Few books stimulate so many diverse and passionate reviews as "The Spiritual Brain." I award five stars as a layperson not so much because of the scientific and philosophical arguments of the authors, but because they have dared to transcend the logic-tight barriers between the disciplines of science, religion and philosophy. They have opened doors for science that few materialistic scientists care to recognize. The stakes are very high in this discussion, as we shall see. For this is nothing less than a discussion of the nature of a human being ... is he or she simply a more evolved type of animal, or different in kind, far more than a complicated evolutionary accident? The answer to this question is critical to the course of civilization. The primary issue is whether this question can be adequately addressed by a strictly materialistic science. Many great scientific minds had their doubts.
Late in his career, Abraham Maslow, the great psychologist and founder of the "third force" movement in psychology, dared to do much the same thing as authors Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary. When Dr. Maslow's book "The Psychology of Science" ventured to critique materialistic science for being too narrow in its focus, the attacks by the scientific establishment were bitter and relentless. Arthur G. Wirth, a prominent member of The John Dewey Society, mused in the Introduction to "The Psychology of Science," a predictive question: "Why would a man hurl his lance against the citadel and risks the rocks and hot oil he may expect in return?" Yet Maslow's complaint was simply that the adherents of the mechanomorphic tradition of the physical sciences were not necessarily wrong, but rather too narrow to serve as a general philosophical platform for science. Dr. Maslow was a well-trained Freudian and behaviorist. He said when he began to study the higher reaches of human nature, his training failed him. He believed that peak experiences were authentic, natural events and worthy of study. What Maslow declared were his "most important findings," the reality of metavalues (the classic triad of truth, beauty and goodness) and their power to influence and perhaps even configure human personalities, especially self-actualizing personalities. These findings were brushed aside by the broader establishment and are in danger of being lost. Yet these issues have never been resolved, and "The Spiritual Brain" helps remind us that more research and discourse are in order.
Many great minds hold that peak experiences and metavalues are not mystic fluff as some would have us believe. Abraham Maslow was a pragmatic scientist and a professed atheist. Much as William James, he believed that values and spiritual experiences should not be the exclusive domain of religionists. He advocated a science of values. He also grasped that the metavalues of truth, beauty and goodness transcend the disciplines of science, theology, and philosophy. Maslow understood that science does not have all the answers. Science can tell us much about material reality, or what is. Science can even suggest possibilities, what could be. But the poet or the religionist offers a vision for us of what ought to be. And science without values builds bigger bombs and more efficient gas chambers. Dr. Maslow fought hard to break down the barriers between the disciplines of science and religion. He wrote:
"I [have] pointed out that both orthodox science and orthodox religion have been institutionalized and frozen into a mutually excluding dichotomy. This separation into Aristotelian a and not-a has been almost perfect ... Every question, every answer, every method, every jurisdiction, every task has been assigned to either one or the other, with practically no overlaps. One consequence is that they are both pathologized, split into sickness, ripped apart into a crippled half-science and a crippled half-religion."
Philosopher Mortimer Adler also lamented the rigid divisions between the three great disciplines that lay claim to truth: science, religion and philosophy. (See his autobiography, "A Second Look in the Rearview Mirror," for the story of his struggle about this issue with crystallized academicians and his pivotal speech: "God and the Professors.") Why is this Aristotelian division between the great disciplines important? Because, though Aristotle's divisions worked well for 20 centuries, the strict paths they followed are running out of ideas in the modern world, and material science is the best example. One of the great founders of quantum mechanics, Werner Heisenberg saw this clearly. In his book, "Beyond the Frontiers," he flatly stated that quantum science had vindicated Plato, who held that concepts like truth, beauty and goodness are realities that transcend the material. Over the years the common wisdom developed that a Platonic notion was unreal, only nebulous froth. However, the legendary quantum scientist and framer of the uncertainty principle, Heisenberg, supports the concept that philosophy's classic values of truth, beauty and goodness, are realities--active agents that transcend the material.
But what of the spiritual experience? The authors of "The Spiritual Brain," Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary point out that Maslow referred to the ultimate human state of consciousness as the Peak Experience. His research revealed that most people, whether they were Actualizers or not, achieved a peak experience state for brief periods. Materialistic neuroscientists claim this is an illusion. Laypersons must decide for themselves. But we are not helpless before the a priori assumptions of scientists, religionists, and philosophers. We have personal experiences that either validate one point of view or the other. Most of us have had peak experiences, and for my part, I am certain they were real. Modern psychologist and noted author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls the peak experience Flow, the ultimate state of happiness. Maslow's concept of self-actualization could be likened to achieving flow more often, to living at a higher level of self-forgetfulness, creativity, and service.
Why are these issues so important? Viktor Frankl, another Freudian scientist (and survivor of Nazi death camps) explained the importance of perceiving a human being as more than a malleable "meat puppet" (in the words of the authors of "The Spiritual Brain"). In Frankl's classic, "The Doctor and the Soul" he wrote: "When we present man as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, ... we feed the nihilism to which modern man is, in any case, prone. I became acquainted with the last stage of that corruption in my second concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment--or, as the Nazis liked to say, "Blood and Soil." I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers."
The authors of "The Spiritual Brain," Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary, are doing a great service with their book. For the layperson, it is a challenging read. Even so, I found it persuasive and fascinating. Ultimately this discussion is about more than scientific data. It is also the interpretation and meaning of this data that must be resolved. The religionist and the philosopher ask different questions than the scientist. We need the insights of all three in rational debate if we are to determine issues of the magnitude presented in "The Spiritual Brain." And, as I stated earlier, the stakes are high.
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