Neurotheology – Part 2

Brain activity has been studied during meditation and prayer, forms of spiritual experience from different cultures. During both of these activities the parietal lobe has a reduced blood flow and it becomes less active. This is significant because it is an area of the brain that gives a sense of space and time, a sense of orientation. This area also slows down during activity involving focused concentration.

When this area begins to close down the sense of self begins to diminish and the person’s identity can be seen as melting into a larger reality. The intensity of the change in brain activity will affect the experience.

At one end of the spectrum, someone concentrating on an activity can lose themselves in the act of whatever they are doing and time simply seems to pass quickly.

At the other end of the spectrum a person can enter an intensely spiritual or mystical experience, and feel a sense of oneness with everything. This kind of spiritual experience exists across cultures and can be found in the writings of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu writings.

Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum a person can find themselves within a group situation becoming part of a crowd that seems to somehow think and act with one mind. This can be a very intense experience and is why group activities are so powerful in terms of their emotional effect on an individual.

When viewed from a neurological point of view the role of dance, signing, chanting or any kind of ritual can be understood as a path to spiritual experience. Focused concentration on something, anything, results in a blocking out of other stimulus. The part of the brain which deals with time and spatial information is not needed and partially shuts down, shutting down the sense of self with it. In sport this becomes the flow state, complete absorption in the task itself. In prayer and meditation it becomes spiritual experience.