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Preeminent psychoanalyst Mortimer Ostow believes that early childhood emotional attachments form the cognitive underpinnings of spiritual experience and religious motivation. His hypothesis, which is verifiable, relies on psychological and neurobiological evidence but is respectful of the human need for spiritual value.
Ostow begins by classifying the three parts of the spiritual experience: awe, Spirituality proper, and mysticism. After he pinpoints the psychological origins of these feelings in infancy, he discusses the foundations of religious sentiment and practice and the brain processes associated with spiritual experience. He then focuses on spirituality's relationship to mood regulation, and the role of negative spirituality in fostering religious fundamentalism and demonic possession.
Ostow concludes with an analysis of an essay by the psychoanalyst Donald M. Marcus, who recounts his own spiritual experience during a Native American-style "vision quest" in the woods. Marcus's account demonstrates the constructive potential of spirituality and the way in which spirituality retrieves and recapitulates feelings of attachment to the mother.
Persuasively and brilliantly argued, Spirit, Mind, and Brain brings the disciplines of religion, behavorial neuroscience, and philosophy to bear on a groundbreaking new method for understanding religious ritual and belief.
Review Quotes
1. "Ostow addresses a family of interrelated issues--spirituality, religiosity, and mysticism--that have been ignored by both psychoanalysts and by students of the brain. An extraordinary book." -- Eric R. Kandel
2. "Ostow enriches our understanding of religious motivations as he weaves a powerful image of our spiritual nature. In his integrated vision, the light of science illuminates the perennial mystery of human faith and religious urges without diminishing the spiritual journey that is such an important feature of human life." -- Jaak Panksepp
3. "Ostow's most original contribution is to reject the conventional view that religion and psychological health are incompatible. He views these two impulses as not only interdependent but even indispensible for the shaping of a mature identity. Required reading for all who are concerned with the place of the spirit in the tumult of modernity." -- Neil Gillman
