Evolutionary Psychology: A New Approach to Understand Crime

Relative new branch of Psychology addresses crime towards a comprehensive explanation of Punishment, Public Policy, and Prevention

Crime is responsible for a significant amount of human suffering in society. The lives of victims and their families can be adversely affected; often in profound ways. Crime can erode social trust in communities and lead to fear amongst the residents. Crime is expensive for police and even more expensive to prosecute and contain. Perpetrators, too, suffer from the effects of their actions as their lives are altered, often permanently, and typically for the worse. It’s important to analyze an evolutionary approach, which will be invaluable for advancing our understanding of why crime occurs and what accounts for the main patterns in offending that we observed.

We need to keep in mind that problematic behaviors can arise as a result of evolved psychological mechanisms operating as they were “designed” by natural and sexual selection. A significant amount of male to male aggression, for instance, reflects selection for intra-sexual competition amongst males because success in such context advances reproductive success. Male to male violence reflects the operation of evolved adaptation working as they were designed to. Problem behaviors can also arise through the operation of conditional adaptations operating as they were designed by natural and sexual selection in response to specific social and ecological environments.



Before we begin considering specific approaches for preventing crime, we think it is useful to recognize three general points regarding an evolutionary approach towards reducing problematic behaviors. First, where it is possible, programs and policies should work with “human nature” rather than against it. Even if we recognize that humans are enormously flexible in their behavioral repertories, there are likely to be certain practices, policies, and social arrangements that work too crudely against the grain of evolved predisposition and proclivities. Hence, this will likely lead to ineffectiveness. A second related point is that it can often be possible to affect “workarounds” that act on the same evolved motivations that lead to problematic behavior, but instead, channeling the behavior along more societally desirable paths is ideal.

Police officers can’t help but think they have a magical effect on the flow of traffic as all they have to do is enter a stream of vehicles in a marked patrol car and the cars around them immediately slow down and become more cautious. Of course there is no magic involved: human behavior is enormously flexible and will change in predictable ways to different features of the situation as they emerge.

There are two interesting strategies (increasing the effort and reducing the rewards of offending) that are fairly explicable from both a rational choice and evolutionary perspective. If a good deal of offending is related to the pursuit of social status, then changing the reward structure of the environment will alter the relative value of criminal actions as a means to increase social standing. Better locks, bars, screens, security measures and so forth. Simple means that offenders find it harder to obtain the rewards of offending.



Efforts to increase the risk of offending such as the implementation of closed-circuit television, improved street lighting, and better opportunity for natural surveillance have shown to be effective in reducing certain types of offending . Strategies to remove excuses for offending such as instructions, signs, notices, and techniques for altering the conscience of individuals have been evaluated less rigorously. However, we suggest that both of these situational crime prevention strategies can be effective for largely the same reasons. Both strategies provide ecological context that enhance prosocial behavior by reinforcing social and moral norms and alerting individuals to the risk of punishment.

There are a large number of different social crime prevention programs that have been developed and are subject to formal evaluations. Most of these programs focus on addressing the known risk factors for offending and there is a good deal of evidence that properly developed and implemented social crime prevention programs that can be effective in reducing offending. From an evolutionary perspective, the importance of developmental focused social crime prevention initiatives cannot be emphasized enough.



Approaches to interventions that largely focus on merely preventing or stopping risky behavior without any consideration of the ‘function’ of that behavior are not likely to be effective. We think that the key contribution of an evolutionary approach is to help us to go beyond our understanding of the developmental risk factors for offending to identify the key causal processes that are most likely to be implicated. For example, prevention programs like education and home visitation provide information about proper prenatal and antenatal care, parenting practices, and health care which create less harsh intrauterine and early childhood environments that, in turn, can promote the development of slower life history strategies.

An evolutionary perspective suggests that the existence of punishment is essential for the viable functioning of any society, small or large. Without the existence of the third-party punishment of individuals who violate important social and moral norms, there will almost certainly be a substantial reduction in cooperation and an increase in unsanctioned punishment. We are not simply suggesting that we should punish norm transgressions because that is how we have evolved to respond to such transgression. Rather, any attempt to abolish punishment is likely to have unintended negative consequences given our evolved predispositions and the evolutionary function of punishment.



Psychological and behavioral adaptations along with cultural practices have evolved in tandem in response to the violation of significant moral norms. One result of this dynamic and evolving interaction of biology and human nature has been a suite of normative systems and institutions specifically designed to prevent, and if necessary, manage serious wrongdoing (crime).
A problem with groups or individuals seeking revenge without the mediation of an impartial agency is that it can lead to a seemingly endless cycle of harmful actions and counteractions that destabilize social networks.

Punishment can be defined loosely as the intentional infliction of sanctions by the state on individuals who have unjustifiably harmed other people. There are numerous normative justifications of punishment including retributivism, consequentialism, and communicative justification.

The focus of the communicative justification of punishment on the well-being of a community means that relationships between moral stakeholders are of critical importance and the role of individual entitlements and duties assumes lesser importance. It is a collectivist approach to resolving disputes between people and arriving towards solutions to ethical problems such as crime. The process of reconciliation involves forgiveness and the willingness of individuals and the state to look beyond the imposition of punishment, or vengeance, to the moral task of repairing damaged relationships between offenders, victims, and the community.

Because humans are cultural species whose behavior is strongly influenced by social and moral norms and the ecological contexts in which they are embedded, changes in these norms can affect significant changes in behavior that can be sustained through cultural and ecological inheritance. Sustained efforts to support and facilitate the development of pro-social norms and change norms that support or facilitate antisocial behavior, are therefore, likely to be one essential component of efforts to reduce the harmful effects of crime. Changes in legal practices have an important role to play in this context. An evolutionary perspective does not provide all the answers. It does offer a coherent, theoretical framework for integrating the basic and applied sciences in a way that can foster the development of a science of intentional change that has implications for our efforts to reduce offending and the various harms that arise from crime and its management.
By: Jaime F. Adriazola
American Graduate University, Washington DC
References:
Evolutionary Criminology, Russil Durrant / Tony Ward
The Psychology of criminal conduct; New Providence NJ, Mathew Bender & Company Inc.
Missing the Revolution: Darwinism for social Scientists, Oxford: University Press
Handbook of evolutionary psychology, D. M. Buss
Why evolution is true; New York: Viking
The evolutionary psychology of violence; Psicothema

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When Sport Psychology and Neuroscience meet

By: Jaime F. Adriazola
American Graduate University, Washington DC

A sport company is using the “Neuropriming” (term created it by the company) to stimulate the brain’s motor cortex, and in short is designed to improve sports performance. Neuropriming is related to the ‘transcranial direct-current stimulation’ (tDCS) – which in simple terms is using a small electric current via electrodes on the scalp to stimulate specific areas in the brain.

tDCS brain hacking has for a long time been the territory of clinical labs or DIY hardcore biohackers who share their experience and learn from each other – there is even a sub-red it on the topic. Halo Neuroscience has done its own clinical research, and brought a product to market, and opened the technology to the mainstream in a safe and consistent way.



For three years, Halo Sport ™, headphones were provided only to pro and college teams, Olympic contenders and the military. Now, the company has ramped up production, and the super-high-end headphones are ready for public consumption.

The headphones shoot electrical impulses stimulating the brains motor cortex which in turn increases neuroplasticity creating more synchronous connections between neurons and muscles -and thus allegedly improve athletic performance.

In the context of the temporal lobes, this technique makes perfect sense, since the temporal lobes are involved in processing special sounds and memory. Certain types of sounds may activate the temporal lobes and help them process information more efficiently. It’s likely that certain types of “waves sounds” open new pathways into the mind.

"We're up to the challenge of bringing this to the masses," Chao, co-founder of Halo Sport, said at the company's San Francisco headquarters. "Sports science has definitely come a long way."



The US Olympic ski team uses Halo, as do a slew of MLB, NFL and NBA teams. The 2015 NBA champion Golden State Warriors spent this past record-breaking season piloting the headphones. Other world-class athletes, like US Olympic track star Mike Rodgers, swear by them.
In Halo’s own words: “accelerates the optimization of neuromuscular circuitry through training. Improved neuromuscular output leads to more precise, coordinated, and/or explosive movement — whichever the athlete targets during training.”

Nick Davis, a senior lecturer in psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University who has extensively studied tDCS says, “For reasons we don’t really understand, brain cells that are near the positive electrode become a bit more active, and when a brain area is more active, it tends to be more plastic. This is called neuroplasticity, and it relates to the ability to learn things; there is evidence that simple motor actions are learned more readily when they’re done with positive stimulation.”

The directions state to wear the headset and complete a 20 minute neuropriming session before you complete the most intense part of your physical work out, and Halo Sport does not need to be worn during your actual workout. Setting up the primers (the grey electrodes) ready for the priming session can be tricky. They don’t play nice with long hair, and even with short hair can be challenging to get sufficient conductivity to start the session.



Halo Neuroscience claims you will fell a “light tingle” on your head due to the electric current, in reality this felt like more of a sting than a “light tingle” – but it wasn’t unbearable.

The easiest quantifiable improvement was for most exercises, and the less quantifiable results were increased endurance during the first 20 minutes of each workout and increased calories burnt/higher maintained heart rate throughout the sessions (when comparing to similar workouts).

The real energy and improvements seemed to last for about 20 minutes and then seemed to taper off, which means that you should push very hard for the first 20 minutes and then in the last 20 minutes your energy would drop off significantly. It’s not sure if was due to the neuropriming benefits wearing off, or due to pushing yourself too hard due to the benefits in the first 20 minutes and causing you to fatigue. Information has been provided indicating that ‘neuropriming’ was used by the Germany soccer team, during the last World cup.



tDCS (aka. neuropriming) has been shown in clinical settings to improve memory, learning, and intelligence. So I imagine Halo Neuroscience will release products targeted towards different applications in future, and we could actually see a similar device used to improve memory, learning, and intelligence!

Finally we have to mention that tDCS may work more efficiently in combination with ‘Guided Neuro-Psychotherapy”, a new form of therapy that may help athletes increase their potential, and as Doctor Thomas Verny mentioned, “soothing sounds can positively stimulate the brain, and toning balances brain waves, deepens the breath, reduce heart rate, imparts a general sense of well-being, and increase motivation.”

Sources: Halo Neuroscience, Dr. Thomas Verny, Dr. Daniel G. Amen (AMEN clinics, NY), and Dr. Don Campell.

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The Neuropsychology of Religion (Part 2)

Neurological states associated with religious experiences strongly suggest that there are specific regions of the brain that produce them

A New Mind Journal Original
Jaime F. Adriazola
American Graduate University, Washington DC

Hamer and his colleagues used a measure (psychological test) of spiritual development and self-transcendence developed by Robert Cloninger, a psychiatrist at the University of Washington, School of Medicine in St. Louis. Cloninger's "Temperament and Character Inventory" added measures that correlated with the following three traits: self-forgetfulness, transpersonal identification, and mysticism. He administered his temperament test and character inventory on ordinary people, and then analyzed the results using statistical techniques that could find correlations in their responses. It was found that all three traits are highly correlated with each other, and were not as highly correlated with any other aspect of temperament and personality.

Hamer and his colleagues then began to determine whether self-transcendence is a hereditary trait. They did this by administering the ‘Cloninger Temperament and Character Inventory’ on pairs of identical twins and fraternal twins.

They found that identical twins were twice as likely to have very similar scores on the Inventory of Temperament and Characters rather than if they were fraternal twins. This result is consistent with the idea that the personality traits of the Temperament and Character Inventory measures are inherited genetically, since identical twins are twice as genetically related as fraternal twins.



Hamer and his colleagues then compared the results of self-transcendence with measures of environmental influence. They found that similarities and differences in the environment could only explain a small fraction of the differences in the Temperament and Character Inventory scores between identical twins versus fraternal twins.

Finally, Hamer and his colleagues began to determine whether the self-transcendence scores were related to specific genes. To make the long story short, Hamer and his colleagues found that specific mutations of a specific gene were highly correlated with differences in self-transcendence as determined by Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory.

The specific gene they found and that correlates with self-transcendence is called “VMAT2”, and is known to encode a protein that wraps and regulates levels of neurochemicals called mono amines that are in the brain. These mono amines regulate our moods and emotions; large amounts of them make us feel energized and euphoric, while an insufficiency of them could result in depression. Further analysis of the correlations between the different forms of the VMAT2 gene and measures of personality showed that differences in the VMAT2 gene were not correlated with other personality differences. Conversely, only self-transcendence correlated with changes in the VMAT2 gene.



Hamer also related the function of the VMAT2 gene to the same type of brain function investigated by Persinger, Ramachandran, Saber, Rabin, D'Aquili, and Newberg. Differences in temporal lobe and limbic system function correlate with differences in monoamine levels in those regions of the brain. Additionally, the differences in brain activity, measured by d'Aquili and Newberg, are also correlated with mono amines that are regulated by the protein encoded by the VMAT2 gene.

In other words, not only is the ability of religious experiences measured by specific regions of the brain and neurochemicals, but a specific gene is responsible for the regulation of those neurochemicals in those regions of the brain.

Again, the specific traits produced as expressions of specific genes are evolutionary adaptations. They exist and do what they do because in the past, individuals who had such traits survived and reproduced more often than those who did not.

It seems clear that the capacity for religious experience is an evolutionary adaptation. However, the capacity for language along with the capacity for religious experience does not cause us to learn a particular religion. Instead, it predisposes us to experience particular sensations in particular circumstances. When we perform a particular religious ritual or see (or hear, or smell, or taste, or touch) a particular religious symbol, and if it is performed or is perceived under the right conditions, we experience a strong surge of emotions which we interpret in the context of our cultural traditions learned.

This explains why religious rituals and symbols provoke powerful emotions in people educated in a tradition that venerates such rituals and symbols. On the other hand, these rituals and symbols virtually have no effect on people who are not educated in those traditions. This also explains why blasphemy is such a heinous sin against religious belief: it undermines the emotional meaning of the ritual or religious symbol, making it as insignificant as it would be for someone who was not educated to experience its effects. This is the difference between the sacred and the profane: sacred actions and their elements produce powerful emotions as profane things do not.



Latest discoveries:
Investigators of the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University found that the importance of religion or spirituality in individuals may also be related to the thickness of its vertices in the brain. They related the importance of religion or spirituality, but not the frequency of attendance at the 'house of worship', with thicker crusts in the left and right parietal and occipital regions, the right mesial frontal lobe of the right hemisphere, and the cuneus and pre-cuneus in the left hemisphere. The study was published this month in the journalJAMA Psychology. Significantly, this relationship between spiritual importance and cortex thickness was found to be stronger among those who suffered from severe depression. They mentioned that those who expressed a stronger spiritual inclination also showed thicker crusts over the left and right hemispheres. "A thicker cortex associated with a high importance of religion or spirituality can confer resilience to the development of depressive illness in individuals with high familial risk of major depression, possibly expanding a cortical reserve that counteracts to a certain extent the vulnerability, which the cortical thinning raises, to develop depressive family illness."

Significantly, the researchers stated that their findings are simply correlational; as the importance of religion does not necessarily cause greater thickness, or vice versa.



Psychology professor Brick Johnstone also said that, "Finding a neuropsychological basis for spirituality, but is not isolated to a specific area of the brain”. For the study published in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, Johnstone and his colleagues studied 20 people with traumatic brain injuries affecting the right parietal lobe, a brain area located a few inches above the right ear. The team interviewed the participants about their spiritual beliefs, wondering how close they felt to a Power, and if they considered their lives to be part of a divine plan.

They found that those participants with more significant lesions in their right parietal lobe expressed a feeling of greater closeness to a higher power. "Neuropsychology researchers have consistently shown that impairment in the right side of the brain diminishes one's focus on the self."



Professor Johnstone also measured the frequency of participants' religious practices, such as attending church or listening to religious programs. Johnstone compared these measures to activity rates in the frontal lobe and found a connection between increased activity in this part of the brain and increased participation in religious practices. "This finding indicates that spiritual experiences are likely to be associated with different parts of the brain." "Certain parts of the brain play more predominant roles, but they all work together to facilitate the spiritual experiences of individuals," Johnstone finally said.

References:
Allen D. MacNeill: Evolutionary Psychology.
D'Aquili: Because God? Brain Science and the Biology of Belief will not leave.
D'Aquili, Eugene G., and Andrew B. Newberg: Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of
Religious Experience. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
Dawkins, Richard; The Desilution of God: New York: Mariner Books, 2007. Dennett.
Daniel C .; Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, New York.
Penguin, Hamer, Dean H.: The Gene of God: How Faith is Wired in our Genes.
New York: Doubleday.
Harris, Sam: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, New York.
Ramachandran, Vilayanur S., and Sandra Blakeslee: Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the
Mysteries of the Human Mind. New York.
Miller L, Vansal R, Wickramaratne P, et al. Neuroanatomical correlates of religiosity and spirituality, one study in adults with high and low familial risk for depression. JAMA Psychiatry.
Johnstone B, Bodling A, Cohen D, et al: The "lack of interest" related to the right parietal lobeas the neuropsychological basis of spiritual transcendence.
International Journal of Psychology of Religion.

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The Neuropsychology of Religion (Part 1)

Neurological states associated with religious experiences strongly suggest that there are specific regions of the brain that produce them

A New Mind Journal Original
Jaime F. Adriazola
American Graduate University, Washington DC

It has been 145 years since Charles Darwin wrote his famous book "The Descent of Man" (1871), where he argued that humans do not have an innate instinct to believe in God. "Belief in God has often been not only the Great, but the most complete of all the distinctions between man and inferior animals. However, it is impossible. . . to hold that this belief is innate or instinctive in men."

This conclusion is based on the general observation that many human cultures do not include in their beliefs a deity that can be interpreted as being, in any way conceptually similar to the Judeo-Christian monotheistic God. However, Darwin went on to point out that ... "The belief in omnipresent spiritual entities seems to be universal; and it seems to have come from a considerable advance of man's reason, and from a greater advance in his faculties of imagination, curiosity, and questioning."



In other words, there seems to be no innate tendency to believe in the monotheistic God of the Judeo-Christian religion or to believe in some supernatural force or entity. Why could this be? Why is atheism not the universal result of the advancement of natural science?

The answer is inescapable. Our minds are adapted to think religiously, rather than rationally, and this is the result of our evolutionary history. The capacity for religious experience is found in all human societies. However, within each society there is considerable variation among individuals to the extent that they have such religious beliefs, and that such beliefs seem to modify their behavior.

Likewise, this ability, as well as human language capacity, has been empirically associated with specific neurological structures of the human nervous system. The capacity for human language and participation in war may be causally linked to specific ecological circumstances. The capacity for religious experience has consequences for those who have it: people who have the ability to believe in the supernatural (and especially to act in those beliefs) under certain circumstances, having high rates of survival and reproduction.



The most likely context for the capacity for religious experience to evolve is the same chronic, though episodic, small-scale warfare observed between our primate cousins ​​and our evolved ancestors. Moreover, not only has the capacity for religious experience been the result of war, but making war itself is more likely.

The capacities for religious experience and war are mutually reinforcing. They are a sort of evolutionary arms race which can be succinctly as a "law": religion facilitates the war, which in turn facilitates religion.

As Darwin said, the ubiquity of religious belief in our species is strong evidence that the capacity for such a belief is a specific evolutionary adaptation of the species. And, like all traits evolved, there is considerable variation within the human groups for this trait. In fact, precisely this variation is the prerequisite for evolution through natural selection.

In addition, the observation that most people, even in our technological culture, believe in the supernatural, essentially without empirical evidence, is strong evidence for the idea that the capacity for such a belief is "wired in our brains." And, like all evolutionary psychological mechanisms, one can ask the question, "What is the use?" Or, "What is the biological function of the capacity for religious belief?" As we shall see, it certainly seems that the evidence points to the conclusion that: "The ability of religious belief increases our ability to participate in war, which in turn improves our fitness."



Michael Persinger, a professor of psychology at Laurentian University in Canada, published “Neuropsychological Bases of Belief in God". In it, Persinger argued that a specific neurological condition known as 'temporal lobe epilepsy' produces psychological states that are similar to the religious experiences of people like Joan of Arc and St. Paul in 'The Road to Damascus'. 'Temporal lobe epilepsy' is different from other forms of temporal lobe epilepsy in which epileptic seizures do not involve seizures, immobility or loss of consciousness. In contrast, a person who has a 'temporal lobe epilepsy' attack observes a change in sensory perception, often involving changes in odors, sounds, tastes, and phantom sensations in the skin. Some people also experience cognitive changes such as 'Déjà Vu' or 'Jamais Vu' during a seizure in ‘temporal lobe epilepsy’, and a significant fraction of these people also experience a greater sense of 'religiosity', including the feeling of a presence Invisible and supernatural.

Researcher Persinger developed a machine, often called the "The God Helmet" (read the full article on 'NewmindJournal.com'), which generates a weak magnetic field in and around the right temporal lobe of a person's brain. Approximately 80 percent of people, in a test of the "Helmet of God", felt the presence of an invisible figure nearby, which is usually interpreted as a supernatural entity, as a figure of God or the spirit of a person absent or dead.



Other researchers, such as Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, have also linked temporal lobe epilepsy and other neurological effects to religious experiences. Ramachandran based his work on the prior research of Norman Geschwind, a clinical psychiatrist. Geschwind described a clinical syndrome, called Geschwind syndrome, which is characterized by hypergraphia (the tendency to write lengthy detailed arguments and descriptions, often on religious subjects), hyper-religiosity, fainting, mutism (the inability to speak at certain events Social), and pedantism (the tendency to extensive discourse, on obscure topics, especially word definitions and the fine points of grammar).

Geschwind hypothesized that this syndrome is a manifestation of a form of mild temporal lobe epilepsy and suggested that it might explain the behavior of some historical hyper-religious figures.

Ramachandran tested the Geschwind hypothesis using a lie detector type device that measures the electrical conductivity of the skin as an indirect indication of emotional arousal. Ramachandran found that people with mild temporal lobe epilepsy reacted differently to religious words than people who did not have temporal lobe epilepsy.

Jeffrey Saver and John Rabin also studied the relationship between temporal lobe epilepsy and extended their recommendations to neurological states generated by the limbic system of the brain and neurochemical states generated by the ingestion of hallucinogenic drugs. They noted that a large amount of Americans have reported having religious experiences, characterized by feelings that included the belief that a specific event "should happen”, were aware of "the presence of God," that "God had responded to their Prayers”, which were being protected (or at least looked at) by an invisible presence (often characterized as the spirit of an absent or dead person), who felt the presence of a" sacred spirit in nature "or" presence Evil "or a deep sense of" oneness with the cosmos."



In particular, many people who had such experiences described a sense of depersonalization (they felt "outside themselves") and a sense of being united or part of their environment. They also noted descriptions of such feelings, often interpreted as religious experiences, by epileptics, such as the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky.

They emphasized that such interpretations were just that: the interpretations were not the causes of such experiences, but rather the cognitive means by which people who had experienced such attacks explained their sensations to themselves. In other words, sensations came first, and subsequently, religious explanations.

Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew Newberg have recently presented an integrative model of the neurobiological underpinnings of religious experience. In his books, 'The Mind Mysticism: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience' and Why God will not go away: 'Brain Science and the Biology of Belief', the books report how their research in the states of Neurological factors associated with religious experiences strongly suggest that there are specific regions of the brain and states that produce such experiences.

This model is based on his research on neurological correlations between brain functions and regions, as well as the religious experiences of devoutly religious mystics and people. They studied these correlations using brain scans and other measures of brain activity using subjects trained in Eastern and Western meditative traditions i.e. (monks, nuns, and priests). They found that these subjects had consistent patterns of brain activity that were different from those not religiously trained, and that these patterns of brain activity were correlated with specific meditation and religious practices.



Researchers D'Aquili and Newberg have pointed out that the center of the greatest religious experience is a sense of wonder, combined with "sensations slightly pleasing to feelings of ecstasy”. They have shown that such sensations can be induced by rhythmic chanting and body movements, combined with loud music and colorful visual displays. Consequently, the factors that induce these sensations produce a condition of sensory overload and excitation of the sympathetic nervous system, together with simultaneous parasympathetic activation, due to the conscious "damping" of the excitation.

Such sensations are common in two contexts: military training and religious training. It is no coincidence that human beings preparing for war use exactly the same types of sensory stimuli described by d'Aquili and Newberg. They have tied such exhibitions to religious activities and demonstrated the deep similarities between religious and secular rituals: "Patriotic rituals ... emphasize the "holiness" of a nation, or a cause, or even a flag… meaningful idea in a visceral experience."

Researcher Dean Hamer found a correlation between a single human gene and a measure of human behavior that correlates strongly with the capacity for religious experiences. Using a combination of molecular genetic techniques, demographic analysis, and epidemiology, Hamer and his colleagues at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, showed a strong correlation between a specific gene (called VMAT2), and "self-transcendence" which is correlated with religious experience.
………………….End of part 1

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