RS 15: Psychology and Religion: Research Approaches

Professor Ann Taves Winter 2008

Office: HSSB 3085 MW 11-12:15 Office Hours: T/Th 2:00-3:00 HSSB 1173

taves@religion.ucsb.edu TAs: Todd Foose & Brian Zeiden

Course Description: The course focuses on the psychology of “religious experience” or more precisely on experiences often deemed religious by individuals and groups across cultures. We will consider different kinds of experiences – some ordinary (like dreams) and others more unusual (such as trance states, visions, out of body experiences), some that occur spontaneously and others that can be induced, e.g., by drugs or meditation.

Methodological Aims of the Course:

· To understand the various kinds of data we can gather or generate about these experiences both as subjects and observers (data collection).

· To understand what we can learn from the different kinds of data and the ways and extent to which they can be related (data analysis).

· To gain familiarity with research methods that allow us to test alternative explanations of how things work (hypothesis testing) or how things are related (correlational studies).

Theoretical Assumptions and Overarching Questions:

If, for the purposes of this course, we assume that there are no inherently religious experiences, but only experiences that are deemed religious by either subjects or researchers, we can ask the following questions:

· What do we mean by ‘religious’ (or ‘spiritual’ etc.)? As researchers? As practitioners? As human beings?

· Who gets to say whether something is religious or not?

· What methods can we use to analyze how people decide whether experiences are religious (or spiritual) or not in various contexts, e.g. on their own, in conversation with others, in groups, cultures, or traditions?

· What if subjects say their experiences just were religious and that they didn’t decide to call them that?

Textbooks:

Course Reader, available at Grafikarts, 6550 Pardall Road, Isla Vista (968-3575).

Lectures will be posted on ERES at http://eres.library.ucsb.edu/ (Password = sweep).

Course Requirements: This course is writing intensive. There will be three papers of 2-3, 3-5, and 5-7 pages in length for which you will receive a letter grade. You will also write five one-page papers and a sleep and dream journal that will count for most of your section grade. Attendance is expected for all lectures and sections.

Grading: Section grade 20% (including attendance, participation & written work), First Paper (2-3 page) 20%, Second Paper (3-5 page) 25%, Final Paper (5-7 page) 35%.

Syllabus of Lectures, Readings, and Assignments

Introduction

03/31(1.1) – Introduction of Course; Sleep & Dream Journal assignment

Dreams

04/02 (1.2) – Dreams as altered states of consciousness

· Lecture: the neurophysiology and psychology of dreaming.

· Reading: J. Allan Hobson (1999), Consciousness (New York: Scientific American Library), 129-155.

04/07 (2.1) – Dreams and religion

· Lecture: Dreams as the prototype for a new biologically based comparative study of religion.

· Reading: Kelly Bulkeley (2007), “Sacred Sleep: Scientific Contributions to the Study of Religiously Significant Dreaming,” in The New Science of Dreams, 3: 71-94.

04/09 (2.2) – Dreams and meaning making

· Lecture: People ascribe (religious) meaning to dreams at various levels.

· Reading: P. Cicogna and M. Bosinelli (2001), “Consciousness during dreams,” Consciousness and Cognition 10 (1):26-41.

· Dennis Tedlock, “Mythic dreams and double voicing,” in David Shulman and Guy Stroumsa, eds. Dream Cultures (New York: Oxford, 1999), 104-18.

· Roger Lohmann (2007), “Dreams and ethnography,” in The New Science of Dreams, 3:35-54, 58-60.

From Dreaming to Consciousness: An Expanded Model

04/14 (3.1) – From Dreaming to Consciousness

· Lecture: Hobson’s AIM model of Consciousness

· Reading: Hobson (1999), Consciousness, 157-185.

04/16 (3.2) – A Variety of Altered States of Consciousness

· Lecture: Extend Hobson’s AIM model to illustrate hypnotic trance, lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis, out-of-body experiences, and hallucinogens.

· Reading: J. Allen Hobson (2001), The Dream Drugstore (Cambridge: MIT Press), 85-112,161-66, 251-69.

· FIRST PAPER DUE.

More Refined Analytical Tools

04/21 (4.1) – What counts as “religious”?

· Lecture: Two logically distinct, albeit potentially overlapping, ways of defining “religious.”

· Reading: Ann Taves, Studying Experiences Deemed Religious (unpublished manuscript), chapter one

04/23 (4.2) – Meaning Systems

· Readings: Crystal Park (2005), “Religion and meaning,” in Paloutzian and Park, Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (New York: Guilford), 295-302.

· Crystal Park and Patrick McNamara (2006), “Religion, meaning, and the brain,” in McNamara, ed. Where science and God meet, vol 3 (Westport, CT: Praeger).

04/28 (5.1) – Attribution theory

· Lecture: Analyzing and explaining everyday explanations at various levels

· Reading - Ann Taves, Studying Experiences Deemed Religious (unpublished manuscript), chapter three, 119-43.

04/30 (5.2) – Altering Consciousness: Dissociation, Hypnosis, and Autosuggestion

· Lecture: Ways in which alterations in consciousness can be induced

· Reading: Richard J. Brown (2006), “Different types of ‘dissociation’ have different psychological mechanisms,” in Anne P. DePrince and Lisa DeMarni Cromer, eds., Exploring dissociation: Definitions, development and cognitive correlates (Binghamton, NY: Hawarth Press), 7-28.

· Michiel B. deRuiter, et al, “Dissociation: Cognitive Capacity or Dysfunction?” in Exploring Dissociation, 115-34.

Out of body and near death experiences

05/05 (6.1) – Out of body and near death experiences

· Reading: Emily W. Kelly, Bruce Greyson, and Edward F. Kelly, “Unusual experiences near death and related phenomena,” in Kelly et al, The Irreducible Mind, 394-421.

· Dirk De Ridder, et. al. (2007), “Visualizing out-of-body experience in the brain,” New England Journal of Medicine 357, 1829-33 (color version available on ERES).

· H. Henrik Ehrsson (2007), “The experimental induction of out-of-body experiences,” Science 317, 1048.

05/07 (6.2) Paul and OBEs in Judaism and Christianity

· Alan Segal, “Paul and the beginning of Jewish mysticism,” in Collins & Fishbane, eds. Death, ecstasy, and other worldly journeys (1995)95-122.

· Zilpha Elaw, “Autobiography,” in William L. Andrews, ed., Sisters of the Spirit (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 64-68.

· SECOND PAPER DUE

Possession

05/12 (7.1) – Discerning / Discovering Spirits

· Lecture / Discussion of “rogue representations” in Knight’s development of Ramtha. Video clips (in class) from The Quintessential School of the Mind: An Introduction to Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment.

· Reading: Ann Taves, “Channeled Apparitions: On Visions that Morph and Categories that Slip,” Visual Resources, forthcoming.

· J. Z. Knight, A State of Mind: My Story (Warner Books), 302-306.

05/14 (7.2) – Possession religions – Interacting with spirits

· Lecture: Interactions between the possessed and others. Video clips (in class) from Mystic Lands: Bali and Haiti.

· Reading: Emma Cohen, The Mind Possessed: The Cognition of Spirit Possession in an Afro-Brazilian religious tradition, 129-54.

· Tsutomu Oohashi, et. al. (2002), “Electroencephalographic measurement of possession trance in the field,” Clinical Neurophysiology 113, 435-45.

Hallucinogens

05/19 (8.1) – Inducing Experience

· Lecture: What makes induced experiences seem real and meaningful? Experimental and phenomenological methods.

· Ralph Hood and Jacob Beltzen, “Research methods in the psychology of religion,” in Paloutzian and Park, Handbook, 62-65.

· W. N. Pahnke (1969), “Psychedelic drugs and mystical experience,” in E. M. Pattison, ed. Clinical psychiatry and religion, 149-62.

· Benny Shanon, The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca experience (Oxford, 2002), pp. 1-9, 13-29, 86-112.

05/21 (8.2) – Theoretical perspectives on the ayahuasca experience

· Shanon, 331-402.

05/26 – Memorial Day

Meditation

05/28 (9.2) – Film: “Monks in the Laboratory”

· Preparation: Explore the websites of the Mind and Life Institute (http://www.mindandlife.org/index.html) and the Santa Barbara Institute (http://www.sbinstitute.com/). Note especially the two research projects: Cultivating Emotional Balance and the Shamatha Project.

06/02 (10.1) – Meditation and the neuroscience of consciousness

· Lecture: Defining meditation, meditation and the neuroscience of consciousness, and neurological correlates of meditation.

· Reading: Antoine Lutz, John D. Dunne, and Richard J. Davidson, “Meditation and the neuroscience of consciousness: An introduction,” in Philip Zelazo, et. al., eds. The Cambridge handbook of consciousness (NY: Cambridge University Press), 499-551.

06/04 (10.2) – Review in preparation for writing final papers

06/11 -- FINAL PAPER due at NOON.

RS 15B Reader

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.1. Instructions for Sleep and Dream Journal

1.2. J. Allan Hobson (1999), Consciousness (New York: Scientific American Library), 129-155.

2.1. Kelly Bulkeley, “Sacred Sleep: Scientific Contributions to the Study of Religiously Significant Dreaming,” in The New Science of Dreams, vol. 3, 71-94.

2.2 P. Cicogna and M. Bosinelli (2001), “Consciousness during dreams,” Consciousness and Cognition 10 (1):26-41.

2.2. Dennis Tedlock, “Mythic dreams and double voicing,” in David Shulman and Guy Stroumsa, eds. Dream Cultures (New York: Oxford, 1999), 104-18.

2.2. Roger Lohmann (2007), “Dreams and ethnography,” in The New Science of Dreams, 3:35-54, 58-60.

3.1. Hobson, Consciousness, 157-185.

3.2. J. Allen Hobson (2001), The Dream Drugstore (Cambridge: MIT Press), 85-112,161-66, 251-69.

4.1. Ann Taves, Studying Experiences Deemed Religious (unpublished manuscript), chapter one

4.1. Accounts of William Barnard and Stephen Bradley.

4.2. Crystal Park (2005), “Religion and meaning,” in Paloutzian and Park, Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (New York: Guilford), 295-302.

4.2. Crystal Park and Patrick McNamara (2006), “Religion, meaning, and the brain,” in McNamara, ed. Where science and God meet, vol 3 (Westport, CT: Praeger).

5.1. Ann Taves, Studying Experiences Deemed Religious, chapter three.

5.2. Richard J. Brown (2006), “Different types of ‘dissociation’ have different psychological mechanisms,” in Anne P. DePrince and Lisa DeMarni Cromer, eds., Exploring dissociation: Definitions, development and cognitive correlates (Binghamton, NY: Hawarth Press), 7-28.

5.2. Michiel B. deRuiter, et al, “Dissociation: Cognitive Capacity or Dysfunction?” in Exploring Dissociation, 115-34.

6.1. Emily W. Kelly, Bruce Greyson, and Edward F. Kelly, “Unusual experiences near death and related phenomena,” in Kelly et al, The Irreducible Mind, 394-421.

6.1. Dirk De Ridder, et. al. (2007), “Visualizing out-of-body experience in the brain,” New England Journal of Medicine 357, 1829-33 (color version of article available on ERES).

6.1. H. Henrik Ehrsson (2007), “The experimental induction of out-of-body experiences,” Science 317, 1048.

6.2. Alan Segal (1995), “Paul and the beginning of Jewish mysticism,” in Collins & Fishbane, eds. Death, ecstasy, and other worldly journeys, 95-122.

6.2. Zilpha Elaw, “Autobiography,” in William L. Andrews, ed., Sisters of the Spirit (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 64-68.

7.1. Ann Taves, “Channeled Apparitions: On Visions that Morph and Categories that Slip,” Visual Resources, forthcoming.

7.1. J. Z. Knight, A State of Mind: My Story (Warner Books), 302-306

7.2. Emma Cohen, The Mind Possessed: The Cognition of Spirit Possession in an Afro-Brazilian religious tradition, 129-54.

7.2. Tsutomu Oohashi, et. al. (2002), “Electroencephalographic measurement of possession trance in the field,” Clinical Neurophysiology 113, 435-45.

8.1. Ralph Hood and Jakob Beltzen, “Research methods in the psychology of religion,” in Paloutzian and Park, Handbook, 62-65.

8.1. W. N. Pahnke (1969), “Psychedelic drugs and mystical experience,” in E. M. Pattison, ed. Clinical psychiatry and religion, 149-62.

8.1. Benny Shanon, The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca experience (Oxford, 2002), pp. 1-9, 13-32, 86-112.

8.2. Shanon, Antipodes of the Mind, 331-385.

9.2. Antoine Lutz, John D. Dunne, and Richard J. Davidson, “Meditation and the neuroscience of consciousness: An introduction,” in Philip Zelazo, et. al., eds. The Cambridge handbook of consciousness (NY: Cambridge University Press), 499-551.

Instructions for "Sleep and Dream Journal"

Retrospective - write up and bring to your second section meeting (4/4-4/8)

–What’s the most memorable dream you’ve ever had?

–What’s the first dream you remember as child?

–What’s the worst nightmare you’ve ever had?

–Do you have a special recurrent dream?

Daily from 3/31-4/14 (two weeks)

–Put a pencil, paper, and flashlight beside your bed. Record when you went to sleep, when you woke up, and give a brief evaluation of how you slept (poor, fair, good).

–First two mornings (Tu/W) - Record whatever dreams you remember when you wake up in the morning.

–Second two mornings (Th/Fri) - if during the night, you because aware that you are dreaming, wake up and record the dream right then.

–Third two mornings (Sa/Su) - set your alarm clock for an hour before you usually wake up, when the alarm goes off, record whatever was going on (dream, nothing, etc.)

–Remainder (M-M) - Record dreams during the night, if you can, otherwise record them in the morning.

If at any time, you have a particularly important dream, please record it right away.

RECORDING YOUR DREAMS

I. Privacy Issues

–When you write up your dreams, you do not need to include information that you feel is too personal.

–We will want you to discuss the journals in section, but you will be able to talk about them in section without sharing specific content.

–We will want you to put at least one dream in a format that can be shared with and analyzed by others in your section.

–We will ask you to turn in your journal to your TA at the end of the two week period.

II: Things to Note

Pay attention to three aspects of your dreams:

–Form: What was the dream like? What were its formal features?

–Coherence – Did it hold together as a story?

–Dramatic – Was it outside the realm of the ordinary?

–Credible – Were the events conceivable?

–Bizarreness – Were any events outside conceivable expectations of everyday life?

–Sensory character – What sensory modes (auditory, visual, tactile, kinesthetic, etc.) were you aware of in the dream? Did any predominate?

–Content: What happened in the dream? Were there any associations with recent experience, e.g. in relation to physical setting or objects, characters, activities, or social interactions?

–Process: What happened to the dream as you narrated it orally or in writing? What differences can you identify between experiencing of the dream and thinking about or narrating it?

–Reactions to the Dream: Did it seem significant or meaningful? At the time? Upon awakening? In retrospect? Why?

TABLE I: Methods of Data Collection, Analysis, and Research Design

Methods of Data Collection
1. Self-observation & first person narratives
2. Observation - ethnographic and laboratory
3. Archival and archeological data
4. Surveys and questionnaires
5. Physiological measurements
Data Analysis
1. Content analysis	In humanities, analysis of similarities and differences in content, identification of recurrent patterns; in psych, scoring to get values that can be subject to statistical analysis
2. Contextual, interactive analysis	Analysis of data in relation to interactions with people, ideas, and institutions
3. Statistical analysis	Mathematical ways of analyzing data sets, e.g. how strongly do variables relate (correlation coefficients); hypothesis testing
Types of Research Design / Approaches
1. Experimental (involves comparison of experimental & control groups)	Provides basis for ruling out explanations; falsification of hypotheses.
a. “Pure” experiments	Randomized experimental and control groups, usually laboratory based
b. Quasi-experiments	Non-randomized, often field based
c. Comparisons (e.g.) in history, sociology, gender studies	Real world comparisons of two appropriately matched groups with no pure control
2. Correlation studies	Examines the degree of association, positive or negative between variables.

TABLE II: Types of data that can be gathered relative to experience

DATA	EXPRESSION	AWARENESS	ACCESSES
Neurological data (real-time)	Formal record of neurological activity	Neither researcher nor subject experiences the non-conscious mental events that the data records, though either may be aware of the data.	Preconditions of subject’s experience
Observable data (verbal & other expressive behavior in real-time)	Unintended expression Intended expression	Of which observer may be aware while subject is not. Of which subject & observer are both aware, though their views of it may differ	Disputed Experience of subject
Unobservable data (real-time)