Psychobiographies and Godly Visions: Disordered Minds and the Origins of Religiosity

This book argues that the religious visions and experiences of many religious founders were the result of mental health disorders or neurological conditions, thereby calling into question supernatural origins about the faiths that they developed. It constructs this argument by extensively utilizing psychiatric and other mental health and medical material that social scientists and religious studies scholars have underutilized in their analyses of religious experiences. Using a multi-disciplinary approach to examine psychobiographies of numerous major and minor religious figures in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Ezekiel, Sabbatai Şevi, St. Paul, John Wesley, and Muhammad), along with leaders of many newer or alternative sects and cults (Rajneesh, Charles Manson, L. Ron Hubbard, David Berg, Marshall Applewhite, Jim Jones, Sun Myung Moon, and Elizabeth Clare Prophet). The book integrates material from religious studies, psychiatry and psychology, neurology, and the social sciences to address issues related to religions' origins. Its extensive bibliography makes it an indispensable resource for scholars of psychiatry and religion, new religious movements, and religious narcissism.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1. Mental Health and Mental Illness: Narcissism, Histrionic Personality Disorder, and the Debate over Psychopathy, Sociopathy, and Anti-Social Personality Disorder.- Chapter 2. Brainwashing, Bipolar Disorder, Delusions, Hallucinations, and Schizophrenia.- Chapter 3: Trauma-Coerced Attachment and Religiously Directed Corporal Punishment.- Chapter 4: A Neurological Disorder Often with Religious Manifestations: Epilepsy.- Chapter 5: The Historical Debate about Muhammad and Epilepsy.- Chapter 6: The Epileptic Muhammad: A Reexamination Based Upon the Qur’an, Hadiths, and Recent Medical Research.- Chapter 7: Sociology and Religious Studies on Disordered Minds and the Origins of Godly Visions.- Chapter 8: Mental Disorders, Neurological Illness, and Psychobiographies about Religions’ Creators.

About the Author :
Stephen A. Kent (PhD--McMaster University) is an Emeritus Sociology Professor (and, formerly, an Adjunct Professor in the Religion program in the Department of History, Classics, and Religion) at the University of Alberta in Canada. He taught courses and published on alternative and sectarian religions. His articles have appeared in such diverse journals as the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Utah Law Review, Sociological Analysis, Mental Health, Religion, & Culture, Philosophy East and West, Aggression and Violent Behavior, The Canadian Journal of Sociology, The British Journal of Sociology, and The International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation. He has offered over thirty-five expert court testimonies and reports on alternative religions in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and has appeared in over 375 media presentations in fifteen countries. His 2001 book, From Slogans to Mantras: Social Protest and Religious Conversion in the Late Vietnam War Era, was selected by Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, as an "Outstanding Academic Title for 2002."