Religion, Dissonance, and Systems Theory: Comparing Spiritual Traditions

by Ariel Glucklich

Religious belief systems are often marked by internal dissonance. Mitigating this dissonance can lead to surprising religious phenomena, including blood libels, scapegoating, religious violence, the worship of saints and martyrs, asceticism, austerities, as well as processions, fasting, and clowning. In this study, Ariel Glucklich provides a new approach to understanding how religious actions emerge in the context of belief systems. Providing an innovative psychological and social understanding of the causes that stimulate believers to action, he examines a range of religious phenomena in India, Israel, Austria, Italy, and the United States. Glucklich's new theory enables recognition of the patterns that account for the full complexity of actions inspired by religious beliefs and systems.  His systematic comparison of actions across traditional boundaries offers a novel approach to cause and effect in comparative religion and religious studies more broadly. Glucklich's book also generates new questions regarding a universal phenomenon that has escaped notice up to now.

350 pages, Hardcover

Published November 30, 2025

About the author

Ariel Glucklich is a professor of religion at Georgetown University. He specializes in Hinduism and in the psychology and biology of religion. He is particularly interested in what motivates people to become and remain religious and the various ways that religion makes people self-destruct.

Glucklich is the author of several books on Hinduism, including The End of Magic and Climbing Chamundi Hill, which was translated into many languages. His most important book was Sacred Pain (Oxford, 2001), written to explain the voluntary use of pain in religious life.

Currently Glucklich is researching the likelihood that Iran and/or Pakistan will use a nuclear weapon against Israel or India. He is attempting to devise ways of thinking about undermining the culture of collective suicide that makes rogue states so dangerous. November 3 is the due date for his latest book, Dying for Heaven, which explores this topic in detail.

Future projects include a close look at young religious prodigies and perhaps a project on the amazingly eventful annual International Bible Quiz held in Jerusalem.