NEUROTHEOLOGY *

Iona Miller's NEUROTHEOLOGY 2008:
The Biological Basis of Spirituality;
Post-Metaphysical Spirituality

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Neurotheology, also known as biotheology, is the study of the neural basis of spirituality. Neurotheology deals with the neurological, psychobiological and evolutionary root of subjective experiences traditionally categorized as spiritual. Aldous Huxley introduced the term neurotheology in his utopian novel Island. It was adopted in the last decade for a new scientific discipline. The term is also sometimes used in a less scientific context or philosophical context. Keywords include 'deity', soul, Self, neurophysiological bases, meditation, self-transcendence, spirituality, mysticism, EM and acoustic brain manipulation technology, resonance phenomena, neurotransmitters.

Neurotheology covers spiritual experiences of phenomena which are the basis of beliefs, built from four key interconnected components: perceptions, emotions, cognitions, and social interactions.

The perception that space/time orientation ceases; "spaced out"
NDE; ego death
Fear, alienation and self-consciousness dissolve
Nature mysic experiences or spiritual awe; bliss
Creativity and connection with Source
Ego submits to will of Self
DNA memory coiling back to the dawn of life
Sense of immortality and interspecies symbiosis
Oneness with the universe
Ecstatic trance; self-transcendence; psychophysical rapture
Sudden enlightenment, stabilizing over time
Altered States of Consciousness; temporal lobe visions
Pure Awareness; Illumination
Increase of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine DMT levels in the 1000 Petalled Lotus or Pineal Gland.

Any attempt to marry a materialistic approach like neuroscience to spirituality naturally attracts much criticism. Some of the criticism is philosophical, dealing with the (perceived) irreconcilability between reductionistic science and spirituality. Some crit is more methodological, dealing with the issues of studying an experience as subjective as spirituality on demand. Just because the demystifying research is problematical or the unveiling of the workings of the mind is psychologically disturbing for some doesn't mean we shouldn't study it.

The Spectrum of BioRapture

However, the methods of scientific investigation can be applied to the taxonomy or spectrum of consciousness without dismissing the phenomena studied. The fact that certain experiences, such as the disappearance of space/time orientation, can be correlated with cessation or activation of certain brain regions doesn't invalidate their human values.

The mind tends to interpret these psychophysical events and processes in terms of pre-programmed cultural beliefs and sociocultual memes. Many of these attributions to our experience are trendy imaginal wormholes: Near death experience, astral projection, nonlocal healing. Neurosomatic rapture is preparation for the next step in our evolution - transhumanism.

Once you know the brain neurology and the resonant nature of the mindbody connection, you can make up your own mind about this complex interaction which doesn't come out of nowhere. It is our evolutionary legacy; we are the product of our environment and precisely tuned to it. The holistic nature of the body reflects the Nature of the Cosmos; our nature is not separate from Nature. There is great value in discipline, practice, and service which exercises the full spectrum of our human potential.

2011 News: Perception & Interpretation

What just happened? Why some of us seem totally spaced out

October 7, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica

fMRI of individual without a paracingulate sulcus (credit: Jon Simons)

Ever wonder why uncle Louie seems to imagine stuff that didn’t happen, and calls you crazy? Well now’s there’s an explanation.

Half of you won’t like it, I warn you.

A new study of the brain by University of Cambridge scientists explains why some people can’t tell the difference between what they saw and what they imagined or were told about — such as whether they or another person said something, or whether an event was imagined or actually occurred.

Turns out it results from a normal variation in a fold at the front of the brain called the paracingulate sulcus (PCS), the scientists said.

Who you gonna believe? Me, or your lying memory?

This brain variation is present in roughly half of the normal population. It’s one of the last structural folds to develop before birth, so it varies greatly in size between individuals in the healthy population. The researchers discovered that adults whose MRI scans indicated an absence of the PCS were significantly less accurate on memory tasks than people with a prominent PCS on at least one side of the brain.

Interestingly, all participants believed that they had a good memory despite one group’s memories being clearly less reliable. OK, but the question is: if you explain this to them, do they back off from their alleged memories?

“Additionally, this finding might tell us something about schizophrenia, in which hallucinations are often reported whereby, for example, someone hears a voice when nobody’s there,” said Dr. Jon Simons from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Experimental Psychology and Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute. “Difficulty distinguishing real from imagined information might be an explanation for such hallucinations.”

That might explain UFOs. (Especially if they watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind one too many times.)

Take this MRI test (if you dare)

For the study, the researchers recruited 53 healthy volunteers based on their brain scans which showed either a clear presence or absence of the PCS in the left or right brain hemisphere. Participants were presented either with well-known word-pairs like “Laurel and Hardy” or with the first word of a word-pair and a question mark (“Laurel and ?”). In the latter condition, participants were instructed to imagine the second word of the word-pair. Then, either they or the experimenter was instructed to read the word-pair out aloud.

After a delay, a memory test was given where participants tried to remember whether they had seen or imagined the second word of each previously-encountered word-pair, or whether they or the experimenter had read the word-pair out aloud. Participants with absence of the PCS in both brain hemispheres scored significantly worse than the others at remembering both kinds of detail.

Hmm, shouldn’t courts do an MRI test for witnesses? I’m just sayin’.

Ref.: Marie Buda, Alex Fornito, Zara M. Bergström, and Jon S. Simons, A Specific Brain Structural Basis for Individual Differences in Reality Monitoring, Journal of Neuroscience, Oct. 5, 2011, 31(40):14308-14313;doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3595-11.2011

Ecstasy & Bliss

Are there things we should not know? We are innately geared to crave ecstasy, “escape reality,” and seek extraordinary or novel experiences on our way to wisdom. The history of mankind recounts the stages of that journey. Religions and mysticism arose from the accounts of spontaneous spiritual experiences. In shamanism, our ancestors sought them in an instinctual or animalistic way. In art, myth and ritual we sought them in a human, if narcissistic and self-expressive reactionary way.

In creativity and meditation we seek in a fully conscious way, willfully cooperating and facilitating the process not only of connecting with God, but experiencing oneself in the process of “becoming” god. The ego no longer perceives itself as a separate expression of consciousness, but as the same essence as All.

Of course, we can never fully complete that process. No one can fully embody God, but we can move toward it. The succession of conscious states is toward higher integration, not toward lower dissociation. The process of integration in growth toward positive values has the complementary virtues of being obvious in fact and transcendental in implications. It means we evolve from reactive creatures into an integrated part of the spiritual dimension.

The God Spot: Where in the Brain Can We Find God?

Spirituality is inherent in mankind's nature. Shamanism, the prehistoric spirituality is over 50,000 years old. Neurotheology is the marriage of brain science and theology, which systematically studies the relationship of God and the universe. Religion is the expression of theological attitudes and actions. Tradition says God created the heavens and earth, and God created man in his own image.

But did God create man and the brain, or does the brain create God? Measurements of electrical activity in the brains of test subjects indicated a specific neural center in the temporal lobe that flared up at times when the subjects thought about God. Revelation is the act of God manifesting, disclosing himself, or communicating truth to the mind. These subjective experiences are the basis of mysticism. Perhaps God hid mankind’s spirituality where we would least expect it and be least likely to look -- within ourselves.

When stimulated the God Spot creates hallucinations that are interpreted as mystical or spiritual experiences. This temporal lobe 'spot' is stimulated during meditation and prayer and is affected by electromagnetic fields and epilepsy. The resulting hallucinations may be the cause of mystical, spiritual and paranormal experiences as they can give feelings such as a presence in the room or an out of body experience. The transcendental feeling of being one with the universe results from decreased activity in the brain's parietal lobe, which helps regulate the sense of self and physical orientation. The amygdala and hippocampus are involved in the experience of visions, profound experiences, memory, and meditation.

Meditation increases activity in the front part of the brain and decreases activity in the area of the brain that orients our bodies in space. This increased frontal activity is found not only during meditation, but also during any attention-focusing task. Explanations of these influences come from personal beliefs; a visit from an angel or lost loved one, an extraterrestrial encounter, a higher plane of consciousness or a visit from God.

The religious element of our nature is just as universal as the rational or social one. Could altering brain chemistry by playing some visual and pleasure circuits, while quieting those governing self-image, cognition, orientation, and time sequencing give rise to a transcendental bliss, a god-experience? Can they give rise to the electrochemical supercharge described as kundalini, the serpent power that rises up the spine in self-transcendence or illumination? How can we journey along the continuum from pleasure to enthusiasm, to joy, ecstasy and enlightenment?

However, this human study of the phenomenology of the God-experience doesn’t reductively negate the possibly of a divine creative force. Rather, this transdisciplinarian science simply seeks to describe the mechanisms involved in that process. It explores how the divine is translated into the human realm, from the archetypal to the material world. It combines aspects of religion, psychology, and neurology. This new paradigm synthesizes the truths of both science and religion -- giving birth to “neuroshamanism.”

EVOLUTION OF BELIEF PARADIGMS

Stage 1: Archaic: Survival, the Ground Zero of Existence. Self-preservation, isolation; antisocial. Paranoid or idiosyncratic beliefs.

Stage 2: Tribal: Truster/Trickster. Social; love, belonging. Self-sacrifice vs. selfishness. Transgression; taboo. Ethnocentric magical and superstitious beliefs.

Stage 3: Egocentric: Power; Esteem; Autonomy, heroic. Unscrupulous Competition/Hero. Shame vs. honor. Exploitation vs. Respect. Mythic beliefs.

Stage4: Moral/Patriotic. Rules; Initiative. Shame and guilt vs. conformity and conventionality; purpose, virtue. Systematized truths. Emotional, nostalgic beliefs.

Stage 5: Materialist. Reasoning; mental analysis. Rational beliefs, truth; goodness; consumerism, greed. Head vs. heart. Progressive if rewarded, compulsive, workaholic. Perspective. Rational beliefs.

Stage 6: Wise Empath. Service, rapport, intimacy, empathy. Politically correct.. Inner wisdom, meaning. Self-actualization. Intuitive, mystical beliefs.

Stage 7: Distancer/Self. Paradoxical; individuated, reclusive; universalist. Deconstruction and Synthesis, gestalt, the big picture. Integral, synergetic beliefs.

Stage 8: Global Village. Complex Dynamic Beliefs. Post-Metaphysical Integrative Spirituality. “Express Self Now, but not at the expense of Others or the World, so that Life May Continue.” (Graves) Integrative Sustainable beliefs.

"The artist is the man in any field, scientific or humanistic, who grasps the implications of his actions and of new knowledge in his own time. He is the man of integral awareness."- Marshall McLuhan, UNDERSTANDING MEDIA: The Extensions of Man, Ch. 7 (Challenge and Collapse), pp.70-1, 1964, SIGNET BOOKS, New York

MEDITATION

The task of meditation is essentially letting the body fall as deeply asleep as possible while the mind remains focused. In fact, if it were not for the opposite function’s presence, even in the mystical state, we would fall asleep. The REM or dream state is similar: there is extreme cerebral excitation, even though muscular activity is inhibited. Hemispheric synchronization producing long, slow alpha and theta brainwaves with high amplitude is another factor. The deeper the meditation, the slower and stronger the waves.

The energy “rush” of meditation comes when either the arousal or quiescent state “spills over” into stimulating its complementary system. When both parts of the autonomic nervous system go online simultaneously, the limbic system goes wild with emotion, absorption and oceanic bliss. This is reflected in the gender based, male-female imagery of the kundalini serpent power and the yin and yang of the Tao.

When both systems go into maximal discharge, this neurochemical flux is subjectively perceived as Absolute Unity of Being, boundlessness, timelessness, and sacredness. Our relationship to humans, earth, and cosmos is one of a relationship to the Other. Our first formative influence is the experience of empathy. And empathy needs a face. If we find that face in our personal experience of God, who shall say nay? Beyond that lies only the yawning infinity of the Void.

FACTOID:

Hearing and also temporal lobe effects in mammals are dominated by
wavelength effects as opposed to frequency effects. 4 ghz microwave wavelength

about equals peak of human sensitivity which
is about 1000 hz sound wave in air.

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Chemistry of Illumination

Illumination has been described as being blinded by the manifestation of God’s presence. This brightness has no relation to any visible light. Visionary experience, which has symbolic or religious content, may give way to this dazzling light, which is reported in eastern and western religions. No wonder it is called illumination, and it can confer a palpable glow to the person that is perceptible after the return to ordinary awareness.

Imagine suggesting the body makes it own psychedelic drug! This is just what psychiatrist Rick Strassman contends in DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2001). He asserts it is an active agent in a variety of altered states, including mystical experience. This chemical messenger links body and spirit. Pineal activation may awaken normally latent synthetic pathways.

Meditation may modulate pineal activity, eliciting a standing wave through resonance effects that affects other brain centers with both chemical and electromagnetic coordination. Resonance can be induced in the pineal using electric, magnetic, or sound energy. Such harmonization resynchronizes both hemispheres of the brain. This may result in a chain of synergetic activity resulting in the production and release of naturally-produced hallucinogenic compounds.

NEUROTRANSMITTERS: Mindbody Chemisty

Neurotransmitters bridge the mindbody gap. They are the chemicals which account for the transmission of signals from one neuron to the next across synapses. They can motivate or sedate, excite or calm us. Some brain chemicals are part of the key to our spirituality. Brain function is implicated in openness to spiritual experience from spiritual acceptance to the supernatural.

Still, this says nothing about the existence of the timeless, spaceless, formless Ground or unqualifiable Spirit as such. The existence of higher states of consciousness can be directly known, and thus the difference between the higher states and the lower states--a difference known as "involution"--can be seen based on direct phenomenological evidence and experience.

Cloninger (2004) claimed he found a God gene that spiritual people tend to share. Characteristics, such as feeling connected to the world and a willingness to accept things that cannot be objectively demonstrated are common. He then looked at the DNA samples of some of his subjects, hoping to find variants of genes that tended to turn up in self-transcendent people.

A gene known as VMAT2 has two different versions, differing only at a single position. People with one version of the gene tend to score a little higher on self-transcendence tests. Cloninger claims the God gene is, along with other faith-boosting genes, a product of natural selection. Self-transcendence makes people more optimistic, which makes them healthier.

There are fourtemperament dimensions: novelty seeking, harm avoidance, rewarddependence, and persistence. Three character dimensionsinclude self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence. Spiritual acceptance vs. material rationalism is mediated by serotonin. The brain produces its own natural stimulants (noradreneline) and downers, among other mind-altering compounds. Endorphins and enkephalines mimic opioids. Endorphins control pain reduction and pleasure. Dopamine is strongly associated with reward mechanisms in the brain.

Different chemical cocktails are released in different situations. Acetylcholine is the primary chemical carrier of thought and memory. This excitatory neurotransmitter is essential for both the storage and recall of memory, and partly responsible for concentration and focus. It also plays a significant role in muscular coordination. The 'cuddle hormone' oxytocin is produced during love-making, gestation and after childbirth. Dopamine stimulates the production of oxytocin. Fewer oxytocin receptors create less attachment in relationships.

PEA is implicated in driving us love-crazy. When we fall in love, we become sleepless and lose our appetites as if we were on stimulants. It is a rush of complex chemistry that changes to an opiate-like haze during bonding following the initial stages of euphoria. When abused, opiates highjack neural paths designed to promote love, attachment and spirituality. Phenylethylamine plays a critical role in the limbic system giving a feeling of bliss. It is a natural ingredient in chocolate.

The primary neurotransmitters are dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin. Dopamine is necessary for healthy assertiveness and sexual arousal, proper immune and autonomic nervous system function. Dopamine is important for motivation and a sense of readiness to meet life's challenges. Norepinephrine (noradrelalin) creates motivation, alertness and concentration. Central serotonergic neurons originate from the raphe nucleiin the brainstem and innervate major brain regions, such asthe hypothalamus, the limbic system, the striatum, and the neocortex.

Serotonin plays a role in calmness, contentment, mood stabilization, sleep and dreaming. Low serotonin levels are linked to anxiety, sleeplessness, increased pain, depression and poor impulse control. People are different in the way they perceive religion and spirituality. Low serotonin is also linked to openness to the supernatural and religiosity. Higher levels are linked with people who believe what they see with their eyes and are not so open to God or other aspects of religion.

Serotonin is intimately involved in emotion and mood and regulates memory and learning. Too little serotonin has been shown to lead to depression, problems with anger control, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and suicide.

Serotonin/norephinephrine balance controls arousal. The richest concentration of serotonin in the body can be found in the pineal body which makes melatonin of it, even though this gland does not use serotonin as a transmitter. The serotoninsystem may serve as a biological basis for spiritual experiences and self-transcendence.

Perception of time-intervals is believed to be mediated by spiny neurons located in the basal ganglia. Timing begins with a burst of dopamine and ends with a recognized signal. Marijuana slows subjective time by lowering dopamine available, whereas cocaine and methamphetamine accelerates the sense of time by increasing dopamine availability.

Meditation for self-regulation can easily change the set-point for mood. You can recalibrate yourself anytime. Calming breathing and heartrate sends a different holistic signal to all the body's systems, immediately changing brain chemistry.

EVOLUTION OF BELIEF PARADIGMS

The sophistication of our beliefs about the way ourselves and the world works has evolved over time. But not everyone lives in the Present, with a belief system that is consistent with our current rational knowledge. Beliefs are influenced by emotional and psychosocial pressures.

Many people are firmly invested in the spiritual practices of by-gone eras, for good or not so good. Regardless, time and technology march on, impacting our psychophysical organism with challenges never faced by humanity before. The future-oriented are already living there. As has been pointed out: "The future is already here; it just isn't evenly distributed." To truly live mindfully in the Now, which is all we ever actually have, is to live at your Cosmic Zero Point http://myzeropoint.50megs.com

For thousands of years, tribes were so well adapted to their environments, they had little need to evolve. Their worldviews and reality differed, but not so overwhelmingly as for repressed cognitive dissonance to drive them to higher-numbered stages

Belief systems are like reality wormholes into the past. Part of us can live in the 14th, 17th, or 19th century, depending on eclectic spiritual ideas we have embraced or gotten stuck in. The same individual, such as a religious scientist, can embrace conflicting beliefs from different centuries. Compartmentalization is the only way to deny this cognitive dissonance.

Self-regulatory techniques can be adopted without this psychological baggage, with or without maintaining the spiritual or religious context. Somewhere on the planet, humans are living in every niche of the evolutionary belief spectrum. Which existential experience you perceive depends on the filters of your options (environment), beliefs and values.

Each stage represents a limited understanding and repressions until its liabilities force us into the next stage. Alternating stages are self-expressive and social. First new traits and states are emergent; then they stabilize. Our archetypal experiences can be regressions or expressions of our present highest state of development or emergent, then stabilized intuitions of still higher states. Each stage is a worldview with its own needs, belief style and existential ground. Each is its own trance state, a lens through which the world is perceived with certain distortions. Each can be a trap of complacency as we enjoy its rewards.

Stage 1: Archaic: Survival, the Ground Zero of Existence. Self-preservation, isolation; antisocial. Paranoid or idiosyncratic beliefs.

Stage 2: Tribal: Truster/Trickster. Social; love, belonging. Self-sacrifice vs. selfishness. Transgression; taboo. Ethnocentric magical and superstitious beliefs.

Stage 3: Egocentric: Power; Esteem; Autonomy, heroic. Unscrupulous Competition/Hero. Shame vs. honor. Exploitation vs. Respect. Mythic beliefs.

Stage 4: Moral/Patriotic. Rules; Initiative. Shame and guilt vs. conformity and conventionality; purpose, virtue. Systematized truths. Emotional, nostalgic beliefs.

Stage 6: Wise Empath. Service, rapport, intimacy, empathy. Politically correct.. Inner wisdom, meaning. Self-actualization. Intuitive, mystical beliefs.

Stage 7: Distancer/Self. Paradoxical; individuated, reclusive; universalist. Deconstruction and Synthesis, gestalt, the big picture. Integral, synergetic beliefs.

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Iona Miller's NEUROTHEOLOGY

Iona Miller's NEUROTHEOLOGY 2008:The Biological Basis of Spirituality;Post-Metaphysical Spirituality