Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind

Download or read book Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind written by Robert N. McCauley and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind examines the long-recognized and striking similarities between features of mental disorders and features of religions. Robert McCauley and George Graham emphasize underlying cognitive continuities between familiar features of religiosity, of mental disorders, and of everyday thinking and action. They contend that much religious thought and behavior can be explained in terms of the cultural activation of humans' natural cognitive systems, which address matters that are essential to human survival: hazard precautions, agency detection, language processing, and theory of mind. Those systems produce responses to cultural stimuli that may mimic features of cognition and conduct associated with mental disorders, but are sometimes coded as "religious" depending on the context. Their approach promises to shed light on both mental abnormalities and religiosity.