Related Events
Events posted here are not organized by the MPG, but they may be useful to those interested in the group. For official MPG events, click here.
Revelatory Experiences: perspectives from neuroscience, psychiatry, and the humanities.
Weston Education Centre, King's College Hospital, London SE5 9RS
23rd March 2012
Mental health professionals frequently encounter people who report experiences of God or supernatural beings speaking or acting through them to reval importnat truths. In some cases it is difficult to know to what extent such experiences are best explained as 'illness,' or represent experiences which are accepted and valued within a person's religious or cultural context. Indeed, revelatory experiences form a key part of major world religions through figures such as shamans and others in traditional smaller scale societies. Why are revelatory experiences and related altered states of consciousness so common aross cultures and history? What neural and other processes cause them? When should they be thought of due to mental illness, as opposed to culturally accpeted religious experience? And what value should or can be placed upon them? In this one day conference, leading scholars from neuroscience, psychiatry, theology and religious studies, history and anthropology gather to present recent findings, and debate with each other and the audience these fundamental aspects of human experience.
Who should attend: This one day interdisciplinary conference will be useful to academic psychologists, neuroscientists and humanities scholars interested in understanding the posiibilities of interdisciplinary understanding of complex human behaviour; as well as psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, nurses and any professional whose work requires them to make sense of the relations between culture, religion and mental health.
Speakers include: Dr Quinton Deeley, Senior Lecturer, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, and Honoraray Consultant Psychiatrist, SLAM; Professor Stephen Pattison, Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Practice at the University of Birmingham; Dr. Mituel Mehta, Senior Lecturer, Centre for Neuroimaging Science, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London; Dr. Eamon Walsh, Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute pf Psychiatry, Kings College London; Professor Chris Rowland, Dean Ireland Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture from Oxford; Professor Rowland Littleweood, Professor of Anthropology and Pschiatry at University College London; The Very Rev. Dr. Jane Shaw, Dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.
Venue: The Gainsford Lecture Thetare, Weston Education Centre, Kings College Hospital, SE5 9RS
Fee: £30, Attendance is free for students but a £20 deposit cheque is required.
Click here for further information & bookings.
Contact:
Alessandra Scotti: 020 7848 0694
FANS Teaching Unit Coordinator
Dept. of Forensic & Neurodevelopmental Sciences (PO23) Institute of Pschiatry, De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF
http://forensic.iop.ac.uk/TeachingUnit
Forensic.TeachingUnit@kcl.ac.uk