The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul

by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary

Book Overview

Do religious experiences come from God, or are they merely the random firing of neurons in the brain? Drawing on his own research with Carmelite nuns, neuroscientist Mario Beauregard shows that genuine, life-changing spiritual events can be documented. He offers compelling evidence that religious experiences have a nonmaterial origin, making a convincing case for what many in scientific fields are loath to consider--that it is God who creates our...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061625981
• ISBN13: 9780061625985
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

a book to have

I was not sure if I would buy this book or not,but after buying it I see that it was a great gift to myself. There are a lot of interesting facts and scientific datas that are easily explained and the author have done a lot of homework before writing it. The narrator voice is clear and I felt confortable listening to him. It is a great book to add to your library

A new scientific argument for the soul

For centuries philosophers and theologians have argued about the makeup of the human being. Are we material only, or do we possess also an immaterial soul? Plato argued from reason for the dualistic theory, that we are both body and soul. The Greek materialists took the opposite position--we are only made of atoms, material particles. In the Western world the predominant Christian religion teaches the existence of an immortal soul, a separate essence from the material body. Jesus said, "Do not fear them who can destroy the body; fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell." He also said, "What shall a person give in exchange for his soul?" Traditionally Christians also believe in a future resurrection, when the disembodied souls of the dead shall be permanently reunited to their physical bodies, which will be made perfect and immortal in the resurrection. Since the time of the Enlightenment modernistic thinking led to widespread materialism in the West. Only the observable universe is real. All events have natural causes. Humans are simply an organized collection of material parts. What used to be considered characteristics of the soul are only the products of chemical and electrical forces in the physical brain. Belief in a nonmaterial soul is a relic of the superstitious past. The soul is only a myth, a social construct--as are angels, demons, and God. Theology should be divorced from science. Mario Beauregard is an associate researcher in neuroscience at the University of Montreal. He has done groundbreaking work in the neurobiological responses to emotions and mystical experiences. Especially significant is his work with volunteer Carmelite nuns. His scientific studies of many people in controlled situations, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), has quantified and located brain activity related to these experiences. Beauregard subjects the modern idea of a "God spot" in the brain, the result of evolution, to scientific scrutiny. He finds that the evidence of his studies contradicts the popular notion. Rather, people's mystical experiences, near-death experiences, the placebo effect, and low-level but measurable extrasensory perception all give evidence that the mind or soul is separate from the brain. The responses of the brain to such non-material entities are the same as those to material entities perceived by the physical senses. They are not located in one part of the brain, but rather use the same complexes and patterns as in normal interpersonal relations. The arguments of the materialists do not adequately address these findings. Beauregard and his coauthor, Denyse O'Leary, present a well-written, convincing scientific argument supporting the non-materialist position of the human mind or soul. I hope that the scientific community will respond to the arguments and evidence this book presents, and will not simply consign it to the oblivion of ignored theories that contradicts its wo

The authors of The Spiritual Brain hit a neuroscientific nerve

Few books stimulate so many diverse and passionate reviews as "The Spiritual Brain." I award five stars as a layperson not so much because of the scientific and philosophical arguments of the authors, but because they have dared to transcend the logic-tight barriers between the disciplines of science, religion and philosophy. They have opened doors for science that few materialistic scientists care to recognize. The stakes are very high in this discussion, as we shall see. For this is nothing less than a discussion of the nature of a human being ... is he or she simply a more evolved type of animal, or different in kind, far more than a complicated evolutionary accident? The answer to this question is critical to the course of civilization. The primary issue is whether this question can be adequately addressed by a strictly materialistic science. Many great scientific minds had their doubts. Late in his career, Abraham Maslow, the great psychologist and founder of the "third force" movement in psychology, dared to do much the same thing as authors Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary. When Dr. Maslow's book "The Psychology of Science" ventured to critique materialistic science for being too narrow in its focus, the attacks by the scientific establishment were bitter and relentless. Arthur G. Wirth, a prominent member of The John Dewey Society, mused in the Introduction to "The Psychology of Science," a predictive question: "Why would a man hurl his lance against the citadel and risks the rocks and hot oil he may expect in return?" Yet Maslow's complaint was simply that the adherents of the mechanomorphic tradition of the physical sciences were not necessarily wrong, but rather too narrow to serve as a general philosophical platform for science. Dr. Maslow was a well-trained Freudian and behaviorist. He said when he began to study the higher reaches of human nature, his training failed him. He believed that peak experiences were authentic, natural events and worthy of study. What Maslow declared were his "most important findings," the reality of metavalues (the classic triad of truth, beauty and goodness) and their power to influence and perhaps even configure human personalities, especially self-actualizing personalities. These findings were brushed aside by the broader establishment and are in danger of being lost. Yet these issues have never been resolved, and "The Spiritual Brain" helps remind us that more research and discourse are in order. Many great minds hold that peak experiences and metavalues are not mystic fluff as some would have us believe. Abraham Maslow was a pragmatic scientist and a professed atheist. Much as William James, he believed that values and spiritual experiences should not be the exclusive domain of religionists. He advocated a science of values. He also grasped that the metavalues of truth, beauty and goodness transcend the disciplines of science, theology, and philosophy. Maslow understood that science does not

Read it first, then judge

A rash of best selling books that attempt to use science to prove that materialism, such as Richard Dawkins' new book, have appeared on the market in the past few years. The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul was written by a well qualified PhD level neuroscientist at the University of Montreal who attempts by use of laboratory experimental research to evaluate the claims of the nonmaterialist account of the living world. The coauthor is a journalist, insuring that the book is readable and assessable to the general public. The team was very successful in this work, to say the least. This book is a welcome response, based on scientific research, to the claims of materialists, the theory that life and the universe contains only matter and motion and nothing more. The idea commonly espoused by materialists that no soul, no mind, and no free will exists is effectively challenged by the peer reviewed empirical research reviewed in this book. The authors document that the nonmaterialists approach to the human mind has a long and fruitful tradition and much evidence behind it even today. The authors conclude that this worldview accounts for the evidence much better than the relatively new, and currently largely stagnate, materialist worldview. The materialist tradition not only attempts to explain everything by appealing to the motion of matter only, but has now moved far beyond this, discouraging researchers from even considering the possibility that matter and the four forces explains everything, and thereby limiting research by their straight jacket which stifles science. Science must research every area that may be fruitful, as well as some areas that may not at first appear fruitful. A major conclusion of the materialists argument is that humans have no free will but, if one could understand the position and movement of the brain molecules, one could always predict the behavior of the person. Cornell professor William Provine has articulated this position very well, as has many of his students. As Oxford University Professor Richard Dawkins explains, free will is just an illusion created by the electrical charges in the neurons in our brains, nothing more. These and other highly respected scientists even question the wisdom of punishing criminals because, if there is no mind and no free will, then criminals are victims of their mechanical material brain. Does the evidence support this view? Read this book and judge for yourself. No matter which view you hold you need to at least be aware of the other side. It was my conclusion that most readers will agree that materialist blinders interfere with the freedom to follow the evidence no matter where it leads.