16 November 2022

Martin Lang: Physiological/neurological measures

Summary

Lang discusses physiological and neurological measures in the study of religion, drawing on laboratory and field research on rituals. The session pushes back against exaggerated claims that such tools can simply locate religious belief in the brain or body. Instead, it asks how physiological measures can be used responsibly: as partial indicators of arousal, stress, coordination, attention, or embodied ritual experience, not as magic detectors of belief.