NEW YORK, USA - A new field of scientific research is showing how the human brain responds to -- and may create -- religious experiences and intimations of the divine. A slew of new books, scientific publications and the establishment of research centers in "neurotheology" are trying to identify what seems to be the brain's spirituality circuit, and to explain how it is that religious rituals have the power to move believers and nonbelievers alike, Newsweek reports in its cover package in the May 7 issue (on newsstands Monday April 30).
All the new research shares a passion for uncovering the neurological underpinnings of spiritual and mystical experiences and for discovering what happens in our brains when we sense that we have encountered a reality different from the reality of an every-day experience, writes Senior Editor Sharon Begley. In neurotheology, the study of the neurobiology of religion and spirituality, psychologists and neurologists try to pinpoint which regions of the brain turn on, and which turn off, during experiences that seem to exist outside time and space. The studies try to identify the brain circuits that surge with activity when we think we have encountered the divine, and when we feel transported by intense prayer, an uplifting ritual or sacred music.
Brain imaging techniques have enabled scientists to prove that spiritual contemplation or a religious experience affects brain activity. What they found is that as expected, the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the seat of attention, lit up, and what surprised them was the quieting of activity. A bundle of neurons in the superior parietal lobe, toward the top and back of the brain, went dark. This region, nicknamed the "orientation association area," processes information about space and time, and the orientation of the body in space. It determines where the body ends and the rest of the world begins.
But, the bottom line, says Dr. Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania, a radiology specialist, is that "there is no way to determine whether the neurological changes associated with spiritual experience mean that the brain is causing those experiences ... or is instead perceiving a spiritual reality." In other words, as Begley writes, "it is likely that they [scientists] will never resolve the greatest question of all -- namely, whether our brain wiring creates God, or whether God created our brain wiring. Which you believe is, in the end, a matter of faith."
In a companion essay, Religion Editor Kenneth L. Woodward warns that the problem with neurotheology is that it confuses spiritual experiences with religion. "The most that neurobiologists can do is correlate certain experiences with certain brain activity. To suggest that the brain is the only source of our experiences would be reductionist," he argues.