Greek philosopher Socrates said "know thyself" The emerging new
discipline called evolutionary psychology is just trying to do
that. Through this scientific discipline humans are trying to
reflect on itself and gain knowledge about the way they think,
act and behave. Evolutionary psychology is an attempt to
understand human mind based on objective evidences and
observations using the insights of evolution. It does so in a way
devoid of the vague mysticism, verbosities (that eventually end
up in circularities) that were typical of past endevours to do
the same. This new field is trying to offer credible explanations
for the way we feel, think and behave, form moral judgements and
values in the light of evolutionary principles. An important
subfield of evolutionary psychology is the new field of
neurotheology, which attempts to explain the ubiquitous
religious belief among the human species across all cultures and
race, in the light of the evolutionary working of the brain and
genetics. The fact that religious beliefs and mystical feelings
are rooted in the evolutionary biology of the brain is well
established from neurological research now. Both mysticism, a
form of religious experience and traditional religious beliefs
are rooted in the neuronal substrate of brain consciousness.
Mysticism involves mostly the limbic system of the brain. More on
that later. It seems common sensical today to biologists and
science savvy folks armed with the knowledge of evolution that
like all human traits, religious beliefs must also be a product
of evolution, to increase the odds of survival of the human
species. It would not have been so obvious before evolution was
known. But even as far back as 1899, John Fiske, the American
philosopher said in his 1899 book "Through nature to GOD" : "
Would it not be strange if suddenly, after humans crossed the
magic threshold to speech and self- awareness, the appearance of
religion in all primitive cultures would have had no survival
value?" (From p-381, The Whys of a Philosophical scrivener -
Martin Gardner). A remarkable insight for his time. More recently
Matthew Alper in his book "The God part of the Brain"
(see http//www.godpart.com/premise.html) has argued very cogently
in favour of a God module in our brain, much like Noam Chomsky
suggested a language module in our brain 40 years ago. He
proposes that beliefs in God, the afterlife, mind-over-matter
and superstitions have a physiological origin and may be encoded
into human DNA, evolved as a defense mechanism to help people
cope with the anxiety that comes from being aware of our own
mortality.

The late Eugene d'Aquili, a pioneer in neurotheology, suggested
neuropsychological mechanisms behind the universal existence of
religions and behaviors involving a brain structures performing a
specific function. That structure generates(Or explains) reality
for us when our senses cannot. Gods, spirits, etc. are then
automatically generated by our brains, even if we cognitively
reject the idea of their existence, we still experience them in
our dreams and fantasies, ie, our subconscious. This is a
universal human trait - of believers and non-believers alike.

A result of the actions of this brain area is the construction of
myths and power sources to explain our existence and orient
ourselves within the universe. This allows us to deal with the
world in ways we know how. d'Aquili proposes that this aspect of
religion is a means of controlling our environment
psychologically so that we can control it externally and
ultimately survive in it. So ultimately it is the evolutionary
survival strategy that creates this religion module in the brain.

Modern evolutionary biology views human brain as an evolved organ
just any other, crafted by the selection pressure of evolution.
Thus the manifestation of the working of the brain, i.e mind is
also a product of evolutionary pressure. The way humans think,
behave and feel is shaped by the forces of evolution, acting over
time. It is an illusion to believe that "we" the humans create
the values, morals etc. There is no "we" outside of the brain
existing independently and controlling the brain. There is no
"soul", controlling the brain. The brain controls how humans think,
behave and feel, and the brain itself is controlled by
evolutionary forces, which ultimately is the result of the laws
of Physics at work acting together with the contingencies of
nature(environment). (Please refer to my earlier essay: "Soul,
Brain and the Laws of Physics at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/14998).
Environment here refers to all the collection of human brains
forming a network of brains in a given community.

Neurotheologists are trying to explain spirituality in terms of
neural networks, neurotransmitters and brain chemistry. A general
consensus view of what creates the transcendental feeling of
being one with the universe is that it may be due to the
decreased activity in brain's parietal lobe, which helps regulate
the sense of self and physical orientation.

As far back as 1980, A. Mandell in the article "Toward a
Psychobiology of Transcendence: God in the brain", in
"Psychobiology of Consciousness", was already talking about
the neuronal basis of mystical experience.

A more recent article in Time Magazine of Aug 4, 2003 cites the
studies of Dr. Gregg Jacobs of Harvard, showing that meditation
produces enhanced theta waves, deactivates frontal area and
lowers activity in parietal lobe leading to feeling of oneness (
Unitarity), a common experience reported by all mystics.

Andrew Newberg, a pioneer in neurotheology, who worked with
another pioneer, the late Eugene d'Aquili, and with him wrote
the book "Why God Won't Go Away." , says: "The brain is set up in
such a way as to have spiritual experiences and religious
experiences,". In other words the notion of God is hardwired in
human brain.

In their research Newberg and his team found that during
meditation, part of the parietal lobe of their volunteer
meditators was much less active than when the volunteers were
merely sitting still. Newberg and d'Aquili realised that this was
the exact region of the brain where the distinction between self
and other originates. and the sensory deprivation of the parietal
lobe makes the person feel that the boundary between self and
other begin to dissolve. And as the spatial and temporal context
also disappears, the person feels a sense of infinite space and
eternity.

Newberg has repeated the experiment with Franciscan nuns in prayer,
showing the same pattern of shutting down the same regions of the
brain that the meditators did as their sense of oneness peaked.

The sense of unity with the Universe is accompanied by a feeling
of awe and deep significance. Neurotheologists believe that this
sensation originates in the limbic system, also known as the
"emotional brain" in common parlance, that lies deep within the
temporal lobes on the sides of the brain.

The limbic system is the more ancient part of the brain in the
evolutionary sense than the parietal or frontal lobe. During an
intense religious experience, researchers believe that the limbic
system becomes unusually active, attaching great significance to
everything around them during such time

When neurosurgeons stimulate the limbic system during open-
brain surgery they say their patients occasionally report
experiencing religious sensations. Not surprisingly Alzheimer's
disease which tends to impair the limbic system, is accompanied
with a loss of religious interest.

There is evidence that the limbic system is important in
religious experiences. People who suffer epileptic seizures of
the limbic system, or the temporal lobes in general, sometimes
report having profound experiences during their seizures. Jeffrey
Saver, a neurologist at the University of California, Los Angeles
says. "This is similar to people undergoing religious conversion,
who have a sense of seeing through their hollow selves or
superficial reality to a deeper reality,". He says that
epileptics have historically tended to be the people with the
great mystical experiences.

The limbic system is hardwired by evolution to evoke a belief in
deity to cope with the severe stress and insecurity that a crisis
can bring about. It is a purely evolutionary adaptation for
survival, much like the reflexive retreat of our hand from a red
glowing object, or our reflex on seeing a snake like object in
dark etc. Rational thoughts from our cortex area loses control.
At that tiem all humans revert to raw animal reflexes, blurring
the distinction between theists, atheists etc that are results
of the difference in neural connections in cerebral cortex due to
both both genetic differences as and differences in
environmental effect of upbringing.

This reflex action of our brain via limbic system is
respsonsible for providing us an artificial consolation of a
protector to get past the crisis without suffering a heart attack.
Whether the crisis ends in eventual catastrophe or in an
eventual clearing of danger does not depend on the state (Or a
change in state) of the belief of the distressed people. More
than one incidents of disasters, plane crash, shipwreck with
religious people on board (A Saudi plane crashed with Hajj
pilgrims all dying in the crash sometime ago). Hence the hard
wired reflex causing an atheist to instinctively switch belief in
moments of severe crisis does not prove at all that God exists.
It only reinforces the fact that the feeling of "God" is hardwired
in the brain.

Neurotransmitters can also stimulate mystical experience, besides
sensory deprivation of the parietla lobes or the electromagnetic
stimulation of the temporal lobes. Psychiatrist Roy Mathew of
Duke University has studied hallucinogenic drugs that can produce
mystical experiences and have long been used in certain religious
traditions, for example the "Soma" used by ancient Hindu ascetics.

Perhaps no other neurotheologists have gone to the length that
Michael Persinger, a neuropsychologist at Canada's Laurentian
University in Sudbury, Ontario has gone. It may seem to be
trivializing the divine, but essentially he has devised his
virtual spiritual helmet to experience God (He calls it "sensed
presence") at one's calling. Persinger has been using stimulatioin
of the temporal lobe of his subjects using a technique called
transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to stimulate a wide
assortment of experiences, some surreal (The New Scientist, 19
November 1994, p29 carries a detailed account of it)

With a series of Electromagnetic pattern he calls the Thomas
pulse, he can stimulate in the subject wearing the helmet to a
sensed presence (Of something divine), something similar to the
fruition of the lifetime goal of an ancient mystic to unify with
the divine.

The 900 or more subjects that Persinger has tickled the temporal
lobes of, labelled this perception of sensed presence with the
names that reflect the culture that they have been reared in -
Elijah, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Mohammed, the Sky Spirit etc,
while agnostic UFO enthusiast talk of having experienced alien-
abduction! If a loved one has recently died, they may feel that
person has returned to see them. "This is all in the laboratory,
so you can imagine what would happen if the person is alone in
their bed at night or in a church, where the context is so
important," Persinger says.

Persinger has extrapolated his research on the effect of
Electromagnetic (EM) fields on the temporal lobe of individual
subjects to the effect of natural fluctuations of EM field due to
natural events like earthquake, (i.e techtonic strain), solar
flare, meteor shower or due to even man made effect like building
a huge dam, oil drilling etc can lead to mass hallucinatory
perceptions. For example, the classic case of the apparition of
Mary over the Coptic Church in Zeitoun, Egypt, in the 1960s which
lasted off and on for several years, and seen by thousands of
people, seemed to precede the disturbances that occurred during
the building of the Aswan High Dam.There were multiple examples
of reservoirs being built or lakes being filled, and reports of
luminous displays and UFO flaps abounded then. He has also
published a paper called "The Tectonic Strain Theory as an
Explanation for UFO Phenomena," in which he maintains that around
the time of an earthquake, changes in the EM field could spark
mysterious lights in the sky.

Many books and papers have appeared based on the results of
neurological research that are reinforcing this new paradigm of
the neuronal basis of religious beliefs.

On page 15 of their book "Where God resides in the brain"
authors Allbright & Ashbrook states: "Humans are meaning seeking
animals. Faith is built into the activity of our biology, our
nervous systems, our neurocognitive processes, our humanizing
brain"

Neurologists are now convinced that every belief/propensity etc
are mapped into specific neuronal patterns in the brain.
Biologist Richard Dawkins first introduced the idea of memes,
units of belief that is firmly entrenched in human brain and is
capable of being propagated laterally among the society of
brains. On page 323 of his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins
mentions that meme is a neuronal wiring up as confirmed by
brain scientist Juan Delius of University of Konstanz, Germany.
Much has been learned and studied since then on the cerebral
basis of religious memes.

Dr. James Austen in his monumental tome of 844 pages : "Zen and
the Brain" states on page 18 "The sense of great Self (Mystical
Experience) must come from the brain, since it is the organ of
the mind. Dr. Austen is a neurophysiologist who has also practiced
Zen meditation!

Some quotes from "The Mystical Mind : Probing the Biology of
Religious Experience" by Eugene G. D'Aquili and Andrew B. Newberg:

p22-24: Says brain is the source of all religions/mystical
feelings/experiences. Cites brain imaging studies as the proof

p-79: Myth making is seen as a behaviour arisining from the
evolution and integration of certain parts of the brain.

p-142: Temporal Lobe simulation is behind seeing light at the end
of a tunnel in nera death experiences(NDE). Also ,emtions that
hippocampus in the brain is responsible for Seeing near relatives
and a panoramic view of life in such experiences.

p-155:
"As long as human beings are aware of the contingency of their
existence in the face of what appears to be a capricious
universe they must construct myths to orient theselves within
that universe. Thus they construct Gods, demons, spirits and
other personalized power sources with whom they can deal
contractually in order to gain control over a capricious
environment... Since it is unlikely that humankind will ever
know the first cause of every strip of reality observed it is
highly probable that it will always generate Gods, powers,
demons and other entities at first causes to explain what it
observes. Indeed people cannot do otherwise."

Some references:

1. Newsweek May 7, 2001 (God and the Brain)
2. Looking for the neurological roots of the religious experience
By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post 7/1/01
3. New Scientist magazine, 21 April 2000: "In search of God" by
Bob Holmes
4. Readers Digest March 2002 (Newberg : God is hardwired in brain)
5. Why God Won't Go Away by Andrew Newberg, Eugene
d''Aquili and Vince Rause (Ballantine Books, 2001)
6. "The neural substrates of religious experience" by Jeffrey Saver
and John Rabin, The Journal of Neuropsychiatry, vol 9, p 498 (1997)

7. Biological roots of religious belief :
http://www.SecularHumanism.org/library/fi/hunt_19_3.html

8. http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-11/beliefs.html

9. Raj Persaud, God's in your cranial lobes - Financial Times,
May 8/9/1999

10. Lee Hotz - Seeking the biological basis of Spirituality, L.A Times,
Apr 25, 1998