Journal for Interdisciplinary Research on Religion and Science,

No. 2, January 2008

Neuroscientific Explanations of Religious

Experience are Not free from Cultural Aspects

Anne L. C. RUNEHOV *
* Department
of Systematic Theology,
Copenhagen University, Denmark

Abstract
We cannot disregard that the neuroscientific
research on religious phenomena such as religious
experiences and rituals for example, has increased
significantly the last years. Neuroscientists claim that
neuroscience contributes considerably in the process of
understanding religious experiences, because
neuroscience is able to measure brain activity during
religious experiences by way of brain‐imaging
technologies. No doubt, those results of neuroscientific
research on religious experiences are an important
supplement to the understanding of some types of
religious experiences. However, some conclusions drawn
from neuroscientific research on religious experiences are
arguable. For example, one such conclusion is that
religious experiences are actually nothing but neural
activity, i.e. there is nothing ‘religious’ to the experiences
at all. Another such conclusion is that a person’s religious
experiences actually derive from some ultimate reality,
meaning that religious experiences are real. It is the latter
assertion that will be analyzed in the present paper. The
question is asked whether neuroscience alone is able to
affirm that religious experiences are real or whether there
are, besides neuroscientific issues, also cultural‐religious
assumptions that underlie this conclusion.

Introduction
The study I choose as a passage to the analysis is an
empirical neuroscientific study titled “The Measurement of
Cerebral Blood Flow during the Complex Cognitive Task of
Meditation using HMPAO‐Spect Imaging”, by Andrew
Newberg, Abass Alavi, Michael Baime, Michael Pourdehnad,

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Jill Santanna and Eugene d’Aquili. 1 For the sake of what I

aim to discuss below, I had to simplify Newberg et al.’s
study and ignore its original aim, which is to understand
the correlations between the brain and religious
experiences obtained by way of meditation. My purpose
instead is to show that neuroscientific explanations of
religious experiences cannot stand aloof from the cultural
understanding of religious experiences. I will start with a
presentation of the study, where after I will discuss the
results and some conclusions that Newberg et al. arrived
at. Thereafter I will account for cultural presuppositions
that underlie some of Newberg et al.’s explanations of
religious experiences and argue that their neuroscientific
explanations are not free from cultural assumptions. Let us
now consider the study.

The Study
The participants in the neuroscientific study
performed by Newberg et al. on religious experiences
obtained by meditation were male and female Tibetan
Buddhist meditators and Franciscan nuns between the ages
of 38 and 52. All persons had more than 15 years of
practice of meditation or prayer. They practiced at least
one hour per day and at least five days a week.
Furthermore, all of them had participated in several
retreats lasting a minimum of three‐months and in one
yearly retreat of one month. The control group existed of
nine healthy persons who did not perform any meditation.
They were brain‐scanned once during 20 minutes.
However, even if both the participants who meditated and
those who did not were SPECT‐scanned at baseline, only
the meditating persons were also SPECT‐scanned in a later
phase of the experiment.
The task of the participants began with the
instruction to put themselves in their preferred position
for meditation or prayer. They were allowed to surround
themselves with objects that they generally use when they

1 Newberg, A. et al. (2001b).

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meditate or pray and/or which facilitates meditation, for

example, candles and sticks of jasmine incense. Before
starting their meditation, they were injected with a specific
radioactive tracer and brain‐scanned 20 minutes later in a
Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT).
To whom it may concern, the radioactive tracer contained
7 mCi (milli‐Curie) HexaMethyl Propylene Amine Oxime
(HMPAO). Newberg et al. registered the values for the
regions of interest of the brain. To be able to measure
neural activity during meditation the participants were
connected to the research team by way of a common cotton
twine, which they had to pull as soon as they felt that they
approached their most intensive moment of meditation,
(called Absolute Unitary Being by Newberg et al.) Twenty
minutes later, they were SPECT‐scanned during 30 minutes
and Newberg et al could register the new values.
Generally considered, Newberg and d’Aquili observed
that the meditators, during the act of meditation, had
increased rCBF (reginal Cerebral Blood Flow) in the
inferior and orbital frontal cortices, the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortices (i.e. the cortices situated right back of
the side of the brain), the sensorimotor cortices, the
dorsomedial cortices (i.e. the cortices at the backside of the
middle of the brain), the midbrain, the cingulate gyri and
the thalami. The other parts of their brains did not show
any significant changes in neural activity.
More specifically, when the values of the baseline
scans were compared with the values of the scans taken
during meditation, they discovered that there was a
significant increase of activity in the frontal lobes, known
as the seat of cognition and emotion. However Newberg et
al. did not find a significant decrease in the posterior
superior parietal lobes (PSPL) as they previously had
suggested. 2 The SPECT images of the brain of the
participants taken before they began to meditate showed
that there was furious neurological activity in this brain

2 d’Aquili, E./Newberg, A. (1993)/(1999).

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area. This activity appeared on the computer screen of the

SPECT as vibrant bursts of brilliant reds and yellows. The
images taken during the act of meditation however,
showed the same area in green and blue, i.e. darker colours
indicating a reduction in activity. The darker the colours
the stronger the decrease of activity. When the colour
turns black, there is no activity at all, i.e. the brain died.
Newberg et al. had hypothesized that there would be
a decrease in activity of the sensorimotor areas during
meditation, because meditation is said to bring about a
decrease in sensory awareness and motor activity.
However, this was not confirmed, rather, the opposite
occurred and an increase was measured. Newberg and
d’Aquili guessed that, to maintain the posture of the
meditator, (for example the lotus position); there might be
a significant degree of activity required in the
sensorimotor areas. Furthermore, there may be some form
of visual input from the internal images generated during
this type of meditation.
However, in a previous study, Newberg and d’Aquili
designed neurological models of different meditation
techniques. One of them, called the Via Positiva implies
that the meditator focuses on a preferred inner or outer
image to put her in a meditative state. Hence, that could
explain the unexpected increase of activity in the
sensorimotor areas. 3 A for the present study perhaps
secondary remark but which I found important to make in
Sacred or Neural is that if they had not only paid attention
to the neural activity that is specifically active during the
meditation process but had also paid attention to the type
of meditation technique that was performed at the moment
of the scanning, we probably would have known whether
the results are related to Tibetan meditation or Franciscan
praying or to both. 4 The brain‐images also showed
increased activity in the midbrain because of autonomic

3 d’Aquili, E./Newberg, A. (1993)/(1999).

4 Runehov, A.L.C. (2007) chap.6.

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changes during meditation. However, there were no

significant neural changes in the cerebellum, superior
frontal, or occipital areas, since the function of these brain
structures are normally not associated with meditation.
However, and unexpectedly, they found significantly
increased activity in the thalamus, something that may be
important for the overall complex processes associated
with meditation, including both cognitive and affective
responses. Finally, Newberg et al. discovered that the
meditators had a significantly different thalamic laterality
index at baseline than had the non‐meditators.

Discussion
The results show whether the hypotheses were
confirmed or not and they show which brain structures
and functions that underwent increased or decreased
neural activity at the most intensive moment of meditation
and prayer. However, they do not tell us anything about the
phenomenon religious experience itself, about the quality
of the experiences, about the core characteristics of the
religions to which the meditators belonged, nor about the
reality status of the experiences. Furthermore, they do not
tell us anything about the experiencers themselves or
about how they interpret their religious experiencers.
Nevertheless, Newberg et al. emphasize neuroscience’s
weight when they present their neuroscientific view on the
reality of religious experiences, as follows.
Firstly, Newberg et al. equal all human experiences,
neuroscientifically seen, and they mean that everything we
experience we experience in a second‐hand‐way, i.e. all our
experiences are mediated by our brain. They write:
If God exists, for example, and if He appeared to you in some
incarnation, you would have no way of experiencing His presence,
except as part of a neurologically generated rendition of reality.
You would need auditory processing to hear His voice, visual
processing to see His face, and cognitive processing to make sense
of His message. Even if He spoke to you mystically, without words,
you would need cognitive functions to comprehend His meaning,
and input from the brain’s emotional centers to fill you with

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rapture and awe. Neurology makes it clear: There’s no other way

for God to get into your head except through the brain’s neural
pathways. Even if there were a soul through which God could
communicate, it would have little cognitive meaning to us without
a brain. 5
Thus, if God exists and wants to communicate with us,
God cannot do this otherwise than by using different brain
structures and functions. Newberg et al. suggest that,
neurologically seen, experiencing Absolute Unitary Being
or God is identical to experiencing eating a piece of apple
pie, because brain‐scans of a person eating a piece of apple
pie show the neural activity involved in eating apple pie.
For example, the olfactory areas that registering the aroma,
the visual areas picturing the piece of apple pie, the centres
of touch holding the piece and the areas responsible for
taste show, similar to the brain‐scans, the neural activity
involved in experiencing Absolute Unitary Being. Secondly,
Newberg et al, write, “ there can be little doubt that Absolute
Unitary Being exists, even if it is a relatively rare state”. 6
In another study, Newberg and d’Aquili also maintain
that so real do these experiences appear when recalled in
baseline reality that they have the ability to alter the way
the experiencers live their lives [...] “ [T]he word real is not
here used poetically or metaphorically. It is used in the same sense
as in the utterance “This rock and this table are real”. 7 Newberg
et al. support their view by referring to plenty of evidence
for its existence in cross cultural religious literature and
the testimonies of living mystics and other people who
experienced Ultimate Reality, (among them the subjects of
their neuroscientific studies) regardless of which religion
they belong to. These people, they say, remember the
Ultimate Reality experience with the same degree of clarity
and sense of reality as they remember everyday events of
the past, something that is not the case with, hallucinations
among others. In fact, where Ultimate Reality experiences
are remembered as superior to baseline reality, dreams

5 Newberg, A. et al. (2001a) 37/183: note 1.

6 d’Aquili, E./Newberg, A. (1996) 248.
7 d’Aquili, E./Newberg, A. (1999), 192.

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and hallucinations are remembered as inferior to baseline

reality. 8 It hence seems that they want to give Absolute
Unitary Being or God an identical reality status, for
example, a piece of apple pie when they maintain that
Absolute Unitary Being doubtlessly exists.
The problem with the first assertion, however, is that
it is not clear at all how we should understand Newberg et
al.’s claim that all experiences are identical on a
neurological level. Firstly, assume that Peter and Nancey
eat a piece of the same apple pie. They will probably not
describe their experience identically. Peter might say that
the apple pie was not sweet enough while Nancey might
say that it was too sweet. Peter might have been hungry
when eating the pie while Nancey might have eaten it
because it was served at coffee time in the office. The latter
clearly implies that different brain structures and functions
had to be activated for example, the brain structure that
has to do with being hungry, which will not be activated in
Nancey’s brain. Hence, Peter and Nancey’s experience of
eating a piece of apple pie cannot be equal neurologically
seen. Similarly, Mark and Rita, who have been practicing
the same meditation technique for twenty years and have
been practicing at least two hours per day etc., probably
had and still have different religious experiences.
However, Newberg et al. could counter argue that
what they mean is that the experiences are identical
neurologically seen in the sense that, whatever the person
experiences it has to be mediated through brain structures
and functions, and that this is so for all types of experience,
religious and others. We can agree upon that, however,
there is yet another problem namely, some
neuroscientists claim that every brain is unique, that
brains are like faces. Since there are no identical faces, not
even identical twins have identical faces; there cannot be
identical brains either, at least by nature. Advanced plastic
surgery might, be it today or in the future, be able to create

8 d’Aquili, E./Newberg, A. (1999), 192.

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two identical faces. Furthermore, we do not know what

cloning techniques might bring about in the future.
Furthermore, besides these nature aspects, (i.e. genes,
nutrition, disease, laws of physics and chemistry) we also
have to consider the nurture aspect (i.e. our interaction
with our environment –culture – from the day we are born
until the end of our days), as well as the personal aspects
(i.e. our action and choices). Every brain thus changes
constantly and uniquely. Neuroscientists call this
continuous modification of the brain for the brain’s
plasticity.
People do things differently at different times and do
different things, which must imply that our brains develop
differently and thus are different. For example, even if the
identical twins, Maddy and Maggy, who were my
classmates in ground school, dressed alike and practically
did the same things all the time, they did not do everything
in the same order or with the same motivation or intensity.
For example, Maddy loved geography while Maggy did not
but was much better at drawing and painting than Maddy. I
do not know whether Maddy became a geographer and
Maggy an artist but it is clear that their brains developed
differently due to their interests. As identical twins, their
brains might have looked very similar at the beginning of
their lives but today, their brains are unquestionably very
different. Connected with this is my last remark that every
experience is associated with a complexity of neural
activity in different brain structures. Carol Rausch Albright
writes that the “many forms of religious experience may
involve almost every part of the brain’. 9 Thus, the
experience Absolute Unitary Being has to involve more
neural structures than the posterior superior parietal
lobes. This implies that, if two experiences are to be
identical, all the neural activity involved has to be identical.
Hence, I believe we may conclude that meditation and the
accompanying religious experiences have to affect Mark’s
and Rita’s brains differently and that their experiences

9 Albright, C.R. (2002), 167.

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cannot be identical, not even neurologically seen.

Furthermore, we may conclude that such is the case for all
human experience.
Let us now take a closer look at Newberg et al.’s
second claim that Absolute Unitary Being exists. 10 The
problem is that, from a neuroscientific perspective, it is not
possible to maintain that Absolute Unitary Being, which
they also refer to as God, exists or is absolute reality. Let us
also for the time being disregard the philosophical
problems surrounding the concepts “ exist, real and
reality” which I am afraid do not room within the frame of
the present paper. Neuroscientists cannot detect any object
of experiences by way of brain scans at all for the reason
that the red, blue or green spots on the computer screen of
the SPECT do not refer to an object of experience, for
example God or a piece of apple pie. What these spots refer
to is neural activity, in other words, what the
neuroscientists see on the screen is chemistry and not God
or a pie. Newberg et al. hence cannot establish that
Absolute Unitary Being or God exists or is real from a
neuroscientific point of view only. Thus, they clearly must
rely on other arguments than neuroscientific ones to
support their view that Absolute Unitary Being exists or is
absolute reality.

Cultural Implications
Let us return to Newberg et al.’s first inference based
on their studies and ask what arguments that could
underlie their claim that all experiences are identical seen
from a neuroscientific point of view. To discover these we
have to dig deeper into Newberg et al.’s reasoning
concerning the equality of experiences, especially religious
experiences. They maintain that there cannot be two
different experiences of Absolute Unitary Being as such.
However, this claim does not derive from the results of the

10 Newberg, A. et al. (2001).

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empirical neuroscientific study above, but is related to

their study in which they design neurological models and
hypothesize how the correlation between brain structures
and functions and religious experiences obtained by way of
different meditation techniques might look like. It is in this
study that they maintain that Absolute Unitary Being
correlates with a total deafferentation of the left and right
PSPL. However, the results of Newberg et al.’s empirical
study do not show a total deafferentation in the PSPL, only
a tendency towards deafferentation.
However, there is also a problem from a
neuroscientific point of view, because some neuroscientists
maintain that a total deafferentation of the left and right
PSPL is simply not possible. For instance, the
neuroscientist Mogens Dalby maintains that the condition
of persons who suffer from two‐sided infraction in the
PSPL (which is a partly deafferentation of the left and right
PSPL), is such that they lack bodily perception, they cannot
follow a line of argument, they do not recognize the objects
which are placed in their hands or they cannot walk, etc.
Hence, they do not seem to have the same control over
what happens, as the meditators seem to have. Dalby
argues that one cannot compare the neurological condition
of these persons with the neurological condition of
meditators experiencing ultimate reality. The neurological
condition of the persons suffering from damage to the PSPL
is regarded as a proper deafferentation of that brain area,
(the condition is invariable), while the neurological
condition of the meditators is considered to be a
modulation of the functions of that brain area. Proper
deafferentation means that all neural input or flow into a
certain brain structure is cut off. The decrease in neural
activity (the blood flow decrease) that Newberg and
d’Aquili see in the PSPL area does not have to imply that
the PSPL is completely cut off from its normal input. 11
There is an important difference between the “shutting down
or cutting off of the [PSPL] area. [...] Shutting down neural activity

11 From my correspondence with Dr. Dalby.

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is known as inhibition, and inhibition of a brain area may result in

decreased blood flow to that area.” 12 Thus, Newberg and d’Aquili
should have been more precise in what they meant by total
deafferentation of the left and right PSPL, because their models
seem to “require that the [PSPL] area remains active while it is cut
off from its normal neural input ”, 13 but they probably mean
while it is shut down from its normal neural input. Newberg
and d’Aquili could have added that during the experience
of Absolute Unitary Being, the left and right PSPL are
deafferented but not deefferented, i.e., even if there may
not be information to generate a sense of orientation,
information on how to interpret this lack of orientation
will still be sent to adequate parts of the brain. While
deafferentation refers to the inhibition or blockage of input
into a brain structure, deefferentation refers to the
inhibition or blockage of output from a brain structure.
Nevertheless, since we are analyzing how Newberg et
al., reason, let me account for how I think they may have
proceeded. Thus, from a previous non‐empirical study,
Newberg et al. borrow the idea that total deafferentation of
both left and right posterior superior parietal lobes (PSPL)
are correlated with the experience Absolute Unitary Being
(AUB). They then maintain that there cannot be two
different total deafferentated PSPL because, brain‐imagine
of various such deafferentated brain‐structures show
exactly the same neural activity (here non‐activity) in the
PSPL. Furthermore, since, according to them total
deafferentation of both the PSPL corresponds with that
religious experience AUB, they conclude that there cannot
be two different experiences of Absolute Unitary Being.
Newberg et al. write, “While in the state of Absolute Unitary
Being, [t]here is only absolute unity, and there cannot be two
versions of any unity that is absolute”. 14 Let me reconstruct
their argument.

12 Spezio, M.L. (2001), 482.

13 Spezio (2001) 482.
14 Newberg, A. et al. (2001), 123.

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1. If there is AUB then there is a total deafferentation

of both PSPL
2. There are no two different total deafferentations of
PSPL possible
3. Conclusion: there cannot be two different AUB
A problem is that not all mystics would agree that 3
follows from 1 and 2, i.e. that there are no different
Absolute Unitary Being experiences possible even if they
might recognize certain experiences that are associated
with Absolute Unitary Being, for example, the experience of
union, of timelessness, etc. Some Christian mystics for
example would not describe their experience of ultimate
reality as an experience of nothingness but of love. Some
may say that they felt united with God, others may say that
they felt as being a drop of water in the ocean, again others
will interpret their experience as an experience of total
emptiness or nirvana, etc. Let me propose the following
stories by way of illustration. I want you to imagine Sister
Helen, a Christian nun, in kneeled position before the altar
of a little chapel. Assume that she has been praying in the
same position for hours, her eyes fixed on the candle light
on the altar. Assume further that she experiences feeling
one with the light of the candle she was focusing on, and
after a while experiences Absolute Unitary Being. Thus,
afterwards, she will remember this experience as having
been one with the light. Furthermore, belonging to a
Christian theistic religion, Sister Helen will probably say
something like “the Light is one nature consisting of the oneness
of life which is the Father, the Light itself which is the Son and the
glare of the Light which is the Holy Spirit. ” 15 Imagine now
Rajeev who belongs to the Hindu tradition and who
experienced Absolute Unitary Being. Belonging to the
Hindu tradition, Rajeev will remember his experience as a
feeling of being a passenger of his body. He will probably
say that he did not feel any anxiety, nor doubts, fears,
ambitions, goals, desires, pains, etc. He might even say that

15 Nijs, P./Meyers, K. (ed.) (2001), 23, my translation from Dutch.

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he does not long for anything else anymore than for

Brahman. To return to Mark and Rita, they also will put
their experience in their respective frame of cultural,
religious and personal reference, when describing their
experience to other people. Moreover, descriptions are
related to language and language is related to culture.
Hence, instead of only one description of what it is to
experience Absolute Unitary Being, there probably are
many versions.
However, Newberg et al. could counter argue that the
experience of Absolute Unitary Being at the very moment
of the experience and before the experiencer puts the
experience in words (i.e. as she or he remembers the
experience afterwards) is identical for all. Maybe they are
right, however, the problem is that this is something that
neuroscience may not be able to demonstrate. Some would
raise the question whether it is possible to have non‐
interpreted experiences at all. Another aspect is that the
way of meditating, for example, via negativa, via positiva,
transcendental meditation, praying, is culture related.
Hence, the cultural‐religious background of the
experiencer may be more significant for the experience
itself than was hitherto believed. The cultural‐religious
background may not only be significant for the
interpretation of the religious experience by the
experiencer but also even for the religious experience
itself.

Let us return to Mark and Rita and assume that Mark

practices via negativa and Rita via positiva. Assume that
Mark practices via negativa because he has studied this
technique in Taiwan during his youth because his parents
worked at the Swedish embassy in Taiwan at that time.
Assume that he continued practicing meditation by way of
the via negativa technique ever since. Assume further that
Rita participated in several long‐time retreats in Christian
convents. Assume that both Mark and Rita experience
Absolute Unitary Being during their meditation sessions.

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Mark’s experience then will probably be an experience of

wholeness, of unity, of absolute oneness, where there is no
time, no space, no distinctions, and no self. This is so
because, roughly, via negativa is a meditation technique in
which the meditator concentrates on emptying his or her
mind completely. Rita’s experience will probably also be an
experience of union but of union with the inner or outer
image of her meditation, because, roughly, via positiva is a
meditation technique in which the meditator focuses on a
chosen image, (may it be an inner image or an image
situated somewhere in the room or place where the
meditation takes place). Thus, not only will Mark and Rita
refer to their experiences in a different way ‐not only will
they interpret their experience differently ‐they will
actually experience them differently due to the different
meditation techniques they used. Furthermore, as already
pointed out, their brains, i.e. their neurology will develop
in a different manner as well and will hence be different. I
believe that it becomes difficult to agree with Newberg et
al. that all experiences are identical, even if Newberg et
al.’s intention concerns equality of experiences on a
neurological level.

Conclusion
Even though Newberg et al. agree that one has to take
into account both the material and the spiritual side of the
world when studying religious experiences, they would
profit from further considering the strong impact of the
culture‐religious implications of religious experiences. If
neuroscientists want to study the spiritual side of the
world, they also need to study its cultural side more
seriously. Nevertheless, this does not exclude that the
experience Absolute Unitary Being, everything else being
the same, is as Newberg et al. describe it. Neither does it
exclude that when somebody says that she experienced
Jesus, that she really did so. However, these queries belong
to another debate.

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