Denise Stobart
Page 302 | 2025
The Divine as an integral part of religious cognition experienced through music during worship in the Anglican tradition: liturgical music and embodied spiritualisation
Abstract
How can the presence of God be experienced through church music? How does that shape the cognitive processes that take place during musical worship? This paper introduces basics of liturgy and liturgical music and draws parallels between the theology of music and the cognitive musicology to help understand the effects and affect of church music on religious cognition, music cognition and personal spirituality. This paper is the first publication of ongoing research that analyses cognitive processes and brain patterns from an epistemological and theological perspective. It aims to start a transdisciplinary discussion from a new perspective, in which the Divine is crucial in creating and shaping those patterns. Ultimately, the hypothesis means that materialism and embodied cognitive processes on the one hand, and transcendentalism and God on the other hand are not mutually exclusive.
