Review of a book

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This review of a book as shown below has been published in July 6th

issue of Science, an international journal of research.

Some of the details given here could interest members of the list. If

not, please excuse me.

 

 

 

Is God All in the Mind?

A review by Michael Shermer

 

 

Why God Won't Go Away Brain Science and the Biology of Belief

Andrew Newberg, Eugene D'Aquili, and Vince Rause

Ballantine, New York, 2001. 234 pp. $24.95, C$37.95. ISBN: 0-345-44033-1.

 

 

 

 

About ten years ago, when I began to research why people believe in

God, I asked a colleague in a religious studies program to recommend

the latest path-breaking scientific work in this area. "William

James's 1890 Varieties of Religious Experience," he responded

sardonically. In his opinion, he explained, the field was largely

moribund.

 

That perception was an exaggeration, of course, but his point was

that with the exception of a handful of psychologists teaching at

theological seminaries, mainstream social and cognitive scientists

had largely ignored the question. The situation has changed

dramatically in the past decade, as the renewed debate on the

relation between science and religion has exploded onto the cultural

landscape and scientists from a variety of fields have entered the

fray. Why God Won't Go Away presents an interpretation developed by

Andrew Newberg and Eugene D'Aquili, physicians at the University of

Pennsylvania. Newberg holds joint appointments in radiology and

religious studies, and D'Aquili, now deceased, was a professor of

psychiatry. Co-author Vince Rause is a free-lance writer. Their

breezy and speculative book was written for general readers, but it

provides enough new material, especially on the neurophysiology of

mystical experiences, to hold the interest of professional scientists.

 

God won't go away, the authors argue, because the religious impulse

is rooted in the biology of the brain. When Buddhist monks meditate

and Franciscan nuns pray, for example, single photon emission

computed tomography scans of their brains indicate strikingly low

activity in the posterior superior parietal lobe. The authors dub

this bundle of neurons the orientation association area (OAA). The

area's primary function is to orient the body in physical space;

people with damage to this area have a hard time negotiating their

way around their surroundings. When the OAA is up and running

smoothly, there is a sharp distinction between self and non-self.

When the OAA is in sleep mode--as in deep meditation and prayer--that

division breaks down and, consequently, the lines between reality and

fantasy are blurred. Is this what happens to monks who feel a oneness

with the universe or with nuns who feel the presence of God?

 

Yes, say the authors. They claim to have "uncovered solid evidence

that the mystical experiences of [their] subjects--the altered states

of mind they described as the absorption of the self into something

larger--were not the result of emotional mistakes or simple wishful

thinking, but were associated instead with a series of observable

neurological events." Although this is an odd distinction to make,

the authors maintain it throughout the book. They recognize that a

skeptic might explain "all spiritual longings and experiences,

including the universal human yearning to connect with something

divine," as delusions that stem from misfiring brain cells. Indeed, I

am one such skeptic, but I fail to see the difference (outside a

minor linguistic distinction) between a delusion and a decrease in

OAA activity. Delusion is simply a description of what happens when

the OAA shuts down and the brain loses the ability to distinguish

self from non-self. It's still all in the brain. Unless, of course,

one believes these neurologically triggered mystical experiences

actually serve as a conduit to a real spiritual world where God (or

what the authors call "Absolute Unitary Being") resides. That is, in

fact, what they believe: "our research has left us no choice but to

conclude that the mystics may be on to something, that the mind's

machinery of transcendence may in fact be a window through which we

can glimpse the ultimate realness of something that is truly divine."

Thankfully they are honest enough to admit that this conclusion "is a

terrifically unscientific idea" and that to accept it "we must

second-guess all our assumptions about material reality."

 

Gopal Gopinathrao

Postdoc Fellow,

Nandi Lab

Cancer Research Lab

491 LSA

UC Berkeley,

CA 94720

P:510-642-4712

F:510-642-5741