How Religion Evolved. And why it endures. By Robin Dunbar.

This book tries to answer the following questions: 

When did humans develop spiritual thought? 

What is religion’s evolutionary purpose? 

And, in our increasingly secular world, why has it endured? 

Prof. Robin Dunbar is an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Oxford. His book does not touch on the veracity of religious beliefs, spirits, afterlife, parallel worlds or gods, but examines religion as a sociological and psychological phenomenon. From early humans attributing supernatural properties to natural phenomena to the complexity of modern doctrinal religions. 

One of the first premises that struck my mind was that there are no (evolutionary) fitness benefits of religions. Actually, religion is a non-adaptive, by-product of mechanisms designed for other more useful (fitness) purposes. Fitness is a property of a trait or gene (and individuals in a loose sense) which explains why we evolve towards forms which solve the problems of surviving and reproducing.

Historically religions have developed through 2 phases: 1) Animism – belief that animals other than us and other (natural) objects are imbued with spirits. This is, apparently, due to how are minds are designed and to everyday experience. Animist religions are religions of immersive experience and do not have formal rituals. They are sometimes associated with trance states which can be spontaneous, or arising from group rituals (with music and psychedelics) or individually through meditation. 2) Doctrinal religions, with complex rituals and sets of beliefs and which involve populations much bigger than animist religions. 

Mysticism has been a major component of religions. It usually involves individuals drifting into different or higher planes of consciousness. Some people would call it being possessed by god. Mysticism has 3 features: trance state, belief in a transcendental world and a belief that we can call for (supernatural) powers to heal us. Trance states are sometimes described as entering a hole or tunnel and an intense light, similar to descriptions of near-death experiences. Usually trance states are associated with the consumption of mescaline, LSD, Psilocybin, DMT (Ayahuasca being the most famous), tobacco, cannabis and opium. Animist groups usually have shamans. Guides or leaders, who, in trance states can predict the future, heal and manage communal disputes. 

Dunbar identifies 2 kinds of benefits which explain why religion might be good for us: 1) Individual level benefits: religion provides a unifying framework for the world, health-invisible forces, and herbs, plants and shamans. 2) Societal level benefits: moralising higher gods ( a sort of policeman in the sky who makes people comply with societal rules, behave altruistically, etc to preserve societies. On a different line, Marxist ideas see religion as “the opium of people”, a tool of an elite to subdue people. According to Dunbar, religion can be a good tool to preserve states as well. However, religions must exist before the state is formed for this to work. 

0In terms of size of religious communities, Dunbar states that the smaller the church size, the higher the member satisfaction and the longer an individual is part of the group. In this discussion Dunbar (re) introduces his Dunbar number, or the optimal number of people for a group to be cohesive and last for long. For humans, this number is 150 (aprox.) and is calculated from the size of the brain’s neocortex. Dunbar discusses a number of different studies, historical, religious, on social media, etc. which report groups around the world of 150 individuals. 

But how did humans become religious? The explanation starts with animal grooming and then human grooming - an intimate activity/behaviour which triggers the Endorphin system, which calms us down. Laughter, singing, dancing, emotional storytelling, feasting and religious rituals can be consider activities akin to grooming, unique to humans which depend on language. These are ways to groom with larger groups of people simultaneously and which increases human bonding. Dunbar identifies a list of cues or traits people share with family and friends. These traits make large groups possible. They are the 7 pillars of friendship: 1) sharing the same language, 2) place of origin, 3) educational trajectory, 4) hobbies and interests, 5) worldview (religion, moral and political views), 6 musical taste and 7) sense of humour. The pillars are useful to identify people who we can feel emotionally close to, and to assess the trustworthiness of strangers. The second part of the explanation of how religion evolved resides in the Theory of Mind. 

The Theory of Mind, or Mentalising, (or mind reading) is the ability to understand someone else’s intentions. Philosopher Daniel Dennett developed the concept of intentional stance “the suggestion that evolution has designed the human mind to interpret the world in intentional terms”, through the interactions with other people. Dunbar further explains this in terms of language and orders of intentionality. For example, a person who has first-order intentionality knows the content of their own mind. A person who has second-order intentionality, can know that someone else knows something (I know that you know). Humans acquire second-order intentionality at the age or 4. Jump to fifth-order intentionality: I think that you think that X thinks, that Y thinks that God will punish us. The average human possess fifth-order intentionality (overall women score higher mentalising capabilities than men) and this is fundamental for the appearance of religion. The explanation is long but in short, theory of mind determines the complexity of the language we use, the fictional stories we tell, the size of conversation groups we can have. With theory of mind we can build the complex beliefs and share it with other members in our groups. 

Rituals are bedrocks for religions. Religious rituals are highly synchronised and have to be carried out in a specific manner and sequence of steps. Human Rituals have their origin in animal play but unlike those, ours have Meaning. Rituals involve some elements of behaviour which form a central part in social bonding. Ritualistic elements in religions are singing, dancing, hugging rhythmic bowing, emotional storytelling and communal meals. Attendance to religious services and engaging in rituals trigger human’s endorphin system which in turn enhances our sense of bonding. It is said that pain and synchrony of rituals enhance the sense of bonding. This effect is further enhanced if we have a religious purpose. 

And now on to History of Religion. Starting from the prehistorical evidence Dunbar discusses human graves from, as early, as 40K years ago, and neanderthal graves from 100K years ago. Evidence suggests rudimentary forms of religion with deliberate burials , including goods and the positioning of bodies, cave art (sketching and drawings on walls and other kinds of artwork like figurines). Some artwork could be records of experiences in the spirit world during trance. Other archaeological evidence suggest use of psychoactive substances around the world, which could lead to trance experiences (which are connected to shamanic religions). Studies on tribal societies and religion suggest that earliest religions were simple, taking an animist form. Other traits were added later in clusters such as the belief in afterlife, ancestor worship and shamans, and even later the belief in moralising gods (in the neolithic). 

Because of the lack of archaeological evidence from previous periods, there is not much more that can be inferred about early religions. However, Dunbar presents a series of studies which relies on the use of 2 separate anatomical indicators (mentalising and speech) to determine when language evolved and hence a possible origin of religion. Findings explain how fifth-order intentionality is necessary to develop religion as communal practice and how language is needed to explain symbolism and a transcendental world. The conclusion is that religion originated with anatomically modern humans. Religion cannot evolve before language. Even if Neanderthals (and Heidelbergs, and others) had language, it was not as sophisticated as humans’ and did not have high mentalising abilities. This was inferred from cranial volume. 

So, thanks to theory of mind we understand intentionality, and can think of transcendental worlds and spirits. This gave rise to animism. In these forms of religions the aim was to mollify capricious deities through community activities. Thanks to language, hunter-gatherers were able to settle in smalls groups, for defence purposes (not agriculture), to cope with violence from other groups. Yes, hunter-gatherers did not settle because of agriculture. In fact, agriculture is a consequence of this settlement. Agriculture was necessary to sustain settlements. As population size increased, social friction and stress increased. Humans evolved strategies to help them cope with large groups. Doctrinal Religions is one of these strategies. An important one. Other strategies involved community bonding activities, marital arrangements and switch to male hierarchies. Doctrinal religions brought High Moralising gods to ensure community cohesion for mutual protection. Each of us had to respond to their god on an individual basis, join complex rituals, etc. 

All religions start as cults, built around a charismatic leader. [Charisma is something that is conferred on someone by their followers, not necessarily a property of the individual themselves.] Studies show that cult leaders present psychotic tendencies (e.g. time distortion, synaesthesia, auditory and visual hallucinations, loss of self-object boundaries, social withdrawal, etc.) Anthropologist Simon Dien believes that schizophrenia and religious experience draw on the same cognitive process in the brain. Shamans for example are seen as atypical individuals, suffer from psychopathologies which predispose them to trance states. But why do people join cults? Cults appeal to those who are in crisis and offer psychological support. Their rituals offer the calming effects of endorphin activated by rituals. Because of their higher mentalising capabilities women are more likely to be religious and join cults. They end up desiring to be in direct, physical contact with their leaders. This ends up with male leaders taking advantage of them. 

There is more about why and how religions fragment but I’m tired. I’ll finish this post with: Religions and religious institutions are social phenomena underpinned by the same psychological processes that make our social world. This connects with what I mentioned before that for Dunbar, religion is a non-adaptive, by-product of mechanisms designed for other more useful (fitness) purposes. The end. Read the book!