I had the pleasure to take Dr Newberg lecture last month, while attending the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP) 2018 International conference. Brain studies are at the very top of scientific inquiry. Not only are we learning how we process, where in the brain we process but what happens while we process content specific input. Specifically: what happens in the brain while we seek enlightenment.

Newberg and Waldman’s book, How Enlightenment Changes Your Brain: The New Science of Transformation Paperback – June 6, 2017, helps us turn our attention to how the brain seems to be “wired” for enlightenment. Andrew Newberg, M.D., and Mark Robert Waldman “turn their attention to the pinnacle of the human experience: enlightenment. Through his brain- scan studies on Brazilian psychic mediums, Sufi mystics, Buddhist meditators, Franciscan nuns, Pentecostals, and participants in secular spirituality rituals, Newberg has discovered the specific neurological mechanisms associated with the enlightenment experience–and how we might activate those circuits in our own brains” (From the Hardcover Edition)

After collecting data on surveys of more than one thousand people who have experienced enlightenment, Newberg discovered that in the aftermath his subjects had profound, positive life changes. “Enlightenment offers us the possibility to become permanently less stress-prone, to break bad habits, to improve our collaboration and creativity skills, and to lead happier, more satisfying lives. Relaying the story of his own transformational experience as well as including the stories of others who try to describe an event that is truly indescribable, Newberg brings us a new paradigm for deep and lasting change” (From the Hardcover Edition). The “big E”, as he has named that experience, seems to open a new door in the connection between mind and body, bringing us one step closer to body-mind-spirit. Here is a link to a brief introduction to Andrew Newberg’s paradigm. Since 2016 when sharing his thesis at TEDxTAlk, his advancements in the area of Neurotheology certainly have my attention.

Neurotheology