God and the Limbic System - Neuropsychology of spiritual experience

Thus begins the first chapter of V.S Ramachandran's excellent book 'Phantoms In The Brain', a text that explores human nature and the architecture of the mind. While the book mainly deals with Ramachandran's own research into the medical phenomenon of phantom limbs and other neurological curiosities (such as phantom pregnancies and Charles Bonnet Syndrome), an interesting chapter deals with the initiation of religious and spiritual experiences that occur upon electrical stimulation of certain brain areas.

It appears that Ramachandran is something of a pioneer in this particular field, since much of the academic notations out there invariably refer to his work. Since I am presently reading for a BSc. Psychology with a view to specialise in mental health/brain disorders, I was required to select from a list of pre-selected books and to pen a critical review of it. I chose this one for its focus on brain injury; some of the case studies contained in this book are really quite fascinating indeed, and have the potential to explain many quirks of the human condition. Even though the main requirement for the review was a mere thousand words, I could not help feeling that I had much more to say.

Nothing piqued my curiosity more than the chapter that was ominously entitled 'God and the Limbic System', a direct statement of the localisation of religion in the brain. True enough Ramachandran proceeds to outline the case study of Dr. Michael Persinger, a Canadian psychologist, who experimented on his own brain by means of a transcranial magnetic stimulator. This is a device that allows one to stimulate various parts of one's own brain; stimulation of the motor cortex may result in involuntary muscle contractions or involuntary shrugging of shoulders, stimulation of the septum may result in constant orgasmic rapture, and so on. The remarkable finding of Persinger is when he "saw God" upon stimulating his left temporal lobe, a horizontal oval area of the brain roughly over your left ear. The temporal lobe is the major containment of the limbic system:


Without going into too much detail about brain anatomy, it should be noted that the amygdala is the "gateway" of emotions. Visual signals whatever you see pass through the amygdala ("Is this a friendly mouse or a rat that might bite me?") and hippocampus project to regions controlling endocrine, autonomic and motor activity. A mention of the autonomous nervous system (ANS) should be made, since messages received from the hypothalamus lead it to control vegetative and bodily functions such as the production of tears, sweating, saliva, sweat, blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, respiration, bladder function, defecation, and so on. Could this be a possible explanation for the asta-sattvika vikaras (biological reactions) that occur upon receipt of a divine vision?

An interesting finding revolves around the fact that electrical stimulation of this brain region is forced, but what about those whose lobes are stimulated via more natural means? Several epileptic patients who suffer seizures in their temporal lobes invariably claim to have had visions and conversations with God, heightened emotions, access to the secrets of the universe and enlightenment, and most remarkable of all - a preoccupaton with religious and moral issues during interictal (seizure-free) periods. It may be the case that such people suffer hallucinations and delusions such as those experienced by schizophrenics (who may claim to have religious experiences too), but if that is the case then why do such hallucinations involve the temporal lobes? More to the point, why do they take this particular form? Why don't hallucinations of pigs and donkeys, for example, ever take place? Findings such as these have led neurologists to research and come close to the conclusion that there is a "God module", a section of neural circuitry in the temporal lobes concerned with religion.

Ramachandran suggests four possibilities as to why this phenomenon occurs and each of them have some merit. [NOTE: The first possibility - that God might actually be talking to such people - would not be well received by scientists!] One of the afore-mentioned possibilities is that it may be an evolutionary mechanism that occurred over a multitude of generations by the guiding hand of natural selection because of its adaptive value. This speaks volumes about issues of leadership, indigenous cultures, and so on. The possibilities of this are endless and can be discussed in further detail later. One study that seemingly backups the evolutionary theory was heavily referred to in a recent TIME article 'Is God In Our Genes?' that suggests the genetic/evolutionary theory to be true. As far as the readers letters go, this study has been hotly disputed. I may be able to report more on this when my TIME subscription is processed.

While we can ruminate over all the possibilities and lead them to their natural conclusions, the main issues that crop up for a thoughtful Gaudiya Vaishnava are as follows:

1. In the face of all this and increasing evidence, how do we as Gaudiya Vaishnavas view the visionary experiences of our gurus, sadhus and acaryas?
2. How do we explain such religious feelings and sentiments? Are they real or biological?
3. What does the evidence speak about the authenticity of such spiritual experiences, whoever they may happen to?
4. What does this say about the authenticity of our own religious feelings? Were we brought up to be religious or are we genetically hard-wired that way?

Links to read:

BBC- God On The Brain (contains programme summary, FAQ, transcript and links)
Neurotheology: Which came first, God or the Brain? (academic paper)
Seizures and the Sight of God (academic paper)
God and the Temporal Lobes of the Brain (critical review of Ramachandran talk)
Holy visions elude scientists (Daily Telegraph article)

From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, God and religion are actually seen as biologically-induced phenomena in some quarters. The possibility that human beings have evolved specialised neural circuitry for the purpose of mediating religious and spiritual experience always exists. After all, the human belief in the supernatural is so widespread that it is very tempting to ask if such beliefs have a biological basis. The next logical question would be: what Darwinian selection pressures could lead to such a mechanism? If such a mechanism does exist, then does it mean that there is a gene or set of genes concerned with spiritual leanings? Have atheists learned to circumvent this gene or do they simply lack it?

The main idea of natural selection is that many human traits and propensities have been specifically chosen to survive and endure because of its adaptive value. A good example of this is the tendency for men to be promiscuous and polygamous whereas women are mostly monogamous. This makes evolutionary sense, since women invest a great deal of time in child-rearing and is therefore more discerning in her choice of sexual partner(s). A man's optimal evolutionary strategy is to disseminate his genes widely due to the reduced amount of investment in each encounter vis-a-vis sexual relations. Such behaviour is unlikely to be cultural as we all know how culture tends to be forbidding and minimising of such propensities than to be encouraging of them. On the other hand care must be taken not to take evolutionary arguments too far, as the universality of a human trait does not necessarily mean that it may be genetic. For example cooking is a trait to be found in all cultures, but it would be foolish to suggest that a specialised "cooking module" exists in the brain.

So is religion (or at least the belief in God and spirituality) like cooking - where culture is the dominating factor - or like polygamy, which appears to have a strong genetic basis? How would an evolutionary psychologist account for the origin of religion, especially with a Darwinian outlook?

One possibility is that the universal human tendency to seek authority figures - ensuring organised priesthood, participation in rituals, chanting and dancing, adherence to moral codes, etc - encourages conformist behaviour and contributes to the stability of one's social group or "kin" as it were, who share the same genes. Genes that encourage the cultivation of such conformist traits would tend to flourish and multiply, whereas people who lacked them would be ostracised or even punished for their "deviant" behaviour. Maybe the easiest way to ensure such stability and conformity would be to believe in a destiny-controlling "higher power". Its no wonder that some temporal lobe epilepsy patients experience a sense of omnipotence and grandeur as if to say, "I am the chosen one to impart information to you lesser beings."

Even by the standards of evolutionary psychology this would be considered a weak argument, but whether or not one believes in "religious conformity" genes it is clear that some parts of the temporal lobe play a more direct tole in the genesis of such experiences than any other part of the brain. There is also a tendency to equate "unusual" or "rare" with abnormal, but this would be another logical fallacy. Genius is a rare but highly valued trait, whereas tooth decay is common and undesirable. Which one of these categories would spiritual experiences fall into? As Ramachandran asks, "why is the revealed truth of such transcendental experiences in any way 'inferior' to the more mundane truths that we scientists dabble in?"

Indeed, the proven fact of the temporal lobe's involvement in religious experiences could very well prove the case for the existence of God as well as against.

As Ramachandran again explains:

As far as brain anatomy is concerned, one explanation as to why people have religious experiences invokes connections between the visual and auditory centres and the amygdala, that limbic system component specialised in recognising the emotional significance of events in the external world. Obviously not every event or person you encounter throughout a typical day would set off alarm bells, as that would be maladaptive and you would go insane. To cope with the world's uncertainties, an individual needs a way of gauging the salience of events before they relay a message to the rest of the limbic system and to the hypothalamus telling them to assist in fighting or fleeing.

Getting back to the kindling that I mentioned earlier, spurious signals stemming from limbic seizure activity might travel these pathways. Such "salience" pathways would become strengthened and thus increasing communication between brain structures. Sensory brain areas that see people and events and hear voices and noises would become more closely linked to emotional centres. The result? Every object and event - not just salient ones - would become imbued with deep significance, so that the patient would see such fantastic things as the universe in a grain of sand, to hold infinity in the palm of his hand, and so on. Ramachandran notes how ironic it is that "this sense of enlightenment, this absolute conviction that Truth is revealed at last, should derive from limbic structures concerned with emotions rather than from the thinking, rational parts of the brain that take so much pride in their ability to discern truth from falsehood." After all, it is just how Bhaktivedanta Swami once defined bhakti as "love and devotion expressed through emotion".

If the above brain information could be a genetic or neural explanation for why siddhas tend to see everyday sights in relation to Krishna (á la Caitanya's travels in the forests), then it it no wonder that uddipana-vibhavas are noted by Rupa Gosvami in BRS as useful tools that help to perceive Krishna everywhere.

While I was penning my 1000-word critical review of Ramachandran's book, I made mention of the obvious gap in his argument - not every religious or spiritual person is an epileptic, yet it is entirely possible that they have visions too. I am not aware of any replication studies done on religious non-epileptics, but I would assume that in most cases their religious feelings are not intense enough to reach that critical point where the brain projects a vision in front of the visual field.

However, the connection with epilepsy is sobering. Over the years I have come across many pieces of anti-Muslim propaganda about the Prophet Muhummad (founder of Islam), where it is often claimed that his "visions" in which chapters of the Qur`an were revealed to him by the Angel Gabriel were actiually intense epileptic fits. In nearly three years of studying the ins and outs of Islam through as many of their scriptural texts, I never found one recorded incidence of Muhummad's raptures taking the form of an epileptic fit. (If anyone knows of any, please let me know with references please) I dismissed all of that as hateful propaganda since the rest of it was pure vitriol, but now I am forced to consider the possible truth of it in light of these scientific findings. this also leads to question the experiences of most religious founders; was Moses an epileptic? Elijah? Ezekiel? Anyone else? It is not as if the Bible of Torah would contain much by way of detailed description!

====

One scientific strategy to investigate a problem is by means of the case study. Studying a single instance of a (neurological?) problem can often give startling insights into that malady.In this way, Ramachandran reports the case study of "Paul" (identity changed of course) and his interactions with the opposite sex:

Indeed, it should be noted that not all temporal lob epileptics become religious. There are many parallel connections between the amygdala and the temporal cortex. Depending on which particular ones are involved, some patients may have their personalities skewed in other directions, becoming obsessed with drawing, writing, arguing philosophy, or, rarely, being preoccupied with sex.

A simple experiment to test patients' responsiveness to different stimuli would be a standard Galvanic Skin Response test (GSR, a.k.a. polygraph test). Place the subject(s) in front of a computer screen and showing them a variety of words and images - for example, inanimate objects (sho, vase, table, etc), familiar faces (parents, siblings), unfamiliar faces, sexually arousing words and pictures (erotic pinups), four-letter words involving sex, extreme violence and horror(alligator eating a man alive, a man setting himself afire) and religious words and icons (such as the word "God"). A typical individual such as you and I would register huge GSR responses to the scenes of violence and to the sexually explicit words and pictures, a fairly large response to familiar faces and usually nothing at all to other categories.
How about the patients? The "kindling" hypothesis would predict a uniform high response to all categories on account of ther experience of finding "everything" meaningful and so on. Ramachandran's experiment found that heightened responses were generated in reaction to the religious stimuli, whereas responses to all ther other stimuli were strangely diminished compared to what is seen in other individuals.

Could this be a scientific observation of how general sadhakas experience a reduction of attachment to material things as well as transitory relationships by making advancement in their bhajan, á la Zri Narottama dAs et al?

The result showed that rather than there being a general enhancement of all the neural connections, there was a decrement as well as a selective amplification of response to religious stimuli. Whatever one makes of such amplified responses, the findings eliminate one of the proposed explanations for these experiences - that these people become spiritual simply because everything around them becomes so salient and meaningful. The finding of a reduction in response to the sexual stimuli is consistent with the diminished libido that some of these patients report.

Personally, I find myself diasgreeing with Ramachandran if it all boils down to an "either/or" situation. Reduction of attachments to material things and also a disillusionment with transitory relationships as well as a conscious experience of seeing divinity everywhere are a hallmark of Gaudiya theology and its exegeses. If it all boils down to neural connections, it would be interesting to find out which neural connection is responsible for which angle of theology. Which neural connections are active at the time of performing bhajan, japa, murti-seva and other spiritual activities? And so on.

Being a member of the British Psychological Society I obtain due receipt of their Research Digest, which is a nifty way of being updated with the very latest cutting-edge news and breakthroughs in the world of psychology. Here is an extract from one of the latests digests which suggests that the olfactory system may figure in the process of experiencing spiritual visions: