I have two posts lined up on this topic, starting off this week with a discussion of The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science (Pantheon Books, 2023) by Alan Lightman, a PhD physicist who also teaches and publishes in the humanities. In this fairly short book (and the older I get, the more I like short books) he makes a case for what he calls “spiritual materialism.” Starting with brain science, he builds up to an informed discussion of consciousness and transcendent (or spiritual) experience. It’s a good read.
Body, Brain, and Mind
Christians (and others) call it a soul. Mormons call it a spirit. The widespread belief that we humans are not just mysteriously animated bodies but are essentially spirit beings somehow joined to a physical body goes way back before Mormonism and even Christianity. The Mormon belief in a spiritual Pre-existence is unusual, but the belief that after the death of the body a soul or spirit lives on in Heaven, Hell, or some spiritual waiting room is, again, widespread. It is not the case that this spirit narrative is necessarily part of religious belief and practice, but it is certainly a central feature of Christianity and Mormonism.
Just think, for example, of LDS temple work. Proxy baptisms and endowments are performed so that spirits of dead people can move from the spiritual waiting room to, uh, some upgraded spiritual waiting room until resurrection and judgment, after which they can enter the full blown Celestial Kingdom. Proxy ordinances make no sense without living spirits of dead people for whom the ordinances are done. And temple sealings make no sense without the postmortal continuation of spirit life (eventually reunited with a resurrected body, which for anyone dead for more than a generation or two is a completely new body).
In the first chapter the author Lightman reviews what in philosophy is called the mind-body problem. Is the existence of a spirit or soul necessary to explain human consciousness? Most cognitive scientists and philosophers say no, then try to explain how the full human mental experience emerges from a material brain. Lots of good work being done. Descartes, who initiated the modern philosophical discussion, gave a secular account affirming both a mind and a body, leaving later thinkers to grapple with the tricky problem of how they are joined and how they interact. Modern scientists look at a different problem: how human mental life emerges from a material brain. Two entirely different problems. Spiritual theists (including Mormons) see no problem at all: there’s a conscious, thinking spirit inside a physical body, and when the body dies, the spirit continues.
Consciousness and Transcendence
The second chapter looks at materialism through the ages. The third chapter looks more closely at human consciousness. You don’t have to be conscious to be alive. Many living things are not conscious. That tree outside your house isn’t conscious. You aren’t conscious when you are asleep. An even deeper level of alive-but-not-conscious happens in a coma or when under medical anesthesia. But it’s our degree of consciousness, self-consciousness, and rationality that really sets us as humans apart. The big question here is whether the material brain can produce not just consciousness but also transcendent or spiritual experiences — that is, whether such a supernal experience can have an internal source or explanation (and be subject to scientific investigation and explanation) or whether such experiences must have an external source or explanation, God or an angel or Nature or “the Force.”
For spiritual theists, there again is no mystery, no problem to explore. In-group transcendent or spiritual experiences are from one’s own God or Cosmic Force, although out-group spiritual experiences are generally ignored or, when acknowledged, dismissed as somehow not authentic. And transcendent or spiritual experiences are cited by believers as foundational for their big religious narrative (Moses at the burning bush, Jesus and three apostles at the Mount of Transfiguration, Joseph in the Sacred Grove) and also, on a smaller stage, as an anchor for personal religious commitment.
Here’s how one researcher quoted in the book (p. 120) sums up the materialist brain theory of transcendent or spiritual experiences, the internal source model:
You can get them in near death experiences, you can get them with a drug called 5-MeO-DMT, you can get them when you meditate. We know that our brain can produce love and hate. This [transcendent experience] is another feeling that the brain can have. And experience shows that our brain can produce all these feelings of love and hate, of ecstasy, of feeling connected.
Transcendence and Revelation
In the fourth chapter, author Lightman looks more closely at spirituality. There is a discussion of awe. Small word, big feeling. You have probably felt it when looking at a broad vista from a mountaintop, or when standing close to a thundering waterfall. Perhaps you have had a religious or spiritual experience that induces awe apart from an overwhelming environmental prompt. Lightman cites a Jonathan Haidt paper for the distinctive features of awe: (1) “a perceived vastness,” which Lightman explains as “a perception of being in the presence of something larger, grander, and more powerful than ourselves,” and (2) “a need for accommodation, defined as an inability to assimilate an experience into current mental structures.” (p. 154)
Lightman also discusses creative thinking, and this is where things get interesting. It’s not merely spirit-thinking or awe-inspiring experiences that give us a sense of something outside of ourselves. Creative thinking does it, too. Ancient poets would thank the Muses for inspiring them. Artists, novelists, scientists, and mathematicians have creative episodes where the solution to a problem or challenge suddenly comes to them, possibly when they are not thinking about it or even when they are asleep, often after weeks or months of pondering and reflecting. Lightman cites 19th-century psychologist Graham Wallas for a model of creative thinking in four stages: (1) preparation (mastering the tools of a craft and defining the problem), (2) incubation (mull over the problem in various ways), (3) illumination (a new insight is finally achieved), and (4) verification (apply the insight and work out the consequences). Lightman adds, “the creative transcendent would occur during the incubation and illumination stages” (p. 158-59).
When I read that passage, my reaction was, “Wow, that sounds an awful lot like the Mormon model of revelation.” Or possibly the model of translation that Joseph outlined in D&C 9:8-9. Transcendent or spiritual experiences, monumental creative insights, moving religious inspriration. They all seem to have a lot in common. We as humans are fully capable, it seems, of having these experiences. Some more than others, perhaps. The big question (at least for inquiring minds) is whether the source or sources of these experiences are internal or external. An associated question is whether such experiences are transitory, a brilliant solution to a tough problem but then you move on, or foundational, life-changing in the literal sense. More on that in my next post.
So here are a few things to discuss.
- Go ahead and share, if you want, your own transcendent or spiritual experience, or that of a family member.
- How would you distinguish between a normal if striking experience (a lucid dream or a strange coincidence) and a truly transcendent experience?
- Are drug-induced or drug-enhanced mental experiences valid or contrived? There is a whole field dedicated to the study of the use of drugs within religious traditions. Go look up “entheogens” for some interesting reading. There’s a Mormon chapter as well, but that’s for another post.
- The big question: do you think transcendent or spiritual experiences are entirely internally produced? Or mostly internal but a few externally produced? Or are external agents or causes responsible for many or all of these transcendent or spiritual experiences?
- Are all, most, few, or none of the good feelings some people experience when praying due to God or The Spirit? How about the good feelings people in other denominations or other religious traditions experience when praying?
Wheat & Tares 
I have had strong feelings about things in the past (some of which were right and some of which were wrong), but I have never experienced what I would claim to be a transcendent experience. I don’t doubt that people strongly believe that they have experienced such. However, the problem is that many people in non-Mormon faith traditions claim to have these transcendent spiritual experiences as well and that these experiences confirm the truth of their respective religious traditions. Members of the Heaven’s Gate Cult claimed to have such deep spiritual experiences that revealed the truth of the words of Ti and Do to them. I have heard members of the FLDS church bear solemn witness before the congregation that they have received a spiritual experience testifying to them of the prophethood of Warren Jeffs. Ida Smith, a direct descendant of Hyrum Smith, claimed to receive revelation that Christopher Nemelka was the reincarnation of Hyrum Smith and was given the power to translate the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon. She granted him a burial plot right by the Smiths’ plots. Denver Snuffer claims to have seen and spoken with Jesus Christ himself. So I don’t place too much stock in someone’s claim to a spiritual, transcendent experience as really telling of anything. It is just the human brain behaving how human brains can sometimes behave, I guess. I like the scientific method of emotional discipline, which dictates that we tether our feelings, hunches, and intuition to evidence that can be shown, demonstrated, and tested by experts and researchers across cultures. So much so that my evidence could convince Chinese and African scientists of the validity of my results. It wouldn’t matter which culture someone came from.
This reminded me of an experiment I read about a few years ago at the University of Utah where they had took a bunch of return LDS missionaries and scanned their brains while showing them LDS church videos. They’d tell researchers when they were “feeling the spirit” and the MRI images would be lit up with brain activity.
It was pretty interesting and raised some of the same questions about whether the brain activity was indeed caused externally by “the spirit” or if it was an internal emotional reaction to experiences that were meaningful to that individual. Our brains and bodies function a certain way, so it makes sense that those kinds of feelings would show up on an MRI regardless of their source. Also, can intentionally stimulating the “feeling the spirit” parts of the brain (electrically or chemically) elicit the same kinds of feelings anything? Or does it just fast-track spiritually transcendent experiences (e.g. entheogens)?
For me, I probably fall into the second camp and believe that most “spiritual” experiences are internal or socially induced, but that they can sometimes be external. There are a handful of moments in my life that make me go, “hmm” …where I have no logical explanation, but can’t really deny the experience either. For me, they are rare and distinct from the more mundane “feeling the spirit” moments at church. And the things that felt transcendent for me may be banal for someone else (and that’s ok).
I think those feelings are real, irrespective of denomination. Who am I to discount the personally-meaninful experiences of another because they weren’t raised in the supposed “one true church?” I even have an atheist friend who has suggested that people try praying during hard times, which is interesting…he does this despite being ridiculed by other atheists for the idea. He always says, “if you try it and it makes you feel better or helps you in some way, then great! Who cares WHY it works (whether it’s some God or just internal)? If you try it and feel nothing, maybe its not for you…and it’s not like you’ve really risked or lost anything by trying.”
Remember when lightning bolts were thrown from the sky by Zeus?
Remember when God created the earth in 7 days?
Remember when the Bible literally reflected the entire 6000 year existence of the earth?
Remember when God created man in His image, and man definitely didn’t evolve from apes?
Remember when all native Americans from South, Central, and North America were really Lamanites?
Remember when Packer told us, “Some suppose that they were preset and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and the unnatural. Not so! Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember, he is our Father.”?
Remember when we thought the Holy Ghost was a being that could somehow communicate directly with our own internal spirits? Oh, wait. We do still believe that, but if the above pattern holds with regards to “the God of the Gaps”, we likely won’t someday when science can demonstrate that these spiritual feelings actually do have an internal origin. If and when that day comes, the Church will initially drag its feet, decry the lack of faith of “so-called scientists”, and eventually accept the scientific theory. However, while accepting the science, they will add an “intelligent design” type of explanation (which is where I think most Church members that actually accept evolution are at) along the lines of, “Sure, we accept that spiritual feelings are generated internally within the human brain, but that is just the Holy Ghost at work. You see, early civilizations were too simple to understand the complex brain, so God simplified the explanation of the Holy Ghost into something they could understand.” See, the Church’s understanding of spiritual feelings was right all along!
One fun way I like to think about this comes from the Baha’is about the different degrees of spirits and what they are aware of: The degrees are The mineral kingdom, The plant kingdom, The animal kingdom, and The spirit kingdom. Each kingdom is higher than the kingdom before it. It is aware of the lower kingdoms and can comprehend them. But the lower kingdoms are usually not aware of the higher kingdoms and cannot comprehend them.
Start with the mineral kingdom, a rock. A rock is beautiful, strong, and useful. But it will always be a rock. It can move on it’s own, it can’t grow, and it can’t think. A plant may grow next to it, on top of it, or around it, and it will never notice or be aware that it’s there.
Above a rock is a plant. A plant has abilities that a rock does not. It can grow, reproduce, photosynthesize, etc… As it is putting down it’s roots, if it hits a rock it will notice it, be aware, and then go around the rock. But a plant cannot see, hear, or be aware of animals.
Above a rock is an animal. Animals can move, breathe, act on their own, play, bond with one another, etc… An animal will be aware of the plants in this world, because it can see them. An animal will notice when it walks by a tree or a bush, but the bush will not notice that an animal has walked past it.
And above the animal kingdom, is the spirit kingdom. We don’t know a lot about spirits, but spirits can do things that animals can’t. They are matter refined. They can travel to and from the earth, they can comprehend all things, they are not bound by time, they may be pure energy, they are eternal. It has been said that the spirit kingdom is here on Earth, but we are not aware of it. So, a spirit could walk by an animal, and the spirit would be aware of the animal, but the animal would not be aware of the spirit. It follows the same pattern.
As humans, we are very unique among the kingdoms, because we are of both the animal kingdom and the spirit kingdom. We have spirits, but they are linked with our bodies. As human physical beings, we typically aren’t aware of spiritual things. It’s possible that Spirits have an effect in our world and some have walked past me today , I just didn’t notice them, just like how bushes don’t notice when I walk past them. But our spirits can be aware of the spirit world and have transcendent experiences that don’t make sense in our physical animal kingdom. Perhaps when I’m in tune with my spirit, it does have spiritual experiences by interacting with an external spiritual reality.
I think the Baha’i view lines up nicely with Mormonism (or perhaps I’ve misconstrued the Baha’i view to make it match up with Mormonism), but either way, it seems like a nice model. And faith is when we find truths that apply in the Spirit world.
I have had moments of almost dejá vu, where I have instances of knowing the present as if it has already occurred and I am just realizing it. At the same time, a voice I learned long ago to recognize as the Spirit tells me I’m where Heavenly Father knew I would be. This has been hard to reconcile, as my path doesn’t strictly follow the “Covenant Path.” And yet, I know the Lord loves me and guides me. I can see the argument for self- induced experiences, but the message I receive is so foreign to me that I cannot believe it is only my subconscious making things up for me. Finding a connection to the divine outside the carefully manicured (correlated) Church has been as enlightening as it has been frightening, and I think transcendent is an excellent descriptor. Whatever the source, I think a requirement for a transcendent experience is the permanent, paradigm-altering effect.
I’ve had transcendent experiences. I think of them as a blend of internal and external. My worldview mixes with the eternal and sometimes I connect in ways I can’t explain other than to say there’s something more than us out there. However, I’ve also concluded that there isn’t Just One God who is somehow consistent if only we understood everything. Eternity/God/Creator/whatever isn’t uniform. I don’t know if I consider myself a polytheist (I don’t want to worship multiple gods), but I’m past thinking that there’s only one source for revelation and inspiration and transcendent experiences. God has siblings and sometimes they disagree with each other. There isn’t One God In Charge. The godling in charge of finding lost keys does a great job; the godling in charge of preventing child abuse is asleep at the switch.
I have a post about that in my drafts, but it’s a hard concept to explain. The basic idea is that every single time one person gets all power on earth, they’re corrupt and brutal and horrible. So why do we think that pattern is going to work in the next life?
I have occasional small t transcendent experiences. I try to live my life in ways that invite those experiences because they are a blessing. Thank you for the reminder that looking for them should always be a priority.
I have had 2 big t Transcendent experiences in my life. Both came after months/years of struggle. They felt like extrinsic experiences. My perception of them was as words that were addressed TO me. One helped me to see a very specific path to accomplishing something of great importance to me. The other set me on a path that was almost the opposite of what I thought I needed to be doing. The new path has brought success in that supremely important struggle, as well as great joy in my life.
I don’t have answers to these kinds of questions. To be honest, the older I get, the less I KNOW. However, I am grateful for both the transcendent and the Transcendent experiences I have had!
Aww yes, the mind-body problem. But it’s so simple. There’s an undetectable spirit inside each body – the “ghost in the machine,” or the ink cartridge inside ball point pen (if you know you know), that somehow interacts with the material brain … Wait, that doesn’t work. Ok, ok. So consciousness is essentially an illusion that the human brain evolved so we could think about ourselves and minds outside our own mind for the purpose of survival within social groups… But wait, wolves are social animals and they have survived just fine without high level consciousness. Try the mirror test with your dog. If she is like my dog, she will either ignore “other” dog or bark at it. Meaning, the materialist camp can’t seem to provide a compelling evolutionary mechanism for minds rather than just brains. They are just as clueIess as the dualists and theists. What does seem to be that case, is that consciousness – or at least self-awareness – is not something we are born with (very young toddlers will fail the mirror test as well), rather, we become aware of ourselves only in relation to others. When it comes to the transcendent, even in my tbm days, I recall very few, if any solitary spiritual experiences. Most occured in the context of a collective experience. There seems to much more “spiritual” power – which is actually measurable in groups rather than in solo settings. There are several compelling studies about firewalkers and the like they have born this out. I don’t know whether we’re looking at some type of collective consciousness derived from millions of years of evolution, but it seems to me that the transcendent is grounded in the interconnectedness between all living beings.
mat,
Interesting statement. Oddly, my personal experience is the opposite. My transcendent experiences have come when solo. I wonder if extroversion/introversion are the reasons? As an introvert, I perform well in public but find people exhausting. My spiritual breakthroughs occur when I am alone in my thoughts.
Old Man: Fair enough. I think you are probably in the majority among those that believe they have had transcendent experiences. I wouldn’t consider myself an introvert, but generally feel uncomfortable in large crowds. Smaller group settings are where I’ve had my admittedly few transcendent experiences. I guess the point I was trying to make is that if we are going to go with a materialist view of consciousness (which we don’t have to but seems to be the thrust of the OP), then it would seem to me that we have to ground the transcendent in human evolution. And since our minds or sense of our own selves only develop in relation to others, I would argue that there are no solitary transcendent experiences. There is always another mind involved. Whether you want to call that other mind God, the Universe, the Cosmic Mind, Collective Consciousness, or billions of years of shared evolution, take your pick, I suppose.
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