You think you guys can help me out with a paper (of all religions/non-religion)?

[Angrboda]

Looking back on my previous post, an element of my story that I didn't mention may be of interest to you. Partly because my atheist groups like to read books about the psychology of religion, and part because I have a life long interest in understanding the mind, I've read a good bit about certain theories concerning the psychology of religion this past year. Part of that is spurred by my interest in the mind, but part is that I just love religion in all its dimensions, although metaphysically I am a materialist. But I enjoy learning about and exploring other religions purely for its own sake. I'm currently meeting regularly or intermittently with groups devoted to channeled entities, a group of psychics, mediums, and healers, a heathen bible study group, a "secular bible study group" (a mix of theists & nontheists), and a Buddhist book club. The Buddhist group is motivated by my interest in certain intersections between my own theories of mind and Buddhist doctrine, and while I tell myself that I'm in some of these groups as an observer only, a sort of cultural anthropologist, that would be asserting a degree of detachment that is untrue. Not that I'm willing to give up the mantle of materialism, but I find myself at home in groups with diverse religious or metaphysical views.

Anyway, I promised an interesting bit, and have yet to deliver. As noted, I'm currently learning about Buddhism. However, this is not my first encounter with Buddhism in a deep way. I have "flirted with" Buddhism several times in the past. To say I flirted is an understatement. I drank the Kool-aid. Several times in my life, I went whole hog into becoming a Buddhist. But each time it lasted only a few weeks. Having lived with a mental illness for a long time, I've learned the skill of "self monitoring" which one uses to detect changes in one's thinking to assess whether there are symptoms that need to be treated or watched. As a consequence, I'm a pretty good witness to my own state of mind. And each time that my latest fling with Buddhism had ended, it was clear that my thinking had been abnormal. During those several weeks of conversion, things Buddhist and religious things in general took on a heightened importance for me. An importance that just vanished like a bubble bursting at the end. It was clear in hindsight that my religiosity had been the result of an altered state of mind, some errant brain chemistry that eventually righted itself. I've never considered those episodes to have anything to say about my normal religious experience, but perhaps I should. (If it weren't for that SEP field around my own beliefs. Not coincidentally, that tendency to find meaning in otherwise random data, which was part of those episodes, is called 'apophenia'.)