This paper presents an anthropological assessment of religions and spiritual practices stripped of their sectarian dogmas. It discusses them not on the basis of faith, but as systems of empirical observational science developed over generations for the purpose of allowing followers the opportunity to open to nonlocal consciousness. The paper describes how religions begin as the result of a single individual having a nonlocal, or a series of nonlocal consciousness experiences, laying out the steps by which that individual’s experience becomes a religion. It shows how the empirical sciences of religions, and the spiritual practices they engender are supported by scientific experimental research from many different disciplines explaining in the process why water and wine are often a part of religious rituals; why healing is common across religions; why sacred spaces are significant, how they are created; and why scriptures, and even the manner in which they are written, matter.

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Published on June 22, 2023