Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania took brain images of five women while they spoke in tongues and found that their frontal lobes — the thinking, willful part of the brain through which people control what they do — were relatively quiet, as were the language centers. The regions involved in maintaining self-consciousness were active. The women were not in blind trances, and it was unclear which region was driving the behavior.
The images, appearing in the current issue of the journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, pinpoint the most active areas of the brain. The images are the first of their kind taken during this spoken religious practice, which has roots in the Old and New Testaments and in Pentecostal churches established in the early 1900s. The women in the study were healthy, active churchgoers.
“The amazing thing was how the images supported people’s interpretation of what was happening,” said Dr. Andrew B. Newberg, leader of the study team, which included Donna Morgan, Nancy Wintering and Mark Waldman. “The way they describe it, and what they believe, is that God is talking through them,” he said.
Dr. Newberg is also a co-author, with Mark Waldman, of the book, Why We Believe What We Believe.
In the study, the researchers used imaging techniques to track changes in blood flow in each woman’s brain in two conditions, once as she sang a gospel song and again while speaking in tongues. By comparing the patterns created by these two emotional, devotional activities, the researchers could pinpoint blood-flow peaks and valleys unique to speaking in tongues.
Ms. Morgan, a co-author of the study, was also a research subject. She is a born-again Christian who says she considers the ability to speak in tongues a gift. “You’re aware of your surroundings,” she said. “You’re not really out of control. But you have no control over what’s happening. You’re just flowing. You’re in a realm of peace and comfort, and it’s a fantastic feeling.”
Contrary to what may be a common perception, studies suggest that people who speak in tongues rarely suffer from mental problems. A recent study of nearly 1,000 evangelical Christians in England found that those who engaged in the practice were more emotionally stable than those who did not. Researchers have identified at least two forms of the practice, one ecstatic and frenzied, the other subdued and nearly silent.
The new findings contrasted sharply with images taken of other spiritually inspired mental states like meditation, which is often a highly focused mental exercise, activating the frontal lobes.
The scans also showed a dip in the activity of a region called the left caudate. “The findings from the frontal lobes are very clear, and make sense, but the caudate is usually active when you have positive affect, pleasure, positive emotions,” said Dr. James A. Coan, a psychologist at the University of Virginia. “So it’s not so clear what that finding says” about speaking in tongues.
The caudate area is also involved in motor and emotional control, Dr. Newberg said, so it may be that practitioners, while mindful of their circumstances, nonetheless cede some control over their bodies and emotions.
BOOK REVIEWS
by Mark Robert Waldman Counseling, Research, Workshops, Lectures, and Editorial Services
1601 Carment Drive, Suite 203, Camarillo CA 93010
805-907-1181
markwaldman@sbcglobal.net
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| |  Essential reading to separate fiction from fact
Reviewed September 22, 2006 | | |
The research in this book essential for understanding the complexity of religious beliefs and practices. For years, I have objected to the ways that many fine authors have negatively portrayed religious activity in America; if writers like Dawkins, Harris, and others had accessed this book, they might find that not only are most religious practices benign, but they would also discover that America is far more secular than many people suspect. For example, teens are far more skeptical of their parent's religion than I would have thought. I was also intrigued to discover that some young children, even when raised in anti-religious families, still maintained their belief in God. There are even some independent youngsters who insist that the Easter Bunny is real, even when presented with evidence to the contrary! That is the power of a child's belief.
The chapters on fundamentalism are particularly important because the researchers detail how authoritarian ideologies govern small communities of people. This raises the question: is religion the culprit when violence erupts, or authoritarianism (a socio-political ideology that lies at the root of genocidal acts of hatred) the root of most evil?
If you want to speak knowledgeably about the religious landscape of America, this is the book you must own. Don't trust public-opinion polls; they only show you 10% of the picture.
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| Memory, Brain, and Belief by Daniel L. Schacter
Edition: Paperback | Price: $22.50 | Important academic work on how memory works in the brain Reviewed November 2, 2005 | |
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| The part of the body that controls everything from feelings to thoughts to behavior is the brain, and the part of the body we understand the least...is the brain. Thus, any book about the brain is 90% speculative and 10% fact, and researchers like Steven Pinker will question even this 10%. That said, here is an extremely important but largely academic book that begins to peel back the veils of how our brains turn reality into memories, and what the reader comes away with is how profoundly inaccurate the brain can be when reconstructing this map of the "world" out there. This is the type of book that is essential to read if you want to about the nature of human consciousness and the neural mechanisms that are involved. This anthology also suggests that most of our conscious beliefs are various forms of structured memories, and thus our beliefs are also interpretations of the world, filled with inaccuracies and distortions.
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| This book is the gold standard when it comes to understanding how this mysterious process works. Today, the question is not whether placebos work, but how they work. Depending upon the condition being treated, the effectiveness of placebo treatments can range anywhere from 0% to 100%. Pain is the most amenable to placebo treatments, which suggests that pain regulation is closely tied to the same neural mechanisms that control conscious awareness and memory. Suggestibility, expectations, conditioning, emotions, and desires also play essential roles in explaining the analgesic effects of placebo. For illnesses involving depression and anxiety, the placebo effect accounts for a 25-35% success rate, while anti-depressant drugs only have a 35-45% success rate, according to statistics published by the drug companies themselves. This suggests that it is one's optimistic belief that is largely responsible for the alleviation of depressive symptoms. According to David Morris of the University of Virginia, one of the contributors to this anthology, placebos "place belief and meaning at the center of the therapeutic encounter" and that "positive beliefs in the efficacy of medication or treatment are necessary to underwrite a placebo effect, while disbelief actively subverts it." Positive beliefs have the power to heal, whereas negative beliefs hav the power to injure, and this framework can be applied to spiritual beliefs as well. The power of placebo goes a long way to explain a variety of health claims made in the fields of alternative medicine and psychotherapy; thus, it is the mutually-agreed-upon belief systems of both the patient and the doctor that partly accounts for the degree of success achieved. Unfortunately, this also opens the door to considerable pseudoscience and fraud, for a person can market a bottle of water and claim to have at least a 30% success rate in treating an almost endless list of symptoms (infomercials use this strategy to a fault). And, when you get a lot of people to concur, the placebo effect increases. Unscrupulous marketers not only have the power of belief on their side, but they have the power of consensus as well.
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| The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are by Daniel J. Siegel
Edition: Paperback | Price: $30.00 | Extraordinary integration of psychology and brain science Reviewed September 14, 2003
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As the founding editor of an academic literature review journal, I must say that Siegel's book is a masterpiece. Both the field of developmental psychology and neurobiology are fraught with discrepant theories, but Siegel (professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles) manages to accurately represent the findings in both fields and integrate them in a way that will profoundly affect the way therapists and doctors will view their client's problems. In particular, he shows how our sense of self is intimately interconnected with the development of the brain, the processing of emotional circuits, the construction of cognitive frameworks (the "mind") and our interactions with parents, peers and society. But this book is not for the faint of heart since Siegel presumes the reader has a general understanding of psychodynamic theory.
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
by Francis S. Collins
Price: $16.38
Reviewed August 18, 2006
There is much to recommend about this book to believers and nonbelievers alike. Dr. Collins does a great service by placing science and religion in a light where they do not collide in an evangelical/atheist firestorm, for he sees great value in both religion and science. He also takes great pains to point out the flaws of the Intelligent Design argument. For Collins, the mysteries of science and the richness of God are complementary, and it is important that such voices be heard. Howevery, many scholars believe that he errs when he argues that morality is beyond the reach of science. He writes:
"Humans are . . .unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature. this includes the existence of the Moral Law the knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throught history."
In fact, morality is a rich topic in the fields of biology, psychology, and the neurosciences, and there is even a large body of scientific evidence that outlines an evolutionary basis for morality (see Edward Wilson's fine book Consilience).
Collins also errs when he (as do many authors) insist that a belief in God is universal (Collins, for example, believes all human cultures seek God). A brief glance through the ten-volume edition of the Encyclopedia of World Religions will show that very few cultures (outside of those that have been transformed by Christian and Muslim missionaries) believe in a singular omnipresent deity. In fact,the majority of pre-industrialized tribal groups focus on ancestor worship and sundry spiritual presences.
Although there are major oversights in his descriptions of evolution (being an expert in one field of science doesn't mean that you have a scholarly grasp of other branches of science), I deeply admire Collins' attempt to integrate biology, cosmology, and genetics with contemporary spiritual values.
Dying to Win:
The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism
by Robert Pape
Reviewed August 12, 2006
This is one of the most important books of the decade because Pape squarely puts his finger on the continuing violence we see throughout the world. Many people make the mistake of associating the violence in the Middle East solely with Islamic beliefs, but this is a dangerous idea to hold, especially since many Muslims embrace the notion of peaceful co-existence with the West. The problem, as always, resides in an (unfortunately growing) minority who have managed to gain approval of the disenfranchised poor. As Pape describes in his book: "Suicide terrorist groups are neither primarily criminal gangs dedicated to enriching their top leaders, nor religious cults isolated from the rest of their society. Rather, suicide terrorist organizations often command broad social support within the national communities from which they recruit, because they are seen as pursuing legitimate nationalist goals, especially liberation from foreign occupation."
In many societies, religious ideology is not separated from political, economic, or territorial idealogy, as it is in the United States. Whenever we are faced with a competing belief system, be it religious, political, or nationalistic, one group will tend to feel threatened by other groups, especially if the other group holds more economic or political power. Again, it is not religion per say that causes group conflict but simply any system of belief that strongly contradicts the in-group's values and beliefs. This point was persuasively argued our book Why We Believe What We Believe. In addressing issues concerning morality and criminality, we present substantial documentation that our brains are biologically predisposed to rejecting any system of belief that contradicts our own. This lends more credence to Pape's position that terrorism is not a product of religion but rather a politicized orientation designed to encourage one's opponents to withdraw or concede power.
Religious beliefs play an important role in many societies throughout the world, but we should remember that the greatest numbers of murders were committed by nonreligious regimes in Japan, Germany, Russia, Cambodia, China, and different parts of Africa. Political rhetoric often creates profound hostility between countries. My question to you is this: what will you do about it?
Mark Robert Waldman 
Counseling, Research, Workshops, Lectures, and Editorial Services1601 Carmen Drive. Suite 203, Camarillo CA 93010 805-907-1181 markwaldman@sbcglobal.net |