Hello again Qpet,
Thank you for your question.
In the article “Tracing the Synapses of Our Spirituality” by Shankar
Vedantam: Researchers Examine Relationship between Brain and Religion.
According to Andrew Newberg, a Philadelphia scientist "The brain is
set up in such a way as to have spiritual experiences and religious
experiences."
“What creates that transcendental feeling of being one with the
universe?
- It could be the decreased activity in the brain's parietal lobe,
which helps regulate the sense of self and physical orientation,
research suggests.
How does religion prompt divine feelings of love and compassion?
- Possibly because of changes in the frontal lobe, caused by
heightened concentration during meditation.
Why do many people have a profound sense that religion has changed
their lives?
- Perhaps because spiritual practices activate the temporal lobe,
which weights experiences with personal significance.”
(..)
“Newberg's experiment consisted of taking brain scans of Tibetan
Buddhist meditators as they sat immersed in contemplation. After
giving them time to sink into a deep meditative trance, he injected
them with a radioactive dye. Patterns of the dye's residues in the
brain were later converted into images.”
“Newberg found that certain areas of the brain were altered during
deep meditation. Predictably, these included areas in the front of the
brain that are involved in concentration. But Newberg also found
decreased activity in the parietal lobe, one of the parts of the brain
that helps orient a person in three-dimensional space.”
"When people have spiritual experiences they feel they become one with
the universe and lose their sense of self," he said. "We think that
may be because of what is happening in that area -- if you block that
area you lose that boundary between the self and the rest of the
world. In doing so you ultimately wind up in a universal state."
(..)
“Michael Persinger, a professor of neuroscience at Laurentian
University in Sudbury, Ontario, has been conducting experiments that
fit a set of magnets to a helmet-like device. Persinger runs what
amounts to a weak electromagnetic signal around the skulls of
volunteers.”
“Four in five people, he said, report a "mystical experience, the
feeling that there is a sentient being or entity standing behind or
near" them. Some weep, some feel God has touched them, others become
frightened and talk of demons and evil spirits.”
Washington Post: 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=nation/science&contentId=A10767-2001Jun16¬Found=true
====================================
The new field of neurotheology is examining what specifically happens
within the brain when a person has a “religious” or “spiritual”
experience.
In Newsweek’s May 7, 2001 issue there is a summary of what’s happening
in the field of neurotheology in the article “Mystic visions or brain
circuits at work by Sharon Begley.”
“Early research is showing that not only does a person’s brain
activity change in particular areas while that person is experiencing
a religious epiphany, but such epiphanies can be occasioned, for some
people, by stimulating various parts of the brain by various means.”
Dr. James Austin explored the neurological aspects of spiritual and
mystical experience:
“In order to feel that time, fear and self-consciousness have
dissolved, he reasoned, certain brain circuits must be interrupted.
- Activity in the amygdala, which monitors the environment for threats
and registers fear, must be damped.
- Parietal-lobe circuits, which orient you in space and mark the sharp
distinction between self and world, must go quiet.
- Frontal- and temporal-lobe circuits, which mark time and generate
self-awareness, must disengage.
When that happens, Austin concludes in a recent paper, "what we think
of as our 'higher' functions of selfhood appear briefly to 'drop out,'
'dissolve,' or be 'deleted from consciousness'."
Dr. Newberg's used imaging techniques to detect which regions of the
brain are active during spiritual experiences.
"Results:
- Attention: Linked to concentration, the frontal lobe lights up
during meditation
- Religious emotions: The middle temporal lobe is linked to emotional
aspects of religious experience, such as joy and awe
- Sacred images: The lower temporal lobe is involved in the process by
which images, such as candles or crosses, facilitate prayer and
meditation
- Response to religious words: At the juncture of three lobes, this
region governs response to language Cosmic unity. When the parietal
lobes quiet down, a person can feel at one with the universe ."
Newsweek: May 7, 2001
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/neuro/neuronewswk.htm
====================================
Scientific Theories of the Near Death Experience (NDE)
Jean Ritchie describes various theories explaining the near-death
experience in her book Death's Door:
The dying brain theory:
“NDE’s is a function of the dying brain. (..) All NDE’s have essential
core elements which are the same. The neurotransmitters in the brain
are shutting down and creating the same lovely illusions for all who
are near-death.”
Darwin's theory:
“One theory is that it is a deliberate ploy of the human race to help
those behind adapt better to the inevitable ending of their lives.
Darwin's simple theory of the survival of the fittest holds that every
species is struggling to increase its hold on this planet and
guarantee the survival of its descendants. That is our greatest
primary urge.”
The Hallucination Theory:
“It is known that a powerful anesthetic called ketamine can produce
many of the features of an NDE, particularly the out-of-body element,
and one theory is that a ketamine-like substance may be released by
the body at the time of an NDE, and may attach itself to certain
neurotransmitter receptors and be responsible for producing the whole
NDE by blocking those receptors.”
The Temporal Lobe Theory:
“Some features of the NDE are known to occur in a type of epilepsy
associated with damage to the temporal lobe of the brain, and
researchers have found that by electrically stimulating this lobe they
can mimic some elements of NDEs, such as leaving oneself behind, and
the sense of life memories flashing past, although this is actually a
common feature of NDEs. They believe that the stress of being
near-death, or thinking that you are near-death, may in some way cause
the stimulation of this lobe.”
The Lack of Oxygen Theory:
“Other possible explanations are a lack of oxygen in the brain, or too
much carbon dioxide. But these would not explain why some patients are
able to give full and cogent reports of things that went on around
them during their NDE. “
Near-Death Experiences & the Afterlife
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/experts01.html
====================================
How the brain creates the experience of God by Todd Murphy:
“Within neuroscience, the disorder that seems to make visions of God
concern the limbic system and the middle and lower portions of the
temporal lobes ... which are... parts of the brain that are activated
very easily.”
“How the experience unfolds ... depends on which brain parts the
activity spills into.
If it catches some of the visual areas, the experience can become a
vision of an entity of some kind or other.
If it involves the olfactory areas, the person can find that the
visitor has a unique smell.
If it involves the parts of the brain that help us perceive our own
bodies from within, we might find ourselves having tingly feelings. Or
that we are being lifted up, or thrown down.
If it involves the language centers, we might hear a voice, or music,
or noise.
If it involves areas that deal in long-term memory, we might find that
the experience includes an episodic 'vision'.”
Web Archive: Article by Todd Murphy
http://web.archive.org/web/20010620071712/http://www.jps.net/brainsci/god.htm
====================================
Neurotransmitters and Religious Experience
“The connection between drug experience and mystical or spiritual
revelation has both a long history in certain cultures, as well as a
relatively contemporary surge in popularity in the Western-European
world. The study of chemical and organic substances, consciously
imbibed to actively bring on a mystical or spiritual state, has been
described as the “active pursuit of biological spiritual
understanding”. As the brain is a chemical system, it follows that
substances interfering with neurotransmitters or their receptors, in
an agonist or antagonist manner, would affect the integration of
experiences in the mind. Although there is currently very little
sanctioned neurotheological neurotransmitter research, many people
have become interested in studying the brain states caused and
produced by self-professed mystical experience.”
Haverford College: Neurotheology
http://www.haverford.edu/psych/biopsych217b/Neurotheology/drugs.html
====================================
Search Criteria:
Scientific explanations for spiritual experiences
Theories of the spiritual experience
Science “Spiritual experiences”
Neurotheology
Science and the Near Death Experience
I hope that this is the information that you require. If anything I
have written is not clear, please make a request for clarification and
I will do my best to meet your needs.
Best Regards,
Bobbie7 |
Clarification of Answer by
bobbie7-ga
on
05 Apr 2003 09:10 PST
Hi Qpet,
Thank you for your clarification.
Mysticism and the Brain
“Religious belief and experience are usually regarded as beyond
scientific explanation, yet neurologists at the University of
California, San Diego, have located an area in the temporal lobe of
the brain that appears to produce intense feelings of spiritual
transcendence, combined with a sense of some mystical presence.”
(..)
"When the Canadian psychologist Dr. Michael Persinger got hold of a
[transcranial magnetic stimulator] he chose to stimulate parts of his
temporal lobes. And he found to his amazement that he experienced God
for the first time in his life."
Source: Science and Religion
http://scienceandreligion.com/mysticism.htm
======================================================
“Dr. Michael Persinger, working at Laurentian University, in Sudbury,
Ontario, Canada, has pioneered a method for inducing the religious,
spiritual experience of the shaman. Without drugs, herbs, hypnosis or
invasive surgery, he can quite literally flip a switch and induce the
experience of "god."
“Using an ordinary striped yellow motorcycle helmet purchased at a
sporting goods store, which he has modified with electromagnetic
coils, he can place the helmet on your head, connect the wires to a
device he has constructed that generates the proper signals, and when
the magnetic fields produced by the coils penetrate the skull and into
the temporal lobes of the brain, the result is the stimulation of
those lobes and a religious experience results.”
How does Dr. Persinger's helmet work?
“It works by inducing very small electrical signals with tiny
magnetically induced mechanical vibrations in the brain cells of the
temporal lobes and other selected areas of the brain, located in the
skull just above and forward of the ears. These lobes are the portions
of the brain that produce the "Forty Hertz Component" of the
brainwaves detected in electroencephalograms. These mysterious "forty
hertz components" are present whenever you are awake or when you are
in REM sleep. They are absent during deep, dreamless sleep. What the
"forty hertz component" does is not well understood, but we know that
it is always present during the experience of "self." We cannot have a
"me" experience without the forty hertz component being present.”
Scott Bidstrup
http://www.bidstrup.com/mystic.htm
======================================================
Robert Bruce author of the book Astral Dynamics states:
“Persinger's method is used to stimulate particular areas of the
brain with subtle EM fields, which as you say can cause various
altered perceptions, experiences, and states of consciousness. The
brain, of course, is the major translator and recorder of such
experiences, because without the memory of an experience it cannot be
realized as ever having occurred.”
(..)
“Being able to induce artificial altered states through sensory input
to the brain is nothing new. Various patterns of sound and light are
well known to do this, eg, TMI hemisynch methods, lucid dreaming and
brain wave generation machines.”
(..)
“My take on Persinger's method is that subtle EM fields stimulate
areas of the brain that are linked to altered perceptions, spiritual
perceptions if you like. By stimulating certain brain areas, the
subtle spiritual mechanisms these are connected to are also
stimulated. This produces altered sensory experiences.”
Hampton Roads Publishing Co
https://www.hamptonroadspub.com/main/question9.html
======================================================
i located a number interesting studies that may interest you as well:
Experiences of spiritual visitation and impregnation: potential
induction by frequency-modulated transients from an adjacent clock.
Persinger MA, Koren SA.
Department of Psychology, Laurentian University, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract:
“A left-handed Roman Catholic female adolescent with a history of
early brain trauma reported nightly visitations by a sentient being.
During one episode she experienced vibrations of the bed, an external
presence along the left side that moved into her body, inner vaginal
(not clitoral) and uterine sensations, and the sense of being
impregnated by a force she attributed to the Holy Spirit. After the
latter experience she felt an invisible baby superimposed upon her
left shoulder. Analyses of the measurements for magnetic anomalies
within her bedroom indicated an electric clock about 20 cm from her
head while she slept. The complex form of the 4 microT magnetic pulses
generated by the clock was similar to shapes that evoke electrical
seizures in epileptic rats and sensitive humans.”
PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11322603&dopt=Abstract
Geophysical variables and behavior: XCVI. "Experiences" attributed to
Christ and Mary at Marmora, Ontario, Canada may have been consequences
of environmental electromagnetic stimulation: implications for
religious movements.
Suess LA, Persinger MA.
Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract:
“Since the year 1992 individuals and groups of people have reported
religious experiences near Marmora, Ontario, Canada. The experiences,
attributed to Christ or Mary, have occurred near the top of a hill
adjacent to an open pit magnetite mine that has been accumulating
about 15 million gallons of water per month for more than a decade.
During the period between 1992 and 1997 epicentres for local seismic
events moved significantly closer to this site. Most of the messages
attributed to spiritual beings by "sensitive" individuals occurred one
or two days after increased global geomagnetic activity. We suggest
that conditions produced by local geophysical and geological
properties created the odd lights and induced physiological changes
within the thousands of people who visited the area. Direct
measurements indicated that weak (0.1 microTesla to 1 microTesla)
complex magnetic fields, the temporal patterns of which were similar
to the experimental fields we have employed to evoke the sensed
presence and altered states within the laboratory, may have been
generated within the area.”
PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11769900&dopt=Abstract
Geophysical variables and behavior: CIV. Power-frequency magnetic
field transients (5 microtesla) and reports of haunt experiences
within an electronically dense house.
Persinger MA, Koren SA, O'Connor RP.
Department of Psychology, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario,
Canada.
Abstract:
“Magnetic field measurements for power frequencies were measured
continuously over two 24-hr. periods for a small house in which two
adults who exhibited above normal occurrences of complex partial
epileptic-like experiences had reported "waves of fear", tactile
sensations, nightmares, apparitions, and a sensed presence. The
experiences occurred within an area in which irregular amplitude
modulations between 1 microT and 5 microT (50 mG) from 60-Hz sources,
with durations of a few seconds to several tens of seconds, were
measured. This case suggests that transient, complex temporal patterns
of power-frequency magnetic fields generated by less than optimal
grounding in dwellings and telluric currents may be sufficient to
evoke experiences in the brains of sensitive individuals. Cultural
labels, applied by the experients, then affect the explanations and
expectancies for these experiences.”
PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11453191&dopt=Abstract
PubMed - Index of related studies
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Display&dopt=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=11769900
I hope this is the information you were looking for.
Best Wishes
Bobbie7
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