News | Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion

Screening of the Greek movie Mythopathy

19. 10. 2016 19.00–21:00

13 Aug

Pain and suffering as part of religious life: The Mauritian Thaipusam kavadi

In a pop-science article published in Dingir, E. Kundtová Klocová discusses the various socio-cultural aspects of the Thaipusam Kavadi ritual as practiced in Mauritius.

2 Aug

Jana Nenadalová defended her dissertation thesis

Religious experiences can be found across many cultures in various forms. Nevertheless, we can trace their underlying and potentially universal factors. In her thesis, Jana asks whether these factors include sensory deprivation, social seclusion, and the influence of authority. She further explores how these factors manifest in the context of experience. Her research is based on the predictive processing theory, assuming that our bodies and minds constantly predict ongoing events and that under the influence of studied factors, these predictions – including those learned from religion – can dominate over sensory perceptions.

2 Aug

Emotional contagion in a collective ritual – a study by LEVYNA & colleagues

In a field-study conducted among Hindu-Mauritians published in the American Journal of Human Biology, D. Xygalatas, M. Lang, P. Maňo, J. Krátký and R. Fischer discovered that individuals dynamically attune their affective states to one another in a collective religious ritual, implying that they adjust their emotional states to align with the group.

25 Jun

Adverse effects of meditation – a new paper by LEVYNA & colleagues

In a single-group observational study published in the Journal of Religion and Health, S. Kotherová with J. Cigán and colleagues showed that one-fifth of their Samadhi meditation participants (first timers) got post-meditation nausea symptoms – this result indicates that meditation can cause adverse effects in some practitioners.

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