The Spiritual Brain: Science and Religious Experience

Course Overview

An award-winning scholar and practicing neuroscientist offers you 24 riveting lectures that explore the new and exciting field of neurotheology, a discipline aimed at understanding the connections between our brains and different kinds of religious phenomena. The religious impulse is so powerfully pervasive that neuroscience has posed a provocative question: Are our brains wired to worship?

In Dr. Newberg’s 24 riveting lectures, you’ll explore the new and exciting field of neurotheology, a discipline aimed at understanding the connections between our brains and different kinds of religious phenomena. Using an academic, experimental approach into what he calls “objective measures of spirituality,” Dr. Newberg attempts to explain what others have previously only guessed at: the neuroscientific basis for why religion and spirituality have played such a prominent role in human life.

These lectures are grounded in the context of the brain’s neurophysiological structure and religious development from infancy through late adulthood. You’ll discover how the brain and spirituality appear to develop in parallel throughout a person’s life span; how the various parts of the brain work to create and sustain different beliefs about the world; the ways in which religious beliefs and practices have measurable, biological effects on individuals; and why the increasing neuroscientific data help us to better understand how spirituality may be inextricably intertwined with ongoing brain development.

Course Lectures

01: A New Perspective on Ancient Questions

For many, science and religion address two fundamentally distinct realms of human experience, but scientists and theologians are increasingly discovering that these realms intersect. Learn how neuroscience is tackling some of life’s biggest questions while shedding new light on humanity’s most ancient and enduring beliefs and practices.

Duration: 31 min

02: Why Do We Have a Spiritual Brain?

We humans possess highly evolved brains that enable us to create sophisticated systems of religious beliefs and practices. Examine the theories that seek to explain the development of this astounding organ, showing how and why we have such a powerful inclination to search for a spiritual realm.

Duration: 29 min

03: Brain Function and Religion

The brain is structured in several sections, governs a variety of systems and functions, and is the central processing unit of the human body. Delve into the inner workings of this elusive organ by means of modern neuroscience to determine how various brain processes may be involved in religious and spiritual experiences.

Duration: 31 min

04: How Does Science Study Religion?

Pursuing knowledge by means of science requires a disciplined methodology. This methodology is based in experimental approaches to its subject. Dissect the various ways in which science attempts to investigate religious phenomena, allowing you to better understand these spiritual experiences in an effort to determine their ultimate nature and makeup.

Duration: 34 min

05: Believers and Atheists

Religion has been a fundamental part of human culture for many millennia. If the human brain is hard-wired for religious activity, then why do some people’s brains reject the notion of the divine altogether? Analyze the current neuroscientific evidence for the differences between the brains of believers and nonbelievers.

Duration: 29 min

06: Spiritual Development

Human brains are capable of producing complex spiritual thoughts and states. At what age does this capacity begin? How does this capacity change throughout a lifetime? Trace the development of the brain from infancy into adulthood and see how this physiological transformation corresponds to progressive stages of religious belief.

Duration: 31 min

07: The Myth-Making Brain

From the first campfires of our ancient ancestors, storytelling has been an essential part of our human experience. Stories communicate important ideas meant to illuminate and inspire us. Harness the power of myth to appreciate how it is used by your brain to make sense of an often puzzling universe.

Duration: 30 min

08: The Brain and Religious Rituals

Habitual activity is the key to internalizing behavior, and religious ritual is a clear example of this phenomenon. Observe how the rhythm of repetitive routine changes your neural network by imprinting the precepts of religious worldviews in transformative and visceral ways.

Duration: 32 min

09: The Biology of Spiritual Practices

Two of the most common forms of religious behavior are prayer and meditation. Although these practices seem to be a pathway to another, more spiritual realm, learn how they can also be measured by the physiological changes that the practitioners exhibit, not only while engaged in them but long afterward.

Duration: 32 min

10: Religion and Health

Do prayer and meditation increase your physical well-being? Can regular church attendance contribute to an increased life span? Consider the emerging evidence that shows that increased involvement in a religious lifestyle may offer many additional health benefits.

Duration: 32 min

11: Religion and Mental Health

Explore the complex relationship between religious conviction and disorders like anxiety, depression, and substance abuse, and determine what role, if any, religion should play in medical therapy.

Duration: 30 min

12: Religion and Brain Dysfunction

Some scientists have linked religious conversion with a physical pathology, while others have associated intense spiritual practices, such as speaking in tongues, with brain dysfunction. Test these experiences to determine whether they speak to mental disorders or to supernormal brain functioning.

Duration: 31 min

13: Transmitters to God

Messages of the mind are relayed through brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. Uncover the mental connections involved in humanity’s religious experiences and follow the hidden pathways through which human beings may be connecting with the divine.

Duration: 29 min

14: Stimulated States and Religious Experiences

Changes in brain activity that occur from natural or internal conditions seem to track closely with artificial methods produced by electrical or chemical stimulation. Grasp how stimulated states give us insight into the nature and meaning of spiritual experiences.

Duration: 32 min

15: Near-Death Experiences and the Brain

Even at the point of death, our cerebral circuitry is quite active. In fact, the neural activity of these extreme states contributes to phenomena that some claim as evidence of life beyond death.

Duration: 30 min

16: The Believing Brain

Your brain works hard to interpret your experiences, making sense of your world through creating and adopting belief systems about it. In a manner of speaking, your brain is essentially a belief-generating machine.

Duration: 29 min

17: The Brain’s Influence on Religious Ideas

Whether you are thinking about the here and now or about the abstract notion of a spiritual realm, your thoughts are governed by the nature and capabilities of your brain.

Duration: 32 min

18: Revelation, Salvation, and the Brain

Your experiences are processed by your brain to determine both their immediate importance and their connection to your life as a whole.

Duration: 32 min

19: The Brain’s Influence on Religious Behavior

Ethical behavior is close to the heart of all religious traditions. Find how neuroscience is shedding new light on the processes that make possible religiously motivated behavior such as altruism, empathy, and forgiveness.

Duration: 29 min

20: How the Brain Changes God

Given the fact that your brain interprets experience to construct a picture of reality, how does this shape your concept of God?

Duration: 28 min

21: How God Changes the Brain

Your brain is constantly changing in response to your shifting thoughts and experiences.

Duration: 31 min

22: Why God Won’t Go Away

Despite the prophesied death of God and demise of religion, both are alive and well over a decade into the 21st century.

Duration: 29 min

23: The Mystical Mind

Religion and spirituality can be said to be very important aspects of human life, but what about people who take it much further?

Duration: 31 min

24: Reality and Beyond

Having explored how our brains construct and interpret reality, we have yet to address why we assume our mental constructions are correct.

Duration: 34 min