foundation Press.

Guthrie, S. (1993). Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion. Oxford University Press.

Sosis, R., & Alcorta, C. (2003). Signaling, solidarity, and the sacred: The evolution of religious behavior. Evolutionary Anthropology, 12(6), 264–274.

Cultural and Embodied Perspectives

Argyle, M., & Beit-Hallahmi, B. (1975). The Social Psychology of Religion. Routledge.

Barkow, J. H., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1995). The Adapted Mind : Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford University Press, USA.

Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University of Chicago Press.

Batson, C. D., Schoenrade, P., & Ventis, W. L. (1993). Religion and the Individual: A Social-Psychological Perspective. Oxford University Press.

Belzen, J. A. (2010). Towards Cultural Psychology of Religion: Principles, Approaches, Applications. Springer Science & Business Media.

Belzen, J. A., & Geels, A. (2003). Mysticism: A Variety of Psychological Perspectives. Rodopi.

Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (2004). The Origin and Evolution of Cultures. Oxford University Press.

Theory/Critique

Foucault, M. (2006). History of Madness (1 edition). New York: Routledge.

Fowler, J. W. (1981). Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development. Harper Collins.

Gorsuch, R. L. (2002). Integrating Psychology and Spirituality? Greenwood Publishing Group.

Lacan, J. (2013). The Triumph of Religion. Polity.

Maslow, A. H. (1964). Religions, Values and Peak Experiences. Ohio State University Press.

Pargament, K. I. (2007). Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy: Understanding and Addressing the Sacred. Guilford Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1995a). Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination. (M. I. Wallace, Ed.). Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1995b). Oneself as Another (Reissue edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Shults, F. L., & Sandage, S. J. (2006). Transforming spirituality: Integrating theology and psychology. Baker Academic.

The Empirical Work

Conversion

Rambo, L. R. (1993). Understanding Religious Conversion. Yale University Press.

Sandage, S. J., & Moe, S. P. (2013). Spiritual experience: Conversion and transformation. In K. I. Pargament, J. J. Exline, & J. W. Jones (Eds.), APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality (Vol 1): Context, theory, and research (pp. 407–422). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.

Development

Boyatzis, C. J. (2013). The nature and functions of religion and spirituality in children. In K. I. Pargament, J. J. Exline, & J. W. Jones (Eds.), APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality (Vol 1): Context, theory, and research (pp. 497–512). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.

Kelemen, D. (2004). Are children “intuitive theists”? Reasoning about purpose and design in nature. Psychological Science, 15(5), 295–301.

King, P. E., Ramos, J. S., & Clardy, C. E. (2013). Searching for the sacred: Religion, spirituality, and adolescent development. In K. I. Pargament, J. J. Exline, & J. W. Jones (Eds.), APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality (Vol 1): Context, theory, and research (pp. 513–528). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.

Krause, N. (2013). Religious involvement in the later years of life. In K. I. Pargament, J. J. Exline, & J. W. Jones (Eds.), APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality (Vol 1): Context, theory, and research (pp. 529–545). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.

General Religiousness & Measures

Fetzer Institute & National Institute on Aging Working Group. (1999). Multidimensional measurement of religiousness/spirituality for use in health research. Kalamazoo, MI: Fetzer Institute.

Hill, P. C. (2014). Measurement Assessment and Issues in the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. In R. F. Paloutzian & C. L. Park (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality (pp. 48–74). Guilford Publications.

Hill, P. C., Pargament, K. I., Hood, R. W., McCullough, M. E., Swyers, J. P., Larson, D. B., & Zinnbauer, B. J. (2000). Conceptualizing religion and spirituality: Points of commonality, points of departure. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 30(1), 51–77.

Oman, D. (2014). Defining Religion and Spirituality. In R. F. Paloutzian & C. L. Park (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality (pp. 23–47). Guilford Publications.

Pargament, K. I. (1999). The Psychology of Religion and Spirituality? Yes and No. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 9(1), 3–16.

Meaning Making

Baumeister, R. F. (1991). Meanings of Life. Guilford Press.

Bruner, J. S. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Harvard University Press.

Emmons, R. A. (1999a). The psychology of ultimate concerns: Motivation and spirituality in personality (Vol. ix). New York, NY, US: Guilford Press.

Emmons, R. A. (2000). Is Spirituality an Intelligence? Motivation, Cognition, and the Psychology of Ultimate Concern. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10(1), 3–26.

Park, C. L. (2010). Making sense of the meaning literature: an integrative review of meaning making and its effects on adjustment to stressful life events. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2), 257.

Moral Psychology

Graham, J., & Haidt, J. (2010). Beyond beliefs: Religions bind individuals into moral communities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 140-150.
Greene, J. (2013). Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them. Penguin.

Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Personality

Piedmont, R. L. (1999). Does Spirituality Represent the Sixth Factor of Personality? Spiritual Transcendence and the Five-Factor Model. Journal of Personality, 67(6), 985–1013.

Piedmont, R. L., & Wilkins, T. A. (2014). The Role of personality in understanding religious and spiritual constructs. In R. F. Paloutzian & C. L. Park (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality (pp. 23–47). Guilford Publications.

Saroglou, V. (2002). Religion and the five factors of personality: A meta-analytic review. Personality and Individual Differences, 32(1), 15–25.

Self-control, Forgiveness, Gratefulness, & other virtues

McCullough, M. E. (2000). Forgiveness as human strength: Theory, measurement, and links to well-being. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 19(1), 43–55.

McCullough, M. E., Emmons, R. A., & Tsang, J.-A. (2002). The grateful disposition: a conceptual and empirical topography. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(1), 112.

McCullough, M. E., & Willoughby, B. L. (2009). Religion, self-regulation, and self-control: Associations, explanations, and implications. Psychological Bulletin, 135(1), 69.

Saroglou, V., Delpierre, V., & Dernelle, R. (2004). Values and religiosity: A meta-analysis of studies using Schwartz’s model. Personality and Individual Differences, 37(4), 721–734.

Prejudice/RWA/RF

Allport, G. W., & Ross, J. M. (1967). Personal religious orientation and prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5(4), 432.

Altemeyer, B. (2003). Why Do Religious Fundamentalists Tend to be Prejudiced? International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 13(1), 17–28.

Altemeyer, B., & Hunsberger, B. (1992). Authoritarianism, Religious Fundamentalism, Quest, and Prejudice. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 2(2), 113–133.

Altemeyer, B., & Hunsberger, B. (2004). A Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale: The Short and Sweet of It. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 14(1), 47–54.

Prosociality

Galen, L. W. (2012a). Does religious belief promote prosociality? A critical examination. Psychological Bulletin, 138(5), 876–906. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0028251

Galen, L. W. (2012b). The complex and elusive nature of religious prosociality: Reply to Myers (2012) and Saroglou (2012). Psychological Bulletin, 138(5), 918–923.

Shariff, A. F., & Norenzayan, A. (2011). Mean Gods Make Good People: Different Views of God Predict Cheating Behavior. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 21(2), 85–96.

Religion and Mental Health

Hill, P. C., & Pargament, K. I. (2008). Advances in the conceptualization and measurement of religion and spirituality: Implications for physical and mental health research. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, S(1), 3–17.

Koenig, H. G. (1998a). Handbook of Religion and Mental Health. Elsevier.
McCullough, M. E., Hoyt, W. T., Larson, D. B., Koenig, H. G., & Thoresen, C. (2000). Religious involvement and mortality: a meta-analytic review. Health Psychology, 19(3), 211.

Religious Coping

Pargament, K. I. (2001). The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice. Guilford Press.

Pargament, K. I., Koenig, H. G., & Perez, L. M. (2000). The many methods of religious coping: Development and initial validation of the RCOPE. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 56(4), 519–543.

Spiritual Struggle

Exline, J. J. (2002). Stumbling Blocks on the Religious Road: Fractured Relationships, Nagging Vices, and the Inner Struggle to Believe. Psychological Inquiry, 13(3), 182–189.

Exline, J. J., Pargament, K. I., Grubbs, J. B., & Yali, A. M. (2014). The Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale: Development and initial validation. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 6(3), 208.

Terror Management Theory

Becker, E. (1997). The Denial of Death (1 edition). New York: Free Press.

Burke, B. L., Martens, A., & Faucher, E. H. (2010). Two Decades of Terror Management Theory: A Meta-Analysis of Mortality Salience Research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(2), 155–195.

Vail, K. E., Rothschild, Z. K., Weise, D. R., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. (2010). A Terror Management Analysis of the Psychological Functions of Religion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(1), 84–94.

Suggested Reading List for Spirituality, Medicine, and Health

This one is pretty rough but you'll get the idea. It's also long, so each student will probably find it helpful to make a selection from among the items below and then add in additional works of special interest.

Outline

0. Overview

1. Traditions of Healing
1a. Chinese Traditions
1b. Hindu Traditions
1c. Buddhist Traditions & Tibetan Medicine
1d. African Traditions
1e. Navajo Tradition
1f. Spirituality & Alternative and Complementary Medicine
1f(i). General
1f(ii). Spiritual Healing
1f(iii). Meditation & Contemplative Studies
1f(iv). Taichi & Qigong
1f(v). New Age Healing
1f(vi). Mind-body Medicine

2. Theories of Efficacy and Transformation
2a. Shamanic Healing
2a(i). Biomedical, Psychological &Psychiatric approach
2a(ii). Anthropological & Ritual Studies approach
2b. Ritual Healing
2b(i). Biomedical, Psychological &Psychiatric approach
2v(ii). Anthropological & Ritual Studies approach
2c. Hypnosis, Suggestion, and Dissociation
2c(i). Biomedical, Psychological &Psychiatric approach
2c(ii). Anthropological & Ritual Studies approach
2d. Placebo Effect
2d(i). Biomedical, Psychological &Psychiatric approach
2d(ii). Anthropological & Ritual Studies approach

3. Neuroscience and Consciousness Studies
3a. Consciousness in general
3b. Altered States of Consciousness
3c. Spiritual and Religious Experience
3d. Attention Research

4. Religion and Mental Health

5. Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology Approach to Religion

0. Overview

Barnes, L.L., “New Geographies of Religion and Healing: States of the Field”.

Koenig, H. G., Medicine, Religion, and Health. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2008; 978-1599471419)

Wildman, W.J. ,Religious and Spiritual Experiences. New York: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition, 2011.

Levin,J.. God, Faith, and Health: Exploring the Spirituality-Healing Connection. John Wiley &Sons, Inc., 2001.

Sloan, R.P. Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine. St. Martin’s Press, 2006.

Koenig, H.G., King, D. Carson,V.B. Handbook of Religion and Health (Second Edition)

Chamberlain, T. J. ,Realized Religion: Research on the Relationship Between Religion and Health. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2000.

Ellens, J. Harold. The Healing Power of Spirituality: How Faith Helps Humans Thrive. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009.

1. Traditions of Healing

General

Kaptchuk, T. and Croucher, M. The Healing Arts--A Journey Through the Faces of Medicine. British Broadcasting Corporation.

Rakel, D. Integrative Medicine (Third Edition), Philadelphia, PA : Elsevier Saunders, 2012.

Warms, R.L., Garber, J., McGee, R.J. Sacred Realms: Readings in the Anthropology of Religion (2nd edition). New York: Oxford University Press.

Morley, P., Wallis, R. Culture and Curing: Anthropological Perspectives on Traditional Medical Beliefs and Practices.

Kiev, Ari. Magic, Faith, and Healing: Studies in Primitive Psychiatry Today. New York Free Press of Glencoe.

1a. Traditional Chinese Medicine

TJ Hinrichs, Linda L. Barnes. Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History

The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine

Paul Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Ideas (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care)

Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine

Dragon Rises, Red Bird Flies: Psychology & Chinese Medicine (Revised Edition)
 中国古代哲学与中医学（Traditional Chinese Philosophy and Traditional Chinese Medicine）

Philosophy and Metaphysics of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Herfel, W., Rodrigues,D., Gao,Y. Chinese Medicine and the dynamic conceptions of health and disease.

Barnes, L. Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History.

Yan Guangle, Zhang Lei, Su Shibing. Application of Theories and Methods of Systems Science to the Study of the Complexity of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Mode Tradit Chin Med Mater Med, 2010, 12(1), 15-19

1b. Hindu Traditions

Ayurveda: A Practical Guide: The Science of Self Healing

Sax,W. “Ritual healing and mental health in India”. Transcultural Psychiatry, 2014, Vol.51(6), pp.829-849

Ranganathan, S. “Rethinking ‘efficacy’: ritual healing and trance in the Mahanubhav shrines in India”. Culture, medicine and psychiatry 2015, Vol.39(3), pp.361-79 .

Gachter, O. “Evil and Suffering in Hinduism”. Anthropos 93.1998: 393—403.

Ruiz, F. P. Symbolic Gestures.

Yoga in modern India : the body between science and philosophy

Hafen, Brent. From Acupuncture to Yoga : Alternative Methods of Healing. Englewood Cliffs. N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983.

1c. Buddhism Traditions and Tibetan Medicine

“Medicine between science and religion: explorations on Tibetan grounds”

Tibetan Buddhist Medicine and Psychiatry: The Diamond Healing

Craig, S.R. Healing Elements Efficacy and the Social Ecologies of Tibetan Medicine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.

1d. African Traditions

Washington-Weik, Natalie. The resiliency of Yoruba traditional healing: 1922-1955.

Ojelade, I. I., Mccray, K., Meyers, J. , Ashby, J. “Use of indigenous African healing practices as a mental health intervention”. Journal of Black Psychology, 2014, Vol. 40 (6), pp491-519.

1e. Navajo Tradition

Kaptchuk,T,J. “Placebo studies and ritual theory: a comparative analysis of Navajo, acupuncture and biomedical healing”. Philosophical Transactoons of the Royal Society B, 2011, Vol. 366 (1572), pp. 1849-1858.

Csordas, T.J., Storck, M.J., Strauss, M. “Diagnosis and Distress in Navajo Healing”, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 2008, Vol. 196 (8), pp.585-96.

Csordas, T.J. “The Navajo Healing Project”. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 2000, Vol.14(4), pp.463-475

Csordas, T.J. “Ritual healing and the politics of identity in contemporary Navajo society”. American Ethnologist, 1999 Feb, Vol.26(1), pp.3-23

Muolton, P. “Restoring identity and bringing balance through Navajo healing rituals”. Music and Arts in Action, 2011, Vol.3(2), pp.79-94 .

1f. Spirituality & Alternative and Complementary Medicine

1f(i). General

Methodologies for Effectively Assessing Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM): Research Tools and Techniques

Jonas, W.B., Levin, J.S.. Essentials of Complementary and Alternative Medicine

1f(ii). Spiritual Healing

Peel, R. Spiritual Healing in a Scientific Age (1st edition).

Lindstrom, L.G. “Christian Spiritual Healing: a Psychological Study: Ideology and Experience in the British Healing Movement”.

Spiritual Dimensions of Healing (Frontiers of Consciousness Series)

The Healing Power of Acknowledging the Interconnection of Science and Spirituality

1f(iii) Meditation and Contemplative Studies

Holroyd, J. The Science of Meditation and the State of Hypnosis

“Participants' experiences of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy: ‘It changed me in just about every way possible’"

Schmalzl, L, Crane-Godreau, M. A., Payne, P. “Movement-based embodied contemplative practices: definitions and paradigms”. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

“Effects of mindfulness meditation training on anticipatory alpha modulation in primary somatosensory cortex”.

1f(iv). Qi-gong and Taichi

Cohen, K. The Way of Qigong: the Art and Science of Chinese Energy Healing (1st edition). New York: Ballantine Books.

Chen, Nancy N. Breathing Spaces: Qigong, Psychiatry, and Healing in China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.

Tsang, H., Tsang, W. et. al. “Psycho-physical and neurophysiological effects of qigong on depressed elders with chronic illness”. Aging& Mental Health, 2013, Vol. 17(3), p.336-348.

1f(v). New Age Healing

Melton,G. The New Age Encyclopedia: A Guide to the Beliefs, Concepts, Terms, People, and Organizations That Make Up the New Global Movement Toward Spiritual Development, Health and Healing, Higher Consciousness, and Related Subjects. Penn State Unversity Press.

The Subtle Energies of Spirit: Explorations in Metaphysical and New Age Spirituality

1f(vi). Mind-Body Medicine

Harrington, A. The Cure Within-A History of Mind-Body Medicine.

Wisneski,L.A., Anderson, Lucy. The Scientific Basis of Integrative Medicine(2nd edition). Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2009.

Barows, K.A., Jacobs,B.P., “Mind-body medicine: an introduction and review of the literarture”. Medical Clinics of North America, 2002, Vol. 86(1),pp.11-31.

Csordas T. (2002). Body/Meaning/Healing.

Csordas, T. Somatic Modes of Attention.

2. Theories of Efficacy and Transformation

2a. Shamanic Healing

2a(i). Biomedical, Psychological & Psychiatric Approach

Krippner, S. The Epistemology and Technologies of Shamanic States of Consciousness (2000)

McNamara,P. and Szent-Imrey,R. “What we can learn from miraculous healings and cures”. From Miracles: God, Science, and Psychology in the Paranormal (Volume1). Edited Ellens, J.H.

McClenon, J. Wondrous Healing: Shamanic Healing, Human Evolution, and the Origin of Religion (1997).

“Shamans and Endorphins: Hypotheses for a Synthesis”

Imagery in Healing: Shamanism and Modern Medicine

Koss-Chioino, J, Hefner, P.J. Spiritual Transformation and Healing: Anthropological, Theological, Neuroscientific, and Clinical Perspectives. 2006

2a(ii). Anthropological & Ritual Studies Approach

Eliade, M. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy.

DuBois, T.A. An Introduction to Shamanism. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2009.

Lewis-Williams, J.D. Harnessing the Brain: Vision and Shamanism in Upper Paleolithic Western Europe (1997)

Hayden, B. Shamans, Sorcerers, and Saints: A Prehistory of Religion

Lowie, R. Primitive Religion.

The Signs of the Sacred: Identifying Shamans Using Archaeological Evidence by Christine van Pool (2009)

Shamans and Other Magico-Religious Healers: A Cross-Cultural Study of Their Origins, Nature, and Social Transformation

Middle Paleolithic Symbolism: A Review of Current Evidence and Interpretation by Harold Dibble (1987)

Roger Walsh. The world of shamanism

Clottes, J., Lewis-Williams,D., The Shamans of Prehistory-Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves. Harry N, Abrams, INC., Publishers.

Ogembo, J. “The Persisting Conflict of Interpretations of Shamanism”. Reviews in Anthropology, 2005, Vol. 34 (2), p. 197-210.

2b. Ritual Healing

2b(i). Biomedical, Psychological & Psychiatric Approach

McCauley. Bringing Ritual to Mind: Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms

McClenon, J. “Cognitive resource depletion and the ritual healing theory”.

McClenon, J. “Shamanic Healing, Human Evolution, and the Origin of Religion”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion(JSSR) 36,345-54.

McClenon, J.The Rirual Healing theory: therapeutic suggestion and the origin of religion, in Where God and Science Meet: How Brain and Evolutionary Studies Alter Our understanding of Religion, Oatrick McNamara, ed., 135-58. Vol.1., Westport, CT: Praeger.

Eugene d’Aquili. The spectrum of ritual: a biogenetic structural analysis

Dossey, Larry. Healing Words : the Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine. 1st ed. [San Francisco Calif.]: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.

A preliminary study of the acute effects of religious ritual on anxiety

2b(ii). Anthropological & Ritual Studies Approach

Csordas, T. (1997). Language, Chrisma, and Creativity: The Ritual Life of a Religious Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Rappaport, R.A. Ritual and Religion in the making of humanity

Sax, W.S., Basu,H. The Law of Possession: Ritual, Healing, and the Secular State. New York: Oxford University Press. 2015.

2c. Hypnosis, Suggestion and Dissociation

2c(i). Biomedical, Psychological & Psychiatric Approach

Yapko,M.D. Mindfulness and Hypnosis: the Power of Suggestion to Tranform Experience(1st edition). New York: Norton, 2011.

E.R. Hilgard. Divided Consciousness: Multiple Controls in Human Thought and Action. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997.

D. Spiegel. Dissociation: Culture, Mind, and Body (First Edition). Washington. D.C.: American Psychiatric Press, Inc,1994.

L. K. Michelson and W. J. Ray. Handbook of Dissociation. New York: Plenum Press, 1996.
J. F. Kihlstrom and I.P.Hoyt. “Hypnosis and the Psychology of Delusions,” in T.F. Oltmanns and B.A. Maher, eds., Delusional Beliefs. New York: Wiley, 1988.


Jamieson, G.A. Hypnosis and Conscious States: the Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Posner, M.I. Rothbart.M.K. “Brain states and hypnosis research”.

2c(ii). Anthropological & Ritual Studies Approach

Littlewood, R. Pathologies of the West: An Anthropology of Mental Illness in Europe and America. New York: Cornell University Press, 2002.

Firewalking Versus Hypnosis: A Preliminary Study Concerning Consciousness, Attention, and Fire Immunity

Ackerknecht, E., "Psychopathology, Primitive Medicine, and Primitive Culture", Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 14, 1943.

2d. Placebo Effect

2d(i). Biomedical, Psychological & Psychiatric Approach

Benedetti,F.2009. Placebo Effect: Understanding the Mechanisms in Health and Disease. New York: Oxford University Press.

Guess, H.A. et al. 2002. The Science of the Placebo : Toward An Interdisciplinary Research Agenda. London: BMJ Books.

Ernst, E.2007. “Placebo: new insights into an old enigma”. Drug Discovery Today12(9): 413-418.

Choliz,M. and Capafons, A.2012. The placebo in the context of scientific theories.Theory & Psychology 22(4) 513–526.

Miller, F.G., and Rosenstein, D.L. 2006. The nature and power of the placebo effect. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 59 (4):331-335.

Jensen, K.B. et al. 2012. Nonconscious activation of placebo and nocebo pain responses. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America 109(39): 15959-15964.

Miller, F.G. and Kaptchuk, T.J. 2008. The power of context: reconceptualizing the 13.placebo effect. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 101 (5) 222-225.

Kaptchuk, T.J.1998. Powerful placebo: The dark side of the randomised controlled trial. Lancet 351: 1722–25.

McClenon, J. Spiritual Healing and Folklore Research: Evaluating the Hypnosis/Placebo Theory, Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine 3, 61-66.

Miller, F.G., et al. 2009. The Placebo Effect: Illness and Interpersonal Healing. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 52(4): 518-539.

Kohls, N. et al.2011. Spirituality: an overlooked predictor of placebo effects? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B(2011) 366: 1838-1848.

2d(ii). Anthropological & Ritual Studies Approach

Moerman,D. Meaning, Medicine and the 'Placebo Effect' (Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology)

Moerman, D.E. et al. 1979. Anthropology of symbolic healing. Current Anthropology 20 (1): 59-80.

Ostenfeld-Rosenthal,A.M. Energy healing and the placebo effect. An anthropological perspective on the placebo effect.

3. Neuroscience and Consciousness Studies

3a. Consciousness Study

Baars,B.J., Banks,W.P., Newman,J.B. (2003). Essential Sources in the Scientific Study of Consciousness. Cambridge(Mass): MIT Press.

Laughlin,C.D. Brain, Symbol & Experience: Toward a Neurophenomenology of Human Consciousness

Laughlin, C.D. The Mystical Brain: Biogenetic Structural studies in the anthropology of religion

Consciousness Studies: Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Chalmers, D.J. Conscious Mind: in Search of a Fundamental Theory

Thompson, E. Waking, Dreaming , Being

Baars, B.J. A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness

Crick, F. , Koch,C. “The Problem of Consciousness”. Scientific American, Jun 2011, Vol.304(6),p63.

Wolfe,J.M., Robertson,L.C.(2012). From Perception to Consciousness—Searching with Anne Treisman. New York: Oxford University Press.

3b. Altered States of Consciousness

Cardena,E. (2014). Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence(2nd Edition). Washington, D.C. : American Psychological Association

Tart,C.T.(1969). Altered States of Consciousness: A Book of Readings. New York : Wiley.

Fromm, E. (1976). “Altered States of Consciousness and Ego Psychology”. Social Service Review, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Dec., 1976), pp. 557-569.

Krippner,S., Friedman, H. (2010). Debating Psychic Experience: Human Potential or Human Illusion? Santa Barbara : ABC-CLIO.

Cardena, E., Winkelman,M.(2011) Altering Consciousness: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Santa Barbara: Praeger.

3c. Spiritual and Religious Experience

Wildman, Wesley J. (2011). Religious and Spiritual Experiences: A Spiritually Evocative, Naturalist Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambrdige University Press.

William James, Varieties of Religious Experience.

Taves, A. Religious Experience Reconsidered.

McNamara, P. The Neuroscience of Religious Experience

3d. Attention Research

Michael, L., Campbell, N., and Raz, Amir. “Variety of attention in hypnosis and meditation, Consciousness and Cognition”, 2012, Vol.21(3), pp.1582-1585.

“Meditation, Attention, and hypnotic susceptibility: A correlational study”

“Mindfulness Training Affects Attention—Or Is It Attentional Effort?”

“Meditation and the neuroscience of consciousness: An introduction”. Cambridge handbook of consciousness

Hypnosis and Attention: A Review

Michael Lifshitz , Natasha K.J. Campbell , Amir Raz. Varieties of attention in hypnosis and meditation

Brain Dynamics and Hypnosis: Attentional and Disattentional Processes

Attention and Hypnosis: Neural Substrates and Genetic Associations of Two Converging Processes

4. Religion and Mental Health

Koenig, H. G. (1998a). Handbook of Religion and Mental Health. Elsevier.

Corrington, R.S. Manic-depressive Disorder and the Quest for Wholeness

Arnold Ludwig. The Price of Greatness-Resolving the Creativity and Madness Controversy

Man and His symbols

The Future of an Illusion

Religions, Values, and Peak Experience

Psychology of the Unconscious

When God talks back

Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology Approach to Religion

Evolution, Religion, and Cognitive Science: Critical and Constructive Essays


Lance Workman, Evolutionary Psychology: An Introduction (3rd Edition).

Religion in human evolution: from the Paleolithic to the axial age

Inside the Neolithic mind

Atran, S. E. (2002). In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. Oxford University Press, USA.

Boyer, P. (2002). Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought (Reprint edition). New York: Basic Books.

Guthrie, S. (1993). Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion. Oxford University Press.

Contents | Rationale for Exam 3 | Reading Lists for Exam 3

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