Are Religious Experiences Really Localized Within the Brain? The Promise, Challenges, and Prospects of Neurotheology

This article provides a critical examination of a controversial issue that has theoretical and practical importance to a broad range of academic disciplines: Are religious experiences localized within the brain? Research into the neuroscience of religious experiences is reviewed and conceptual and methodological challenges accompanying the neurotheology project of localizing religious experiences within the brain are discussed. An alternative theory to current reductive and mechanistic explanations of observed mind–brain correlations is proposed — a mediation theory of cerebral action — that has the potential for addressing what Chalmers called the “hard problem” of consciousness.