Fingerprints of God_ The Search for the Science of Spirituality - Barbara Bradley Hagerty [62]
What this does not establish, in my opinion, is that mystical experience is nothing but brain chemistry. After all, if there were an “Other” who wanted to communicate with us, of course He or She or It would use the brain to do so, as opposed to, say, the left big toe. Of course God would use the chemistry in our brains to create visions.
God would also use something else: he would use electricity. For if there is a God who wired your brain, He is a master electrician.Your brain crackles with tiny electrical reactions between its different lobes, and some of those reactions spark a spiritual experience. Here we encounter one of the oldest of scientific puzzles in understanding mysticism: Is spiritual experience an electrical storm in the brain that afflicted great religious leaders and mystics down the centuries? Is it faulty wiring that leads to a sort of madness, or superior wiring that leads to spiritual insight?
Now that neuroscientists possess the technology to tackle the problem, they are looking for the answer in the “sacred disease.”
CHAPTER 7
Searching for the God Spot
THE SUN WAS STILL HIGH in the northern Canadian sky when I arrived at Laurentian University early in the evening on July 8, 2006. I had traveled to the remote town of Sudbury, Ontario, to meet Dr. Michael Persinger, an American researcher who had gained some notoriety in neuroscience circles—and among journalists—for his experiments in spirituality. Several years earlier, he had produced the “God helmet,” a reconstructed motorcycle helmet that was supposed to evoke mystical experiences in its wearer. According to Persinger, the helmet would use weak magnetic fields to stimulate parts of the brain—in particular, the temporal lobe. This, in theory, would evoke a “Sensed Presence,” the feeling that a nonmaterial being was in the room. In other words, through the wonders of neuroscience, the helmet could summon counterfeit angels or demons on demand. I wanted to see if it would work its magic on me.
A bouncy brunette Ph.D. student named Linda St. Pierre greeted me at the research laboratory. She immediately sat me down and gave me a battery of tests to gauge my personality—and, in particular, to see whether I was prone to epilepsy, religiosity, or suggestibility. Questions like: Do you have a feeling that there is something more to life? Are you afraid of mice? Do people tell you that you blank out (a sign of epilepsy)? Do you believe in the second coming of Christ? And (my favorite): Have you been taken aboard a spaceship? As I was completing the tests, the man himself appeared.
Michael Persinger was ramrod slim, taut, with a puckish expression. He wore a dark blue three-piece suit, with a gold watch and chain tucked into his vest. I liked him immediately.
“I heard a rumor,” I said,“that you wear a three-piece suit when you mow the lawn.”
“True!” he admitted, seeming pleased that this eccentricity had made its way back to the States.
“Interesting. May I ask why?”
“For comfort. Three-piece suits are so versatile. I take off the jacket when it’s hot, and put it on when I’m cold.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Since I was in high school at least.”
I had boned up on Persinger’s theories about spiritual experience, and they boiled down to this: spiritual experience is a trick of the brain. It can be triggered by head injuries and brain dysfunctions such as epilepsy, by the earth’s magnetic fields, and by machines like his “God helmet.”
Persinger laid out his theory about how, precisely, the brain creates spiritual experience. It was like listening to Mr. Spock in a StarTrek episode—he peppered his theories with just enough acceptable science to make them plausible. The left hemisphere of the brain is associated with language, he explained, and thus the sense of “self.” The right side is more involved with “affective emotional patterns,” or feelings and sensations.
“When you stimulate the left