Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience

An AHRC network bringing together researchers in cognitive approaches to religion and scholars in ancient religions, to share data and explore methodologies.

Religious experience is widely regarded as difficult to access, describe and verify, let alone analyse and understand, in particular for historical subjects. The project aimed to build on, and help to develop, recent research in Ancient History that asks how we can investigate the nature of ancient religious experience.

It used new cognitive methodologies, treating cognition as embodied and distributed, with the view that humans are embodied agents, as well as mental creatures, who are integrated in society. By bringing cognitive and ancient disciplines together, this project aims both to enhance approaches to key historical evidence and research methodologies, and also to expand understanding of cognition as consisting of individuals in full interaction with culture.