Neuroscience and spirituality – findings and consequences

Mario Beauregard

pp. 57-73

in: Harald Walach, Stefan Schmidt, Wayne B. Jonas (eds), Neuroscience, consciousness and spirituality, Berlin, Springer, 2011

Abstract

In this chapter we first define religious, spiritual and mystical experiences (RSMEs). We then review clinical data about patients with epilepsy suggesting a role for the temporal lobe and the limbic system in RSMEs. The possibility of experimentally inducing such experiences by stimulating the temporal lobe with weak electromagnetic currents is examined. The limbic-marker hypothesis is also presented. The findings of brain imaging studies of RSMEs carried out during the last decade are then examined. Next, these findings and the phenomenology of RSMEs in regard to the mind-brain problem are discussed. Finally, we terminate the chapter with a few concluding remarks.