Nuns go under the brain scanner
Imaging study shows that godly experiences trigger a network within the brain.
Neuroscientists have identified a network of brain regions activated when nuns feel that they are at one with God. Artificially stimulating the brain in this way, they say, might allow people to have mystical experiences without believing in God themselves.
Read the story here.
Comments
just curious but how on earth can a study like this which is basically just scanning people cost $100,000. i assume they already had the MRI machine and it wasnt bought specifically for this experiment
Posted by: Gerald O'Declan | August 31, 2006 04:26 PM
"Artificially stimulating the brain in this way, they say, might allow people to have mystical experiences without believing in God themselves"
Stimulate the brain enough and people will begin to believe themselves God.
Posted by: Greg Saltis | September 1, 2006 04:50 PM
Some people use chemicals or pharmaceuticals (Ecstasy, etc..) to induce a mystical experience. Others meditate. For a few, it seems to be a way of life: (so-called 'bliss bunnies').
No mention re: scientific method....?
Posted by: Donna Arn | September 3, 2006 11:23 AM
Re: Person concerned with the cost of the study.
No, the MRI will have either been part of hospital (so is scanning patients most of the time), or is running lots of other experiments all the time. These scanners are expensive, so are used to their full capacity. However, I fear the money could have been used better in this case.
In my dept (a psychology dept in the UK), the study itself was dismissed as a bit silly, I'm afraid. And the media taking it up has made it all the more perplexing!
It seems to be a bit of a 'fishing expedition' that was always going to find a 'distributed network of brain areas' involved in recalling (note recalling, not actually experiencing!) spitiual encounters.
I really don't think we have learned all that much about any putative representation of God in the brain from this study.
That said, the authors would always have had a tough job getting really amazing data, so it is credit to them that they had a go.
Posted by: Anon | September 4, 2006 05:17 PM
Its a great reaserch . It will inthe futur ehelp people to develop spiritualism
Posted by: Vani Nanda | September 4, 2006 05:39 PM
transcendental meditation yields similar results. some buddhist monks report levitation when in deep meditation.
Posted by: jerry muskin | September 4, 2006 07:27 PM
This study is only partial.
"Godly experiences" means different to different people, especially when one religious party calling the other party "devilish". May be the MRI scans, of a devout Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist ... would help to build a better understanding. If the scans show identical "networking patterns" then ....?, if not ...?.
Posted by: A. Ajan | September 5, 2006 02:08 AM
Stimulating the temporal lobes to induce spritual experiences would be rather like stimulating the optic nerve to induce the sensation of vision. The patient might experience something (pleasant or unpleasant), but it wouldn't relate to the real world.
Posted by: Tim Roberts | September 5, 2006 08:54 AM
I haven't read the full technical article (why trust a technical writer for their interpretation??), but look forward to it even though I'm not a neuroscientist (just a chemist). Fascinating work.
I can see many religeous people fighting this the same way people are fighting other enormous techno-societal changes, e.g., those who maintain global warming isn't linked to human activity.
Posted by: John | September 5, 2006 02:44 PM
I'm amazed at how much attention this study has received in the media. I'm not surprised that the study itself was published in a journal with a low impact factor. One big weakness, as mentioned above, is that the nuns were scanned only while _remembering_ a spiritual experience. Of course remembering an intense moment (of whatever form) evokes different brain activity than remembering a less awe-inspiring event! Another big flaw is in the control they used: When is a _nun_ truly "at union with another person"? It would have been more interesting had they used a comparison group of non-religious people remembering a non-religious "spiritual" experience (yes, this is possible!).
By the way, levitation has never been shown to occur. Anyone who can levitate should apply for James Randi's million-dollar prize...
Posted by: Leonie | September 5, 2006 03:38 PM
If sexual pleasure is scanned through brain by MRI, one place of brain will be seen active. I dont understand how locating a area in brain will have anything to do with spirituality itself. We call spirituality hyperreal, it tries to take human mind to level where science will never take him, consciousness over matter. It fulfills human hanker to know unknowable, all-pervading (beyond time and space) absolute as his real origin.
Posted by: Chinmoy K Bose | September 5, 2006 05:44 PM
As to levitation, it is no doubt true that it has never been shown to occur repeatedly under adequately controlled conditions. There are a number of reports of it, to which you will give greater or lesser credence according to your worldview. But if it happens at all, it's rare, and doesn't happen to order, which makes investigating it more difficult. And any investigator is unlikely to approach the topic without pre-conceived views, one way or the other. If there are people who can levitate, they probably aren't interested in proving the fact - or $1M prizes.
Posted by: Tim Roberts | September 10, 2006 04:44 PM
The problem with all these "controversial" papers arises mainly from the "sensationalist" way they are treated in Nature News and other similar divulgative "science" journals. The same happened with the DUF1220 paper or the "ethical" stem-cell paper, to mention just a few recent examples. Nature News is exagerating things in a rather propagandistic way. Even the headline "'Ethical' stem-cell paper under attack" is pure propaganda (understood as the psychological tricks used to prevent people from thinking). Of course the "ethical" means that the research tries to circunvent the restrcitive "ethical" laws in USA. However, it gives the impression that an ethical paper is under attack (so that actually those who are attacking it are behaving a bit unethically). This is just an example of how it works. I think it is not acceptable this kind of manipulation in a "scientific" journal.
Posted by: Paula Baamonde | September 11, 2006 03:06 PM
Isn't it funny how science can help explain religion?
Religious congregations could learn something from this.
Posted by: Enrique Asensio | September 11, 2006 07:05 PM
I've thoroughly discuss the idea of a spiritual brain area in this post in my blog.
There is nothing about "God" in that area, people who don't believe in god also have spiritual experiences (e.g. Buddha).
Posted by: Ran | April 5, 2007 11:42 AM
Ancient indian spiritual philosophy was such that it hated to be expressed by name either a preacher or the religion. There is vivid description in Vedas and Upanishadas that GOD is no person but a theory. Brahm twattwa (Theory)is supreme, unknowable, beyond time and space. Embodiment is only in lesser gods. We can very easliy feel the hyperreal void (null) through our death. Explanation is infront of us but we, as if, close our eyes. Science doesnot believe in miracle. Then we can expect some day man can not only know but can build one universe.
Thing can go most along Ran way posted last (April 5 2007). One can agree to him
Posted by: CHINMOY K BOSE | May 21, 2007 01:27 PM
I would prefer the test subjects were Yogis as the principle is the same, but they are far more disciplined, and maybe less cluttered with symbolism. At least do it for comparison.
Posted by: A Key | November 27, 2007 12:58 PM