The neuroscientists Mark Waldman and Andrew Newberg have published several books demonstrating the neurological benefits of contemplative spirutual practices such as prayer and meditation. In one study, they scanned the brains of American Buddhists practising a form of Tibetan meditation and Franciscan nuns engaged in contemplative prayer and found that there was both an increase and decrease in the neural activity of the same parts of the brain in their experimental subjects, which suggests that at this level of explanation (the purely physical) there may be a common core to this type of experience, in spite of the fact that we are talking about two contrasting traditions that are respectively non-theistic and theistic in terms of their ontological truth-claims.
The authors conclude that
, 'Our brain scan studies of contemplative forms of Buddhist and Christian meditation show that when activity in the parietal areas decreases, a sense of timelessness and spacelessness emerges. This allows the meditator to feel at one with the object of contemplation: God, the universe, peacefulness or any other object on which he or she focuses.'
Michael Pollan’s book on the therapeutic use of psychedelics (also referenced upthread) highlights some important recent research into the neural correlates of psilocybin-induced mystical experience, which notes a similarly characteristic sense of ego-loss or ego dissolution. Brain activity during this experience correlates similarly with the findings of Newberg and Waldman.
So how is this good for you?
Ongoing clinical trials at institutions like New York University, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and Imperial College in London are yielding some dramatic findings, namely, that a one-off, carefully controlled drug-induced mystical experience can have entirely benevolent and profoundly transformative effects on patients who are struggling with addiction, anxiety, depression, and a diagnosis of terminal cancer. For example, in trials at NYU and Hopkins, 80 per cent of cancer patients exhibited clinically significant reductions in standard measures of anxiety and depression, an effect that was maintained for at least six months after having been given a dose of psilocybin.
Sara Lazar at Harvard further confirms the benefits of regular meditation:
The copious literature on Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy has also demonstrated its considerable benefits for those suffering from chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and other conditions.
Now it is arguable that intensive spiritual practice is at the very heart of faith. As I have stated in other posts in this thread, the great mystics who can be found in all the major religious traditions all speak of a sense of unity with something greater than themselves.
Anyway, it seems to me undeniable that spirituality can confer benefits in terms of both psychological and physical health.
What I think draws ire from atheists and sceptics who see no value whatsoever in religion is arguably something quite different from this and is more to do with the content of allegedly 'revelatory' scripture that makes absurd, frequently mythically-based truth-claims that fly in the face of what we know about science, and is typically accompanied by the assertion that there is some kind of punitive, vindictive, deity who is getting his knickers in a twist about what we get up to down here and will consign us all to a fiery fate if we don't.
I would be happily join with attacks on religion in that sense. But as I have shown above, there is an entire other sense of 'religion' that might actually be better described as 'spirituality' and that certainly seems to have something going for it.
