To: K-list
Recieved: 2001/01/21 13:44
Subject: [K-list] Searching For the God Within
From: lobster
On 2001/01/21 13:44, lobster posted thus to the K-list:
I thought you might find this interesting:
Full story can be found at
http://www.msnbc.com/news/519130.asp
Searching For the God Within
The way our brains are wired may explain the origin
and power of religious beliefs
By Sharon Begley
NEWSWEEK
Jan. 29 issue - He begins the way he begins every
meditation session, lighting candles and jasmine
incense before settling into a lotus position. He
focuses inward, willing the essence he regards as his
true self to break free from his desires, worries and
senses.
THERE IS A difference this time, though. The young
Tibetan Buddhist has a length of twine beside him and
an IV in his left arm. As he approaches the
transcendent peak of his meditative state, he tugs on
the twine. At the other end, in the next room, Dr.
Andrew Newberg feels the pull, and quickly injects a
radioactive tracer into the IV line. Then Newberg
whisks him into a brain-imaging machine called
SPECT-and the man´s sense of unity with the cosmos
gets boiled down to a computer readout. A region at
the top rear of the brain which weaves sensory data
into a feeling of where the self ends and the rest of
the world begins looks like the victim of one of
California´s rolling blackouts. Deprived of sensory
input by the man´s inward concentration, this
"orientation area" cannot do its job of finding the
border between self and world. "The brain had no
choice," says Newberg. "It perceived the self to be
endless, as one with all of creation. And this felt
utterly real."
The tension between science and religion is about to
get tenser, for some scientists have decided that
religious experience is just too intriguing not to
study. Neurologists jumped in first, finding a
connection between temporal lobe epilepsy and a sudden
interest in religion. As V. S. Ramachandran of the
University of California, San Diego, told a 1997
meeting, these patients, during seizures, "say they
see God" or feel "a sudden sense of enlightenment."
Now researchers are looking at more-common varieties
of religious experience. Newberg and the late Dr.
Eugene d´Aquili, both of the University of
Pennsylvania, have a name for this field:
neuro-theology. In a book to be published in April,
they conclude that spiritual experiences are the
inevitable outcome of brain wiring: "The human brain
has been genetically wired to encourage religious
beliefs."
Even plain old praying affects the brain in
distinctive ways. In SPECT scans of Franciscan nuns at
prayer, the Penn team found a quieting of the
orientation area, which gave the sisters a tangible
sense of proximity to and merging with God. "The
absorption of the self into something larger [is] not
the result of emotional fabrication or wishful
thinking," Newberg and d´Aquili write in "Why God
Won´t Go Away." It springs, instead, from neurological
events, as when the orientation area goes dark.
Neuro-theology also explores how ritual behavior
elicits brain states that bring on feelings ranging
from mild community to deep spiritual unity. A 1997
study by Japanese researchers showed that repetitive
rhythms can drive the brain´s hypothalamus, which can
bring on either serenity or arousal.
That may explain why incantatory hymns can trigger a
sense of quietude that believers interpret as
spiritual tranquillity and bliss. In contrast, the
fast rapturous dancing of Sufi mystics causes
hyperarousal, scientists find, which can make
participants feel as if they are channeling the energy
of the universe. Although the inventors of rituals
surely didn´t know it at the time, these rites manage
to tap into the precise brain mechanisms that tend to
make believers interpret perceptions and feelings as
evidence of God or, at least, transcendence. Rituals
also tend to focus the mind, blocking out sensory
perceptions-including those that the orientation area
uses to figure out the boundaries of the self. That´s
why even nonbelievers are often moved by religious
ritual. "As long as our brain is wired as it is," says
Newberg, "God will not go away."
If brain wiring explains the feelings believers get
from prayer and ritual, are spiritual experiences mere
creations of our neurons? Neuro-theology at least
suggests that spiritual experiences are no more
meaningful than, say, the fear the brain is hard-wired
to feel in response to a strange noise at night.
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