Embodiment of Worship

In addition to a set of beliefs, religion is fundamentally a corporeal practice. Across religions, specific postures adopted for prayer and worship may not simply reflect arbitrary customs but are closely intertwined with religious experience. This contribution reviews embodiment theory and related empirical evidence showing how body postures influence our emotions, thoughts, and decision-making. We propose a typology of postures adopted in religious practices along the dimensions of expansiveness-constrictiveness and upward-downward body orientation, and review the corpus of published/unpublished research on the embodiment of worship. We further discuss that in addition to enabling the experiential and ritualistic aspect of religion, embodiment serves at least four functions: communicative, social, cognitive, and intrapersonal. Finally, we suggest contextual and individual differences variables that may constrain the choice and psychological consequences of postures within and outside religious contexts. Together, we emphasize that the locus of religion’s psycho-social “effects” is not only in the mind or the brain but in the full body.