In recent decades, scientific efforts to probe religious behavior and mental states have increased markedly in quantity and sophistication, yet the fascinating story of the psychology of religion remains unfamiliar not only to the general public, but also to many social scientists. This chapter starts with case studies of how religion has functioned in several prominent human lives. We consider why the psychology of religion matters and delve deeply into the many problems associated with defining religion, spirituality and the psychology of religion. The psychology of religion probes religious beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, emotions, experiences, and relationships, paying particular attention to the consequences of religion for health, well-being, morality and social relations. Scholars debate: (1) the importance of the field’s history and grand theories, (2) the acceptability of the historical emphasis on Western Christianity, (3) the generalizability of much empirical work, (4) the meaning of spirituality outside of religion, and (5) whether the discipline is biased in favor of or against religion.

People from LGBTQ+ communities are more likely than the general population to use alcohol and drugs and to be diagnosed with substance use disorder. LGBTQ+ individuals often do not seek or receive the substance use treatment that they need. We explore the substance use treatment trends of the LGBTQ+ population, including the efficacy of current evidence-based practices and group treatments for use with LGBTQ+ clients with substance use disorders. We then discuss the influence of spirituality in the lives of recovering LGBTQ+ individuals, define characteristics of LGBTQ+ affirmative relapse prevention, and provide a sample LGBTQ+ relapse prevention plan. We conclude with a theoretical case vignette.

The nature of religions, why they cannot really be distinguished from culture and other ideological products, and what the political implications are, including regarding the “separation of church and State.”

This chapter argues that a generation of poets substantially defined and transformed Australian literature following World War II. Accessing European and Asian poets in translation, they countered previous insularity and anti-intellectualism. The chapter examines Douglas Stewart’s sympathetic treatment of Aborigines and Afghans in “The Birdsville Track” (1955) alongside aspects of cultural appropriation in his later Rutherford (1962). It outlines the influence of painting on Rosemary Dobson and her development of ekphrasis. The chapter also discusses James McAuley’s investigation of war, love, and spirituality, Vincent Buckley’s devotional writing, and David Campbell’s writing of war, urban excess, and Aboriginal rock art. The chapter outlines a generational turn to explorer narratives to shore up a sense of national identity, pointing to significant variations from McAuley’s awareness of colonial violence to Francis Webb’s focus on doomed figures. The chapter includes an analysis of Webb’s representation of war and mental health, and engages with the provocative poetry of A. D. Hope.

This chapter traces the complex legacies of multiple religious traditions, including Christianity, Islam, and syncretistic spirituality, as they inform utopian strands of twentieth- and twenty-first-century American fiction, including the miraculous realism of Toni Morrison, the lyrical historicism of Marilynne Robinson, and the religiously themed science fiction of James Blish and G. Willow Wilson. Apocalyptic concepts, with a strong emphasis on transformative and liberatory possibility, are a recurrent element of these narratives.  The term “spirituality” itself is ambiguous, particularly in a national context in which religion has been a source of both oppression and hope. The chapter draws on postsecular critiques of literature and culture that, in John McClure’s terms, indicate “a mode of being and seeing that is at once critical of secular constructions of reality and of dogmatic religion.” It argues that skeptical perspectives do not necessarily militate against the aesthetic and ethical potential of theologically oriented utopian fiction.

This chapter surveys some of the ways in which the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics has led to a various views of the world with spiritual and moral implications; the perspective of this chapter is that most of these views are not demanded by the actual theory and experiments of quantum mechanics.

The concept of solitude has existed in stories and paintings, and in practice, for centuries. Looking at that history, as we do in this chapter, tells us a lot about the preconceptions we have about solitude today – who it’s for, is it positive or negative (or neither), and how we should undertake it. For better or worse, we also see and relate to solitude in part due to the way our various cultures treat it. The images we see and the stories we hear, both historical and contemporary, create chatter that affect how we think about the role solitude can and should have in our daily lives. Shedding light on biases and beliefs fed by historical narratives can help untangle why we approach solitude the way we do today, both as a society and as individuals.

Spirituality, religion and a sense of the sacred can be important areas for creativity and the re-imagining of social work. This chapter explores this arena, arguing that acknowledging and drawing on spirituality and sacredness are significant parts of social work and that to ignore them is to deny an important dimension of humanity. However, spirituality and sacredness are experienced and manifested in different ways and can be affected by dominant narratives in different cultural and political contexts and at different historical times. This chapter avoids making any claims as to the truth or otherwise of any forms of religion or spirituality and instead considers the role that a sense of the sacred and the spiritual can play in the re-imagining of social work.

In July 2019, in the midst of a record-breaking heat wave, Brooklyn went dark. In 90-degree temperatures, over 55,000 customers in Canarsie, Flatlands, Mill Basin, Bergen Beach, and Georgetown lost electricity in one of the largest power outages in New York’s history. Con Edison, the city’s power company, admitted that it deliberately disconnected these neighborhoods in order to prevent a widespread loss of power that would affect wealthier, whiter areas of the city. Although Black neighborhoods earn the highest scores in New York City’s heat vulnerability index (a ranking system that takes into account the proportion of green space to developed space, access to air conditioning, and the percentage of people living below poverty levels), they are the first on the line when the city’s infrastructure fails.1 What the index does not take into account, however, are the social and political risks to which these neighborhoods are also exposed during a blackout. After the lights went out, 200 police officers flooded Brooklyn, with the nebulous mandate to preserve order. A week earlier, the US Department of Justice had announced that it would not press charges against Daniel Pantaleo, the white police officer who killed Eric Garner on Staten Island in 2014. Now law enforcement roamed the streets of Canarsie, policing Black children for splashing water in 90-degree heat.

The final chapter, “Mesmeric Revolution: Pauline Hopkins’s Matrilineal Haiti,” extends the coordinates of Hopkins’s global commitments, charting an alternative geography beneath the Africa-oriented Of One Blood. By turning to the Caribbean, Hopkins reveals how Haiti emerges at key moments of energetic resistance. Moreover, she explicitly genders these moments of resistance as feminine. Focusing on the matrilineage of Hannah, Mira, and Dianthe, I argue that women in the novel carry specifically Haitian valences: from colonial Saint-Dominguan mesmerism, to the poison of Makandal, to the legacy of marronage. This muted Caribbean geography recenters women at the heart of the narrative, adumbrates Hopkins’s anti-imperialist politics, and subverts the dehumanizing energy politics of plantation genealogies.