Beyond Belief

Religious Experience, Ritual, and Cultural Neuro-phenomenology in the Interpretation of Past Religious Systems

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5782191
AutoresJennifer L Dornan (University of California, Los Angeles, autor de correspondencia)
Año2004
Volumen14
Número1
Páginas25-36
Fecha de publicación2004-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCambridge Archaeological Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0959-7743 • E-ISSN: 1474-0540
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0959774304000022
OpenAlexW1967683836
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas19
Referencias citadas35

While there is growing agreement within anthropology and archaeology that notions of 'experience' can contribute to our interpretations of the past, this article suggests that there is a need to incorporate insight gathered from the fields of cultural phenomenology and cultural neuro-phenomenology into general anthropological understandings of cross-cultural religious experience. Specifically, this article explores the insight offered by cultural neuro-phenomenology into the relationships between religious symbolism, ritual, power, religious belief, and individual religious experience. In assessing the role that belief, as instantiated through ritually-induced religious experience, plays in the maintenance or alteration of state-level religious systems, this article will outline the ways in which this insight may both help us better to understand past religious experience as well as to interpret the maintenance and alteration of past religious systems. To demonstrate the potential of this approach, this article will conclude with a brief discussion of the fall of the Classic Maya state religious system

Belief system · Cultural anthropology · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Lived experience · Phenomenology (philosophy · Psychoanalysis · Religious belief · Religious experience · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Philosophy · Psychedelics and Drug Studies · Psychology