The Spiritual Brain: Kind words from a reader

Robb Massey writes,

I just wanted to say I started reading The Spiritual Brain this week, and so far am loving it. This is a topic I haven't bothered to pursue much, but the more I read the book, the more fascinated I become with it. It attracts people too...I was at Starbucks the other day, and I kept noticing people looking over at it in interest (I would set it down on a table and get my coffee). Some guy asked if he could see it, took the title down, and is determined to buy it. That may not seem like much, but I have to say I never had that happen at Starbucks before, and I read there quite often. I think average people are generally more interested in 'spiritual' topics, and when they see something about a neuroscientist making the case for the existence of the soul, it immediately sparks their interest. This is the sort of topic average people are hungry for, even if they think they want to believe otherwise, and with the recent bombardment of the atheist agenda in the media and in the timing couldn't be better. Thank you for writing it!

Robb, Mario and I are glad to be of help! The topic had the same effect on me, actually. The book itself was Mario's idea and I was brought in to help with the writing. But the more I looked into it, the more I realized how a proper understanding of consciousness is that our consciousness is a force of nature, not some illusion waiting to be explained away.

One outcome is that I will never again look at health care or workplace environment issues in the same way. What we experience (= our consciousness of an event) - is a critical part of that event, and has a major influence on our health and welfare. For example, if your workplace is managed by the Gestapo's "Employee of the Year" clone, you don't just take home your pay cheque. You take home health problems too.

We are never in it "just for the money." We are in it for everything that is going to happen to us, as a consequence of being where we are. As a result of doing that research, I began to realize that reductionism doesn't work, in health and mental health issues.

Then later, Robb wrote to say

This book is a people-magnet! Yet again, a guy sitting next to me on a plane saw what I was reading and began asking me all kinds of questions. It became a 90 minute conversation about truth, God, Jesus, religion(s), politics, how he did drugs, etc etc. I think I am going to recommend this to anyone who wants incite conversation on any level, even if they don't read a single page. ha

Robb, I hope that guy realizes really soon that drugs are not going to give him anything he doesn't already have, except introductions to people he is better off without, health problems that doctors may not know the answer to ... oh, and a much lower bank balance ... again, thanks for writing ...

How is The Spiritual Brain doing?

Mario, who is travelling, writes to say,

Denyse: I learned a few days ago that the first print run (4000 copies) of the Dutch version of our book is already sold (in only a few weeks!) and the publisher is reprinting.

Hopefully, it will be the same thing with the French version (which will appear in September in France and other francophone countries).

The francophone version of the Introduction is here.

Mario has also told me that he thinks that The Spiritual Brain will be controversial in France. We will see.

Commentator Dinesh D'Souza on The Spiritual Brain: Including stuff he didn't know

Commentator Dinesh D'Souza blogged on The Spiritual Brain recently:

We find the materialist view ably expressed in Francis Crick's The Astonishing Hypothesis. What Crick finds astonishing is that our thoughts, emotions and feelings consist entirely in the physiological activity in the circuitry of the brain. Daniel Dennett argues that "mind" is simply a term for what the brain does. And how do we know that the brain and the mind are essentially the same? The best evidence is that when the brain is damaged, the injury affects the mind. Patients whose brains atrophy due to stroke, for instance, lose their ability to distinguish colors or to empathize with others.

But in his book The Spiritual Brain, neuroscientist Mario Beauregard shows why the Crick-Dennett position is based on a fallacy. Yes, the brain is the necessary locus or venue for the mind to operate. It does not follow that the two are the same. Beauregard gives a telling analogy. "Olympic swimming events require an Olympic class swimming pool. But the pool does not create the Olympic events; it makes them feasible at a given location." Far from being identical to the mind, Beauregard argues that the brain "is an organ suitable for connecting the mind to the rest of the universe."

D'Souza is correct in saying that Mario and I defend the non-materialist position regarding the mind.

He mentions in the review that he had been unaware of the existence of the nocebo effect:

Beauregard also writes about something I didn't know much about: the nocebo effect. "The nocebo effect is the harmful health effect created by a sick person's belief and expectation that a powerful source of harm has been contacted or administered." So if patients are strongly convinced that a particular pill will give them nausea, they frequently become nauseous, even when the pill they have taken is not the one they expected but only a sugar pill.

Yes, and that's why the doctor tells us that a given treatment ""will only hurt a little bit." Naturally, she hopes that is true, but telling us to expect a lot of pain is a sure way to produce more of it (a nocebo effect).

Here are some Hack posts on D'Souza:

"Atheist Dawkins blasted in Skeptical magazine"

"Religion profs who don't know much religion?"

"Alister McGrath on Richard Dawkins: Athiesm is simple-minded narcissism"

"Secularism: Early post-mortem results"

Here are some Hack stories on the nocebo effect:

"Does behaviorism work?"

"Prayer studies: From one-way skepticism, deliver us"

"Faith as one of the healing arts"

"If it hurts you more than it hurts someone else, are you just a sissy?"

The Spiritual Brain is shortlisted for three Write! Canada awards

According to today's release from The Word Guild, The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul is shortlisted in Book-Culture, Book-General Readership, and Book-Leadership/ Theoretical, in the Canadian Christian Writing Awards.




I am also individually shortlisted for a piece I wrote for St. Mike's Alumni magazine*, "The God they don't believe in is certainly not great."

Awards night is not till June 11, by which time I should have found my summer suit.

*This piece was written at the behest of the friend. I am not an alumna of St. Mike's at the University of Toronto but of Sir Wilfrid Laurier University.

Breakpoint reviews The Spiritual Brain

Kim Moreland reviewed The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul for Chuck Colson's Breakpoint. She kindly writes:

One might think that a book about neuroscience would be difficult or boring to read, but this one is interesting and accessible to all levels of readers. Beauregard and O’Leary include a handy glossary of technical terms, but they explain the terms in the text so the reader will not have to flip back and forth. There are also visual aids such as diagrams and cross-sectioned images of the brain.

Kim, not to worry, if it was difficult to read, I wouldn't understand it myself! If it was boring, I would never get through the job. I'm a journalist, not an academic.

Cloaked in mantles of scientific expertise, scholars like Edward O. Wilson, Daniel Dennett, and Dean Hamer have declared that religious and spiritual beliefs are nothing more than an adaptation for survival. But have they proved it? Using a number of examples, Beauregard and O’Leary expose “promissory materialism” and faulty assumptions made among materialists.

My biggest challenge in many cases was to avoid splitting my funnybone over some of the more ridiculous materialist theories of spirituality.

In her note, Kim adds, "I truly enjoyed reading it, and felt I learned a lot. My biggest problem was choosing what to highlight."

Kim, I had that problem too. Behind every stack of books lay a bigger, more shadowy stack that I "ought to" report on, and so on and on to an apparent infinite regress. And over all brooded the menacing Deadline ...

At times, kind readers have written to ask, why is this or that not in the book?, and I am afraid that the answer is: Because no one wants a 75-lb. book. I try to address as many such topics as I can on this blog and in articles that I can link to this blog.

The Spiritual Brain: Great Review in Canada's Medical Post

In April 1, 2008, issue, The Medical Post, reviewer Don Ranney, professor emeritus in anatomy at the Uiversity of Waterloo, confesses

Dr. Beauregard's conclusions about the soul will surprise you; I will not deprive you of the excitement and enjoyment of reading this book by revealing them here. When asked to prepare a book review I intended just to skim the pages, but I found I had to read every line and could not put it down.

Well, you know, Mario and I and several editors slaved over every line, so I am glad someone appreciated it!

Note: You need a pass to view the Medical Post site linked here. The link above takes you to Dr. Ranney's site. Also have a look at Dr. Ranney's page on that, er, sensitive subject, pain. Lots to learn about the true causes of pain.

AntiMatters reviews The Spiritual Brain

Here’s AntiMatters’ review of The Spiritual Brain, by managing editor Ulrich J Mohrhoff.

AntiMatters is a journal published by Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in Pondicherry, India:

AntiMatters is for those who are uncomfortable with (or unconvinced of) materialism, or who favor a non-materialistic world view. Such persons are oftentimes unaware of how much of what is claimed to have been scientifically established is actually spurious.

The review quotes extensively from the book, and while Mohrhoff takes exception to some of our concepts, he obviously enjoyed reading the book and agrees with us in general.

Consciousness - can it be a material phenomenon?

Granville Sewell has an interesting post and thread over at Uncommon Descent on consciousness, and the lack of an adequate current explanation for it. Here was my comment:

In The Spiritual Brain, Mario Beauregard and I devote Chapter 5 to the problem of materialist explanations of consciousness, as per Edelman, Koch, et cetera.

There are various materialist theories of consciousness. None address the "how" question effectively - probably because consciousness isn't a material phenomenon.

Materialists keep looking for material causes for the same reason that the guy who lost a dollar on Maple Street is looking for it on Main Street - because there is more light there, not because he is more likely to find it there. Quite the opposite, actually.

Re natural selection, anyone can invent a just-so story about how a given trait (monogamy, polygamy, adultery, rape, serial spouse murder) can be explained by natural selection. A modest amount of imagination suffices to invent just the cave man scenario where that specific form of behaviour paid off. I don't know why the theorists don't just write Clan of the Cave Bear novels.

Consciousness is especially problematic for natural selection theorizing because - unlike sex - it is rare. Many mammals and birds, and perhaps some reptiles, probably have a limited form of consciousness. We humans are the only creatures we know of in which the trait is highly developed. So clearly it is not a common part of the vast arsenal of creaturely survival.

That shouldn't be a surprise. Mere "consciousness" of prey and predators can be achieved - as it in fact is - by vast varieties of life forms that do not have or need brains, let alone consciousness (in the human sense).

In fact, one can go further and point out that many threats to survival and reproduction (suicide, organized warfare, non-parenting lifestyles, et cetera) only become possible with the advent of consciousness.

In any event, consciousness probably occurred rather suddenly. What of the very old burials where the body is placed in the fetal position, or with grave goods suggesting that the dead would live again? If things like that occurred comparatively suddenly, the process was not Darwinian.

But remember, there is more light on Main Street ...

The thing to see is that materialism is not applied to consciousness because it is a useful paradigm but because it is the only paradigm the materialist has. He cannot allow himself to consider any other approach and will - as recent events show - attempt to prevent others from doing so.

ChristianWeek review of The Spiritual Brain now online

Here's the ChristianWeek review of The Spiritual Brain by Larry Reynolds, Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Manitoba:

Studies of those who have had near death experiences are discussed in some detail and make very interesting reading. People who have had heart attacks, suffered "brain death" and have been successfully resuscitated seem to have similar experiences. Their contact with a loving caring force or light and reunion with deceased friends are often combined with an awareness of activities that happened in the room while they were "dead."
These experiences cannot be explained from a purely materialist viewpoint. However, some scientists, despite their claims to the contrary, are not always reasonable people and can be blinded by their faith in materialism, evolution and relativism. There is little doubt that many of them will reject the evidence presented in this book.

Maybe, but even atheists can have near death experiences.

The Spiritual Brain: Introduction

Because so many people have asked me what The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul addresses, I thought I would post the Introduction. It doesn't deal with everything the book addresses, but it gives you some idea.

In this book, we intend to show you that your mind does exist, that it is not merely your brain. Your thoughts and feelings cannot be dismissed or explained away by firing synapses and physical phenomena alone. In a solely material world, "will power" or "mind over matter" are illusions, there is no such thing as purpose or meaning, there is no room for God. Yet many people have experience of these things. We intend to argue that these experiences are real. In contrast, many materialists now argue that notions like meaning or purpose do not correspond to reality; they are merely adaptations for human survival. In other words, they have no existence beyond the evolution of circuits in our brains.

Can we prove God exists from neuroscience? No, but if your mind is real, a cosmic Mind would best account for it. If spirituality is good for you (and it is), that's because spirituality responds to the way things really are in our universe. Come along with us and see for yourself.

Part One: Neuroscience as if your mind is real
Part Two: Who has enough faith to be a materialist?
Part Three: The uses of non-materialist neuroscience
Part Four: Materialism is running on empty

Note: Pour le francais, voir L’Intelligence spirituelle : Introduction

Next: Part One: Neuroscience as if your mind is real

Part One: Neuroscience as if your mind is real

In this book, we intend to show you that your mind does exist, that it is not merely your brain. Your thoughts and feelings cannot be dismissed or explained away by firing synapses and physical phenomena alone. Are our questions about our meaning or purpose merely survival mechanisms? If such an airy dismissal of the intellectual life of thousands of years sounds vaguely unconvincing, well, perhaps it should.

When my doctoral student Vincent Paquette and I first undertook to study the spiritual experiences of Carmelite nuns at the Université de Montréal, we knew that our motives were quite likely to be misunderstood.

First, we had to convince the nuns that we were not trying to prove that religious experiences do not occur or that a brain glitch explains them. Then we had to quiet both the hopes of professional atheists and the fears of clergy about the possibility that we were trying to reduce spiritual experiences to some kind of "God switch" in the brain.

Many neuroscientists want to do just that. But Vincent and I belong to a minority—nonmaterialist neuroscientists. Most scientists today are materialists who believe that the physical world is the only reality. Absolutely everything else, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena--leaving no room for the possibility that religious experiences are anything but an illusion. Materialists are like Charles Dicken's character Ebeneezer Scrooge who dismisses his experience of Marley's ghost as merely "an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato."

Vincent and I, on the other hand, did not approach our research with any such materialist presumption. As we are not materialists, we did not doubt in principle that a contemplative might contact a reality outside herself during a mystical experience. In fact, I went into neuroscience in part because I knew experientially that such things can indeed happen. Vincent and I simply wanted to know what the neural correlates—the activity of the neurons—during such an experience might be. Given the overwhelming dominance of materialism in neuroscience today, we count ourselves lucky that the nuns believed in our sincerity and agreed to help us, and that the Templeton Foundation saw fit to fund our studies.

Of course, you may well ask, can neuroscience studies of contemplative nuns demonstrate that God exists? No, but they can—and did—demonstrate that the mystical state of consciousness really exists. In this state, the contemplative likely experiences aspects of reality that are not available in other states. These findings rule out various materialist theses that the contemplative is faking or confabulating the experience. Vincent and I also showed that mystical experiences are complex experiences, which rules out a vast variety of simplistic materialist explanations such as a "God gene," "God spot" or "God switch" in our brains.

Toronto-based journalist Denyse O'Leary and I have written this book to discuss the significance of these studies, and more generally, to provide a neuroscientific approach to understanding religious, spiritual, and mystical experiences. As I wrote above, neuroscience today is materialist. That is, it assumes that the mind is quite simply the physical workings of the brain. To see what this means, consider a simple sentence: "I made up my mind to buy a bike." One would not say, "I made up my brain to buy a bike." By contrast, one might say, "Bike helmets prevent brain damage," but not "bike helmets prevent mind damage."

But materialists think that the distinction you make between your mind as an immaterial entity and your brain as a bodily organ has no real basis. The mind is assumed to be a mere illusion generated by the workings of the brain. Some materialists even think you should not in fact use terminology that implies that your mind exists.

In this book, we intend to show you that your mind does exist, that it is not merely your brain. Your thoughts and feelings cannot be dismissed or explained away by firing synapses and physical phenomena alone. In a solely material world, "will power" or "mind over matter" are illusions, there is no such thing as purpose or meaning, there is no room for God. Yet many people have experience of these things. We intend to argue that these experiences are real. In contrast, many materialists now argue that notions like meaning or purpose do not correspond to reality; they are merely adaptations for human survival. In other words, they have no existence beyond the evolution of circuits in our brains. As co-discoverer of the genetic code Francis Crick
writes in The Astonishing Hypothesis, "Our highly developed brains, after all, were not evolved under the pressure of discovering scientific truths but only to enable us to be clever enough to survive and leave descendants." But are our questions about our meaning or purpose merely survival mechanisms? If such an airy dismissal of the intellectual life of thousands of years sounds vaguely unconvincing, well, perhaps it should.

Next: Part Two: Who has enough faith to be a materialist?

(From The Spiritual Brain)

Part Two: Who has enough faith to be a materialist?

One convenient aspect of materialism is that any doubt can be labeled "unscientific" in principle. That preempts a discussion of materialism's plausibility. Certainly, materialism is a faith that many intellectuals would never think of questioning. But the strength of their conviction neither shows that it is a correct account of reality nor provides evidence in its favor.

Suppose, for example, a healthy man donates a kidney for free to a dying stranger. The materialist may look for an analogy among moles, rats, mole rats, or chimpanzees, as the best way to understand the donor's motives. He believes that the donor's mind can be completely explained by the hypothesis that his brain was built up painstakingly in slow steps from the brains of creatures like these. Therefore, his mind is merely an illusion created by the workings of an overdeveloped brain, and his consciousness of his situation is actually irrelevant as an explanation of his actions.

This book argues that the fact that the human brain evolves does not show that the human mind can be dismissed in this way. Rather, the human brain can enable a human mind, whereas the mole brain cannot (with my apologies to the mole species). The brain, however, is not the mind; it is an organ suitable for connecting a mind to the rest of the universe. By analogy, Olympic swimming events require an Olympic class swimming pool. But the pool does not create the Olympic events; it makes them feasible at a given location. From the materialist perspective, our human mind's consciousness and free will are problems to be explained away. To see what this means, consider Harvard cognitive scientist Steve Pinker's comments on consciousness in a recent piece in Time magazine (January 19, 2007). Addressing two key problems that scientists face, he writes,

Although neither problem has been solved, neuroscientists agree on many features of both of them, and the feature they find least controversial is the one that many people outside the field find the most shocking. Francis Crick called it "the astonishing hypothesis" – the idea that our thoughts, sensations, joys and aches consist entirely of physiological activity in the tissues of the brain. Consciousness does not reside in an ethereal soul that uses the brain like a PDA; consciousness is the activity of the brain.

Given that Pinker admits that neither problem concerning consciousness is either solved or anywhere close to being solved, how can he be so sure that consciousness is merely "the activity of the brain", with the implication that he draws out, that there is no soul?

One convenient aspect of Pinker's materialism is that any doubt can be labeled "unscientific" in principle. That preempts a discussion of materialism's plausibility. Certainly, materialism is a faith that many intellectuals would never think of questioning. But the strength of their conviction neither shows that it is a correct account of reality nor provides evidence in its favor.

A good case can be made for the opposite view, as this book will demonstrate. Yes, this book - departing from a general trend in books on neuroscience aimed at the general public - does question materialism. Much more than that, it presents evidence that materialism is not true. You will see for yourself that the evidence for materialism is not nearly so good as Steve Pinker would like you to believe. You can only retain your faith in materialism by assuming - on faith - that any contrary evidence you read about must be wrong.

For example, as we will relate, a materialist readily believes - without any reliable evidence whatever - that great spiritual leaders suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy rather than that they have spiritual experiences that inspire others as well as themselves. Where spirituality is concerned, this experiential data is an embarrassment to narrow materialism. That is because a system like materialism is severely damaged by any evidence against it. Consequently, data that defy materialism are simply ignored by many scientists. For instance, materialists have conducted a running war against psi research (research on knowledge or action at a distance) for decades, because any evidence of psi's validity, no matter how minor, is fatal to their ideological system. Recently, for example, self-professed skeptics have attacked atheist neuroscience grad student Sam Harris for having proposed, in his book titled The End of Faith (2004), that psi research has validity. Harris is only following the evidence, as we shall see. But in doing so, he is clearly violating an important tenet of materialism: Materialist ideology trumps evidence.

Next: Part Three: The uses of non-materialist neuroscience

(From The Spiritual Brain)

Part Three: The uses of non-materialist neuroscience

There is such a thing as "mind over matter." We do have will power, consciousness, and emotions, and combined with a sense of purpose and meaning, we can effect change.

But other challenges to materialism exist, other evidence. Materialists must believe that their minds are simply an illusion created by the workings of the brain, and therefore that free will does not really exist and could have no influence in controlling any disorder. But non-materialist approaches have clearly demonstrated mental health benefits. Here are a few examples discussed in this book:

Jeffrey Schwartz, a non-materialist UCLA neuropsychiatrist, treats obsessive-compulsive disorder — a neuropsychiatric disease marked by distressing, intrusive, and unwanted thoughts—by getting patients to reprogram their brains—their minds change their brains.

Similarly, some of my neuroscientist colleagues at the Université de Montréal and I have demonstrated, via brain imaging techniques, that

– women and young girls can voluntarily control their level of response to sad thoughts, though young girls found it more difficult to do so.

– men who view erotic films are quite able to control their responses to them, when asked to do so.

– people who suffer from phobias such as spider phobia can reorganize their brains so that they lose the fear.

Evidence of the mind's control over the brain is actually captured in these studies. There is such a thing as "mind over matter." We do have will power, consciousness, and emotions, and combined with a sense of purpose and meaning, we can effect change.

Next: Part Four: Materialism is running on empty

(From The Spiritual Brain)

Part Four: Materialism is running on empty

Non-materialist neuroscience is not compelled to reject, deny, explain away, or treat as problems all evidence that defies materialism. That is convenient because current research is turning up a growing body of such evidence.

At one time, materialist explanations of spirituality were at least worth considering. For example, Sigmund Freud argued that childhood memories of a father figure led religious people to believe in God. Freud's explanation failed because Christianity is the only major religion that emphasizes the fatherhood of God. But his idea, while wrong, was not ridiculous. Relationships with fathers, happy or otherwise, are complex human experiences, with some analogies to spirituality. Similarly, anthropologist J.G. Frazer thought that modern religions grew out of primal fertility cults and were only later spiritualized. Actually, the evidence points more clearly to spiritual experiences as the source of later religious beliefs and rituals. Still, Frazer's idea was far from trivial. It derived from a long and deep acquaintance with ancient belief systems.

But recently materialistic explanations of spirituality have gotten out of hand. Influenced by this materialistic prejudice, popular media jump at stories about the violence gene, the fat gene, the monogamy gene, the infidelity gene, and now, even a God gene! Evolutionary psychologists attempt to explain human spirituality by insisting that cave dwellers in the remote past who believed in a supernatural reality were more likely to pass on their genes than cave dwellers who didn't. Progress in genetics and neuroscience has encouraged some to look, quite seriously, for such a God gene, or else a God spot, module, factor, or switch in the human brain. By the time the amazing "God helmet" (a snowmobile helmet modified with solenoids which purportedly could stimulate subjects to experience God) in Sudbury, Canada, became a magnet for science journalists in the ‘90s (the Decade of the Brain), materialism was just about passing beyond parody. Nonetheless, materialists continue to search for a God switch. Such comic diversions aside, there is no escaping the non-materialism of the human mind.

Essentially, there is no God switch. As the studies with the Carmelite nuns have demonstrated and this book will detail, spiritual experiences are complex experiences, like our experiences of human relationships. They leave signatures in many parts of the brain. That fact is consistent with (though it does not by itself demonstrate) that the experiencer contacts a reality outside herself.

The fact is, materialism is stalled. Not only does it have no useful hypotheses for the human mind or spiritual experiences, it is not close to developing any. Just beyond lies a great realm that cannot even be entered via materialism, let alone explored. But the good news is that, in the absence of materialism, there are hopeful signs that it can indeed be entered and explored with modern neuroscience.

Non-materialist neuroscience is not compelled to reject, deny, explain away, or treat as problems all evidence that defies materialism. That is convenient because current research is turning up a growing body of such evidence. Three examples addressed in this book are the psi effect, near death experiences (NDEs), and the placebo effect.

The psi effect, as seen in such phenomena as extrasensory perception and psychokinesis, is a low level effect, to be sure, but efforts to disconfirm it have failed. Near death experiences have also become a more frequent subject of research in recent years, probably because the spread of advanced resuscitation techniques has created a much larger population that survives to recount them. As a result of the work of researchers such as Pim van Lommel, Sam Parnia, Peter Fenwick, and Bruce Greyson, we now have a growing base of information. The results do not support a materialist view of mind and consciousness, as advanced by Pinker, who writes in Time "when the physiological activity of the brain ceases, as far as anyone can tell the person's consciousness goes out of existence."

Most of us have not experienced unusual effects like psi or NDE, but we have all probably experienced the placebo effect: Have you ever gone to your doctor to get a letter saying you can't go to work because you have a bad cold—and suddenly begun to feel better while sitting in the clinic, leafing through magazines? It's embarrassing, but easy to explain: Your mind generates messages to begin the analgesic or healing processes when you accept that you have in fact started on a path to recovery. Materialist neuroscience has long regarded the placebo effect as a problem, but it is one of the best attested phenomena in medicine. But for non-materialist neuroscience, it is a normal effect that can be of great therapeutic value when properly used.

Materialism is apparently unable to answer key questions about the nature of being human and has little prospect of ever answering them intelligibly. It has also convinced millions of people that they should not seek to develop their spiritual nature because they have none. Some think that the solution is to continue to uphold materialism a bit more raucously than before. Currently, key materialist spokespersons have launched a heavily publicized and somewhat puzzling "anti-God" crusade. Anti-theistic works such as Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (Daniel Dennett), The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins), God: The Failed Hypothesis — How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist (Victor J. Stenger), God Is Not Great (Christopher Hitchens) and Letters to a Christian Nation (Sam Harris) are accompanied by conferences such as the Science Network's "Beyond Belief" and campaigns such as the YouTube Blasphemy Challenge.

The remarkable thing is that there isn't a single new idea in all that they have to say. Eighteenth century philosophes said it all long ago, to as much or little purpose. Granted, recent works have been spiced with the questionable assumptions of evolutionary psychology—the attempt to derive spirituality from the practices that may have enabled a few of our Pleistocene ancestors to pass on their genes. But the Pleistocene ancestors are long gone, and not much can really be learned from a discipline that lacks a subject. There are also plenty of assurances about the illusory nature of consciousness and free will, and the uselessness or danger of spirituality. A variety of experts of the mid-twentieth century had predicted that spirituality would slowly but surely disappear. Once supplied with abundant material goods, people would just stop thinking about God. But the experts were wrong. Spirituality today is more varied, but it is growing all over the world. Thus, its continuing vitality prompts speculations, fears, and some pretty wild guesses—but most of all, a compelling curiosity, a desire to investigate.

But how can we investigate spirituality scientifically? To start with, we can rediscover our nonmaterialist inheritance. It has always been there, just widely ignored. Famous neuroscientists such as Charles Sherrington, Wilder Penfield, and John Eccles, were not in fact reductive materialists, and they had good reasons for their position. Today, non-materialist neuroscience is thriving, despite the limitations imposed by widespread misunderstanding and, in a few cases, hostility. Readers are urged to approach all the questions and evidence presented in this book with an open mind. This is a time for exploration, not dogma.

Our book will establish three key ideas: The non-materialist approach to the human mind is a rich and vital tradition that accounts for the evidence much better than the currently stalled materialist one.

Second, non-materialist approaches to the mind result in practical benefits and treatments, as well as promising approaches to phenomena that materialist accounts cannot even address.

And lastly – this may be the most important value for many readers – our book shows that when spiritual experiences transform lives, the most reasonable explanation – the one that best accounts for all the evidence – is that the people who have such experiences have actually contacted a reality outside themselves, a reality that has brought them closer to the real nature of the universe.

Mario Beauregard
Montreal
March 4, 2007

Return to top: The Spiritual Brain: Introduction

(From The Spiritual Brain)

Winnipeg Free Press review of The Spiritual Brain, and my posted comment

Here's an informative review of Mario Beauregard's and my just-released book,The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul, by a Winnipeg neuroscientist, Bruce Bolster, who coordinates the biopsychology program at the University of Winnipeg.

He writes,

Is the experience of God a state of mind or a state of brain? Or is there really Something Out There? Will neuroscientists find what novelist Douglas Adams called "the answer to life, the universe, and everything"?

This provocative book is an exploration of these questions, written by a University of Montreal experimental neuroscientist and co-authored by a journalist with an interest in both religious and scientific issues.

Great shot of Mario too. One handy thing about the Internet is that you can post comments, and here's one that I posted, addressing some issues that the review raises:

Hi from Denyse O'Leary, co-author of the book - two quick comments

Thank you very much. Dr. Bolster, for such an informative review. I am sure Free Press readers appreciate your careful outline of our book's contents.

Our actual subtitle is "A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul" not "How neuroscience is revealing the existence of God." (There was a goofup at the publishing house, in which a staff person who did not know the contents of the book put that subtitle on the handbound review copies and sent them far and wide. The correct subtitle hit the system later.)

We had no intention of stirring up any controversy abut God; we are quite clear, as you rightly say, that neuroscience cannot demonstrate the existence of God, But we think it can demonstrate the existence of the mind (soul). That at least implies the possibility of a divine Mind - plausible, not proven.

However, you also write - and this puzzles me: "One would need to look very hard indeed to find a psychologist or neuroscientist in the 21st century willing to dispute the influence of mind in organizing brain function."

In fact, we provide many examples in the book of key people who do not think that the mind has an organizing function because they argue that it is an illusion created by the workings of the brain. Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, and Francis Crick (who worked with Christoph Koch in his last years on a theory of consciousness) hold and disseminate views along this spectrum, and they are often widely quoted in the media.

I am glad to learn that - despite what one might gather from popular science media - their views are doubted among neuroscientists. May I assume that you are one of them? I hope that more neuroscientists who doubt them will speak up.

Denyse O'Leary talks about the just-released Spiritual Brain

Denyse O'Leary talks about the just-released Spiritual Brain

Here's a podcast interview where I reveal key secrets of the evil conspiracies I am part of, whiled discussing The Spiritual Brain . I also Wedge "the Edge", and explain why I don't drink coffee while reading materialist interpretations of spirituality - because choking with laughter while drinking coffee is, like, a bitter experience. I take mine without sugar.

My presentation on The Spiritual Brain in Seattle

Yesterday, I gave a presentation on Mario's and my new book, The Spiritual Brain (HarperOne, September 1)to a private conference in Seattle.

Looking out at the audience, I realized clearly that nonmaterialist neuroscience (neuroscience that assumes that the mind is real) is NOT just a way for fifty academic bores to contend at the taxpayers' expense about whether or not the mind is real.

Even if the mind were not real, the time and money they waste is real. And it is at the expense of learning how to help the mind heal the brain and body.

I stressed the practical value of treatments for disorders based on harnessing mental attention and the placebo (remembered wellness) effect. I also encouraged an evidence-based approach to the efect of spirituality on health, the effect of prayer on healing, and the effect of near death experiences on life change.

The materialist, by contrast, is stuck trying to develop a model that proves that nothing is really happening, everyone is deluded, it's all wrong, all bad, et cetera.

The presentation went pretty well, and many people bought copies of the book.

It was the first time I'd tried PowerPoint, so I just typed out the key points. Quite honestly - an experienced presenter told me later that I shouldn't do that. I am (he said) a natural speaker and very entertaining, and knew the material well enough that the printed key points (which always seemed to me to appear in the "wrong" order) were sometimes a distraction. Well, the certainly distracted me. He recommends using pictures, charts, and graphs instead. That sounds like fun, and I am going to put together something like that.

Meanwhile, the audio book (from Tantor), in several formats, will be available in December.

Michael Behe on The Spiritual Brain

Here is what biochemist Michael Behe, author of Edge of Evolution wrote me today, to say about The Spiritual Brain:

For more than a century materialists have been trying to talk us out of our minds. No such thing, they say. It’s just a brain, just electrified jelly, no more free than billiard balls bouncing around a pool table. Our overwhelming internal senses of self and freedom are pathetic illusions, meaningless byproducts of mechanical processes in a pointless universe.

In The Spiritual Brain neuroscientist Mario Beauregard and science writer Denyse O’Leary push back hard. First they debunk the most widely touted urban legends of impoverished materialism — the “God gene”, “God spot”, “God helmet”. Then they soberly examine the latest data from neuroscience, ranging from brain scans of prayerful nuns to the powerful placebo effect of sugar pills. If approached without materialist prejudice, they write, the results point insistently to the reality of a spiritual mind that survives physical death.

For my money, the most compelling demonstration of the reality of the psyche is the simple, elegant, entertaining, dryly humorous writing of /The Spiritual Brain/ itself. In it we are privileged to meet a pair of unfettered minds actively at work to shape our world. I strongly recommend this book to anyone with a mind of his own.

- biochemist Mike Behe, author of Edge of Evolution

Oh, I am SO glad that someone appreciates the fun part! I nearly split a gut laughing over the materialist science stories, and perhaps that came through in the writing. Basically, materialism isn't only wrong, it's nonsense. Don't believe me. Read the book.

Psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz on the importance of The Spiritual Brain

The Spiritual Brain is a very important book. It clearly explains non-materialist neuroscience in simple terms appropriate for the lay reader, while building on and extending work that Sharon Begley and I began in The Mind and The Brain, and work that Mario and I collaborated on in academic publications.

Of utmost importance is the fact that The Spiritual Brain clearly shows that non-materialist neuroscience is not simply a controversial view held by some neuroscientists. It is a coherent and theoretically very well-grounded perspective that can play a critical role in developing more effective treatments for many medical and psychological disorders. Further, it creates natural links between physical and spiritual health by stressing the need for the active participation of people in their own treatment planning and implementation.

The Spiritual Brain greatly contributes to the on-going paradigm shift that is revolutionizing our understanding of the relationship of the spirit, the mind, and the brain in the 21st Century.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz, MD
Research Psychiatrist, UCLA
Author of Brain Lock and The Mind and The Brain

I love the way Dr. Schwartz focuses on the positive developments that Mario and I discuss. Many fine books trash materialism. But so what? Where do you go if you are not a materialist? We provide examples of non-materialist neuroscience in action, as he notes, and those examples may have key implications for treatment of currently intractable or difficult disorders.

Here are some articles and interviews with him:

Articles co-authored by Stephanie and Jeff:
"Brain Management . . . Law Firm Leadership on the Neuro Frontier" (article excerpt is found here)
"Lead Your Brain Instead of It Leading You" (article excerpt is found here)
"Law Students: Create A Well-rounded Life"

Interview of Jeff Schwartz about his work with Leonardo DiCaprio on the movie The Aviator
Interview of Jeff Schwartz about his book The Mind and the Brain
Jeffrey M. Schwartz — Wikipedia
NPR interview of Jeff Schwartz about The Mind and the Brain

Spiritual Brain cover now up, audiobook rights announced

Here's the cover at Amazon, finally!:



Patrick Lawlor will be narrating The Spiritual Brain.

An AudioFile magazine Earphones Award winner and Audie Award finalist, Patrick Lawlor is also an accomplished stage actor, director, and combat choreographer. His recent audio includes the New York Times bestseller The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell (Tantor). “Lawlor is masterful.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

Tantor Audio promises samples (coming soon, they say). I will link to them as soon as they are available.

By the way, here is the Web page of my lead author, Mario Beauregard, and here is a photo of him:

(I think he's cute too, and he has a lovely wife named Johanne, who is also a neuroscientist.)