According to the editor, the book "The Spiritual Brain - A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul" (Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary, Harper One, 2007) "offers compelling evidence that religious experiences have a nonmaterial origin".
To learn more about this book and its claims, I contacted the coauthor Denyse O'Leary to ask her if she could answer a few questions, and she kindly agreed.Please note that in the following exclusive interview, my questions are in bold font.
First of all, thank you very much for this interview. Could you briefly define what you mean by immaterial mind?
Denyse O'Leary: Well, many things that are real - ideas that have enormous consequences, for instance – are immaterial.
I am not sure how to describe the mind except to say that it is one's irreducible self - irreducible in the same way that the smallest units of matter are irreducible.
If we assume that the universe is the creation or emanation of a cosmic mind (and that is the best interpretation of the evidence), it should be no surprise that there are irreducible immaterial minds within the universe. It is not essential that minds such as ours should exist, but it is hardly surprising either.
How did you get involved in the book "The Spiritual Brain - A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul ", that you wrote with researcher Mario Beauregard?
Denyse O'Leary: I got involved in a rather unusual way. I am a Toronto-based Canadian journalist, and I had written a book, By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg, 2004) to explain why there is an intelligent design controversy.
Put simply: The universe shows evidence of intelligent design. That in itself is not a slam dunk *for* any specific religion, but it is certainly evidence *against* the current elite cult of materialist atheism.
I was invited to present a poster session on my book at the 4th World Conference of Science Journalists in 2004. There I ran into a fellow journalist who was very anxious to dump a project that "goes against everything I believe" - but he thought it might be good for me.
(Oh? Why?)
I said, well, give the problem project to me. Either I can handle it, or else I will find someone who can. After this, it is not your problem! Enjoy the conference and have fun!
That problem project became a classic introduction to non-materialist neuroscience, The Spiritual Bain (Harper One, 2007).
In a few words, what is the main thesis of the book "The Spiritual Brain?"
Denyse O'Leary: The fact is, materialism is stalled. Not only does it have no useful hypotheses for the human mind or spiritual experiences, it is not close to developing any. Just beyond lies a great realm that cannot even be entered via materialism, let alone explored. But the good news is that, in the absence of materialism, there are hopeful signs that it can indeed be entered and explored with modern neuroscience.
Non-materialist neuroscience is not compelled to reject, deny, explain away, or treat as problems all evidence that defies materialism. That is convenient because current research is turning up a growing body of such evidence.
But how can we investigate spirituality scientifically? To start with, we can rediscover our non-materialist inheritance. It has always been there, just widely ignored. Famous neuroscientists such as Charles Sherrington, Wilder Penfield, and John Eccles, were not in fact reductive materialists, and they had good reasons for their position. Today, non-materialist neuroscience is thriving, despite the limitations imposed by widespread misunderstanding and, in a few cases, hostility. Readers are urged to approach all the questions and evidence presented in this book with an open mind. This is a time for exploration, not dogma.
Our book will establish three key ideas: The non-materialist approach to the human mind is a rich and vital tradition that accounts for the evidence much better than the currently stalled materialist one.
Second, non-materialist approaches to the mind result in practical benefits and treatments, as well as promising approaches to phenomena that materialist accounts cannot even address.
And lastly – this may be the most important value for many readers – our book shows that when spiritual experiences transform lives, the most reasonable explanation – the one that best accounts for all the evidence – is that the people who have such experiences have actually contacted a reality outside themselves, a reality that has brought them closer to the real nature of the universe.
Interesting. Could you give us some examples of treatments based on non-materialist approaches, and there benefits for patients when compared to more conventional approaches?
Denyse O'Leary: Non-materialist approaches have clearly demonstrated mental health benefits. Here are a few examples discussed in this book:
Jeffrey Schwartz, a non-materialist UCLA neuropsychiatrist, treats obsessive-compulsive disorder — a neuropsychiatric disease marked by distressing, intrusive, and unwanted thoughts—by getting patients to reprogram their brains—their minds change their brains.
Similarly, some of my neuroscientist colleagues at the Université de Montréal and I have demonstrated, via brain imaging techniques, that
– women and young girls can voluntarily control their level of response to sad thoughts, though young girls found it more difficult to do so.
– men who view erotic films are quite able to control their responses to them, when asked to do so.
– people who suffer from phobias such as spider phobia can reorganize their brains so that they lose the fear.
Evidence of the mind's control over the brain is actually captured in these studies. There is such a thing as "mind over matter." We do have will power, consciousness, and emotions, and combined with a sense of purpose and meaning, we can effect change.
Thank you for these details, but one could simply say that these studies show that the brain can change or influence itself. For example, in recent years, scientists have identified new ways by which the brain can interact with immune system, etc. One could argue that the better we know the brain and the body, the less we need an "immaterial world." Why is it necessary to introduce a "spiritual mind" that would be distinct from the brain?
Denyse O'Leary: Good question! But the brain isn't changing or influencing itself. The mind of the patient, in communication with the mind of the doctor (through speech), is actually generating the changes.
The brain, of course, can generate changes in itself. For example, neural circuits are constantly changing in response to repair and replacement functions. Usually, we do not even know it is happening (though if we have experienced brain damage, we may happen to observe improvements over time).
But when the doctor tells the patient to think about something in a different way, and the patient does so - and the outcome is that some neural circuits grow and others shrink - that is the mind changing the brain. The brain is the organ through with the instantiated mind thinks.
Here is another interesting example from "The Spiritual Brain":
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... one study in which the tremors of Parkinson's disease were eased by a placebo (saline solution). Neural activity associated with tremors declined as the symptoms decreased, so the patients could not simply have been confabulating that they felt better. Believing that they had received a powerful medication had triggered the release of dopamine in their ailing brains.
Other studies of Parkinson's show similar results. Raül de la Fuente-Fernández and colleagues reported in 2001 that "our results suggest that in some patients, most of the benefit that is assumed to be obtained from an active drug might derive from a placebo effect." The researchers observed from PET scans that the placebo effect in Parkinson's patients was mediated through activation of the damaged nigrostriatal dopamine system.
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The critical factor is the patient's *belief* about what is happening (which is not in fact happening in the placebo group). But mental belief alone is enough to trigger some brain changes.
Do you think that this spiritual mind would be explainable by extrapolating the present science, or is made of some kind of "spiritual energy" that is out of reach of scientific instruments?
Denyse O'Leary: There is no way of knowing what is out of reach of scientific instruments. The scientific instruments available a thousand years ago or five hundred years ago or one hundred years ago captured very little compared to what scientific instruments can do today. Progress in this area will likely continue.
However, I do not think that the progress in the development of scientific instruments will show that the mind can simply be reduced to the brain because that is not a correct statement of the relationship.
Please note: It may be possible to construct a theory claiming that the mind can be reduced to the brain, but the theory will not be well founded on fact.
That is the precise situation we face today! For example, New Scientist proclaimed in 2005 that the placebo effect, of all things, was Number One of the "13 Things That Don't Make Sense." The placebo effect (you start to feel better when you believe your treatment will work, regardless of whether it is a treatment or a sham) is one of the best attested effects in medicine!
If the placebo effect doesn't make sense, something is wrong with the theory that claims that it doesn't make sense. It is useless to claim that there is something "wrong" with the placebo effect.
(It reminds me of the person who complained to the farmer that chickens lay eggs using the same orifice through which they excrete. The farmer advised that individual to complain to the Manufacturer of chickens.)
In your book, do you explore a possible link between quantum physics and a hypothetical spiritual mind?
Denyse O'Leary: Yes. Here is one model (but it must be stressed that this is only one model. As Mario and I frequently say, this is a time for exploration, not dogma):
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So what happens in our brains when we make a decision? According to the model created by H. Stapp and J. M. Schwartz, which is based on the Von Neumann interpretation of quantum physics, conscious effort causes a pattern of neural activity that becomes a template for action. But the process is not mechanical or material. There are no little cogs and wheels in our brains. There is a series of possibilities; a decision causes a quantum collapse, in which one of them becomes a reality. The cause is the mental focus, in the same way that the cause of the quantum Zeno effect is the physicists' continued observation. It is a cause, but not a mechanical or material one. One truly profound change that quantum physics has made is to verify the existence of non-mechanical causes. One of these is the activity of the human mind, which, as we will see, is not identical to the functions of the brain.
Also:
In the interpretation of quantum physics created by physicist John Von Neumann (1903–1957), a particle only probably exists in one position or another; these probable positions are said to be "superposed" on each other. Measurement causes a "quantum collapse," meaning that the experimenter has chosen a position for the particle, thus ruling out the other positions. The Stapp and Schwartz model posits that this is analogous to the way in which attending to (measuring) a thought holds it in place, collapsing the probabilities on one position. This targeted attention strategy, which is used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorders, provides a model for how free will might work in a quantum system. The model assumes the existence of a mind that chooses the subject of attention, just as the quantum collapse assumes the existence of an experimenter who chooses the point of measurement.
For further information, go to See J. M. Schwartz, H. Stapp, and M. Beauregard, "Quantum Theory in Neuroscience and Psychology: A Neurophysical Model of Mind/Brain Interaction," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 360 (2005): 1309–27. online.
I can hear people saying that a scientist presenting a case for the existence of the soul could be an argument to get people into some esoteric groups or cults. What do you think about that?
Denyse O'Leary: If someone wants to use our work to promote a dangerous or crazy cult, I am sure Mario would be the first to disown such a use, and I would be the second. (He is younger and bigger than me and can probably move faster - that is the only reason for the priority of response.)
This much I know is true: Either there is or there isn't an immaterial dimension to the human being. If there is, people can use the information for good or evil.
If the basic question is whether to make information about human nature available, I think it is best to make it available - with qualifications about how we think the information can best be used.
You will find that we did that in The Spiritual Brain. We do NOT engage in sensationalism of any kind. So if a reader finds something in the book that sounds remarkable ... it is only because popular media do not usually make the information available, not because the information is poorly sourced.
How was The Spiritual Brain received by the general public and by the scientific community?
Denyse O'Leary: I have been very pleased by the thoughtful and respectful reviews we have received. My sense is that many doctors and psychologists in particular have long realized that the materialist bias that drives much research in their own disciplines is unproductive and at times counterproductive.
Doctors know that, in a great many situations, they must engage the patient's mind in order to help the patient get better. They also know that spirituality generally translates into better, not worse, health – which implies that it is not an illusion.
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