Neurotheology - A Threat to Spirituality?

Neurotheology is a term which was coined by Aldous Huxley in his 1962 novel "Island." It is the study of of the neural phenomena related to spiritual experiences. Sometimes referring to this as biotheology or spiritual neuroscience, proponents and researchers in the field often claim or hypothesize that there's a evolutionary and neurological basis for those subjective experiences we traditionally call spiritual or religious.

University of California researchers announced in 1997 that there might be dedicated neural systems in the brain's temporal lobes which are linked with religion and religious or spiritual experiences. They studied people with a type of epilepsy that affects the brain's temporal lobes, causing mystical and religious experiences as part of the seizures. The epileptic seizures apparently strengthened involuntary responses to religious words.

Vilayanur Ramachandran, the lead researcher, dismissed the simplistic idea of a "god spot" that was referred to in news coverage of the research. Other research, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the brains of Carmelite nuns during mystical experiences, found that their ecstatic states were associated with activity in several brain regions and systems. So there may not be one religious or spiritual area of the brain.

On the other hand, out-of-body experiences have been linked to one area, the junction between the temporal and parietal lobes. Research in Switzerland by neurologist Olaf Blanke found that stimulating that specific brain region in a woman who had reported such experiences caused her to feel a sensation of floating above her body and watching herself. Many of these kinds of phenomena are also considered spiritual in nature, so this suggests that the various experiences ranging from "astral projection" to mystical ecstasy to being "in the presence" of God are not necessarily all mediated by the same areas of or the same processes in the brain.

Other scientists studying neurotheology point out that "revelation experiences," which are usually considered religious, also sometimes happen to non-religious mountaineers when they are at high altitude. This may be caused by a lack of oxygen affecting the temporoparietal junction, which can lead to low resistance to stress and reduced inhibitions. Such an explanation could also help explain near-death experiences.

Meanwhile, in Greece, scientists have found a fault where gases leak out at the narrow cave where the "Oracles of Delphi" were believed to deliver their mystical messages. The gasses, which include methane and carbon dioxide, reduce the oxygen levels, which can cause a hypnotic state and sometimes hallucinations. It is speculated that this might explain the spiritual revelations of the Delphic priestesses.

According to the various theories of neurotheology then, there may be a biological explanation for what are very profound experiences for those who have them. Notice that this is about the experiences, and not about what people believe. Some scientists speculate that there may also be an evolutionary explanation for our tendency to have spiritual or religious beliefs, but a mere belief is certainly different from a deeply moving experience. Though possibly related to the religious or spiritual experience, what a person believes is probably more relevant to how they explain the experience.

But does showing a connection between spiritual experiences and activity in certain brain regions diminish their significance? Not at all. Even when we someday prove the physical causes of these things, we will not have any less mystery nor will the experiences themselves necessarily be any less profound to the individual.

Contrary to what some people think, science can never explain away the wonders of life or existence. Every discovery raises a whole set of new questions, and those another. For those who pursue a spiritual path the explanation can never diminish the experience, because all wonders explained leave a many more unexplained and lead to many new and marvelous discoveries.

Science is only a threat to specific beliefs, not to the spiritual experience itself. In fact, for some the contemplation of the wonders that science has discovered can be an awe-inspiring and even "spiritual" experience. For example, Albert Einstein said"

"The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness."

And he was not a traditionally religious person by any means:

"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

As we get closer and closer to explaining these deep and moving experiences in scientific terms, they will not feel any different, nor lose their value. And every step towards more understanding will reveal even more mysteries. Neurotheology may be seem like it will somehow diminish spirituality, but only if one's spirituality is of the shallowest sort. Science in general will almost certainly continue to threaten superstitious religious beliefs, but those were never the basis of spirituality in any case.