Neuroscience, Selflessness, and Spiritual Experience

Download Neuroscience, Selflessness, and Spiritual Experience PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Academic Press
ISBN 13 : 0081022190
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (81 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Neuroscience, Selflessness, and Spiritual Experience by : Brick Johnstone

Download or read book Neuroscience, Selflessness, and Spiritual Experience written by Brick Johnstone and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2019-06-15 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neuroscience, Selflessness, and Spiritual Transcendence conveys the manner by which selflessness serves as a neuropsychological and religious foundation for spiritually transcendent experiences. The book combines neurological case studies and neuroscience research with religious accounts of transcendence experiences from the perspective of both the neurosciences and the history of religions. Chapters cover the subjective experience of transcendence, an historical summary of different philosophical and religious perspectives, a review of the neuroscience research that describes the manner by which the brain processes and creates a self, and more. The book presents a model that bridges the divide between neuroscience and religion, presenting a resource that will be critical reading for advanced students and researchers in both fields. Creates a common focus on selflessness as a reliable construct for use by all disciplines interested in the basis of spiritual experience Links neuroanatomical data with religious texts from multiple faith traditions to describe the necessity of selflessness for spiritual experience and transformation Highlights disorders in neurological functioning that result in disorders of the self

The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain

Download The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101446102
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (14 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain by : Kevin Nelson

Download or read book The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain written by Kevin Nelson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-12-30 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world's leading neurologist on out-of-body and near-death experiences shows that spirituality is as much a part of our basic biological makeup as our sex drive or survival instinct. If Buddha had been in an MRI machine and not under the Bodhi tree when he attained enlightenment, what would we have seen on the monitor? Dr. Kevin Nelson offers an answer to that question that is beyond what any scientist has previously encountered on the borderlands of consciousness. In his cutting-edge research, Nelson has discovered that spiritual experiences take place in one of the most primitive areas of the brain. In this eloquent, inspired, and reverent book, he relates the moving stories of patients and research subjects, brain scan analysis, evolutionary biology, and beautiful examples of transcendence from literature to reveal the machinery in our heads that enables us to perceive miracles-whether you are an atheist, Buddhist, or the most devout Catholic. The patients and people Nelson discuss have had an extremely diverse set of spiritual experiences, from arguing with the devil sitting at the foot of their hospital bed to seeing the universe synchronize around the bouncing of the ball in a pinball machine. However, the bizarre experiences don't make the people seem like freaks; they seem strangely very much like us, in surprising ways. Ultimately Nelson makes clear that spiritual experiences are not the exception in human life, but rather an inescapable and precious part of every one of us.

A Playful Spirit

Download A Playful Spirit PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1793618429
Total Pages : 172 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (936 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Playful Spirit by : Mark W. Teismann

Download or read book A Playful Spirit written by Mark W. Teismann and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-02-06 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The great narratives of religion and nationhood were battered in the twentieth century by the dual forces of globalization and postmodernism. In the uncertainty of broken traditions, many people looking for God retreated into a regressive fundamentalism, and others abandoned themselves to nihilism and cynicism. But is there another way? In this volume, esteemed sociologist and therapist Mark W. Teismann offers a fresh approach to spiritual pursuits, one that neither relies upon absolutes nor leaves seekers in a void of disbelief. This approach is to consider the exercise of spirituality as a type of play. Teismann takes the reader on a whirlwind ride through the different aspects of play and how they relate to spirituality. Teismann draws on classical philosophers, memories of childhood, developmental science, poets, and his long career as a psychotherapist to create a deep understanding of how the spirit of play informs our moral pursuits and spiritual yearnings. A conclusion and epilogue summarize the book’s tenets and touch on Mark Teismann’s battle with cancer and how the practices of meditation and play accompanied him on his spiritual journey in the context of an incurable disease. The book’s appendix gives interested readers a detailed description of how to approach the practice of meditation.

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience

Download The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108968317
Total Pages : 291 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (89 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience by : Patrick McNamara

Download or read book The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience written by Patrick McNamara and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-09 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience, now updated and expanded in a new edition, updates key topics covered in the first edition including: decentering and self-transformation, supernatural agent cognitions, mystical states, religious language, ritualization, and religious group agency. It expands upon the first edition to include major findings on brain and religious experience over the past decade, focusing on methodology, future thinking, and psychedelics. It provides an up-to-date review of brain-based accounts of religious experiences, and systematically examines the rationale for utilizing neuroscience approaches to religion. While it is primarily intended for religious studies scholars, people interested in comparative religion, philosophy of religion, cultural evolution, and personal self-transformation will find an account of how such transformation is accomplished within religious contexts.

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience

Download The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108833179
Total Pages : 291 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (88 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience by : Patrick McNamara

Download or read book The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religious Experience written by Patrick McNamara and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-09 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of the neuroscience of religious experiences for those interested in scientific approaches to religion.

Waking Up

Download Waking Up PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451636032
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (516 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Waking Up by : Sam Harris

Download or read book Waking Up written by Sam Harris and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion, Sam Harris’s latest New York Times bestseller is a guide to meditation as a rational practice informed by neuroscience and psychology. From Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author of numerous New York Times bestselling books, Waking Up is for the twenty percent of Americans who follow no religion but who suspect that important truths can be found in the experiences of such figures as Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history. Throughout this book, Harris argues that there is more to understanding reality than science and secular culture generally allow, and that how we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the quality of our lives. Waking Up is part memoir and part exploration of the scientific underpinnings of spirituality. No other book marries contemplative wisdom and modern science in this way, and no author other than Sam Harris—a scientist, philosopher, and famous skeptic—could write it.

Believers: Faith in Human Nature

Download Believers: Faith in Human Nature PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393651878
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (936 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Believers: Faith in Human Nature by : Melvin Konner

Download or read book Believers: Faith in Human Nature written by Melvin Konner and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthropologist examines the nature of religiosity, and how it shapes and benefits humankind. Believers is a scientist’s answer to attacks on faith by some well-meaning scientists and philosophers. It is a firm rebuke of the “Four Horsemen”—Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens—known for writing about religion as something irrational and ultimately harmful. Anthropologist Melvin Konner, who was raised as an Orthodox Jew but has lived his adult life without such faith, explores the psychology, development, brain science, evolution, and even genetics of the varied religious impulses we experience as a species. Conceding that faith is not for everyone, he views religious people with a sympathetic eye; his own upbringing, his apprenticeship in the trance-dance religion of the African Bushmen, and his friends and explorations in Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and other faiths have all shaped his perspective. Faith has always manifested itself in different ways—some revelatory and comforting; some kind and good; some ecumenical and cosmopolitan; some bigoted, coercive, and violent. But the future, Konner argues, will both produce more nonbelievers, and incline the religious among us—holding their own by having larger families—to increasingly reject prejudice and aggression. A colorful weave of personal stories of religious—and irreligious—encounters, as well as new scientific research, Believers shows us that religion does much good as well as undoubted harm, and that for at least a large minority of humanity, the belief in things unseen neither can nor should go away.

Turning the Tide

Download Turning the Tide PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Balboa Press
ISBN 13 : 1504377990
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (43 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Turning the Tide by : Sylvia Bartley PhD

Download or read book Turning the Tide written by Sylvia Bartley PhD and published by Balboa Press. This book was released on 2017-03-30 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Turning the Tide, Dr. Sylvia Bartley shares how she manages her emotional health with non-traditional mindful practices. Recognizing her spiritual side and emotional health are intertwined and yet opposites , she takes the two fields of spirituality and science and blends them together in a pursuit of truth and wellbeing. Her scientific curiosity has helped her spiritual life evolve drastically, and in turn her spiritual life has been her foundation during the most rigorous moments of her scientific career. As a young girl and student she pushed through staggering forces working against her, and this journey shaped her spiritually and emotionally; her disciplined study of the brain has taught her about meditation, and how careful attention to her inner self has helped her give back to her community in profound ways. Dr. Bartleys central belief is simple: neuroscience and spirituality are not opposites, and can instead be used to feed and further each other. Individually, this union can have tremendous effects on our emotional health. Equal parts personal memoir, science writing, and spiritual exploration, Turning the Tide links our brains to our souls, while inspiring readers to change the world with that knowledge.

The Believing Brain

Download The Believing Brain PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1429972610
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Believing Brain by : Michael Shermer

Download or read book The Believing Brain written by Michael Shermer and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-05-24 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Believing Brain is bestselling author Michael Shermer's comprehensive and provocative theory on how beliefs are born, formed, reinforced, challenged, changed, and extinguished. In this work synthesizing thirty years of research, psychologist, historian of science, and the world's best-known skeptic Michael Shermer upends the traditional thinking about how humans form beliefs about the world. Simply put, beliefs come first and explanations for beliefs follow. The brain, Shermer argues, is a belief engine. From sensory data flowing in through the senses, the brain naturally begins to look for and find patterns, and then infuses those patterns with meaning. Our brains connect the dots of our world into meaningful patterns that explain why things happen, and these patterns become beliefs. Once beliefs are formed the brain begins to look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which accelerates the process of reinforcing them, and round and round the process goes in a positive-feedback loop of belief confirmation. Shermer outlines the numerous cognitive tools our brains engage to reinforce our beliefs as truths. Interlaced with his theory of belief, Shermer provides countless real-world examples of how this process operates, from politics, economics, and religion to conspiracy theories, the supernatural, and the paranormal. Ultimately, he demonstrates why science is the best tool ever devised to determine whether or not a belief matches reality.

What Makes a Hero?

Download What Makes a Hero? PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101622644
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis What Makes a Hero? by : Elizabeth Svoboda

Download or read book What Makes a Hero? written by Elizabeth Svoboda and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-08-29 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An entertaining investigation into the biology and psychology of why we sacrifice for other people Researchers are now applying the lens of science to study heroism for the first time. How do biology, upbringing, and outside influences intersect to produce altruistic and heroic behavior? And how can we encourage this behavior in corporations, classrooms, and individuals? Using dozens of fascinating real-life examples, Elizabeth Svoboda explains how our genes compel us to do good for others, how going through suffering is linked to altruism, and how acting heroic can greatly improve your mental health. She also reveals the concrete things we can do to encourage our most heroic selves to step forward. It’s a common misconception that heroes are heroic just because they’re innately predisposed to be that way. Svoboda shows why it’s not simply a matter of biological hardwiring and how anyone can be a hero if they're committed to developing their heroic potential.

Consciousness from Zombies to Angels

Download Consciousness from Zombies to Angels PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1594777608
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (947 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Consciousness from Zombies to Angels by : Christian de Quincey

Download or read book Consciousness from Zombies to Angels written by Christian de Quincey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-12-15 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A user-friendly, step-by-step guide to understanding the mind • Presents a practical journey into understanding consciousness--philosophy’s hardest problem, science’s final frontier, and spirituality’s deepest mystery • Offers 7 steps to transform your life using the shadow and the light of consciousness Consciousness from Zombies to Angels presents a practical, step-by-step “owner’s guide” for the mind that sorts out philosophy’s hardest problem, science’s final frontier, and spirituality’s deepest mystery--what consciousness is, how it works, and why it’s important. Christian de Quincey presents seven simple steps for understanding consciousness and how it can lead to spiritual awareness: observe your language, identify the problem, learn how to look, recognize your patterns, know yourself, embrace your shadow, and practice transformation. All of us exhibit both shadow and light, aspects of ourselves we fear and deny (our inner Zombies) as well as qualities we admire and want to radiate (our inner Angels). The key to a creative and fulfilled life is to integrate both. De Quincey reveals that the way to transformation is to accept ourselves exactly as we are--a work in progress. Readers will learn the difference between “energy talk” and “consciousness talk”; how the body affects the mind, and vice versa; and where to go for help to develop consciousness, heal emotions, or grow spiritually. De Quincey shows how to recognize and break habits and patterns that run your life, how to find out who you really are, and why facing up to your darkest fears will liberate your brightest light as you learn to embrace all of your humanity and experience the power of transformation.

Questions in the Psychology of Religion

Download Questions in the Psychology of Religion PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1498238815
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (982 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Questions in the Psychology of Religion by : Kevin S. Seybold

Download or read book Questions in the Psychology of Religion written by Kevin S. Seybold and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-03-16 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it means to be human? What is the origin of religious beliefs? Why are we moral creatures? Are religious experiences different from our everyday experiences? Is my brain involved in my experiencing God? What is a soul and do I have one? Is religion a result of evolutionary processes? How might psychology and religion relate? Religious experiences (behaviors, thoughts, and emotions) are determined, at least in part, by natural physical processes. As a result, the empirical methods used in psychology to try to identify the natural mechanisms that influence why we act, think, and feel the way we do can provide important insights into the fundamental and universal phenomena of religion. Drawing on current research from a variety of disciplines, Questions in the Psychology of Religion is appropriate for college students studying psychology, pastors as they help their congregations understand how religion and science might go together, and anyone who learns about recent discoveries in psychological science and wonders how these findings pertain to religion and religious experiences.

Transcend

Download Transcend PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1524704989
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (247 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Transcend by : Scott Barry Kaufman

Download or read book Transcend written by Scott Barry Kaufman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold reimagining of Maslow's famous hierarchy of needs--and new insights for realizing your full potential and living your most creative, fulfilled, and connected life. When psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman first discovered Maslow's unfinished theory of transcendence, sprinkled throughout a cache of unpublished journals, lectures, and essays, he felt a deep resonance with his own work and life. In this groundbreaking book, Kaufman picks up where Maslow left off, unraveling the mysteries of his unfinished theory, and integrating these ideas with the latest research on attachment, connection, creativity, love, purpose and other building blocks of a life well lived. Kaufman's new hierarchy of needs provides a roadmap for finding purpose and fulfillment--not by striving for money, success, or "happiness," but by becoming the best version of ourselves, or what Maslow called self-actualization. While self-actualization is often thought of as a purely individual pursuit, Maslow believed that the full realization of potential requires a merging between self and the world. We don't have to choose either self-development or self-sacrifice, but at the highest level of human potential we show a deep integration of both. Transcend reveals this level of human potential that connects us not only to our highest creative potential, but also to one another. With never-before-published insights and new research findings, along with exercises and opportunities to gain insight into your own unique personality, this empowering book is a manual for self-analysis and nurturing a deeper connection not only with our highest potential but also with the rest of humanity.

Selfless Insight

Download Selfless Insight PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262516659
Total Pages : 371 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Selfless Insight by : James H. Austin

Download or read book Selfless Insight written by James H. Austin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-09-30 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Attention, self-consciousness, insight, wisdom, emotional maturity: how Zen teachings can illuminate the way our brains function and vice-versa. When neurology researcher James Austin began Zen training, he found that his medical education was inadequate. During the past three decades, he has been at the cutting edge of both Zen and neuroscience, constantly discovering new examples of how these two large fields each illuminate the other. Now, in Selfless Insight, Austin arrives at a fresh synthesis, one that invokes the latest brain research to explain the basis for meditative states and clarifies what Zen awakening implies for our understanding of consciousness. Austin, author of the widely read Zen and the Brain, reminds us why Zen meditation is not only mindfully attentive but evolves to become increasingly selfless and intuitive. Meditators are gradually learning how to replace over-emotionality with calm, clear objective comprehension. In this new book, Austin discusses how meditation trains our attention, reprogramming it toward subtle forms of awareness that are more openly mindful. He explains how our maladaptive notions of self are rooted in interactive brain functions. And he describes how, after the extraordinary, deep states of kensho-satori strike off the roots of the self, a flash of transforming insight-wisdom leads toward ways of living more harmoniously and selflessly. Selfless Insight is the capstone to Austin's journey both as a creative neuroscientist and as a Zen practitioner. His quest has spanned an era of unprecedented progress in brain research and has helped define the exciting new field of contemplative neuroscience.

Meditating Selflessly

Download Meditating Selflessly PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 026229771X
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (622 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Meditating Selflessly by : James H. Austin

Download or read book Meditating Selflessly written by James H. Austin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-10-07 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to Zen meditative practice informed by the latest findings in brain research. This is not the usual kind of self-help book. Indeed, its major premise heeds a Zen master's advice to be less self-centered. Yes, it is "one more book of words about Zen," as the author concedes, yet this book explains meditative practices from the perspective of a "neural Zen." The latest findings in brain research inform its suggestions. In Meditating Selflessly, James Austin—Zen practitioner, neurologist, and author of three acclaimed books on Zen and neuroscience—guides readers toward that open awareness already awaiting them on the cushion and in the natural world. Austin offers concrete advice—often in a simplified question-and-answer format—about different ways to meditate. He clarifies both the concentrative and receptive styles of meditation. Drawing widely from the exciting new field of contemplative neuroscience, Austin helps resolve an ancient paradox: why both insight wisdom and selflessness arise simultaneously during enlightened states of consciousness.

Spirituality: A Very Short Introduction

Download Spirituality: A Very Short Introduction PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191642436
Total Pages : 152 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (916 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Spirituality: A Very Short Introduction by : Philip Sheldrake

Download or read book Spirituality: A Very Short Introduction written by Philip Sheldrake and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-11-29 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has been suggested that 'spirituality' has become a word that 'can define an era'. Why? Because paradoxically, alongside a decline in traditional religious affiliations, the growing interest in spirituality and the use of the word in a variety of contexts is a striking aspect of contemporary western cultures. Indeed, spirituality is sometimes contrasted attractively with religion, although this is problematic and implies that religion is essentially dogma, moralism, institutions, buildings, and hierarchies. The notion of spirituality expresses the fact that many people are driven by goals that concern more than material satisfaction. Broadly, it refers to the deepest values and sense of meaning by which people seek to live. Sometimes these values are conventionally religious. Sometimes they are associated with what is understood as 'the sacred' in a broader sense - that is, of ultimate rather than merely instrumental importance. This Very Short Introduction, written by one of the most eminent scholars and writers on spirituality, explores the historical foundations of the thought and considers how it came to have the significance it is developing today. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The Mind of God

Download The Mind of God PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harmony
ISBN 13 : 0553418696
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (534 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Mind of God by : Dr. Jay Lombard

Download or read book The Mind of God written by Dr. Jay Lombard and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2018-09-11 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of Deepak Chopra, Rudy Tanzi, and Andrew Newberg. A renowned behavioral neurologist provides insights to some of the most curious spiritual questions we all face. Is there a God? It’s a question billions of people have asked since the dawn of time. You would think by now we’d have a satisfactory, universal answer. No such luck…Or maybe we do and we just need to look in the right place. For Dr. Jay Lombard that place is the brain, and more importantly the mind, that center of awareness and consciousness that creates reality. In The Mind of God, Dr. Lombard employs case studies from his own behavioral neurology practice to explore the spiritual conundrums that we all ask ourselves: What is the nature of God? Does my life have purpose? What's the meaning of our existence? Are we free? What happens to us when we die? For Lombard, these metaphysical questions are a jumping-off point for exploring the brain in search of the seat of the soul. It is neuroscience, the author contends, and how we and our brains interpret what’s going on around us that can lead us to a deeper and more fulfilling faith. Mixing his personal experiences in the medical field (including compelling cases such as the male patient who really thought he was pregnant and a woman who literally scared herself to death) along with his own visionary insight into spiritual experience, Lombard has much to tell us about the nature and power of belief—and what we can do to focus our beliefs in a positive direction. If you want to find more meaning in your life or are searching for a deeper understanding of why we believe what we believe, then this book can lead to an exciting transformation in the way you see and understand the world around you. With cutting-edge research and provocative case studies, renowned behavioral neurologist provides insights to some of the most curious spiritual questions of mortality.