TruthBook Religious News Blog

Tue, Jun. 16, 2009

Mystical experiences under the microscope
By David O'Reilly

Inquirer Staff Writer

As mystical experiences go, Barbara Bradley Hagerty's transcendent moment was not the kind that launches a new world religion. Still, it changed her forever.

The day was June 10, 1995. Hagerty, religion reporter for National Public Radio, was interviewing a terminally ill melanoma patient, Kathy, whose sunny outlook and trust in Jesus seemed to have prolonged her life, inexplicably, for years.

Then, as they talked, "I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end," Hagerty writes in her new book, Fingerprints of God, a survey of modern scientific investigation into religious experience.

"The air grew warmer and heavier, as if someone had moved into the circle [of lamplight] and was breathing on us. I glanced at Kathy." She, too, felt something and had "fallen silent in mid-sentence."

"I felt an unseen caress, engulfed by a presence I could feel but not touch," Hagerty continues. "I was paralyzed. . . . After a minute, although it seemed longer, the presence melted away."

What was it she sensed? Jesus? An angelic being? Or, as one researcher later suggested, had the temporal lobe of her brain been briefly hyperstimulated? This, he told her, likely induced the illusion of an unseen presence.

Whatever it was, it proved the "continental divide in my life," Hagerty said during a recent interview. "I decided I should investigate, the way we journalists do."

Her investigation grew into Fingerprints of God, a lucid overview of an essential question: Is mystical experience truly a glimpse of the divine, the eternal, the absolute? Or are the seemingly transformative moments known variously as "enlightenment" or "beatific vision" or cosmic bliss merely swells and quells in brain activity, signifying nothing beyond ourselves?

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Labels: Barbara Bradley Hagerty, brain, David O'Reilly, God, religion, science, transcendence

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Thursday, December 25, 2008

Brain Activity Altered during Religious Experience

December 24, 2008 in Mind & Brain

A study in Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science finds that religious experience is associated with decreased activity in the brain's right parietal lobe. Cynthia Graber reports

[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.] Please click on "exteranl link to access the entire podcast.

In America there’s a feeling of Christmas. But that’s not the only winter holiday going on. Jews are lighting Hanukkah candles, Muslims recently feasted on Eid al-Adha, and pagans celebrated the solstice. So it’s a good time for researchers to consider spirituality—from a scientific point of view.

One experience central to major religions around the world is that of transcendence, the idea of almost losing a sense of self to the feeling that there’s something bigger out there. Now scientists at the University of Missouri say they’ve located that experience in our brains. All the people studied, from Buddhist monks in meditation to Francescan nuns in prayer, experience this transcendence. And they all have decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain. That area has to do with senses such as orienting yourself in the space around you. The study was published in Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science.

Interestingly, people with injuries to the right parietal lobe report increased levels of spiritual experiences. The researchers are quick to say that this connection doesn’t minimize the role of religion, and that religious or spiritual experiences might decrease activity in that region and thus increase that special feeling of transcendence. Just in time for the holidays.

Labels: brain, Cynthia Graber, religion, science, spiritual experience, transcendence, Zygon

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Sunday, March 30, 2008

A matter of character

Who stacks up in 'speaking truth to power'
BY DAVID WELLS

According to a national Associated Press/Ipsos poll, 55 percent of Americans think "character" is more important than "issues" when picking a president. But what exactly is meant by "character"?

According to Neal Mayerson, a psychologist and president of the Manuel D. and Rhoda Mayerson Foundation, here in Cincinnati, everybody, including every candidate, has character; they just have it in different measures.

• How do you define character?

CHARACTER TRAITS

Character is common in the famous and the unknown. It is a personal measure by which we judge others. But clearly, there is no one standard.

Ten years ago the Mayerson Foundation organized a study group of social scientists called Values in Action, and began to categorize and evaluate the traits of what people call "character." Studying a wide range of religions, cultures and philosophies, the group eventually came up with six categories of consistently valued positive human characteristics, each with a subgroup of character strengths:

Wisdom (creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, perspective).

Courage (bravery, honesty, perseverance, zest).

Humanity (kindness, love, social intelligence).

Justice (fairness, leadership, teamwork).

Temperance (forgiveness, modesty, prudence, self-regulation).

Transcendence (appreciation of beauty, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality).

We all judge character, and how we define it and balance its various characteristics is largely a matter of personal choice - perhaps an indication of our own "character."

LOOK FOR BALANCE

Mayerson suggests that a truer picture of a person's character emerges when we balance the various character traits. "I would use the legal term of preponderance of evidence when trying to assess someone's character," he said. When discussing character, we also should remember that our own preferences are subject to change. We look for different character strengths for different roles. "If you are looking for a spiritual leader, you may be inclined to look for a different set of traits than you would want in the CEO of the company that is managing all of your retirement stock," Mayerson said.

So what would you want in a president?

Mayerson's group has been conducting an online survey asking people just that. Full data is not yet available, but some trends seem to be emerging, he said. One is a decision maker, but not one so single-minded that he/she is unwilling to hear opposing views. People seem to want someone with humanity strengths, but are not primarily interested in "a nice guy," he said.

Putting character ahead of issues is a way for people to deal with candidates in terms they can more easily relate to, Mayerson suggested. We may not all understand the nuance of economic policy, but we all understand honesty, courage and generosity. The important thing to remember about character, however, is that it is a package, not a single issue.

Labels: character, courage, David Wells, humanity, justice, Mayerson Foundation, politics, temperance, transcendence, Values in Action, wisdom