Studying the Religious Mind: Methodology in the Cognitive Science of Religion (Advances in the Cognitive Science of Religion)

The cognitive science of religion (CSR) does not have its own methodology, and yet from the very beginnings of the discipline, methodology has defined it not only in relation to the general study of religion in the humanities but also to the sciences interested in the mind. CSR scholars are using a wide range of methodologies, borrowing mostly from the cognitive sciences and experimental psychology, but also from biology, archaeology, history, philosophy, linguistics, the social and statistical sciences, neurosciences, and anthropology. This multi-disciplinarity, in fact, defines the cognitive science of religion. Such multi-disciplinarity requires hard work and truly interdisciplinary teams, but also continual reflections on and debates about the methodologies being used. In fact, no CSR study worth its name can rely on only one methodology. Triangulation is standard, but often even more approaches are used. This book consists of selected papers from the Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion and the Journal of Cognitive Historiography. Each chapter demonstrates a particular method or group of methods and how those methods advance our knowledge of the religious mind from the ancient past up to today.

Armin W. Geertz is Emeritus Professor in the History of Religions at the Department of the Study of Religion, Aarhus University, Denmark. He is editor of the Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion and Advances in the Cognitive Science of Religion at Equinox. His interests and publications include the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary theory, psychology of religion, neuropsychology of religious experiences, ritual embodiment, method and theory in the study of religion, contemporary spirituality, and the religions of indigenous peoples. He recently co-authored The Emergence and Evolution of Religion: By Means of Natural Selection (Routledge 2018) together with Jonathan H. Turner, Alexandra Maryanski, and Anders Klostergaard Petersen.