This paper attempts to explain several empirical findings regarding religion. The main one is between religion and the fear of death. Some empirical evidence indicates moderately religious individuals fear death more than either atheists or extremely religious individuals. The model also explains the positive relationship often found between religious activity (e.g. church attendance) and age. ...

Religious beliefs play an important role in the study of religious practices and behaviour. Wulff (1997) suggested that there are four basic attitudes towards religion: Literal Affirmation, Literal Disaffirmation, Reductive Interpretation and Restorative Interpretation. Building on this work, Duriez, Soenans and Hutsebaut (2005) constructed the Post-Critical Belief Scale (PCBS). In their work, ...

The goal of this study was to assess the relationship between the Five Factor Model of personality and the belief in the paranormal. Participants (N=307) were students from the University of Zagreb, Croatia. The measures used were the IPIP version of the Five Factor Model questionnaire (Goldberg et al., 2006) along with the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (Tobacyk, 1988). The factor analysis of...

It is pointed out (in the framework of the author's biophysical relativistic model of altered states of consciousness) that transitional states of consciousness represent an excellent framework for understanding and mental control of transpersonal mystical states of consciousness described in various religious and esoteric traditions of East and West during the history of civilization, implying...