What Is Neurospiritual Hermeneutics?
What Is Neurospiritual Hermeneutics?
Neurospiritual Hermeneutics is an emerging interdisciplinary field founded by H. Al Foumi. It investigates how sacred texts and rituals—especially those from monotheistic traditions—interact with the human nervous system, with a focus on neurodivergent individuals and trauma-affected bodies.
This framework shifts the interpretive question from "What does this text mean?" to "What does this text do to the body?" In doing so, it treats scripture not merely as a source of belief, but as a neurophysiological force capable of conditioning perception, emotional regulation, and behavioral patterns.
Origin and Methodological Foundations
Neurospiritual Hermeneutics draws upon clinically validated frameworks from neurophysiology and trauma research, including:
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Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges): Illuminating how tonal patterns and liturgical repetition activate the vagus nerve and shape autonomic responses such as freeze, fawn, or collapse.
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Trauma Neurobiology (Bessel van der Kolk): Explaining how ritual fear, divine surveillance, and eschatological threats may encode trauma through limbic and cortical pathways.
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Schema Theory (Schank & Abelson): Highlighting how sacred narratives form cognitive scripts that influence self-concept, moral reasoning, and social alignment.
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Neurodivergent Cognition Models: Including Autism, ADHD, and CPTSD frameworks, revealing how pattern-driven, hypersensitive, or emotionally dysregulated nervous systems may be disproportionately impacted by ritualized sacred exposure.
This methodological constellation places Neurospiritual Hermeneutics at the intersection of theology, cognitive science, psychiatry, and neurodevelopmental studies. It aligns implicitly with the physiology of belief formation, memory encoding, and somatic compliance—territories commonly explored in medical and psychological research at the highest academic levels.
Key Insight: Liturgy as Neural Architecture
Neurospiritual Hermeneutics proposes that certain religious practices and scriptures operate as neurolinguistic operating systems. Through sustained repetition, binary moral framing, and appeals to divine authority, they do more than convey meaning—they condition nervous systems.
For individuals with heightened sensory processing or trauma histories, this may result in:
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Hypervigilance due to internalized divine surveillance.
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Moral absolutism shaped by dichotomous theological schemas.
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Suppression of doubt or curiosity, framed as disobedience.
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Physiological submission triggered by ritual cadence and sacred threat.
These effects are not metaphorical—they are neurophysiological outcomes.
Applications and Ethical Implications
Neurospiritual Hermeneutics enables a forensic re-evaluation of how religious texts influence:
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Identity development
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Epistemic agency
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Interpersonal attachment
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Somatic regulation
It is particularly relevant for those recovering from religious trauma, deconstructing inherited belief systems, or seeking to retain spiritual connection without compromising bodily integrity.
Ritual Dismantling and Reconfiguration
As a constructive response, the framework offers methods of ritual dismantling and neuroethical reconfiguration—allowing individuals to re-approach sacred language through embodied, choice-driven, and healing-informed pathways.
Not Devotion, But Exposure
The goal is not to negate religion but to expose the mechanics behind its psychological and physiological hold. Neurospiritual Hermeneutics refuses sentimental or blind reverence. Instead, it asks: What cost does belief extract from the body? And: Can sacredness be reclaimed without submission?
This is the foundational claim of Neurospiritual Hermeneutics: what is called divine may also be neural. And once it enters the nervous system, it must be interrogated not only theologically, but somatically.
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