Science of Spirituality

[Kind of Blue]

If you're interested, there's a New NPR series beginning this week called the Science of Spirituality.

Main series page http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/brain/

First segment today The God Chemical: Brain Chemistry And
Mysticism - audio should be up
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104240746

Tomorrow, Searching For The God Spot
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104240746

[Kind of Blue]

1. Today: Are Spiritual Encounters All In Your Head?

Most interesting to me were two scientists basically studying the same thing. One says,

"What is the last illusion that we must overcome as a species?" he asks theatrically. "That illusion is that God is an absolute that exists independent of the human brain — that somehow we are in his or her care."

Question: Does the fact that we can track spiritual feelings in our temporal lobe mean that there's nothing spiritual going on?

The other scientist says, "No. Think about a man and woman who are in love. They look at each other, and in all likelihood, something fires in their temporal lobes. However, does that negate the presence of true love between them? Of course not. When you get to spirituality, as a scientist, I think it really becomes extremely difficult to say anything other than, It's possible."

As for the patient, "I don't care where it comes from. I'm just a happier person, and I'm a more decent human being because of it."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104291534

[get the red out]

4. If the radio exists that means the radio waves don't

Saying that nothing spiritual exists because we have a part of our brain that interacts with the spiritual is like saying because a radio exists the waves it picks up don't.

This is interesting because it is another sensory organ developed to interact with the world around us.

[Kind of Blue]

6. So well said.

Thanks, get the red out. I like that. You sure have a way with words :)

[Kind of Blue]

2. Today: Prayer May Reshape Your Brain ... And Your Reality

"The field is called 'neurotheology,' and although it is new, it's drawing prominent researchers in the U.S. and Canada. Scientists have found that the brains of people who spend untold hours in prayer and meditation are different."

Interesting account here is Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania, examining the action of the frontal lobes of a theologian and Franciscan nuns in prayer, a physician and Buddhist monks in meditation, and Sikhs chanting, found that while that lobe lit up because it handles focused attention, activity decreases in the parietal lobe "that normally takes our sensory information, tries to create for us a sense of ourselves and orient that self in the world ... people lose their sense of self, feel a sense of oneness, a blurring of the boundary between self and other"

Newberg says, "There is no Christian, there is no Jewish, there is no Muslim, it's just all one."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104310443

[I Have A Dream]

3. Thank you, Blue. This looks really interesting.

I'm going to check it out. :)

[Kind of Blue]

7. You betcha! Today's, that I'll brief

in a few minutes, you might really enjoy - is about prayer and thoughts affecting ourselves and others.

[Why Syzygy]

5. Thanks for posting this.

I'm going to explore it, although I'm familiar with the theme. It's just one more thing that makes me so ANGRY that we are denied these experiences due to the LAW.

By the end of the 1960s, the U.S. government had had enough of Timothy Leary's call to "turn on, tune in, drop out" and were concerned that a generation was conducting its own uncontrolled experiments with drugs and spirituality. In the early '70s, the experiments ended.

Dang that Timothy Leary! If he had just said, "turn on, tune in, and buy a new Ipod", the chemicals would still be legal!

Materialism makes me ANGRY as hell. Especially since it is the tool of our exploitation.

[Kind of Blue]

8. Yeah, and isn't ironic how the government

through universities, produced Leary and the guy who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest promotion of drugs, as well as the Unabomber, with their "controlled" experiments in the late '50s and 60s.

[Kind of Blue]

9. Today: Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another Person?

This segment was the most exciting for me. I guess I was disappointed but skeptical about a recent report concluding that prayer does absolutely nothing for the sick and, in fact, the object of prayers actually got worse!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104351710

Well, today's topic showed that in the previous studies, total strangers were used to send healing light. But the scientists interviewed are working with people who know each other, and this makes all the difference.

"After running 36 couples through this test, the researchers found that when one person focused his thoughts on his partner, the partner's blood flow and perspiration dramatically changed within two seconds. The odds of this happening by chance were 1 in 11,000. Three dozen double blind, randomized studies by such institutions as the University of Washington and the University of Edinburgh have reported similar results."

This led to the theory of Quantum Entanglements, as an explanation. This absolutely infuriated a skeptical doctor. But what's strange to me is instead of an analysis of the results, he was angry about what he says is the incorrect use of the terms. It would have been great if he'd provided an opinion.

[get the red out]

10. I have heard similar studies

The problem with skeptics is that they are so angry if they can't prove the "spiritual" to be non-existent then they will downplay or disregard positive results of studies. Then skeptics scream "prove it" when someone speaks positively about anything that falls into what we think of as the spiritual realm.

There are always going to be some negative studies regarding everything, there is no way to make every study have perfect conditions (or to ensure they are all done fairly for good motives). I can tell you I never stopped taking vitamin E when an outlier study was promoted as the Gospel against vitamin use!

I love the theories behind Quantum Entanglements. Very cool stuff, though being a person with a useless Fine Arts degree, when reading about topics like quantum physics I can't tell you much about what I read, but I can say it was enlightening, LOL! I was able to recall one book I have read on the subject though: "Physics of the Soul: The Quantum Book of Living, Dying, Reincarnation and Immortality" by Amit Goswami.

On a very personal note; my 20 month old niece took her first steps last week. Four months ago her mother (my sister), with me tagging along as chief baggage handler and tea taster, brought that little girl back from an orphanage in China. And at 16 months the child couldn't sit up by herself or even hold her own bottle. A lot of positive thoughts and visualizations have been sent her way for sure.

I need discussions like these, thanks!