Abstract
Revered in some cultures but persecuted by most others, epilepsy patients have, throughout
history, been linked with the divine, demonic, and supernatural. Clinical observations
during the past 150 years support an association between religious experiences during
(ictal), after (postictal), and in between (interictal) seizures. In addition, epileptic
seizures may increase, alter, or decrease religious experience especially in a small
group of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).
Literature surveys have revealed that between .4% and 3.1% of partial epilepsy patients
had ictal religious experiences; higher frequencies are found in systematic questionnaires
versus spontaneous patient reports. Religious premonitory symptoms or auras were reported
by 3.9% of epilepsy patients. Among patients with ictal religious experiences, there
is a predominance of patients with right TLE. Postictal and interictal religious experiences
occur most often in TLE patients with bilateral seizure foci. Postictal religious
experiences occurred in 1.3% of all epilepsy patients and 2.2% of TLE patients. Many
of the epilepsy-related religious conversion experiences occurred postictally. Interictal
religiosity is more controversial with less consensus among studies. Patients with
postictal psychosis may also experience interictal hyper-religiosity, supporting a
“pathological” increase in interictal religiosity in some patients.
Although psychologic and social factors such as stigma may contribute to religious
experiences with epilepsy, a neurologic mechanism most likely plays a large role.
The limbic system is also often suggested as the critical site of religious experience
due to the association with temporal lobe epilepsy and the emotional nature of the
experiences. Neocortical areas also may be involved, suggested by the presence of
visual and auditory hallucinations, complex ideation during many religious experiences,
and the large expanse of temporal neocortex. In contrast to the role of the temporal
lobe in evoking religious experiences, alterations in frontal functions may contribute
to increased religious interests as a personality trait. The two main forms of religious
experience, the ongoing belief pattern and set of convictions (the religion of the
everyday man) versus the ecstatic religious experience, may be predominantly localized
to the frontal and temporal regions, respectively, of the right hemisphere.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
November 20,
2007
Received:
November 19,
2007
Identification
Copyright
© 2007 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
