The purpose of this research lecture series is to explore the critical relationship between the mind and spirituality. This relationship includes the study of cognitive neuroscience, behavioral genetics, religious and spiritual experiences and conceptions, issues related to love and compassion, and epistemological problems. Such scholarly pursuits hold critical importance for many fields including cognitive neuroscience, theology, philosophy, anthropology, law, bioethics, and religious studies. However, there are also broader implications for research in the health sciences, psychology, and biology. There are a number of well known scholars whose research has important implications for how human beings understand religious and spiritual phenomena from the perspective of the human mind. These scholars include those in both the sciences and humanities. By bringing several scholars from different disciplines to the University of Pennsylvania, the scholars at Penn can begin to develop a more formal network that can be utilized to augment interdisciplinary dialogue with the specific goal of exploring these issues from many different perspectives.

A primary tenet of this proposal is that the true nature of human reality can never be known when approached only from a single perspective. Science, and in particular the fields associated with cognition, behavior, and emotion, while providing important information about the mechanisms of the world, cannot address many of the most important questions. Philosophy and religion provide another important perspective, but without science, they too have limitations. The purpose of this proposal then will be to foster a multidisciplinary approach to questions related to the mind and soul with the result a substantial development towards understanding human experiences, cognitive processes, and behaviors. The results of this series of lectures will be three major publications which will include the work of each of the three visiting scholars in synergy with those scholars at the University of Pennsylvania. The University of Pennsylvania Press has a strong interest in this project. Furthermore, interdisciplinary seminars can be funded through the provost office (a related seminar on spirituality and health was funded two years ago). There is tremendous support for this project by the members of the Penn community already engaged in related work. Many of these scholars have substantial funding from Federal and private sources and thus, the seeds of this proposal will hopefully have long standing implications for future research at Penn. The papers and books that will be produced through this program will also allow those outside of Penn to observe how such a dialogue can be developed and sustained so that this overall approach to linking the human mind with religious and spiritual phenomena can be advanced in the future to better humanity as a whole.

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