Jingle-jangle? Spiritual voices, absorption, and proneness to hallucinations in Tanya Luhrmann’s “How God Becomes Real”

Abstract

Luhrmann ’ s ambitious How God Becomes Real , something of a sister volume to her previous When God Talks Back , goes beyond the latter to encompass a fascinating array of research, spanning anthropological ethnographic work, psychological research into individual di ff erences, and socio-logical insights into the role of culture in religious experience. Drawing on studies conducted in the USA, UK, India, and Ghana, Luhrmann ’ s characteristically impeccable prose sketches out a convincing model of why some people report vivid and often intense religious or spiritual sensory experiences, and others — despite equally strong beliefs and e ff ort — do not. Along the way, she pre-sents important concepts and correctives, such as the implied insistence that religious belief is not a yes/no question but a nuanced, messy, and situational negotiation with life. Likewise, the “ in-between ” is helpfully introduced as an experiential third space where most encounters with “ invisible others ” take place — not the inner life of the individual but not their Umwelt either. The book covers themes such as the fl exible ontology held by many regarding gods and spirits ( “ faith frames ” ) (Chapter 1), “ private-but-shared ” imagined worlds ( “ paracosms ” ) (Chapter 2), and prayer and its links with metacognition (Chapter 6). Crucially, the model Luhrmann proposes depends upon both cultural beliefs regarding the boundary between mind and the outer world (referred to as “ porosity ” ), and the individual tendency to become absorbed in what one imagines or perceives (the construct of “ absorption ” ). Indeed, without saying so explicitly, the carefully selected content of the book ably captures how individual religiosity — that is, religious experiences and practices and the subjective meaning attached to them — is both deeply personal and ineludibly socio-cultural.