What tools has science recently developed that offer new insights into the biological basis of spiritual experiences?
The most revolutionary tools are those that measure brain activity – EEGs and brain scanners. These allow neurologists to see what happens in the brain when someone is having a spiritual experience. And guess what? There is brain activity that correlates to mystical experience, a supposed encounter with God or a spiritual dimension. Now, that’s not saying that God exists, but it does suggest that people who claim to have encountered God are going through something physiological – it’s unlikely to be just delusion or madness. For example, when they feel a unity with God or the universe, it’s because their parietal lobes – the part of the brain that fixes you in time and space, that tells you where YOU end and the rest of the world begins – that part goes dark. Now, is it just a neurological experience, and nothing else? Or is the neurological experience recording something that’s actually happening to you spiritually? That’s the question science can’t answer yet. But the people in the b
