Neurology, Physiology, and the Mind/Spirit Interface

Abstract

Here we shift our focus explicitly on humans as opposed to spirits to explore human neurology and physiology as it is reflected in spirit-human interactions. Although most Western scientists dismiss supernatural claims, many suggest that our mind is responsible for perceiving (imaginary and perhaps real) things that people claim are spirits. Even so, psychologists, medical doctors, and others recognize that spirit encounters produce strong impacts on people’s minds and bodies. The chapter starts with a synthesis discussion of the physiology associated with ASC, both with and without the use of entheogens. We discuss both Felicitas Goodman’s and Michael Harner’s work inducing trance without entheogens, focusing on the associated hormonal and neurological changes (e.g., changing brain activity as measured by EEGs, increased beta-endorphin production). We also summarize the results of studies focused on Brazilian psychographers, Buddhist monks, and Catholic nuns involved in religious meditation. Neurologist Andrew Newberg has conducted numerous brain scans of nuns and monks and found that prayer activates the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes of the brain. It appears that longtime practitioners have larger frontal lobes than people who do not meditate or say daily prayers. We compare these results to documented patterns associated with schizophrenia to identify differences between ASC and mental illness. Our discussion then extends to the gut, which is a major source for serotonin production and is involved in spiritual, especially ASC-based, experiences. We use ethnographic examples from the Inuit and other groups to demonstrate how shamans incorporate the impacts on the gut into shamanic experiences. We then discuss non-ASC spiritual experiences including mass hysteria and the Miracle of the Sun (the Marian apparition simultaneously experienced by thousands of people in 1917 in Fátima, Portugal). We stress that these experiences cannot be reduced to trance-based ASC or mental illness and reflect that people in their normal state of consciousness can, under the right circumstances, have spiritual experiences. The chapter then turns to the physiology and cross-cultural patterns underlying near-death experiences. Again, we use examples from Western and non-Western/traditional people. Our final discussion then stresses the cross-cultural similarities in many of the physiological and neurological patterns associated with spiritual experiences, but also the limits of our knowledge.