EXPRESS: The psychological role of music and attentional control for religious experiences in worship

This study investigated the psychological dynamics during worship experiences under the influence of different music conditions. 60 believers were recruited to participate in experiments where they were asked to engage in worship and to connect with God while continuously ranking how strongly they sensed the presence of the divine. After each condition, they were asked to rate how well they were able to focus on God during the worship procedure. Based on a previously published feedback loop model that portrays global psychological mechanisms in worship, we deduced two hypotheses: (i) the ability to focus on God is positively associated with how strong the subjective religious experience becomes; (ii) and the different musical conditions yield varying degrees in the intensity of the felt presence of God. Our statistical analyses on the current sample demonstrate that both alternative hypotheses can be accepted. For the latter thesis, two further assumptions were at play: (a) we speculated that religious worship songs were associated with stronger divine experiences than with secular ones; and (b) it was assumed that if they could worship to their own selection of songs, the experience would be more powerful than with the ones that were provided by the research team. Whereas upon our investigation the former assumption can be deemed correct, the latter shows a positive but insignificant association.

Religiosity and Spirituality of German-Speaking Pilgrims on the Way of St. James

The article examines the intensity and structure of religiosity and spirituality of German-speaking foot and bicycle pilgrims on the Way of St. James within the framework of a multidimensional model of religiosity. The following nine aspects are distinguished: religious questions, faith, religious and spiritual identity, worship, prayer, meditation, monistic and dualistic religious experiences. Data of N=425 German-speaking pilgrims of the Way of St. James from the years 2017 and 2018 are analyzed. The data of the Religion Monitor 2017 from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (N=2837) serves as a population-representative comparison sample. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, and multiple regression analyses are used to analyze and to compare the two groups. The results show that German-speaking pilgrims in the analyzed sample have substantially higher values on all dimensions of religiosity than the general population in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. This difference is most pronounced in the spiritual self-concept. However, for most pilgrims, the categories religious and spiritual are not mutually exclusive. Rather, spirituality forms a basis shared by almost all pilgrims in the sample, to which religiousness is added for many. Further, results are discussed in the light of the existing foot and bicycle pilgrimage research. Conclusively, it can be said that tourism and church actors should consider the religious character of pilgrims, which remains despite all changes in the religious landscape.

Religious Socialization and Self-Definition Among Black Undergraduate Women Attending Predominantly White Institutions

To date, few scholars have explored religious and spiritual socialization among emerging adult Black women. In this study, we analyzed semi-structured interview data from 50 Black undergraduate women to explore associations between childhood religious socialization messages and current religious beliefs in emerging adulthood. Consensual qualitative methods revealed two broad domains and six themes. The first domain, “religious alignment,” included: (1) internalizing religion and (2) educating others on religious beliefs. The second domain, “religious departure,” included: (3) modifying religious expectations to fit developing beliefs, (4) employing religion as a pathway to self-acceptance, (5) picking and choosing battles within their religious community, and (6) choosing an alternate religious or faith system. Findings highlighted how the women started to take ownership of their religious experiences, as well as how they used religious practices, such as prayer, to cope with gendered racism. Authors discuss the implications of emerging adulthood on Black women’s religious identities.

Contributions to a semiotics of religion: the semiosis from sign to meaning

This article approaches theoretically the religious experience in toto. Considering the semiotics applied to religion, contributions to understand and recognize the relevance of this discipline are proposed. Such approach to the semiotics of religion justifies the aim of the article: to understand the meaning structures of religious experiences. These experiences are diverse, intimate, subjective, but all have an idea of the “transcendent” as a referent and they are based on structures of meaning, expressions, and representations of the sacred, forms, uses and interpretations of religious signs, systems of collective thought and symbolic action. It is intended to advocate that: 1) the semiotics of religion is an interdisciplinary branch of social sciences and humanities and a sort of semiotics of culture; religion is a form of culture, as well communication and social meaning; 2) religion is a semiotic phenomenon; it is sustained by signs, representations, processes of signification and cultural construction of the world, without which there could be no religion. This is followed by a conceptual, theoretical strategy of critical discussion of the structures of meaning on which manifest culture is based through what we say or do, the way we behave and the attitude we have towards signs.

The Ecology of Religious Knowledges

Different religious traditions, beliefs, and experiences claim to have epistemic contact with the ultimate source of reality. However, this epistemic claim has encountered one of its most significant obstacles in the initial incompatibility of its multiple accounts. I argue that from the ecology of knowledges, the idea that intentions, body, and physical and social environments are constitutive elements of our experience and knowledge, we can understand both the veridical, as embodied and extended, and pluralistic, as essentially limited, nature of religious experiences and knowledges. I characterize the mystical religious experience as a state of consciousness that (allegedly) allows direct epistemic contact with the supreme reality, articulating its essentially non-ordinary nature on the basis of the radical otherness of the sacred realm, namely, its character of being eternal, infinite, and with supreme ontological, ethical, and aesthetic value. According to this proposal, the different religious perspectives are understood as different epistemic approaches dealing with these numinous features in a gradual continuum from their most impersonal to their most personal specifications. I conclude that the cognitive relevance of any religious knowledge implies explanations and interventions that, although compatible with, go beyond those of both other religious knowledges and the knowledges of the non-sacred domains.

A Pilot Assessment of How Muslim Scientists Perceive Inclusion in the Scientific Workplace

Much of the social science literature on how religious and scientific communities relate to one another is focused on the relationship Christian communities have to science in the US and to a lesser extent the UK. Our pilot research begins to address this gap by studying Muslim scientists, a key group of actors who are important to understanding the social implications of global discussions about religion and science. We ask: How do Muslim scientists in non-Muslim majority national contexts perceive the relationship between religion and science and the connection between their faith and their work? In this pilot study, we analyze 13 in-depth interviews with Muslim scientists from three non-Muslim majority national contexts—France, India, and the United Kingdom. We find that Muslim scientists in our sample generally view their faith as compatible with their identities as scientists. Despite this connection, Muslim scientists do not consider the scientific workplace to be a supportive environment for their faith expression and believe the visibility of Muslim identity creates the potential for religious discrimination in science. Initial findings contribute to our understanding of how national context shapes religious experiences and highlights potential challenges to facilitating more religiously plural workplace environments.

Encountering the Goddess in the Indian Himalaya: On the Contribution of Ethnographic Film to the Study of Religion

This paper examines the benefits of ethnographic film for the study of religion. It argues that the exploration of gaps between colloquial descriptions of divinities and their practical manifestation in ritual is instructive of the way religious categories are conceptualized. The argument is developed through an analysis of selected scenes from the documentary AVATARA, a meditation on goddess worship (Śaktism) among the Khas ethnic majority of the Hindu Himalaya (Himachal Pradesh, India). Centering on embodiments of the goddess in spirit possession séances, it points to a fundamental difference between the popular depiction of the deity as a virgin-child (kanyā) who visits followers in their dreams and her actual manifestation as a menacing mother (mātā) during ritual activities. These ostensibly incongruent images are ultimately bridged by the anthropologically informed edition of the material caught on camera, illustrating the added advantage of documentary filmmaking for approximating religious experiences.

Determinants of Visitors’ Loyalty to Religious Sacred Event Places: A Multigroup Measurement Invariance Model

Places hosting religious sacred events provide opportunities for visitors to find spiritual growth and also afford glimpses into the local culture, community, and hosting religious group. This study looks at tourists’ intended behavioral loyalty to a religious sacred event place as determined through motivations, shared beliefs, and emotional solidarity with other visitors, and memorable religious experiences. Data were collected from 985 visitors (556 domestic and 429 international) during the 2019 Kumbh Mela, held in Prayagraj, India. Contrary to previous studies, results indicated that emotional solidarity did not significantly influence attendees’ intended behavioral loyalty (among domestic visitors). Furthermore, in employing an invariance structural test for paths mentioned in the model, results revealed that the effects of shared beliefs, motivations, emotional solidarity, and memorable religious experiences differed among domestic and international visitors. Study implications and limitations are provided at the close of the paper, giving way to future research opportunities.

Considering the Relevance of Childhood Religious Experiences Through Centenarian Oral Histories

The current study explored a sub-sample of 57 narrative focused on childhood religious experiences from the Oklahoma Oral History Project. Analyses identified three primary themes connected to childhood religiosity, including transmission, accessibility, and socializing. First, transmission of religiosity during childhood dependent upon a parent or grandparent. A second theme involved accessibility, which highlighted various advantages and disadvantages regarding child and family ability to attend religious services. Such opportunities and barriers were centered upon three subthemes involving rurality, transportation, and infrastructure. Finally, socializing represented a third theme. In particular, church attendance during childhood created unique opportunities for early-life socializing with family, friends, and neighbors. As a whole, key themes indicate that religiosity during childhood may be vital to the early formation of social opportunities and connections that may support positive and adaptive developmental processes in human longevity. Findings have implications relative to advancing conceptual understanding of the impact of childhood religious experience on developmental outcomes among long-lived adults.

Beyond the Veil: Exploring Muslim Women’s Multidimensional Identities in Laila Aboulela’s The Translator and Mohja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf

The article presents a critical analysis of two novels by contemporary Arab Muslim women writers, Leila Aboulela and Mohja Kahf. The article examines how these authors critique, resist, and disrupt the hegemonic discourse that presents Muslim women as a monolithic and homogeneous category. In The Translator and The Girl in Tangerine Scarf respectively, the female protagonists’ religious experiences and identities are studied with reference to resistance narratives and disruptive postcolonial strategies. The unsettling of the monolithic image of veiled Muslim women is hereby pursued through providing an analysis of the cultural imagery of Muslim women, to deconstruct the image of the veil in today’s world.