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Neural Correlates of the Religious Experience

Neural Correlates of the Religious Experience. Biology and God. Religious Experience & Neurotheology. Neurotheology history (Aldous Huxley to Newsweek to Rappaport to D’Aquili) Key questions for anthropology Cross-cultural neural basis for religious experience?

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Neural Correlates of the Religious Experience

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  1. Neural Correlates of the Religious Experience Biology and God

  2. Religious Experience &Neurotheology • Neurotheology history • (Aldous Huxley to Newsweek to Rappaport to D’Aquili) • Key questions for anthropology • Cross-cultural neural basis for religious experience? • Evolutionary adaptation? Neural dysfunction? • Does this prove/disprove God? • Can religious experience be induced w/o religion? • Vice versa: Can religion be induced w/o religious experience?

  3. Three interesting ways to GOD • Temporal lobe epilepsy • Psychoactive substances • Meditation • How are they related, phenomenologically and biologically?

  4. Three interesting experiments • Good Friday experiment • Persinger’s God helmet • TM meditators and EEG • FIRST: epileptic phenomenology

  5. Epilepsy and God

  6. Epilepsy and Religion videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIiIsDIkDtg&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z4B5BYbjf8&feature=related Load these into your browser and watch…~ 5 min each…

  7. Wheat, witches, and “St. Anthony’s fire” THE EPILEPSY/BIOLOGY/GOD CONNECTION: Epileptic fits and religious auras triggered by heredity and/or psychedelic intake Ergot wheat fungus: lysergic acid Disease of the kings (hereditary) Seizures and god experiences St. Mary Jesus Joseph Smith Buddha

  8. Religious Experience &Neuroscience Research • Lab attempts to record religious experiences • EEG/PET/SPECT studies of deep meditation • Temporal Lobe Epilepsy • Neural/cognitive models of religious experience

  9. (SPECT=SINGLE PHOTON EMISSION COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY) Orientation Association Area

  10. Four states of consciousness

  11. Altering your sense of ‘normal’ to reach an ‘altered’ state

  12. Psychoactivation and religion

  13. Waika Indians: snuffing your way to the spirits

  14. AMANITA MUSCARIAFrom Siberian shamanism to Hindu tantric art

  15. Huichol art and creativity Two continents (Asia, Americas) Two mushrooms (Amanita, Psylocybe) Similar art forms? (hyperdetail, pattern hyperredundancy) Cognitive experiments interpret increase in loose pattern association as “creativity”

  16. Ayuahuasca art Different plant, similar artistic forms: hyperdetail and hyperredundancy of simple patterns Evidence of cultural transmission? Evidence of cross-cultural psychedelic expression? A little of both?

  17. The ayahuasca paradox Shamans and the politics of potions: Question: how are such complicated plant combinations and preparations discovered? One theory: shamans must distinguish themselves from one another by salience – they invent and utilize unique potions and techniques in order to demonstrate their unique ability to confer magic which heals or kills. Some of these inventive combinations produce particularly powerful results…which give extra credence to a shamans role in the eventual death/life of sick friends or offending enemies.

  18. Biogenetic structuralism: cross-cultural neural patterns responsible for religious phenomena associated with epilepsy, meditation, and psychedelics?

  19. This is your brain…

  20. Some brain areas implicated in “religious experience” • Temporal lobe, parietal lobe: out-of-body sensations; disembodiment • Wernicke’s area (spans temporal/parietal lobes): disembodied voices • Papez circuit: includes the amygdala; ecstacy OR dread sensations • Hippocampus: sense of “oneness”; triggers papez circuit, hypothalamus • Hypothalamus: ecstacy; “oneness”; profound sense of insight/meaning • Reticular formation: filters incoming stimuli; hyperdeactivated by many psychedelics; hyperactivated by some forms of meditation

  21. CA3 “KINDLING” • (Arnold Mandell) • Repeated episodes of acute religious experiences due to… • Temporal Lobe Epilepsy • Psychedelic Drug Use • Magnetic Stimulation • Deep Meditation • …results in lowered activation threshold for CA3 cell system in the hippocampus… • …results in chronic (long-term) increases • in religiosity…

  22. Sense of insight; Feelings of ecstasy Sensed presence; loss of self Sense of unity; identity w/ non-self

  23. FROM personal transcendent experience TO social systems of religion

  24. Three questions • Worldwide, what are the three most common sensations associated with a religious/spiritual experience? • What is the most common psychoactive substance used in religious ritual? • Which parts of the brain have NOT been credited as having important roles in the production of religious experience?

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