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I am a scientist by nature, and I don't believe at all in God or any form of spirituality or the Holy Spirit (of course).

However, it does confuse me as to how some people genuinely do seem to be overcome by 'spirit' in certain more extreme churches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuOBdGeArZw Watch this clip, and at about 3:35 the man goes into a strange state, and states like this do happen. As well as this, my dad once began crying for no reason in a Church or Mosque or something at the altar.

Are there any scientifically/theoretical psychological explanations as to why this could be possible without the need for any sort of spirituality?

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    $\begingroup$ Temporal lobe epilepsy is also associated with hyper-religiosity, ecstatic states, and paranormal hallucinations. $\endgroup$
    – Dan M.
    Commented Jun 24, 2013 at 10:33
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    $\begingroup$ A physiological explanation might be found here. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet $\endgroup$
    – CheeseConQueso
    Commented Oct 10, 2013 at 0:15
  • $\begingroup$ The video is no longer available, by the way. $\endgroup$
    – got trolled too much this week
    Commented Dec 13, 2017 at 12:41
  • $\begingroup$ I have never experienced anything firsthand, but I have heard eye witness accounts of people speaking in tongues. It is another gift the Holy Spirit which I would like to hear psychology explain. $\endgroup$
    – Cardinal System
    Commented Feb 25, 2020 at 5:25

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Research in this area is pretty patchy. Summarizing what Wikipedia says on the topic:

  • "God helmet" experiments were plagued by failures to reproduce by independent research groups
  • TLE (temporal lobe epilepsy) and its effect known as Geschwind syndrome is one plausible cause... but that does not explain it in all people
  • hippocampal atrophy is a more recent hypothesis, although it seems backed by only one study insofar

Independently of Wikipedia I found:

  • a study by Urgesi et at. (2010) on the effect of brain lesions (following brain cancer removal) on self-transcendence, which determined that "self-transcendence increases after damage to lt and rt inferior parietal cortex".
  • a 2009 study by Inzlicht et al. found that "religious conviction is marked by reduced reactivity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a cortical system that is involved in the experience of anxiety and is important for self-regulation [...] These correlations remained strong even after we controlled for personality and cognitive ability." And the paper goes as far as having a "xanax of the people" heading for one its sections, and obvious pun on the better known phrase of Marx. The authors also point out that a similar anxiolytic effect was observed in studies of other strong beliefs, but not necessarily religious, e.g. ideological/political, citing Amodio et al. 2007 and Kay et al. 2008. (And starting to digress here, but the Amodio study has elicited strong reactions in the press).
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