This book is a feast for both the mind and the senses. The 'theatre of the mind' is a provocative and useful concept which will find its way into many texts.

T. M. Luhrmann, Albert Ray Lang Professor of Anthropology (and Psychology), Stanford University, USA, and author of How God Becomes Real (2020)

Mark Pizzato's work comparing European and Chinese religious buildings uses the latest in the evolutionary, cognitive, and neuroscience findings on the religious brain and is a tour de force in integration and synthesis. Pizzato takes the reader on a tour of some of the most beautiful sites on earth and opens them up for us in ways that illuminate both the sacred and ourselves.

Patrick McNamara, Professor of Psychology, National University, USA

In this awe-inspiring comparative study of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, Mark Pizzato moves elegantly from Christian churches to Buddhist temples-read in light of anthropology, psychology, performance studies, and the latest discoveries in the neurosciences-and sets up an illuminating mirror to the inner theatre of the human soul. An original contribution to mimetic studies that reflects nothing less than the psychic life of religious buildings, beyond East and West.

Nidesh Lawtoo, Professor in the Humanities, Leiden University, and author of Homo Mimeticus: A New Theory of Imitation (2022)