THE SPIRITUAL BRAIN: A NEUROSCIENTIST’S CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2007. 368 pages, index. Hardcover; $25.95. ISBN: 0060858834
Neuroscientist Mario Beauregard is one of the few scholars within neurology that is not a reductive materialist, meaning that he does not reduce all experiences to their underlying material construction and constituents. Beauregard contends that reductive materialists, such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, to name two more outspoken representatives, are mistaken to view the mind as reducible to the brain. He has studied and researched neurology for many years, and is convinced that contra current opinion, a mystical state of consciousness truly exists. He has written this book in tandem with the journalist O’Leary in order to discuss the significance of his research and findings on mystical experiences and their irreducibility. Beauregard attempts to demonstrate that the materialist non-distinction between mind and brain is errant, and instead asserts strongly that they are two distinct entities. So then, the mind truly exists, as does the brain, Beauregard posits. While contending that the brain is the basis of the mind, Beauregard could be construed as arguing that the mind is indeed dependent upon the brain, but is also emergent from it. Emergence from the brain, in this sense, entails the mind to contain qualities that are not reducible to its substrate (i.e., the brain) alone.
Beauregard seeks to establish three main ideas within the text: 1). that the nonmaterialist approach to the human mind contains more explanatory power than does the reductive materialist one, 2). that nonmaterialist approaches to the human mind are more productive in terms of practical benefits than are reductive materialist ones, and 3). that there exist the potential for spiritual experiences to radically transform lives via contact with a reality outside of material forces. In so arguing against reductive materialist views of the brain, Beauregard notes that neural synapses within the brain operate according to quantum physics, and not according to classical (Newtonian) physics, and that therefore materialist accounts of the mind and brain are out of step with current physics. Beauregard contends that materialist accounts of the brain and mind attempt to preserve the materialistic account, and thereby do not advance research within neuroscience. Moreover, Beauregard posits that materialism leads to hypotheses that can never be tested, and thereby undermine scientific neural research.
The second chapter of this text addresses why it is nonsensical, scientifically, to speak of a “God-gene” as directing perceived spiritual sensations. Chapter three of this text disputes the notion that there is a “God module” within the brain that accounts for religious visions, sensations of ecstasy, and related phenomena. Chapter four of this book critically engages the not-so established scientific work of Dr. Michael Persinger, who attempted to demonstrate spirituality could be induced by a “God Helmet” that specifically stimulates the temporal lobe in differential increments, supposedly thereby causing quasi-spiritual sensations. Chapter five of this text is probably the strongest of all, wherein Beauregard expounds upon what, exactly, the “mind” is in truth. The various other chapters extend the notions of how the mind acts upon the brain, as supported by Dr. Beauregard’s own research.
It should be noted forthrightly that it is not the intention of this book to argue that evolution did not occur. Rather, Beauregard intends to raise questions regarding whether or not a fully reductive, naturalistic process of human evolution is tenable without meaning, purpose, direction, or design. This Beauregard does by analyzing the seemingly inherent spirituality within humans. Beauregard notes that while the logical extrapolations of Charles Darwin’s metascientific evolutionary paradigm temporarily displaced the special status of human beings within the cosmos, biology today seems to be somewhat restoring them to a semblance of their former lofty position, in part by research into neuroscience. After all, although humans share some 40% of their DNA with fish, no one seems to advocate that fish are 40% human, or that humans are 250% fish. Beauregard advocates that the only sturdy argument against purpose and design being present within the evolutionary epic of the cosmos is the advancement of the hypothesis that our universe is an accidental success amid a proverbial limitless number of other failed universes, which currently has little scientific support. Beauregard concludes this book with the contention that though studying what occurs within people’s brains cannot directly prove or disprove spiritual experiences (or, for that matter, the realities that said experiences point to), they nonetheless can give credence to such extrapolations. I heartily advocate the purchasing of this book by readers of Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith.
Reviewed by Bradford McCall, Divinity department, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA 23464.