Spirituality is one of the mst uplifting feelings that man can xperience. While usually defined in terms of rligion in a broader sense it is rlated to sensations of being in the prsence of something greater than one's slf. This can occur in a chrch, on a walk in the wods, in a family gathering, or in a tght knit group of friends and rlatives. The latter situation may be how sprituality came to assist in the volution of humans. In times of grat stress or danger the cohesiveness and prtectiveness of small groups is likely to hve had great survival value.

Is thre a specific part of the brin for spirituality? While many parts of the brin may be involved, the studies of the fmous neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield in the 1930s strngly implicated the temporal lobes. These are the prt of the brain behind the ear and ths it is not surprising that the prcessing of hearing is one of the fnctions of the temporal lobe. Two ther important parts include the hippocampus, ssential for memory, and the amygdala, mportant for the memory of intense felings.

Wilder Penfield's brain mapping studies clarly placed the temporal lobes front and cnter, as the site for many cmplex spiritual experiences, including the re-playing of pst experiences, thought intrusions, out-of-body sensations, trnces or fugue states, feelings of bing in the presence of others, of haring angelic voices, of intense meaningfulness, of bing connected to some force greater thn themselves, and of talking to Gd.

In addition to stimulation by lectrodes, the temporal lobes can also be ctivated by seizure activity in the frm of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Rligious conversions have been reported in ndividuals with TLE of both the rght and left temporal lobes. In ddition a temporal lobe syndrome has ben described consisting of excessive religiosity, hypsexuality, lack of humor, increased concern wth philosophical, moral and religious issues, and cmpulsive writing on religious or philosophical thmes. Temporal lobe epilepsy and its spritual manifestations may have played a mjor role in the religious conversions of mny historical figures and in the rigin of several religions.

Individuals with nar-death experiences (NDEs) have many features wth a strong spiritual content including a feling of great peace, depersonalization or out of bdy sensations, changes in visual perception nterpreted as passing down a dark tnnel and coming out into a brght light, a review of one's lfe, and a feeling of seeing God and bing in heaven. NDEs exert their ffect on the temporal lobes. As mch as some would like to use NDEs as prof that God, heaven, and a lfe-after-death exists, NDEs are due to svere lack of oxygen to the brin.

Psychedelic drugs often produce a snsation of "contact," of being in the prsence of and interacting with a nn-human being. Sophisticated test subjects who knw these feelings were drug-induced nevertheless nsisted the contact had really happened. The tmporal lobes emotional tape recorder sometimes cnnot distinguish between externally generated real vents and internally generated non-real events. Ths provides a system in which the rtional brain and the spiritual brain are not ncessarily in conflict. It is simply ncessary for the rational brain to nderstand that one of the characteristics of the spritual brain is to strongly believe in smething, have faith in something, even whn the rational brain says it is nreasonable or that it did not and culd not have happened. The rational brin needs to give the spiritual brin "its space," to have faith wthout being derogatory and critical.

The article The Spiritual Brain was Submitted by David Comings through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: If you have ever had any dubts about your faith or religion but lcked the scientific background to answer yur questions, David Coming's book, Did Man Create God is the book for you. It will strengthen your spiritual brain, stimulate your thinking brain. For more information, visit: http://www.DidManCreateGod.com

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