– the Neuroscience of Religious & Spiritual

FEATURE “NEUROTHEOLOGY” – THE NEUROSCIENCE OF RELIGIOUS & SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES Ian Westmore This article is based on a presentation given by Dr Westmore at the Sanofi In- Focus academic weekend in Somerset West on 8th March 2019. ost psychiatrists would have been trained which people live,” incorporating to work with their patients according to personal growth or transformation, the biopsychosocial model that was first usually in a context separate proposed by George Engel in 1977. This from organized religious Mmodel was an important step in acknowledging the institutions, such as a belief in a fact that in any illness there are in addition to the supernatural (beyond the known biological, also psychosocial determinants. and observable) realm, personal growth, a quest for an ultimate As psychiatrists however, we have come to appreciate or sacred meaning, religious that there is probably another dimension that should experience, or an encounter with Ian Westmore be added to this model – the spiritual. So for many one’s own “inner dimension”.2 nowadays, the model has changed to a “bio-psychosocial-spiritual” model. NEUROTHEOLOGY FEW OF US NOWADAYS WOULD DISPUTE THIS COULD BE SIMPLY DEFINED AS THE FACT THAT THE ABILITY TO EXPERIENCE “THE NEUROSCIENCE OF THEOLOGICAL A SPIRITUAL DIMENSION AND PRACTICE BELIEF”3, BUT OVER THE YEARS THE RELIGION IS A BRAIN FUNCTION. THESE UNDERSTANDING OF NEUROTHEOLOGY ALSO SEEM TO BE EXPERIENCES THAT HAS EVOLVED AND ONE COULD ARE UNIQUELY HUMAN. SO, WE MIGHT NOW SAY THAT, “NEUROTHEOLOGY IS ASK, WHAT IS IT IN, OR ABOUT OUR MULTIDISCIPLINARY IN NATURE AND BRAINS THAT ENABLES US TO EXPERIENCE INCLUDES THE FIELDS OF THEOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY AND PRACTICE RELIGION? RELIGIOUS STUDIES, RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE AND PRACTICE, PHILOSOPHY, [It needs mentioning that whilst the terms “religion” and “spirituality” are often used interchangeably, COGNITIVE SCIENCE, NEUROSCIENCE, they are not the same. The Oxford Dictionary PSYCHOLOGY, AND ANTHROPOLOGY”.4 defines religion as “the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially There has been considerable interest in this field a personal God or gods”.1 In modern times especially with the development of functional brain “spirituality” has come to have a broader meaning imaging and the ability to study what is happening where the emphasis is on subjective experience in the brain during spiritual experiences and religious and the “deepest values and meanings by practices. SOUTH AFRICAN PSYCHIATRY ISSUE 19 2019 * 9 FEATURE EVOLUTION, THE BRAIN AND RELIGION/ • The causal function forces the question of what SPIRITUALITY is the ultimate cause of all things. Proponents of the neuroscience of religion say that • Two other important brain functions are related there is a neurological and evolutionary basis for the to the ability to support wilful or purposeful subjective experiences traditionally categorized as behaviours and the ability to orient ourselves spiritual and religious. Theories include: within the world. Neuroscientifically, the wilful function is regarded to arise, in large part, • pre-frontal development, in humans, creating an from the frontal lobes. (We know that frontal illusion of chronological time as a fundamental lobe activity is involved in executive functions part of normal adult cognition past the age such as planning, coordinating movement of three, with the inability of the adult brain and behaviour, initiating and producing to retrieve earlier images experienced by an language). infantile brain creating questions such as “where did I come from” and “where does it all go”, BRAIN REGIONS INVOLVED IN RELIGION AND which McKinney suggests led to the creation of SPIRITUALITY various religious explanations. 5 Psychiatrists are familiar with the altered religiosity • a bi-directional relationship between the in patients with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE), first development of our brains and religion. The described by neurologist Norman Geschwind, who human brain developed the capacity to noted a set of religious behavioural traits associated establish social communities and behaviours, with TLE seizures.7 These include hypergraphia, hyper- which are the basis of religious societies. But, it religiosity, reduced sexual interest, fainting spells and seems that religious practice in turn developed pedantism. the brain. For example, the frontal lobes are necessary to future planning and controlling THE OBSERVATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH compulsive behaviour, and therefore to the social arrangements within organized religion. TLE HAVE LED SCIENTISTS TO INVESTIGATE But consistently practicing religious social THE ROLE OF THE TEMPORAL BRAIN behaviours likely strengthened those areas of LOBES IN RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY. 6 the brain (Joseph Grafman). BUT, RECENT RESEARCH HAS SHOWN THESE CONCEPTS HAVE LED SOME TO THAT THESE ARE NOT THE ONLY AREAS ASK THE QUESTION: “GOD IN THE BRAIN, INVOLVED. OR THE BRAIN FOR GOD?” MEDITATION AND PRAYER STUDIES HOW THEOLOGICAL CONCEPTS MAY BE In the early 1990s, Dr Andrew Newberg from the DERIVED IN THE BRAIN University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, began to research the intersection between the brain and According to Sayadmansour4, the human brain may religious and spiritual experiences. be uniquely able to derive theological concepts: • The holistic function: the right hemisphere of IN THIS WORK, NEWBERG DESCRIBED the brain in particular, has the ability to perceive THE POSSIBLE NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL and understand wholeness in things rather than MECHANISMS ASSOCIATED WITH particular details; and allows for the expansion of any religious belief or doctrine to apply to the RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES totality of reality. AND ACTIVITY. • The quantitative function of the brain allows What Newberg and others discovered is that us to produce mathematics and a variety of intensely focused spiritual contemplation triggers quantitative-like comparisons about objects in an alteration in the activity of the brain that leads the world. A potentially interesting application of the individual to perceive transcendent religious the quantitative function is in the evaluation of experiences as solid, tangible reality (the sensation the strong emphasis on certain special numbers that Buddhists call oneness with the universe.8) He used in religious traditions. explains that during such spiritual activity there is a blockade of sensory input to the orientation • The binary function of the brain enables us to areas of the brain. The left orientation area cannot set apart two opposing concepts. This ability find a boundary between the self and the world, is critical for theology since the opposites that and as a result the brain seems to have no choice can be set apart include those of good and but “to perceive the self as endless and intimately evil, justice and injustice, and man and God interwoven with everyone and everything.” “The (among many more). Much of the purpose right orientation area, equally bereft of sensory of religions is to solve the psychological and data, defaults to a feeling of infinite space. The existential problems created by these opposites. meditators feel that they have touched infinity.” 10 * SOUTH AFRICAN PSYCHIATRY ISSUE 19 2019 FEATURE NEWBERG AND HIS CO-WORKERS • “top-down mechanisms” initiated in the anterior SUGGEST THAT MOST OF THESE cingulate cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex could be involved in acquiring and EXPERIENCES OCCUR WHEN THE maintaining intuitive supernatural beliefs. “HIPPOCAMPUS BLOCKS THE NEURAL FLOW IN THE PARIETAL LOBE, WHICH INFERIOR PARIETAL LOBE RESULTS IN A LOSS OF DIFFERENTIATION A study published in 2015 investigated how BETWEEN SELF AND NON–SELF”. individuals’ implicit religiousness and spirituality (RS) self-representations can be modulated by changes Eugene d’Aquili and Andrew Newberg, in their in right inferior parietal lobe (IPL) excitability, a key experiments which were done on meditating region associated to RS. The researchers found that Buddhists monks and Franciscan nuns, a specific decrease of implicit RS, was induced by demonstrated increased cerebral blood flow in increasing IPL excitability with iTBS; conversely cTBS, these individuals by Spectral Single Photon Emission which is supposedly inhibitory, left participants’ Computed Tomography (SPECT) scan. Their studies implicit RS unchanged. They conclude that these show that both meditating Buddhists and praying findings show the “causative role of right IPL Catholic nuns, for instance, have increased activity functional states in mediating plastic changes of in the frontal lobes of the brain and that both prayer implicit RS”.11 and meditation correlate with a decreased activity in the parietal lobes, which are responsible for THE “GOD HELMET” – STIMULATION OF THE processing temporal and spatial orientation. Nuns, TEMPERO-PARIETAL LOBES however — who pray using words rather than relying on visualization techniques used in meditation — show increased activity in the language-processing In the 1990s, Dr. Michael Persinger, the director of the brain areas of the sub-parietal lobes. Neuroscience Department at Laurentian University in Ontario, Canada, designed what came to be known SUBSEQUENT STUDIES BY NEWBERG AND as the “God Helmet.” This is a device that is able to simulate religious experiences by stimulating an HIS FELLOW RESEARCHERS SHOWED individual’s tempero-parietal lobes using magnetic HOWEVER, THAT OTHER RELIGIOUS fields. PRACTICES COULD HAVE THE OPPOSITE In Dr. Persinger’s experiments,

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