Yes, the I can't remember the researchers name, but I've been in more than one conference with him...he's been doing that research for years. I've got friends who've been in his studies. I've been rejected for previous experience.
Neurotheology
- Thread starter TealLeaf
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seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
Now now, there isn't a lawyer on earth that could pinpoint which drug was at fault. Heck I found out at the class reunion I didn't know the girl that sat in front of me in homeroom for 3 years....I didn't really feel bad about it until she said we dated a couple times.Perhaps some research into the effects this drug has on memory might be in order....
I can't tell you the names of my teachers, those I dated, and thousands more that I met...surely I won't remember the name of a lecturer I've only conversed with twice....now if he would have let me into a study...
Netti-Netti
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Thomas,
I agree with only some of your above post.
The notion that G-d is perfectly self-subsistent and totally self-sufficient would seem to derive from a concern that G-d can't need Creation in order for Him to exist. Maybe that relates to a more specific concern that the imperfections of matter and the poor judgment of willful creatures would reflect badly on G-d.
And so people maintain that G-d doesn't need Creation, but Creation needs Him. This view is difficult to reconcile to free will. I'ld say that self-determination is an expression of the human capacity for self-creation. In other words, the human is not totally dependent on G-d. Nor is the human totally determined by G-d.
Doctrinally, I think it's actually fairly easy support the idea of G-d needing Creation (mankind) based on the covenants that are described in the Bible. The Biblical emphasis on obedience bespeaks an attitude of faith and a reverence for G-d. I'm not inclined to assert that G-d's wants His children's obedience just because it's egoically/narcissistically gratifying to Him.
Further, since the Gift of Grace is by definition freely given, it also makes little sense to argue that G-d expects obedience as part of a deal by which an obedient person earns the gift.
Therefore, I'd conclude that the Biblical emphasis on obedience and the various iterations of covenant we see throughout the scriptures are intended to convey that G-d benefits from His relationship with us in terms of advancing His plan for this world.
I would go further still and suggest that G-d becomes more fully Himself through us even as He is ultimately Transcendent. Our becoming is His becoming. Such is the matrix of a dynamic ontology and evolutionary eschatology.
I don't think it is that God resides in human neuro-systems so much as the potential for religious experience is there.
Whether God is function of human religious experience is another question entirely.
Hi Netti-Netti
Been thinking of you ... keep meaning to mention I read a review of "Ordained Women in the Early Church. A Documentary History" ... interesting.
Sounds technical, but the idea of a God who wills what He does not will, who wants us to do what he does not want ... is even more schizophrenic.
Again, if such were true, then God ceases to be God by both theological and philosophical definition.
Again, what you're talking about is a being who is not a 'god' in the theological or philosophical sense — in fact he's worse off than even us, because if what you say is true, we've got him by the short hairs.
The benefit is a choice, but it's ours to make: Do we want in or out? If we want in, then we do as The Man says; if we don't, then carry on as we were, and we'll end up tossed out with the trash. That's why Jesus used the image of gehenna, that's the offer: either paradise, or the rubbish tip — take it or leave it.
But it's gonna happen, either with us, or without us.
Have you ever thought: this might not be the only creation? I don't mean transmigration or reincarnation, or some kind of repetitive recycling ... I mean an infinite number of creations, entirely separate and distinct. Some so unlike us we can't imaging them, some so like us, we can hardly conceive a difference ... One more or less won't make much a difference, on the scale of things. Such a scale that even this entire universe fails to register on the scale of either time or space ... then there's you and I in it ... for the briefest instance ... less than a spark ... less than one of those crazy nano-particles that CERN is looking for ...
It's a serious question. Science supports it, in theory at least. How come then, as the Psalmist says:
"What is man that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou visitest him?" (Psalm 8:5 9 ... and elsewhere, Job thought about it, Hebrews thought about it ... it's a big question)
For another does that then not render 'love' as the polite mask of a requirement, a necessity ...
There is then a subtext, and essentially it's a subtext of power. I would have thought every feminist fibre of your being would resent such a God. I know my masculinity does.
It also falls in the face of the question of the Immutability of God:
Thomas
Been thinking of you ... keep meaning to mention I read a review of "Ordained Women in the Early Church. A Documentary History" ... interesting.
I think it derives from a definition of God as such. Everything stems from that. I think what we require of God is ruled out by proper objectivity.
Well, the contrary reading would render God no better than man.
Not at all. The difficulty comes in assuming pre-determination, which itself is a limitation on the freedom of God. That God knows what we're going to do next does not mean He wills us to do it, as many assume, rather He endorses our freedom by letting us do as we will, even when it's contrary to His will.
Sounds technical, but the idea of a God who wills what He does not will, who wants us to do what he does not want ... is even more schizophrenic.
But we don't create ourselves — we are not self-subsistent nor self-sufficient. And when we self-determine our own good, when we don't know what that is, then that is not self-creation, but self-delusion.
Relatively speaking, that's true. Ontologically speak, that is not true.
Really? I don't think so. If it was, it would be doctrine.
Again, if such were true, then God ceases to be God by both theological and philosophical definition.
Nor does anyone make any such assertion — that's a pointless argument, nowhere does doctrine say that God is egoistic or narcissistic.
It's not freely given in that sense though, is it? There are requirements: The Shema Israel, the Decalogue, the Beatitudes ... it is a gift, freely given, because it is a superabundance of grace, an unmerited gift in that there is nothing we can say or do to necessitate the gift, that is why it is a gift, and not an obligation ... but it's not without conditions.
Then I think I've demonstrated that your logic is at fault.
Again, what you're talking about is a being who is not a 'god' in the theological or philosophical sense — in fact he's worse off than even us, because if what you say is true, we've got him by the short hairs.
The benefit is a choice, but it's ours to make: Do we want in or out? If we want in, then we do as The Man says; if we don't, then carry on as we were, and we'll end up tossed out with the trash. That's why Jesus used the image of gehenna, that's the offer: either paradise, or the rubbish tip — take it or leave it.
But it's gonna happen, either with us, or without us.
Have you ever thought: this might not be the only creation? I don't mean transmigration or reincarnation, or some kind of repetitive recycling ... I mean an infinite number of creations, entirely separate and distinct. Some so unlike us we can't imaging them, some so like us, we can hardly conceive a difference ... One more or less won't make much a difference, on the scale of things. Such a scale that even this entire universe fails to register on the scale of either time or space ... then there's you and I in it ... for the briefest instance ... less than a spark ... less than one of those crazy nano-particles that CERN is looking for ...
It's a serious question. Science supports it, in theory at least. How come then, as the Psalmist says:
"What is man that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou visitest him?" (Psalm 8:5 9 ... and elsewhere, Job thought about it, Hebrews thought about it ... it's a big question)
Well for once that actually reduces transcendence to a relativity ... God is not Absolute at all ...
For another does that then not render 'love' as the polite mask of a requirement, a necessity ...
There is then a subtext, and essentially it's a subtext of power. I would have thought every feminist fibre of your being would resent such a God. I know my masculinity does.
It also falls in the face of the question of the Immutability of God:
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-I, q9, a1.
Thomas
Netti-Netti
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Thomas,
~Philip Hefner, The Human Factor, p.27
I'm running late. Will get back to the other points.
Where did the notion of G-d's absolute freedom come from?
We create ourselves to some extent. Our best self-creations are accomplished within the parameters of G-d's will and empowered by the Spririt. I try to avoid cut 'n paste, but this covers it:
Human beings are God’s created co-creators whose purpose is to be the agency, acting in freedom, to birth the future that is most wholesome for the nature that has birthed us—the nature that is not only our own genetic heritage, but also the entire human community and the evolutionary and ecological reality in which and to which we belong. Exercising this agency is said to be God’s will for humans.
See my above response.
I disagree. Doctrine continued to evolve for hundreds of years before it was finalized, as did the Church itself. Why should doctrine and the Church stop growing? On what grounds can one reasonably claim that Midieval thinking is the end all of theological thought?
Which doctrine specifically states that covenants do not indicate that G-d needs humankind in order advance His plan?
Some doctrines do suggest that G-d is contemplating/enjoying His Creation through the various manifestations of the world of forms. Some would argue that G-d needs our awareness of Him in order for Him to know Himself completely. You might say that's not Catholic doctrine. My reply would simply be that we have no basis for assuming that Catholic doctrine is the only doctrine of value for purposes of Faith Seeking Understanding
What other conditions besides faith?
I think it is reasonable to make a distinction between G-d as co-experiencing our ongoing evolution toward Him without G-d being at totally at the mercy of our faults.
I'm running late. Will get back to the other points.
Thomas,
I think that you are missing the point of neurotheology. Neurotheology is the study of religious experience from a scientific point of view. It has nothing to with the dogma and philosophic aspects of religion.
I believe your discussion belongs in another thread.
I think that you are missing the point of neurotheology. Neurotheology is the study of religious experience from a scientific point of view. It has nothing to with the dogma and philosophic aspects of religion.
I believe your discussion belongs in another thread.
Netti-Netti
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I see religious or mystical experiences as being rather different. The same experimental induction produces such different states?
Mmm.
You might not agree that psilocybin can induce mystical experience but at least this has to do with neurotheology, the subject at hand, as it concerns the neurological mechanisms that lead to religious experience. One could also discuss how fasting, chanting, self-flagulation, meditation, sensory deprivation and/or other ascetic practices induce mystical experience by effecting our central nervous system and not be off topic.
Thomas' philisophic discussions about whether God needs creation, etc. have little or nothing to do with neurotheology and seem like they might merely be an attempt to interject the concept of a monotheistic God throughout this thread.
In the spirit of comparative religion I would like to point out that mystical experience is just as common to polytheism as it is to monotheism. Though polytheism and monotheism are drastically different neurotheology and our common biological make up as humanbeings suggests that polytheistic mysticism and monotheistic mysticism are the same at a fundamental level.
seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
Hmmm...
Gospel of Thomas
(28) Jesus said, "I took my place in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in flesh. I found all of them intoxicated; I found none of them thirsty. And my soul became afflicted for the sons of men, because they are blind in their hearts and do not have sight; for empty they came into the world, and empty too they seek to leave the world. But for the moment they are intoxicated. When they shake off their wine, then they will repent."
(29) Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, it is a wonder. But if spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. Indeed, I am amazed at how this great wealth has made its home in this poverty."
(28) Jesus said, "I took my place in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in flesh. I found all of them intoxicated; I found none of them thirsty. And my soul became afflicted for the sons of men, because they are blind in their hearts and do not have sight; for empty they came into the world, and empty too they seek to leave the world. But for the moment they are intoxicated. When they shake off their wine, then they will repent."
(29) Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, it is a wonder. But if spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. Indeed, I am amazed at how this great wealth has made its home in this poverty."
There is a world of difference between the numb stupor induced by alcohol and the heightened sensitivity and awareness of psilocybe.
seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
I've done both. Both produce a state of intoxication, (albiet each in its own unique way,) which wears off and leaves a sense of emptiness afterwards as aluded to in the passage from The Gospel of Thomas. Compare to what Jesus said in John 4:7-15
7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
Taking both of these scriptures together would suggest that a material drug that needs to be repeated would actually hinder and interfere with spiritual development by serving as a temporary and poor substitute for the real thing. {Your saying that the need to repeat imbibing of this drug on a yearly basis seems to fit into this pattern of temporariness.}9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
But in principle both do the same thing ... they just effect the brain differently. You're trying to achieve artificially what you can't achieve naturally.
One could say you're suffering a toxic reaction ...
... what you cannot say is one is experiencing reality. That people find this artificial state more inviting than their natural state is the question that needs to be addressed.
Thomas
That is incorrect. The mystical state can be achieved through fasting or any of the other ascetic practices that I have mentioned. The thing with fasting is that there are greater health costs associated with it than with taking psilocybe. Also inasmuch as part of the purpose of religious experience is to bring the congregation closer together and make them more cooperative/altruistic fasting has the disadvantage of taking many days to become effective during this time it is easy for free riders or cheaters to gain an advantage over those that are true.
This incorrect also. The mind filters out all kinds of information that is factual only to concentrate on what it deems to be significant to its present purpose. A good illustration of this is the way a photograph that is taken at night with contrasting light looks. In the photo the light washes out a large area of the darker part of the picture whereas with the naked eye one is able to see much more of the dark area. The reality of what the light actually looks like is the picture not what the naked eye sees. Your mind creates a distorted view of reality as to allow you to see more of what is inside the darkness. This is of course fine if what you want to see is in the shadow but if you're concern happens to be the light your mind would have it factually wrong.
Another more practical example of your mind filtering out potentially useful information that is applicable to the religious experience of the congregation would be voice tone/inflection and micro facial expressions. You may be familiar with this stuff from the television show . But one does not only detect lying. One detects sadness, resentment and all kinds of subconscious feelings that even the person projecting them might not be fully aware of. From my experiences with the mystical state (both psilocybe induced and ascetically induced) I have found that micro expressions and micro intonation seem to last longer such that I am consciously aware of them whereas otherwise I wouldn't be. This observation jives with other studies done with psychedelics that show they can cause an amount of image persistence.
It has been said that no one can get away with lying in front of the prophet in a mystical state perhaps this why. On the level of the group this opening of the doors of perception, as William Blake so aptly put it, facilitates the group becoming a more cohesive whole where all its members are aware and sensitive to the state of the others. In this way the a congregation coming together as a result of fasting or from taking manna is analogous to the way a slime mold coalesses when a food supply has run short in order to move to another area.
In either Heaven and Hell or the Doors of Perception Aldous Huxley suggests that mankind naturally went through a fasting process at the end of every winter as food stores ran low and there was not yet the fruit of Spring. Drawing from another science, evolutionary anthropology, it makes sense that religious experience evolved as means of increasing cooperation as a reaction to austere times. Perhaps this is why all major religions incorporate periods of group fasting. But again fasting has greater health costs than does psilocybe and unless you lock everyone in a room together for the entire period of the fast this practice serves to reward cheaters/defectors.
Again what these passages are referring to is alcohol not psilocybe. If one wants to look for Biblical direction on psilocybe one should look to what the Bible says regarding manna. For how many years does the Bible say that the manna given to His people by God was taken? I would argue that the reason God gave the people manna was because it was even better than fasting.
God gave us manna and in time it ran out and we were without manna. Thank God (and the researchers at Johns Hopkins) that the people may be with manna once again.
But we digress. As I have said before neurotheology is by nature a scientific subject. What one particular passage in one particular religion's book says is hardly a scientific view of any matter.
seattlegal
Mercuræn Buddhist
Please show me how and where John 4:7-15 refers to alcohol.
Please show me how and where John 4:7-15 refers to alcohol.
I was referring to the passage you quoted from the Gospel of Thomas.
Your quote from John is only applicable as a very abstract analogy and again it doesn't have much of anything to do with neurotheology.
Netti-Netti
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Scientifically speaking the mystical state would be described as a particular set of neurological states. I believe in the Johns Hopkins study they made use of a rigorous questionnaire and rubric to determine if the participants experienced a genuine mystical state. I'm not exactly sure what commonalities the Johns Hopkins team looked for but from my own reading and experience I would expect that a deep feeling of the interconnectedness of all things and a change in the relative perception of time such that history, present and past seem more closely related would be two core components of the many things that they looked for.
There has been some work done using CAT scans and PET scans to try to define the mystical state in terms of the activity of our central nervous system. So far the sample sizes have not been large enough to yield much useful data. It is interesting to note here that the biggest problem these scientists faced was finding subjects who were necessarily in a mystic state to do brain imaging on. The results of the Johns Hopkins study with psilocybin has now opened up a convenient means of obtaining subjects in a mystical state for a new round of brain imaging studies. It will be interesting to see what is made of this in the future.