July 2005

God won’t go away because our brains are hardwired for mystical experience, say the scientist-authors of a book by that name, and some other researchers.

What is religious experience? It is a feeling of peace and benevolence - a feeling, I emphasize – that can be felt individually or may be felt in a church in the presence of beautiful music and surroundings, high ideals, or like-minded people.

What is not religious experience? "Christian soldiers, going as to war"; pedagogy; didacticism; coercion; sermons, argumentation & discussion; public prayer; patriotism.

There is an extraordinary class of religious feeling being revealed by near-death experience (NDE) studies. In the Netherlands, Pim van Lommel interviewed 344 cardiac arrest patients who seemed to have died and later were revived. 282 had no memories of their near-death, while 62 reported a classic near-death experience: They feel they are entering a dark tunnel, heading into light, feeling a total sense of love, peace, warmth, and welcome. They recall being reassured by dead friends, relatives, and religious figures. Occasionally there is a life review, followed by a decision point: Should I go or stay?

Van Lommel’s subset of 62 NDE’s reported more religious feeling and more social- and self-awareness than the others. Two years later, they had an increased belief in an afterlife and a decreased fear of death as compared to the others. After eight years, the NDE group was much more empathetic, emotionally vulnerable, and often showed evidence of increased intuitive awareness. They maintained a strong belief in an afterlife and showed no fear of death.

"Nearly all of the people who had had a near death experience - no matter if it was 10 years ago or 50 - were still absolutely convinced that their lives had meaning and that there was a universal, unifying thread of love which provided that meaning. ...They scored much higher [than controls] on life-attitude tests, significantly lower on fear-of-death tests, gave more money to charity, and took fewer medications. ... These people were just transformed by the experience", said Seattle physician Melvin Morse of a group of older people who had an NDE in early childhood. Morse studied NDE’s in children. In the "Seattle study" published in 1994, 23 of 26 children without pulse or breath longer than 30 seconds experienced a classic NDE. None of the 131 controls, dead for less than 30 seconds, reported anything of the kind.

Are there physical explanations? Neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield in the 1950's electrically stimulated temporal lobes just above the right ear. Subjects experienced out-of-body feelings, heavenly music, vivid hallucinations, and panoramic memories usually associated with the life review part of near-death. Penfield helped explain why right temporal lobe epilepsy’s most prominent symptom was excessive religiosity characterized by an intense feeling of spirituality, mystical visions, and voice-of-God auditory hallucinations.

James Whinnery, aerospace medicine specialist, studied G-force induced loss of consciousness. Over 16 years of spinning pilots in a Pennsylvania centrifuge, more than 500 of them blacked out. Blackouts averaged 12 to 24 seconds, with some longer. At least 40 pilots reported some sort of out-of-body experience - a perceptual shift in consciousness . The longer pilots were knocked out, the closer they got to brain death. The closer they got to brain death, the more likely it was that an out-of-body experience

would turn into a NDE, as 10 to 15% of the 40 experienced. This was the first hard evidence that out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences are two states on a

continuum. Loss of consciousness produced loss of peripheral vision then blackout. The transition to unconsciousness resembled floating peacefully within a dark tunnel, which resembled an NDE. The pilots reported a feeling of peace and serenity as they regained consciousness. The experiences may be related to compromised blood flow in the temporal lobe.

Clinical psychologist Willoughby Britton monitored brain waves during sleep of 23 persons with past NDE’s and 23 controls. The vast majority with near death experiences entered REM sleep at 110 minutes. Normal people entered at 90 and depressed people at 60 minutes or sooner. With that finding she identified the first objective neurophysiological difference in people who have had a near-death experience. The brains of 22% of the NDE’s showed synchronicity in the temporal lobe, as with temporal lobe epileptics, but on the left side, not the right.

The root cause of extraordinary belief, then -- the answer to life, the universe, and everything – comes down to abnormal circulation or stimulation in one or two areas of one’s brain, according to current researchers.

Some people feel uncomfortable with the findings, because they suggest at least that religious impulses occur physically in the brain and are not from a higher world. Existence of mysticism as objective reality is a novel concept. At their extreme they suggest that the most intense religious sentiments are but a pathology of the brain. But is it a useful pathology that makes us better people? Should we make appointments for the centrifuge? Imagine our country’s change of direction if, say, Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld came out on the other side of a heart attack feeling a total sense of love, peace, warmth, and welcome, more empathy and intuitive awareness, gave more to charity, and believed in a universal, unifying thread of love which provides meaning? An NDE is an *atypical* response to trauma. Typically people suffer some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Let us wish our brassy leaders the best outcome.

References:

"Extreme States," Discover magazine, July 2005 - "Near Death Experiences and the Temporal Lobe," Britton and Bootzin in Psychological Science, April 2004. - "Near Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest," van Lommel in The Lancet, Dec 15, 2001 - www.melvinmorse.com