Psychology of God: When the Divine Meets the Mind

Hi everyone, it's Dr. Nigro again, our next episode of Psychology Unplugged. Thanks as always to all of our listeners. I appreciate the opportunity to do this every week and I will give my contact information out. As I do at the end of the episode, just if you try to get a hold of me through Buzzsprout, I can see the message but there's no way that I can reply to it. But again, I will give you the contact information at the end of this episode. So a few days ago, it just happened, it was in my office, I wanted to listen to the first episode I did this back in 2020, I think, and or 2021 maybe. And it's like five or seven minutes, but I had mentioned as one of the topics that I wanted to explore the podcast at some point, besides the science and psychology aspect of psychology was incorporating religion and spirituality. And I taught a course on this and I pulled some notes from it. They thought it'd be an interesting topic to cover, which is essentially the psychology of God. And more or less like what happens when divinity meets the mind and can explore like some psychological foundations, neurocognitive underpinnings, existential implications of the concept of God, really cross belief systems. But this is in no way a theological or doctrinal analysis, this is not a sermon. It's just about a deeply human inquiry into why and how we as humans formulate beliefs about a higher power. And whether religious spiritual, spiritual but not religious, agnostic, atheist, whatever category may fall into real, the goal of this episode is to explore the function of belief, not the validity of any particular theology. And for those of you who follow the podcast, I was born and raised Catholic, Catholic grammar school, all boys, Catholic high school in Chicago. I was an altar boy. I still know the prayers in the incantations, but I think as I've gotten older, I'm proud to say that I do believe in God. I consider myself more spiritual than religious. I think people struggle with because they equate the two where religion is a, it has form. Spirituality is your own personal connected connection to something bigger than ourselves. And I could say, you know, throughout my, I still say my prayers in the morning. And sometimes Julie and I did last week, we drove by the ocean, which is down the block from us. And it's kind of our, got Starbucks and our kind of quiet place, just reflect and place a gratitude. So again, not a sermon. This is not a religious class. It's not CCD, but just a combination of notes I had and my own perspectives on this. And I think it's, I think it's a relevant topic because it's something that all of us are exposed to in one way or another. So if you look at like evolutionary psychology, that, the evolutionary psychology, the evolutionary psychology perspective would be, would ask like, why we created God. And this is where psychology meets existential need. So I think from an evolutionary standpoint, early humans, they, they used supernatural explanations to reduce anxiety about natural phenomena, storms, lightning, wind, illness, crop failure. And really by assigning agency to unseeing forces. And one of the most complex books that I have ever read was written by an ex-Catholic Nunn, who traces, I think it's either called the psychology of God or the origins of God. Remember my mother had it and I read it. It was incredibly well done and very dense, but she really traced, looked back to, you know, incredibly primitive drawing, cave drawings of, you know, probably pre-language humans or neanderthals or d'andsovians, different parts of our genetic lineage. And they, there was invariably this reference to something above, of something bigger. And whether that was the sun or whether that was the moon, I don't know, but definitely a great book if you ever wanted to really delve really deep into that topic. But evolutionary psychology really, it, it posits belief in that, that gods were helped, they helped to promote social cohesion, moral behavior and survival, really by instilling fear in supernatural consequences. So you know, you think back like it did some one early human just wake up one day and do they have an epiphany? Do they see a burning bush? Do they have some kind of spiritual reckoning? I don't know. And one book by Ernest Becker is the denial of death. And he talks in that book about, really he argued that awareness of our mortality creates unbearable anxiety. And that religion and by an extension of belief in God helps us to deny death by offering a narrative of an afterlife, moral continuity, divine purpose, what he really called immortality projects. And what Becker talked about is that without God or meaning, we face the void of absurdity and that God helps us to deny this. And this kind of relates somewhat to things that episodes I've talked about in alluded to in various episodes about irrational beliefs and mistaken assumptions and defense mechanisms that anxiety is something that is necessary too much of it and too little of it can be pathological. But when anxiety about what happens next, then I'm going to talk about the next day, I'm going to talk about what happens after I die, where do I go? And I remember saying the prayers, if I don't do a confession, I'm going to go to purgatory, which nobody really knew a purgatory was. It was just this, I think it was like, there was the waiting period. It was like spring training. You go there before you promote to the major leagues, which, you know, in Christianity is heaven. Still on this evolutionary topic, there's also terror management theory, what's called like TMT. And this kind of followed up to some of Becker's work in their studies. They showed that when people are reminded of death, what they called mortality salience, they become more likely to defend their cultural worldview and religious beliefs. And then in this mindset, God becomes not just a, not just a comfort, but a symbolic bulwark against psychological annihilation. And then we have Freud. And Freud really saw God as one of the greatest defense mechanisms ever created. And in his work, the future of an illusion, Freud described God as really the exalted father figure, created by the psyche to soothe helplessness. And you know, I did the episode of, you know, one or two months ago on Freud's theory with the ego and the super ego. And from a Freudian perspective, religion is viewed as a form of what he called wish fulfillment, which was a way of restoring the illusion of protection and moral order in an incredibly chaotic and disruptive mood. So you know, from the existential perspective, you know, God may have been created not just to explain the world, but to save us from any an unbearable terror of facing it alone. And if you step back, if I kind of step it to like a secular mindset, that, that makes sense in terms of belief system that we created something to explain something else. And again, I think blind faith in anything, whether it's religion or words spoken by a favorite author or a prophet, whatever, blind faith in anything is incredibly dangerous. And I think it's, you know, I have my beliefs and my, my, my. own relationship with God and whatnot. And all of you guys say, are they the same trajectory? And one's not right wrong or the other, but I think having questioning things leads to deeper understanding and can promote healthy dialogue. So if you kind of switch from evolutionary perspective, to more like developmental psychology, and the formation of what the developmental psychologists refer to as like God concepts, and children, kids start to begin grappling with more metaphysical concepts around like three, three to five things like fairness, death, justice, which really kind of lays the foundation for early beliefs. And God and PHA is really a pioneer in terms of cognitive development. And he had the pre-operational stage, children engaged, or to engage in symbolic thinking, and anthropomorphic concepts, including God. Theory of mind, that's around age five. And this is where children understand that other people have thoughts and intentions. And this cognitive leap enables belief in an omnipotent, omnipotent, omniscient, excuse me, God. And related to this is what I was talking about in regards to attachment theory, John Bulby, Mary Ainsworth, our primary caregivers, they shape our expectations of relationships. And these early experiences, they form internal working models, and templates that we apply to later relationships, including those with a device. So in this perspective, you're seeing kind of God as what type of attachment as a secure attachment that in my time of need, I can reflect and pray as an insecure attachment that a belief that God comes and goes whenever he or she pleases, avoid insecure, avoid an insecure attachment, kind of like, I don't know if I should put this out there. I don't know if I had permission to do this. So a attachment theory does play a big role in our connectedness to the divine. And there's a book, the birth of living God, Annemarie Rosuto, she found that God images are formed in childhood and their shape by fantasy and early emotional memory. And she distinguished between the God concept, which is the intellectual theology and God image, which is our emotional internalization. And I think this part of cognitively is where I think the beliefs begin to, you have to reconcile with, I would say, fact from fiction, but you're reconciling intellectual theology. Here's the evidence that we have the Bible, the Z scrolls, X, Y and Z text, you know, the bones and of saints. And then our emotional internalization, which is, I can still conceptualize God as an older man with long flowing hair, almost like one of the cysteine chapel where God's reaching out to Annem. But from the developmental perspective, our psychological portrait of God reflects not just cultural teachings, but the emotional contours of our earliest caregiving relationships. So, you know, parents are primary testrifices. And I think it is very relevant to view God in the concept, this is one of the points that I talked about, when I talked this course, was seeing God as an attached figure. And those early relationships we have with our primary caregivers, whether they're our biological parents, adoptive parents, they could be siblings who have been parentified due to extraneous circumstances within the family unit. But, you know, if you're looking at God from the perspective of an attachment figure, would probably relate very much to our own perceived attachment styles we have with our primary care care was growing up. So, the question, you know, there's always the question of, well, what evidence do we have that there's something beyond this life? There were some spec scans, which is a specific type of brain imaging that were done during prayer meditation, which showed increased activity in the prefrontal cortex and decreased activity in the posterior pridolome. And the result was a perceived loss of eagle boundaries, a feeling of one with God or the universe is what they found in this particular study. And the prefrontal cortex, and particularly orbital prefrontal cortex, is essentially what separates humans, I mean, besides other things, but really cognitively separates humans from all of their species. And there's also a concept that was termed the God Helmet, and this is using TMS, which is trans-migranial stimulation. And when they put TMS electrodes, they stimulated the temporal lobes. This evoked a really intense spiritual experience in laboratory settings in this study, by Michael Persinger. And participants, research subjects, they reported a sense of a presence or a feeling of awe being watched by divine force, even without prior belief. So they had people that had strong religious beliefs. They had others who were atheists and had no belief system, people who were pretty, so they had a wide range, but people invariably across all the different groups felt something bigger with simulation of the temporal lobes. And a lot goes on in the lobes, but temporal lobes is language, memory, emotion, a big deal of emotional regulation, a lot of other things. But those are the main ones at the top of head. Temporal lobe epilepsy, which is interesting. And I have had patients who have had this. Temporal lobe epilepsy is linked to hyper religiosity and mystical visions and a sense of destiny, which kind of goes along with what they found with the TMS studies, temporal epilepsy. And the famous case is of Dostoevsky, where he describes his seizures as moments of transcendental beauty and revelation. And I guess a newer emerging field will be, it's called like neuro theology, where this is a field that integrates neuroscience and religious studies. And they really say to explore whether spiritual experience is an epiphenomenon of brain function, or whether the brain is a defined receiver, which I think is really cool. So is it is spiritual experience of function of the brain that it can do this? Or is it just a divine receiver? Is it just wired in such a way that is able to perceive divinity? Perceive God, perceive something of a higher power. And spirituality or spiritual experiences, they can be reliably induced and measured, but their meaning I think really remains open to interpretation. Is a biological artifact or divine encounter? And this is not about twisting things to make it fit. Like before, like all you have is a hammer, everything's like a nail. But I think it's a healthy way to, let's just say that I want to kind of pit God versus the mind and how we reconcile all this stuff. And you know, we don't really have any specific tests but there's some data from specific assessments that I use, not that I'm looking for this, but I always found it interesting. And people have reached out from different episodes about this, but why hallucinations, especially auditory? have such a negative, choose the pun, voice, telling people to kill themselves, kill other people. And I always wanted to, is what we label as delusion or psychotic in a person could that actually be relabeling the divine? I don't know. And I've had people that have had, it reported very, I mean, we have delusional disorder of the religious type. It's not psychotic, but it's just a belief system that we'd say, okay, that's a little out there. But I have had patients that were referred for the possible of psychosis, but they articulated a life that was not hampered in any way by their belief and their stories. For I remember were articulate. They were not in my, my professional opinion, psychotic, delusional. And they gave the person peace and one of the, you know, criteria in diagnosing psychopathology is it has to cause social, emotional, occupational, and/or academic impairment. And I remember this two or three individuals in particular, this didn't cause any impairment. Their family was just concerned, but they couldn't find reason to actually give them a diagnosis of a psychiatric condition. So you know, it can get a little, you know, again, you could sometimes, you know, somebody goes through trauma, they go through experiment with substances. They may be cultural aspects. It's a part of spirituality and even in diagnostics and something I don't spend a lot of time asking about this less is clinically relevant, but I find the vast majority of people that I work with have some sense of spiritual connectedness. And I'm just gazing for some people that is their only lifeline, for some people that is a source of strength and of resiliency and an outlet for them to find peace and comfort. But you know, belief is seen as, you know, basically respecting the sacred and I'm assessing for structure and the impact and to really differentiate spirituality from psychopathology. And again, just because when he believed something and how do I always like, how do you know, I remember seeing this guy when I would go to this facility in Brockton, Massachusetts, I would see this guy not all the time, but he's in the same street corner and he was dressed like a religious figure and he would talk and end in a secular mindset. I would say this person is psychologically unstable and meets some form of a psychotic disorder. But then I would, in the same time, and I could picture this vividly as I'm talking like, how do you know that's not Jesus? How do you know that's not? And I think our obsession, but our Western societal interest with like reality TV that may not be as phased by it, but it's something that stands out. But you know, we are quick to label or mislabel anything that doesn't fit or align with our worldview. So back to Carl Jung and the collective unconscious, you know, and he had the archetype of the divine and go back to the previous episode did on Jung and his archetypal theory were gods, the archetype of the self, representing integration, wholeness and transcendence. And the cross cultural parallels is that the archetypes of the creator, the destroyer, the savior, the wise old man, appear universally in myth, religion, and folklore, which I think is really interesting. Cultures that have never intersected stories that were told in different parts of the globe going back in the history of time. Never intersecting, but yet still operating with the same belief system of that makes sense. Still believing in something bigger and better and the divine. Again, whether with a guy who's seen this as like some of the destroyer or creator or savior, the old man, the wise old man that I kind of visualized my archetype of God was, they do appear universally. The young also, you know, focus not to the same type, but on, you know, dreams and symbolic material. And the divine often appears during a psychological crisis as a guy or a judge in, you know, Jungians theory and young view these messages from the unconscious, calling the ego towards integration. And young was very much about, you know, integration, integrating the parts of ourselves. Where Freud was very much about, you know, separation and the, you know, simultaneous operation of distinct parts of the self. And that young talked about individuation, which is psychological hold us in that in his perspective, then involve confronting and reconciling the image of God and the divine functions not just as a belief, but as a symbol of the self, the self's deepest striving. So really, you know, summarizing young in, you know, and young in theory, young in thought, is both projection and a potential within the psyche. And it's both an illusion and a, in a truth. Seems contradictory, but this is the complexity of the human psyche. And we continue to do our work to try to explain things that we have not come full circle or even, you know, come close to finding an answer. And, you know, if you look into theory, and I talked before about, we'll be like early attachment theories, if you think about this, you know, young's father was a minister. So that certainly did have an impact on, on his development and his belief system. And he's a really interesting guy. I would say to you, I would definitely encourage you. A colleague of mine that I want to have on, he does a lot of amazing clinician. He does schema work and schema theory. Everyone have him on to talk about that. And I think he's a big fan of young as well. But we do have limits to our psychological, to psychology, psychiatry, inner understanding of, you know, understanding God. I think psychology excels in explaining how and why humans believe, but not whether God objectively exists and then comes the question, or not the question, but the notion of faith is faith, irrational or irrational belief. I think it depends on who you're talking to myself. I think it's a rational belief. You know, William James, in his work, the varieties of religious experience, he argued that religious experiences are valid in their effects, regardless of metaphysical truth. And he was, I think, I think he was the first American psychologist. But he's saying religious effects are real. It doesn't matter if we have, you know, actual truth to believe it. This is your belief system. Like, do you think about it? Is there something tangible for courage? No, there can be symbols like a family crest or a sword. Is there a physical symbol for different emotional states, not universally? So, I think, you know, there's, you know, faith doesn't have a little box so we can wrap it up and put a bow on it and signal to the Christmas tree. The other part of the limitations, I think, are reductionism versus reverence, reducing God to neurochemistry or in a attachment pattern. I think it risks stripping beliefs of its depth or mystery. And I don't know, this is the same question as, you know, maybe we should like Indiana Jones, like maybe we shouldn't open the ark. But ignoring, I think, ignoring psychology ignores the reality that God believes often serve emotional and social purposes. And it's scary sometimes when you look back at current and previous wars when, when, [BLANK_AUDIO] You're going to kill a group of people because you're doing the name of God and there's, you know, you're lauded for that and that belief system. I think that can be very dangerous. Clinical humility. And I think is the goal is not to debunk, but to really to understand. And I think psychological insight can deepen faith by clarifying the inner train of belief. And it's not, it's, it's, again, faith is not a tangible thing. And, you know, I tried my best and just kind of hit on different parts from evolutionary psychology to, you know, tantrum theory, whatnot. I guess the wall, you know, who was God? What is God? Great line and John Lennon, if you want to give God a laugh, tell her your plans and I could tell you from experience. I've been down that road many times. But I don't think it's, you know, passive belief, just waiting for things to happen is not a, that's a topic for a different episode. And, you know, one on the resolved parts of our psyches does God reflect. But I, you know, when we get into like, from my perspective, like what I do, like, delusional disorders, this really delusional or is this, you know, why don't hallucinations? And I had one person who reached out a long time ago, and I don't think we're followed for theirs to said, I didn't get to explore further, but, you know, hallucinations, they don't tell people like, go out and be a philanthropist. Go do good things for people. Go treat yourself to something because you deserve it. The negative part of it is something that I have always found an interesting part of psychosis. And a quote by Sharnaan, which I think kind of summarizes all this. He said, we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. And I think that is a perfect way to end this episode. So thank you for your time. You continue to support. Feel free to continue to keep reaching out as psychology on plug. at eloc.com. You know, hold me through psychology today. If I haven't gone back to, please do keep reaching out to me. I will do my best. But until next time, take care of yourselves. Take care of each other and be well. Bye guys.