Is there a “God Spot” in the brain?
Scientists seem to be very fond of attempting to relegate esoteric experiences of consciousness to the physical brain. In 2009 researchers claimed to have discovered the physical location of god in the brain. This NPR story shows a diagram of the brain showing the source of different components of spiritual experiences and identifying the temporal lobe, the location for emotion and memory, as the “God Spot”: the source of transcendent experiences and comparing these to epileptic seizures. These ideas fascinate me as an astrologer because of the correlation to the different astrological aspects of religious and spiritual belief. For example, a 2009 article in the UK’s Independent tells us:
The latest study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involved analysing the brains of volunteers, who had been asked to think about religious and moral problems and questions. For the analysis, the researchers used a functional magnetic-resonance imaging machine, which can identify the most energetically-active regions of the brain. They found that people of different religious persuasions and beliefs, as well as atheists, all tended to use the same electrical circuits in the brain to solve a perceived moral conundrum – and the same circuits were used when religiously-inclined people dealt with issues related to God.
The astrological Jupiter and its sign Sagittarius are said to rule both religion and morality as well as philosophy and ideology – mental constructs with which we define our reality. So it makes sense that the same area of the brain would be used for all of these kinds of experiences. The author clearly misses the point, however, in this statement:
Other studies of people taking part in Buddhist meditation suggested the parietal […]
Art by Willow Arlenea