Religious Practices Archives - International Society for Science & Religion (ISSR)

September 2026 Blog

September 2026 Blog

The Science and Theology of Chanting Fraser Watts Scientific research on spiritual practices is very unevenly distributed. So far there has been most research on yoga and mindfulness, but relatively little on many other spiritual practices. Correcting that was the motivation behind the series of grants given by TWCF for research on the Science of Religious and Spiritual Exercises (SORSE). ISSR received one of those grants, with a particular focus on comparing practices that use human psychological resources in different ways. ISSR has also helped with the administration of another SORSE grant to Miguel Farías, From the Heart: Testing the Efficacy of Heart-Centered Contemplation. Chanting is a widely used spiritual practice, found in almost every faith tradition (e.g. Sheldrake, 2017, chapter 6). Until recently there was

By Fraser Watts|2026-09-14T21:48:17+01:00September 14th, 2026|Categories: Blog|Tags: academic religion, academic science and religion, academic spirituality, academic theology, acoustic neuroscience, acoustics and spirituality, altered states and chanting, ancient chant, ancient Christian chant, ancient Christian music, ancient liturgy, attention and music, attention and religion, attention and spirituality, attention stability, auditory attention, auditory cognition, auditory neuroscience, biomarkers and chanting, biomarkers and spirituality, Buddhist chanting, Buddhist studies chanting, calming music research, cathedral acoustics, chant acoustics, chant and contemplation, chant and eternity, chant and liturgy, chant and religious experience, chant and spiritual experience, chant and transcendence, chant revival, chant rhythm, chant studies, chant therapy, chant traditions, chanting, chanting across religions, chanting and affect, chanting and attention, chanting and autonomic nervous 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May 2024 Blog Post

May 2024 Blog Post

Science and Religion from the Ground Up What did fourteen-year old physician’s daughter Ellen Parry think about science and religion as Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837? What was she reading in her comfortable family home on the outskirts of Bath that helped her and others of her generation to navigate the latest scientific findings and contemplate their significance in relation to the feelings and concerns of everyday Christianity? And why might we care? So often, our histories of science and religion have been written from the perspectives of religious or scientific specialists – often male, often wealthy, often white. My new book Reading the Book of Nature: How Eight Best Sellers Reconnected Christianity and the Sciences on the Eve of the Victorian Age