Mystical Experiences

1. Mystical Experiences Suzanne Moseley Jacqueline Overton Natan Mallinger

2. Mystical and Spiritual Experiences: • Introduction/ Food for thought (Jackie) • What are they? (Natan) • Entheogens (Natan) • Neuropsychology (Jackie) • Neurotheology (Suzanne) • Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (Suzanne) • Concluding Remarks…

3. Evolution of the Mind and Spirituality?

4. “The most beautiful and most profound religious emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. And this mysticality is the power of all true science. If there is any such concept as a God, it is a subtle spirit, not an image of a man that so many have fixed in their minds.” - Albert Einstein

5. What is a Mystical Experience? • A feeling of becoming one with “GOD”, rather than being separate from it. • Involves loss of ego or personal identity. • Can be achieved via many different types of rituals or practices. • Achieving conscious awareness or true perception of the hidden state of reality.

6. What is GOD? • Religious perspective • GOD is a separate entity who created the universe • Religious experience - a connection between GOD and the self • Mystical perspective • GOD is, in a sense, the universe • Mystical Experience -involves the self connecting with the entire universe as a single entity

7. Achieving the Mystical James Austin’s book, Zen and the Brain describe the four levels of reaching a mystical state of consciousness • Enhanced awareness and visual imagery • Varying Degrees of unitary experience • Group setting- external experience (music, chanting, dance) • Transpersonal or religious experience. Achieving a consciousness of the universal mind

8. Religious Rituals Different categories of ritual • Group setting – external experience (music, chanting, dance, whirling dervishes) • Individual setting – internal experience (meditation, contemplation) Similarities across rituals • emotion discharge (awe, peace, tranquility, ecstasy ) • varying degrees (continuum) of unitary experience

9. Entheogens • Entheogens are psychoactive substances • Traditionally used in religious or shamanistic contexts • Scientific research for is more reliably reproducible than rituals

10. MAIN QUESTIONS • What are the physiological correlates of the mystical experience? • Do entheogens and religious rituals, share certain chemical mechanisms? • Is the mystical experience just another altered state or is it the ultimate goal of being?

11. Cultures and their Entheogens • Iboga and the Bitwi Cult in Congo, Africa • Mescaline and the Native Americans • Psilocybin and the Aztecs • LSD and the Hippies!

12. LSD • Discovered by Albert Hoffman in 19 • A tryptamine which acts as a serotonin antagonist, activating the same receptors but reacting differently to synaptic transmissions by transferring the electrical impulses down atypical pathways.

13. Physiological Correlates • 5-HT inhibits lateral geniculate nucleus which greatly reduces processing of visual information. • 5-HT increases temporal visual associations in absence of sensory input • Internally generated imagery results in hallucinogenic experience. • 5-HT and glutamate stimulate the nucleus basalis releasing acetylcholine (ACh) • ACh in frontal lobes augments attentional system

14. Psychological Correlates • Visual and aural hallucinations • Changes in proprioception • Breakdown of the distinction of the self and others

15. Drugs and Religion • In 1962, psychiatrists Walter Pahnke wanted to test the ability of psilocybin to enhance the religious aspects of the mystical state of consciousness… • Transcendence of space and time • Increased sense of overall unity • Long Term effects on well being

16. Remember… • If you’ll recall from one of our readings about meditation, the networks involved in these states are very complex!

17. Overview of Neuropsychology of Spiritual Experiences • Cognitive operators • Role of the Autonomic Nervous System • Cortical Association Areas

18. Important Cognitive Operators • Causal operator is the brain’s ability to perform causal ordering of events based on sensory perception (reductionist/analytical) • Left inferior parietal lobule (LIPL)  left anterior convexity of the frontal lobes

19. Important Cognitive Operators • Holistic operator is the brain’s ability to view reality as a whole (holistic approach) • Non-dominant hemisphere, particularly the posterior superior parietal lobule (PSPL)

20. Autonomic Nervous System • The ANS is responsible for maintaining baseline body functions, plays an important role in overall activity of the brain, as well as generation of fundamental emotions, such as fear (wow! That’s a lot responsibility!)

21. Divisions of the ANS: Two complementary systems • Sympathetic Nervous System: • “Ergotropic System” = Sympathetic + Associated Brain Areas • Parasympathetic Nervous System (Peace and energy conservation) • “Trophotropic System” = Parasympathetic + Associated Brain Areas

22. Role of ANS in Spiritual Experience • “Spillover” or “breakthrough” experience happens when: • Continued stimulation of one system produces activation in the other system • Simultaneous stimulation of both systems • Both have been demonstrated in different meditative practices

23. Relevant Cortical Association Areas • Areas that integrate neuronal activity from various other areas in the brain • Four that are important for M.E.s • PSPL: posterior superior parietal lobe • ITL: inferior temporal lobe • IPL: inferior parietal lobe • PFC: prefrontal cortex

24. PSPL • Involved in the integration and analysis of higher order sensory information to create a 3-D image of the body in space • Likely is involved in perception of the self/other dichotomy

25. ITL • Scans entire visual field for objects of interest (through interconnections with limbic nuclei) • Together with PSPL is involved in perception and learning of complex geometric shapes

26. IPL • Associates the association areas! • Rich interconnections with the visual, auditory, and somatosensory association area • Responsible for the generation of abstract concepts and relating them to words

27. PFC • Receives afferent fibers from al sensory modalities & association areas • Planning, attention, concentration • Control of emotion • Will or intention

28. Neurotheology • The study of the neurobiology of religion and spirituality • Primarily studied through brain imaging • Religious rituals have the power to move even nonbelievers!

29. Some Physiological Correlates • Certain circuits must be interrupted • Amygdala • Parietal Lobe Circuits • Frontal and Temporal Lobe Circuits

30. SPECT studies • Radioactive tracers injected into the bloodstream at the height of spiritual intensity • Effects most evident in • Prefrontal Cortex • Superior Parietal Lobe

31. Bottom Line: Spiritual contemplation has real physiological correlates, causing changes in brain activity in many different regions

32. Temporal Lobe Epilectics:

33. What’s going on inside their brains? • Temporal lobe is responsible for language, conceptual thinking, and associations • Abnormal firing called “temporal lobe transients” • Longer term effects • More opioid receptors! • Decreased metabolic activity

34. Effects on the Body and Cognition • This is NOT like a grand mal seizure • Dreamlike hallucinations • Cease of motion • Visual alterations • Auditory illusions • Emotional alterations

35. The God Helmet • Simulated epilectic episodes through electromagnets on a helmet • Disrupts communication between the 2 hemispheres • Result: feeling of another self or “presence”

36. The God Spot • “there is a neural basis for religious experience” • Skin responses of epilectic individual and normal individuals • Conclusion: epilepsy causes permanent changes in temporal lobe circuitry • something about the way that God made them feel that changed their brain

37. Inner Speech Vs. External Sounds • Confusion between the external and internal • Right Anterior Cingulate- activated when sound is from external environment • Stress and Emotional arousal “confuse the brain”

38. Concluding Remarks • Regardless of how one achieves a mystical experience, the cognitive effects are ultimately uniform. • The mystical experience is an alternate state of consciousness that has been around since the dawn of early man and is constant across cultures.

39. Works Cited Begley, Sharon. Your Brain on Religion: Mystic Visions or brain circuits at work?Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics. 7 May 2001. Boyer, Pascal. Religious thought and behaviour as by-products of brain function. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(3), March 2003. Lewis-Williams, D. The Mind in the Cave. London: Thames Hudson. 2002. Evans Schultes, R., Hofmann, A. and Ratsch, C. Plants of the Gods: Their sacred, healing, and hallucinogenic powers. Rochester, VT: Healing Arts Press. 1992. Newberg, A.B. and Iversen, J. The neural basis of the complex mental task of meditation, neurotransmitter and neurochemical considerations. Medical Hypotheses 61(2). 282-291, 2003. Newberg, A.B. and d’Aquili, E.G. The neuropsychology of religious and spiritual experiences. Journal of Consciousness Studies 7(11). 251-266, 2000. Regush, Nicholas. Brain Storms and Angels. Equinox. August 1995.