Neuroscience, Near Death Experiences, & How God Changes the Brain - Dr Andrew Newberg

to me that's part of what neurotheology is about which is being a little bit more open and understanding and compassionate about uh other other points of view which I think are very important for us to take into [Music] consideration okay Dr Newberg welcome to the show thank you thanks for having me back in uh in preparing for this this conversation I discovered your course with the Great Courses and one of the things that I found really interesting about that was you mentioned a study that was done I think it was in the early 90s in Washington where they brought together I think it was 4,000 meditators into the into the City and then they measured the effect on crime rate right so right I wanted to ask you about you know the key findings from the study and what you make of them given your your background as a researcher in this area well you know these are very interesting studies that are looking at the effects of I me ultimately they're looking at the effects of of human consciousness on the world and we typically at least on a very kind of Western Scientific perspective think of ourselves as being inside of our head and our brain is is what's in there and our Consciousness is kind of connected to the brain uh and produced by the brain um there are certainly a lot of individuals and and scholar out there who uh have a different perspective and it even derives in certain Traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism with the idea that there's kind of a a more Universal Consciousness which is out there that our brain then kind of connects with in some way and so we kind of it coalesces within us while we're alive um and arguably speaking then um you know Consciousness can be what they referred to as non-local meaning that I could somehow affect you in some way or I can affect you know the World in some way and there have been lots and lots of studies that have looked at these kinds of relationships and you mentioned you know some some very interesting studies where uh they did this with in a couple of cities where they would bring uh a fairly large group of people a couple thousand people uh into a city um who were all going to meditate uh typically they're meditating on very positive thoughts of compassion and so forth and um and then what they do is kind of an ad hoc uh analysis they look at uh well what happened to crime rates if you look you know the couple of months before uh the the month you know right after that or the week after that and then you know what happens down the road and um there have been several studies which have shown that um that when they do this uh that the crime rates seem to drop which is very intriguing you know um obviously it's very challenging to know exactly what that means it it's happened in uh you know more than uh one study and so as researchers we certainly you know should be taking these kinds of studies um seriously we but you know with with appropriate caution as we should do with every research study um but they are fascinating and they're you know they're analogous to some of the studies on intercessory prayer where people are praying for each other uh you know praying for other people and you know there have been some studies that have shown that uh if you're pray I was a study on cardiovascular patients and it showed that um that the people who were prayed for uh who didn't know they were being prayed for you know wound up getting out of the hospital about a half a day you know earlier than than the people who were not prayed for um so so the first big question of course is you know do we ultimately believe these studies and again you know I think they certainly have to be taken seriously there's certainly a fair number of these studies which have shown an effect uh it's pretty hard to explain it away completely although um you know certainly there are critics who try to um and uh and it raises is a lot of fascinating questions I mean if if we are to give Credence to these findings uh what do they mean and um you know can we turn to these approaches to try to help make the world a better place um uh of course you know it raises intriguing methodological questions of well you know what if you send one person and you know why how many people do you need um and do they have to be in the city you know could you have people in Los Angeles meditating for people in New York or something like that um and uh you know so how many people how close do you have to be uh and of course there's the flip side too you know which is um what about people who are hoping for the negative um you know I always sort of think we talk about this jokingly you know at a at some type of sporting event a football game or something like that where you know half the people are rooting for one team and half the people are you know and praying for them and half the people are praying for the other team so you know does one team win or lose because of the prayer uh you know and and uh one one side was more fervently praying than the other um but one of the other things that that I have noticed um in many of these studies and you know again this is kind of a larger picture question is that even if we acknowledge that these effects happen they do seem to be relatively small and so um you know if for example when they look at people trying to affect like a random number generator um you know you like if it's supposed to uh if 50% is the is the normal effect that you should see then it's 51 to 49% you know it's it's a very tiny effect um so you know again then the question is you know how ultimately relevant is it in terms of the overall effects that we see obviously it's fascinating and it could be very Paradigm shifting in terms of how we understand the mind and Consciousness um but but there is also always that sort of you know pragmatic perspective and we talk about this in in the medical world all the time too which is is that you know if I find that meditation reduces your blood pressure by three points that's not all that relevant if your blood pressure is 60 points too high um but you know so so there's there's the statistically significant and then there's the the clinically or practically relevant and uh and both are important questions for us to to address but it's it's certainly fascinating it's something for us to think about uh and and ultimately you know even if it is a tiny effect um any effect at all is really kind of paradigm shift Ing and and there are a lot of people who are are trying to explore this and trying to understand it and ultimately there's sort of the the question about mechanism which is um if Consciousness can do this what exactly is it doing is it is it energy is it is it you know reaching uh connecting through uh you know some Universal Consciousness whatever that means so there's a lot of intriguing questions that come up about it but but it thank you for asking the question because you know these are very interesting studies that to me are also part of the world of neurotheology which is you know how do we think about the mind and the brain and our spiritual selves and and Consciousness all you know all these Concepts kind ofh swirl around in terms of us trying to figure these things out well I have to ask because you've spent decades in this field and you know studying relationship between science spirituality and religion and how you know spirituality and religion affect the brain and everything what are your own views on what Consciousness actually is what's what's your take on that that small question yeah that's I I can answer that in 10 seconds um now uh I mean you know most simplistically speaking I guess we typically talk about Consciousness as awareness uh although that's really just substituting another word um and so uh you whether or not Consciousness itself is a external thing uh or is something that emerges from the complex processes of the human brain um I I don't know um you know this this this to me is part of the reason why I do the work in neurotheology because uh I I I think it is you know trying to understand Consciousness is truly intriguing um you know no one has a clear answer for it one of the the questions that I always challenge my students with especially when they're very materialistically oriented I'll say well you know in the brain you have um you know you have your your neurons uh you have depolarizations of the cell membrane you have sodium and potassium rushing across that cell membrane you have metabolic activity you have neurotransmitters being released across synapses you have electrical changes going on and uh you know and blood flow and and all this stuff happening so where in all of that are your thoughts where in all of that is your Consciousness and of course there is no clear answer to that question um you know if we say well the Consciousness is within the the neurons well does that mean that one neuron has Consciousness 20 neurons have Consciousness a billion neurons has conscious um so you know we we don't really know and um uh in some of my early work uh that um where I was really trying to to look at this in a little bit more detail um you know on kind of a at least on a very basic level um we have two ways of kind of thinking about what the universe itself is made of um so one of them is that it's made of matter and energy and so it's sort of the matter M material perspective of things and of course that's very helpful in terms of you know where do stars and planets come from and and you know where do the amino acids and DNA come from and so forth uh but as I was just talking about you know how do you go from stuff which does not have Consciousness to stuff that does have Consciousness um now of course we have a similar kind of question when we talk about I mean uh atoms themselves we don't typically consider to be life um but if you put enough of them together in a certain way with membranes and organel and and uh you know different um pumps and pores and and and uh uh you know all the different uh enzymes and so forth eventually something becomes living uh but you know and then you've got bacterial living versus complex organism living um and you know how does how does that all happen um so you know there's really some challenging questions from that perspective uh the flip side is that we say well the universe really derives from Consciousness Consciousness is really the primary stuff of the Universe um certainly consistent with many of the religious and spiritual Traditions even even monotheistic Traditions I mean basically if you you know are a subscriber to the Bible um God creates the universe really from God's Consciousness uh you know so um and uh and certainly if you come from more a Buddhist or Hindu perspective there's the idea that there is a universal Consciousness that um that basically is the the the foundation of the universe now the nice thing about starting with that that is that we get the idea it makes it easy to explain where Consciousness comes from because the universe is conscious so that's easy uh but now you have the flip side problem which is so where does matter come from what exactly does matter look like and uh and how is that manifested out of Consciousness does Consciousness create matter as something separate is it some you know other version of matter um so you know in and of itself it becomes very complicated to you know with either starting point to be able to answer kind of what the universe is about and um my my best guess as an answer to your question I guess is that I ultimately think that matter and Consciousness are kind of um you know two two sides of the same coin so to speak uh two ways of looking at the same thing um you know the analogy is is the idea of looking at uh you know light as both particle and wave kind of thing um and I'm not saying that we you should use quantum mechanics as part of the explanation although that's another perspective that people often take but um but the idea that you know if you kind of look for matter you find matter and if you look for Consciousness you find Consciousness um and I think there's there's some degree of truth behind that but uh but to me you know this is part of the larger picture of what neurotheology itself is all about which is trying to understand the nature of the the mind and brain in relation to spirituality religion Consciousness um you know where all these different pieces fit in uh is extremely challenging and a lot of times and maybe the last way I'll answer your question is that uh for me to answer the question I may ultimately need to throw it back to you and say well how are you defining Consciousness and then I can kind of tell you you know whether or not that's what Consciousness is um and and we run into that problem as well because if we are to define consciousness as um you know something that derives from from the material brain then we think about it one way way if we say Consciousness is is a universal awareness then we Define it another way and we see these kinds of definitional issues coming up in neurotheology all the time uh you know what is the soul what is h the mind what is the spirit and so forth um you know we can define those on theological grounds philosophical grounds scientific grounds uh and uh and and each person and each perspective uh will have a different take on it uh which makes it challenging and fun and exciting but um you know the these are the larger questions that that we have to to think about but it'll be studies like the one that you first mentioned um studies of near you know near-death experiences are another really interesting area of potential research because people have the experience of getting outside of their body and if that's the case then that would imply that Consciousness can get outside of the body that's what's felt in near-death experiences uh and there are some uh very uh formal approaches which are being taken right now in certain studies to try and nail that down and see if we can really you know demonstrate that so so we'll see uh but obviously you know it'd be very exciting if we could ultimately show that Consciousness uh you know is something that extends Beyond just the material realm but at the moment we don't know that for sure so you made some near-death experiences there and there are a lot of people report on these experiences and a lot a lot of them report back having similar kind of things happen which is which is interesting um f can you can you tell us about maybe some of the the common things that people report back and also why do you think these experiences are so transformation transformational for people because often people have one and then they'll completely change their lives afterwards so what do you think might be happening there well um the the easier question is is is what seems to happen um you know people over the the last maybe 20 or 30 years who have analyzed the the the reports of so many people with near-death experiences do talk about certain core elements of these experience and um uh it actually sort of many of them start with the knowledge of the death you know that that that this is is a some type of terminal event for a person um uh another very and not all of these elements happen for everyone but there's a lot of similarity a lot of commonality so uh a lot of times people then have an experience of kind of going through a tunnel uh if you will they feel that they're kind of proceeding through a tunnel and um uh towards the end of that tunnel um sometimes they have the experience of uh interacting with other beings um sometimes those other beings are are deceased individuals sometimes people that they know people will say I you know saw my grandfather or I saw my uncle or something like that who died 10 years ago um sometimes it it could be a religious figure um so sometimes they feel that they come in contact with Jesus Jesus or Buddha or something like that uh and then um ultimately they have this experience of of entering into this realm of light uh which is usually the most beautiful imagery and and um experiences that they ever have uh at some point there's kind of a threshold where if they go beyond that then they're sort of there and if but they some some decision is sort of made so to speak where they either stay where you know in in the afterlife experience or they come back and um sometimes that's it is a a conscious decision people will say I I felt like you know I had to come back from my family or something like that I wasn't ready to do this yet other times it feels like it's sort of decided for them um but either way you know then they they they come back and um but um but again and then a couple of other common elements that are reported are this feeling of kind of you know floating outside of the body often getting up into like the corner of the room room uh and being able to look down and seeing the you know the doctors and nurses working on them or or whatever is going on um sometimes they can describe you know this nurse had red hair or the doctor had a beard or you know whatever um and um and so they can have certain descriptions uh of the people in the room sometimes people talk about going into other rooms and some they'll they'll feel that they can see the patient who is in you know the room next door or something like that um and so you know again from a perspective of Consciousness these are fascinating because there there seems to be these elements of kind of getting outside of the brain of the mind you know being able to uh persist or Consciousness being able to persist after the death of the brain um now you know there are some really interesting issues with that because um we don't fully know if the brain is truly dead and so um and I mean obviously to some degree it isn't because they do come back back um and and of course we have never heard from somebody who doesn't come back so we don't know what happens beyond that but um you know you could try to associate some of these experiences with with natural brain processes um the tunnel experience one of the things that I've proposed at times is that you know we have a visual cortex and um the center of the visual cortex is the center of our vision so we lose our periphery first uh as we lose blood blood flow um you know it's the core areas that get most of the blood flow so if you die and now you stop blood flow to the brain the core areas are going to survive last and which means that you're going to get sort of progressively into the feeling of a kind of tunnel you're going to lose your peripheral vision and just focus on the core so you know you can try to explain that um we've all had dream experiences where we see deceased relatives and things like that so you know could this represent the evoking of some memory of a grandfather or or something along those lines in much the way we might see somebody who's died uh in a dream possibly uh and um and of course um you know so so there are some ways of explaining at least some of the elements now again uh if we can truly verify and and there are people who've been trying to do that in a really formal way that when they float up to the top of the ceiling um you know they can see what's going on if we can really verify that this has happened then it really does imply that the the the person's mental processes Consciousness whatever you want to call it um has actually been able to leave um the body and again it may depend a little bit on on what is happening one could potentially be uh you know in a near-death state but we our ears are open so maybe we can hear what people are saying and kind of infer what they do or what they're looking like uh but again if you could truly identify one of the the studies that has been looking at this um and don't as far as I know I don't think they've had any you know true hits yet so to speak um is where uh they go to like trauma bays and and uh and emergency rooms where they know that people are more likely to have a near-death experience and above where the person's bed would be they would put like a shelf and on the flip side of that they would have some kind of photograph or image or something like that you know I'm making up one now but you know let's say like a picture of the Eiffel Tower or something like that so now if if a person reports that they had a near-death experience in that room you could say well did you see anything and if they say yeah you know it was weird I I saw a picture of the Eiffel Tower you know okay now you know that because there would be no way for them to know that that was there and um and so I know some investigators are kind of working on that but um anyway so all of that kind of you know helps us to try to figure out what's going on from a brain perspective as well as from the perspective of what these experiences actually represent um you know you mentioned the transformative element and uh in in in our most recent book we talk about the varieties of spiritual experiences and near-death experiences certainly fall into that category and um you know we don't fully know the neurophysiology of how these uh experiences transform people but that does also seem to be a pretty Universal uh characteristic of all of these different very very intense spiritual mystical near-death types of experiences where it really transforms them and when we ask people about that it changes the way they think about their job about their lives about their relationships they don't fear death anymore um but what we don't fully know is is exactly how that happens because it's not typically how we think of the brain working you know normally we learn things over long periods of time when you learn mathematics you start learning addition and subtraction and Division and then you kind of work yourself up to algebra and calculus um it's not like you just you know walk into class and suddenly you know you you know how to to to do you know uh quantum mechanics or something like that um but here it does seem to be almost that kind of experience where in moments um you know literally seconds or minutes uh it really changes the complete way a person thinks about the world and whether or not um it literally rewires the brain you know maybe there are connections that were sort of there but um now they become kind of reconnected in ways that weren't there before or whether there these connections were always there and uh much like you know a video game where you unlock a new player type of thing um you know maybe these experiences do that in some way but uh the problem is of course that we never really know when these experiences are going to happen so we don't have we never have the prec condition of the person we always get the post condition when they had the experience and so we don't know you know while they tell us that they have been transformed we don't know exactly what that means in terms of you know being to able to truly evaluate them before and after so scientifically methodologically it is it is very difficult to do that it's wild speculation I'm just sort of thinking out loud here but like you know we've all got these kind of mental models and maps that help us to kind of navigate the complexity of reality and it seems that experiences like this or even the Psychedelic experience it's almost like a dis cleaner for those maps and models that allow people to maybe form new connections and new maps following the experience just because it's such a shock to the system I don't know yeah well I you know part of uh what that I've hypothesized in some of this um and myself and my colleagues uh you know one of the the neurophysiological changes that we see um uh when we talk about different parts of the brain and and we talk about you know very complex networks of the brain that are involved in just how we work in general and uh become involved in these kinds of experiences and what we've noticed with a lot of spiritual experiences very intense ones is that they tend to be associated with a decrease of activity um in the frontal loes uh behind the forehead and this is kind of interesting so you know normally the frontal loes turn on when we are concentrating when we are doing something purposeful uh if I'm trying to solve a math problem or something like that that my frontal lob turns on to try to do that uh in fact even when people are doing spiritual practices like meditation or prayer we typically see an increase of activity in the frontal loaves but when people have these very profound spiritual experiences part of what they ex part of what they experience is a kind of a feeling of surrender a feeling of letting go and we have some evidence to suggest that when they feel that that the frontal Lo activity actually drops you know drops even below kind of the normal level that they are so that's part of what helps us to feel you know helps the person to feel that they're not making it happen that they're kind of along for the ride so to speak but it may have an ancillary effect which is very much like what you just describe um the way I I describe this more simplistically is that you know part of what the frontal loes also do our what are called our executive functions so they kind of keep our lives organized and they help us you know keep our checkbook here and keep our you know what we need to do for our home here and what we need to do for our work here and what we need to do for our family here and you know to sort of use an analogy I mean it's sort of like you know a big file cabin it and the frontal opes kind of keep everything in their files and so when we you know it's time to deal with the house uh we take out our house file and we say okay you know I got to call the the roofing person to fix the roof and then we put that back and then oh you know I gotta uh you know I got to go to the supermarket what do I need at the supermarket I take my Supermarket folder out um when the fontal Lo drops it's sort of like you've kind of thrown all the files up in the air um because they're no longer under any control and now you know as you start to kind of come back from that experience you're now trying to like put all the files back in as quickly as you can and obviously it doesn't organize it quite the same way as it did before and I think in that regard um you know in in that kind of an an analogy uh that's kind of what we see happening that you sort of like you said they kind of scramble things up a little bit and then you know put back in uh a kind of a novel way of thinking about it which also includes the content of the experience which is very important so previously we we did have you know house children you know dogs Market J you know job and all that and it was all very separated uh one of the other typical ele M of these experiences is a sense of Oneness a sense of connectedness or unity and so now suddenly you know they're not these individual distinct things but they all kind of blend together so we understand them differently and we understand how we interact with them differently and we understand how we interact with the world differently we we feel that we're part of the world instead of we're just me you know trying to to manage the world and that really can create you know very very different kinds of perspectives on how to to lead one's life and I think that's in large part how we start to see these kinds of experiences affect people and and it even goes back a little bit to your very first question that you know if if through bringing thousands of people into meditation um you know are they able to affect that kind of response even in you know other people um you know if so then you know you're creating at least some transformational piece uh that can extend even beyond your own being and um and if that's the case then uh the world certainly can use more more compassion and love these days so um maybe we'll we'll find some ways of doing that super interesting um there's a just something that comes to mind here um there's a philosopher called Bernardo castrop he he's got a school of philosophy called analytical idealism and one of the things he talks about is like it's just an interesting thing to think about that often experience that lead to a reduction in brain activity and enhance can enhance um the quality of conscious experience things like psychedelics sometimes can reduce PR activity in certain areas near experiences etc etc so it's just an interesting thing to think about that a a reduction in brain activity can actually lead to an exp expansion of awareness you know um yeah well and I think that as you said I mean that that is part of our models of of what's going on uh we you know we would expect to see decreases of activity uh in the frontal loes decreases of activity in the parietal loes in the back of the brain which are part partly responsible for our our sense of self and so you know when that area begins to decrease we kind of lose that that sense of self that that the boundary between our self and the world um so yeah I mean I I think that there probably are some fairly substantial decreases that occur and uh and that may have a lot to do even ultimately with what goes on What's called the default mode Network which is the network of structures that are on when we're not doing anything and there's been some interesting studies on practices like mindfulness and yoga which have shown that they alter the default mode Network and um and so uh you know and plus we have data that show not only that but changes you know in some of the neurotransmitter systems including some of the ones that are associated with psychedelics that are part of these experiences so um so yeah I mean I I I think that there is definitely the ability for us to to think about what are these shifts going on in the brain and how they relate to the ultimate outcomes because uh you know we wrote a book called um how Enlightenment changes your brain and Enlightenment is kind of an interesting term because it can refer to the moment of Enlightenment um and um in which case you know these experiences that we're just talking about but then there is the you know experiencing Enlightenment you know perpetually um that they are in a state of Enlightenment uh as well as an experience of Enlightenment and so the state of Enlightenment is is that new transformed perspective on the world and um uh and so you know very very interesting in terms of how we start to think about the the momentary effects versus the long-term effects and that has a lot to do uh with how we how we understand what these experiences are ultimately about and how they change people now I want to start talking about religion Dr Newberg and uh what's so interesting about it is on the one hand a religion can lead to Someone Like A Mother Teresa you know like an incredible compassionate person that wants to just to serve others and um something like that and then on the other hand it can lead to a suicide bomber that wants to you can lead to terrorism so what are the major differences based on what you've studied between the Mother Teresa and the the suicide bomber well the short answer is we don't fully know you know we don't fully know why why you know one person finds that you a compassion a perspective to be more you know acceptable than a destructive perspective um we know that the areas of our brain particularly a very small area called the hypothalamus um the the pleasure areas of the brain are right next to the fear areas of the brain and so you know shifting a few cells one way you know to the left or to the right uh could have a very big impact on whether some you know how somebody reacts and responds to to threats and and and various things in the environment in terms of taking a more you know aggressive uh you know negative reaction to them versus a more positive constructive reaction to them so some of that may be embedded within each one of us you know maybe even from birth and and it may have to do not only with you know where some of these cells are but also um how different receptors work in our brain you know whether or not uh you know dopamine areas and serotonin you know people who are more sensitive to them less sensitive uh you know there's certainly some evidence that that these different types of neurotransmitters can have an effect on just kind of our overall how we are as people um so so that that's one part of the answer uh another part of the answer which actually stems from a lot of my earlier research um has to do it goes back a little bit to the point I was making a few moments ago about that sense of Oneness or connectedness U on one hand that sounds like a great thing uh and you know it's great to feel that we're connected to humanity to the universe to God whatever it is that that that's a generally a very good feeling um but there's there's an interesting problem that comes up and uh I've talked about this in in a lot of my uh previous works that that when you have this sense of Oneness um there's a Continuum and so you know you you have kind of our everyday world where everything has its own individual things there's me there's a computer there's you um each of these have are separate um multiple objects that are distinct uh ultimately as you kind of progress so to speak down a Continuum of unitary experiences um you can have you know a variety of of interim stages so to speak so there could be romantic love being you know deeply connected to another person and you feel at one with that other person or maybe at one with your family you know that that you're all part of the same the same thing um but then as you go you know further uh you can ultimately get to more profound spiritual experiences feeling connected to a community feeling connected to the world and so forth um and so what's interesting about that is that when you feel connected to something that becomes your your reality and so your family you know can be your your your reality and uh what these kinds of practices and especially rituals do is they make us feel connected to that they they break our our parietal down you know they reduce the parial OB activity they break down that self other distinction and we feel connected to something but the question is what do we feel connected to and so if it's just our family then anything outside of that family is you know it becomes a kind of US versus them and of course that US versus them can can keep changing depending on whether it's the family the community um you know one one of my favorite examples is to think about it from the perspective of like sports you know uh and uh you know take take uh take football whether you take America us football or or World football um you know each town has their team and so yeah in fact you might start with with the schools maybe you have two high schools or something like that and so I you know my high school we hate the other high school team but um but we're all part of the same town so when we have our you know our Town's team or our City's Team all of us are for the city's team but we hate the other City you know the City NE you know next to us however when you go to you know the World Cup or something like that now you know all of our cities we all together now we're fighting the other countries you know and someday if if we find alien species and you know maybe it's the whole earth you know versus the other uh uh you know the other teams from around the Galaxy so to speak so um so part of what becomes interesting is you know there's a lot of antagonism between you and the other but it depends on what that other is and so ultimately for somebody like a Mother Teresa where uh you know arguably speaking you know she has no other when it comes to humanity she views all human beings as needing help as you know being in the same boat and she's part of that boat and she's going to do what she can because she's part of everyone else and everyone is part of her um however if you do get a group that is more isolated and what again what's Interest really important is that it it actually has to do more with the ideological perspective rather than you you could be a group of 10 people who all feel connected to the universe um or you could be a group of 10 people who are connected to the group and everyone out there is you know against your group um and so if you you know have the ideology of it's my group versus the world then you wind up having some some very substantial antagonism between people who are out there who have different ways of thinking about the world different ways of looking at the world and different ways of looking at your group if they don't include you as part of their group um then you know you get Intergroup aggression even though the intr group within the group uh is reduced by these kinds of practices and beliefs and and the rituals that are part of them so I think that goes a long way of trying to help us understand that when groups become isolated and when they begin to develop that US versus them mentality with regard to other people then you see much more hatred anger you know outward violence whereas if you have a group of people who say we're part of the you know we're part of the human family we're part of all of humanity then it you know those practices and rituals that breed compassion and breed connection and so forth um those are going to be the ways in which we look at things and and of course in today's world with all the devic I mean this is exactly what we see happening and in fact in many ways this is unfortunately how social media sort of works because you're sitting there on your phone you know constantly kind of being fed the stuff that that you know supports your US versus them mentality um and if we can start to change That Into You know the the larger groups and the larger connections and so forth then we hopefully have you know a a path out of this kind of divisiveness you know that's that's being idealistic but uh but you know that would to me would be the ways in which we ultimately need to get people to think whether we can do that or not then that's part of what I think neurotheology has a challenge to do which is what are the ways in which we can try to do that that's this is a fast in subject um and am I right in saying that you co-authored your most recent book with David yeden is that right correct yes he has written a paper on the overview effect the experience that astronauts um have whenever they leave Earth they they see the plan as one system they have a whole change in identity and then they come back and it influences their behavior and they come back they get involved in a lot of environmental activities and everything else as well and a a friend of mine anahita naami she's developed a virtual reality version of this that aims to sort of give people a similar experience and it's just it's sort of similar to what you're talking about you know it's a potential way to sort of shift the the identity into one that sees that we're just we're all in the same boat here as opposed to us and them you know so it's an interesting thing to think about that's right and and you know I mean that and they again there's there's probably different ways of doing this I mean they can be through psychedelics they can be through meditation it can be taking people into space and being able to show them that you know in that regard and so there are a lot of different ways in which we might ultimately be able to achieve that um but I want to bring up one other point which I think it's just worth mentioning here um is that the other piece to all of this and I kind of alluded to this for a second is is the ideological perspective that a person takes and you know talking you maybe think about this when you're talking about being in the same boat because on one hand all of our brains are in the same boat and what I mean by that is is that we are you know barring the earlier conversation we had about whether our Consciousness goes beyond our brain but for the most part you know we have access to the information we have access to and not to sound circular there but um but it it is an incredibly small percent percentage of everything that's going on in the universe I mean we have access to like 0. throw in you know another thousand zeros 1% of everything that's going on in the universe you and I at the moment know what's happening you know in our little rooms and I don't know you know what my wife is doing in the room next door I don't know what's going in the apartment next door the house next door the town next door the Galaxy next door you know so um so all I have access to is what's happening around me right now and all of our brains wind up taking the whatever information we can somehow grab on to and try to create for us a perception of the world and and create for us our perspective on reality and it might be a religious one it might be a non-religious one might be one political perspective or another whatever it is um but we have this way of looking at the world now we ultimately create a a kind of belief system that works for us we wrote a book called why we believe what we believe and we create this belief system that works for you know each one of us does it so that it works for us it is based a lot on the things that we have come in contact with so our our parents to start with our our friends colleagues you know whatever um but ultimately we kind of have our belief system that we hold and then that may become the belief system of just us it may become the belief system of our group um and so uh what's interesting about that though is that now you know take that there's an external group compared to my group and they have a different belief system than I do so I have one of two options either you know either I'm and they're wrong or they're right and I'm wrong now you know which one is my brain going to choose well most you know if I'm wrong and they're right then my brain is in a very bad place because that means I don't understand the world very well and that's going to make me very anxious and upset and it's going you know it's very disturbing if I don't think I understand the world properly so it's far easier for me to say and far more calming to for me to say no no no no I I do understand this they're clearly wrong uh you know I'm right and that's also part part of why again you going to social media or whatever uh if I you know am one political party and I see an article that that supports my political party oh yeah that makes sense to me because that my my beliefs are are are um you know are pacified and and I feel good about that and if it's if it supports that my my political party is not so good or the other part is better no no no that can't be true you know that can't be true it's false you know I need to fact check it you know whatever it is um and so but but as this progresses when it initially happens if you and I had different beliefs and you know maybe my first thought is oh well you know you just don't understand you know let me explain it to you um so it might start off very calmly but but over time you know if you're not if you still hold your belief and I still hold mine which is again what we're most likely going to do you know I'm gonna well you know why would he be telling me something that I know is wrong I know is false you know there must be something wrong with him there must be you know he must be a bad person and maybe an evil person uh maybe somebody who I should get rid of because you know clearly they they're they're bad evil and they don't know what's going on you know so you can kind of see where these very aggressive you know negative behaviors can start to arise especially if we hold on to our beliefs very strongly and we think about them in the context of a limited group as opposed to a large you know the larger Humanity but anyway I just thought that that was another interesting way of kind of looking at this issue about compassion versus aggression and things like that which is that you know it's not just the groups that we have but it is the ideologies and and how our brain kind of thinks through uh what information we want to keep and what information we want to reject and we see it in everything you know I mean it's it's it's religion it's politics it's science uh you know I mean I always love it when people say that scientists are you know we should follow science because it's so objective scientists is science is done by scientists who last time I checked are human beings and um and you know I've just seen in my 30-year career you know so many times where scientists get so na nasty and negative to people who have a new way of thinking about things um because it doesn't fit the existing Paradigm only to figure out you know 10 years down the road 15 years down the road that oh that is the the right way to think but at the beginning they're they're kicked out and they're thrown out of the you know the labs and and they're mocked and and all you know and it's again I mean I think we all have to to me that's part of what neurotheology is about which is being a little bit more open and understanding and compassionate about uh other other points of view which I think are very important for us to take into consideration definitely and I can just tell from the way you answer questions is that you you try to integrate as many different perspectives as possible which is so rare like interview a lot of people it's not that common you know so that's interesting um it's been part of part of what I think the field is all about it's been part of my own personal experiences of of of sort of how I looked at things and and uh in a book I wrote called how Enlightenment changes your brain I talk about some of my own experience es of of of sort of you know uncertainty and doubt and um you know being re recognizing the limitations that we all have um and and the genuiness with which people do develop their belief systems and so it has made me very um you know or at least I try to be as open and understanding of other perspectives as I possibly can how does God change the brain and should atheism come with a health warning mental and physical well you know I from my book how God changes your brain um the answer is there's lots of ways you know it is a very complex um interaction and it really shouldn't be a surprise to people I think you know when you think about religious uh people who are religious when you talk about religious practices religious experiences um sometimes they evoke thoughts and and sometimes they evoke feelings experiences so you know sometimes you feel it in your in your head you think about something sometimes you feel it in your body you know you feel all the way down uh into your heart and your toes uh and so you know there are many different parts of our brain that ultimately um help us to uh to think about um what's going on in terms of uh you know how how our religious and spiritual beliefs do affect us but uh I would say that you know there isn't just I think maybe the big answer to your question is is that there's not just one part of the brain that gets involved but there are so you know it it basically there's so many different parts that it's really your whole brain you know the whole brain is interconnected with each other and um and as an integrative medicine doctor I recognize the brain's connection to the body so so if there's a spiritual part of ourselves it is all of us and um and in that regard religious and spiritual beliefs and attitudes and practices really do affect us uh very very deeply and very fully um now as far as you know religious versus non-religious well you know there's certainly a lot of evidence to suggest that being religious can be beneficial for people um you know many Studies have have demonstrated that people who hold strong religious beliefs tend to have lower rates of depression and anxiety a greater sense of meaning and purpose in life but these are also have to be taken a little bit with a grain of salt because these are populationbased studies and so you know there are certainly plenty of religious people who who die young and there's plenty of atheists who who live to a 100 um and uh you know there's plenty of well adjusted uh atheists and and plenty of uh highly anxious or religious people um but if you look at the populations there's these kind of relationships that we can see uh but part of what I also talk about in a lot of our research is that I mean I I think ultimately everyone has a kind of spiritual side now what I mean by that is not necessarily a supernatural side but but that part that feels connected to something greater than the self um and that you know I I've seen so many people in the scientific world who feel connected to the Natural World they feel con you know they recognize that we're all connected as part of our environments as part you know uh when we eat we have to eat animals and plants and and they're part of the natural world and they have to grow and they need sunlight and so like we're we're we're everything's a big interconnected uh relationship and so we can feel that and we can take a walk in the you know in the woods or a walk by the the ocean and feel connected to that we can do something creative and uh you know feel lose ourselves and music or art or or you know literature or something like that so so there are I mean I think that to me is the maybe the more important point which is that you know if you are kind of a true materialist who feels no connection to anything else um that's probably not going to be so good for you and maybe that should come with a health warning but but just because you don't believe in you know God or a specific religious tradition um doesn't mean that you can't engage you know the overview effect um as you mentioned it doesn't mean that you can't feel connected to humanity that you can't do charitable Works be compassionate um you know you certainly can do all of those things and so there are many different ways of of of engaging that part of ourselves um religious and spiritual Traditions offer some you know wonderful ways of doing that um but but they also come with their their issues and limitations and so you know some people choose to do it uh in their own unique way and and of course there's a growing group of people who consider themselves spiritual but not religious and you know that that's part of the answer I think to to that overall question which is people just need to find those ways of of making that connection even though it may not necessarily be to a specific tradition okay okay um when I Was preparing for this something that popped into my mind and again wild speculation but I wanted to just to get your thoughts on it um so obviously in Psychology one of the most well-known theories is attachment Theory and one of the things in attachment theory is is that like for your psychological Health it's really really important that you have a secure base like a social relationship that you can really depend on like like a rock in hard times right I I just thought I wondered have you thought much about any link between attachment theory in the sense that someone that has a religion or a deep sense of spirituality is that God in that context might act as a secure base and that might be very psychologically healthy and adaptive what do what do you think about that uh yeah absolutely um we actually uh I I have at various times worked on on some research articles and ideas that are related to uh that idea and specifically thinking about attachment Theory um I've talked about this in the context of worship uh and uh you know what we what we do feel connected to in that Foundation that becomes important and um uh you know as you mentioned I mean whether that ultimately is a person or a God I mean that that's certainly can be a very important part of a person's life and that can provide that Foundation which can be very very strong so so yeah I I think that that is uh a very important way of thinking about it um I recently wrote an article about uh identity and how we think about ourselves and and again you know also that issue of sort of you know we're we're we're distinct but then we need to connect and and that ability to connect with something um that provides that Foundation becomes very very important and that can you know it can take different forms uh parents and and friends and family but certainly religious and spiritual that religious or spiritual connection can be a very important part uh of somebody's life and and they can turn to that uh in in times of of difficulty you know dealing with health issues physical or mental health issues dealing with life issues um so yes having those kinds of uh foundations can be very very important and uh you know it it it brings up in many ways another Point uh again as as an integrative medicine doctor we frequently talk about how we care for people and that we have to think of ourselves along four different dimensions of the person um we have the biological side which is what kind of traditional the traditional medical establishment takes care of and gives you an antibiotic or cholesterol medicine or something like that um there's the psychological side dealing with stress depression anxiety and things like that there's the social side and that's where things like attachment Theory and and the ability to have that strong social Foundation which you know there's no question that that is a very very important source of health and well-being for people and then the fourth dimension of course is the spiritual side um so so trying to take it into consideration all of them is very important uh religious and spiritual systems um tend to affect us on all these different levels so as we've shown in our brain scans they affect our biology uh as we talked about they can affect our sense of meaning and purpose um our feelings of stress anxiety an ability of coping they provide wonderful social uh interactions and that could be a social interaction with a clergy member with a community with a congregation with friends family who all share that common Bond through a tradition um that can be very very important for people and of course it does have the spiritual element as well so so I think absolutely that um you know we need to think about all those different components of who we are all the different dimensions of who we are in terms of taking care of ourselves we talk about this in a book called where you know the way to weave an optimal brain is to bring in all those different dimensions all those different elements and uh exactly how one does it you know each person has to kind of find their own individualized path but religious and spiritual Traditions are certainly a very good path for a lot of people sure um something else I'm kind of curious to ask we've got a couple of minutes left but uh if I were to get you a an unlimited budget and a huge huge research team like you know so you could pretty much do anything research-wise what would you uh work on well you know I've often thought of that question um and uh the the the main thought I kind of had is to think about it in kind of the human genome parallel uh Pro you know the parallels of the Human Genome Project which looked at all of our genes um to me I think it would be fascinating to look at all of the ways in which we engage uh religious and spiritual beliefs so it would be great to take every tradition um every practice within every tradition every belie you know the the specific beliefs of each tradition look at them brain scans of of different you know many of those different things uh you know surveys of people to understand what they feel what they mean uh try to understand the the differences try to understand the similarities across Traditions cultures people ages genders you know all of that um that and and obviously with a very strong eye on the brain and Consciousness and trying to elucidate that and and it it it extends even into as we've kind of touched on today you know the the experiences related to near-death experiences psychedelic experiences so all of the different ways in which people kind of engage that that religious and spiritual element of ourselves um that is probably what I would love to do is to be able to kind of create that that uh that that genome concept uh in the context of religious and spiritual practices you know religious phenomena religious and spiritual phenomena uh which again uh to me you know extends uh into uh many of the questions that we've addressed including those about you know what is the nature of Consciousness and how does that interweave with you know mystical experiences and spiritual experiences and uh you know the the ultimate goal is you know how do we understand reality and um and that to me is also Al some combination of these kinds of scientific Pursuits as well as philosophical and Theological Pursuits and that's why I think neurotheology is so uh important of a field because it really helps us to bring together the these two most powerful forces in human history the the Science and Technology on one side the the spiritual on and religious on the other side and help us to understand who we are and help us to understand reality definitely well if there's any billionaires uh listening please your your funds to Dr Newberg um there's about 50 questions I didn't get to ask you we've only scratched the surface here so um I just want to say a huge thank you for your time um and all the work that you do and you're putting out into the world it's fantastic um where can people learn more where can they find you online your website is Andrew newberg.com is that right correct Andrew newberg.com nwb RG um I'm also working on uh my Instagram uh presence and so it's uh Dr Dr uh dr. Andrew Newberg and so they can follow my philosophical musings there and trying to trying to find reality uh so um and uh we have lots more writings projects books coming out and uh so happy to come back and uh answer more questions uh later on and uh we'll see where we can take it thank you Dr Newberg thank you thank you for listening and I hope you enjoyed the show if you'd like to hear the full version you can do so with the weekend University premium membership this gets you access to your mastered library of over 5 years of psychology conferences including over 230 talks interviews with the words leading psychologists professors and authors unlimited CPD certification transcripts quizzes premium passes for annual conference online courses with Richard Schwarz and Deb Dana and more the cost is £97 for one year which breaks down at around 27 P per day the best bit is you can try it it for 30 days completely risk-free as all orders come with 100% money back guarantee if you're interested please go to tww members.com for more information

Channel: The Weekend University

Views: 3,012

Keywords: the weekend university, psychology lectures, psychology talks, psychology lecture, Neuroplasticity and spirituality, Meditation and brain transformation, Science of divine experience, Andrew Newberg, Science and spirituality

Id: EVQEzuI2vnA

Length: 58min 11sec (3491 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 01 2024