Chapter 6 - Dylan, Lennon and Spirituality

Summary

This chapter uses J. Anderson Thomson and Clare Aukofer’s (2011) meta-analysis of the evolutionary basis for faith to compare Dylan’s and Lennon’s supernatural beliefs. These manifest as profound spiritual convictions that resisted the conventional strictures of mainstream religion. Their similarities and differences demonstrate, once again, how dual biography elicits outcomes that a stand-alone individual assessment cannot produce. Dylan and Lennon, widely regarded as innovative mavericks, were both active participants in thought-reform movements on at least one occasion. Each also, at different times, identified with the figure of Jesus Christ so completely that this transformation in their private disposition became conspicuous in their public life. As the first study of its type, this chapter demonstrates the potential for further interdisciplinary research between popular music scholars and evolutionary psychologists.