The Biological Basis of Spirituality
Chapter 10 in Thesis – On the Universal Meaning and Significance of Spirituality –
If spirituality is truly universal and vital to human life, then we would ultimately never expect it to become a thing of the past unless humans were in fact to change their nature. Is it possible that the traditional spiritual experiences of spirit realms, magic, ritual, spiritual entities, mystical knowledge, union with the divine, techniques of ecstasy are but a section on the menu of the human experience and not a vital part of human life? Maybe the cultures of history have all for some reason overemphasized the importance of spiritual life, or maybe the relevance of spirituality depends on historical contexts?
To answer these questions, we will need to understand these classically spiritual experiences in the context of ordinary human functioning. What is the relationship between spiritual experience and ordinary experiences in human life? Are spiritual experiences a natural extension of ordinary human functioning or are they ultimately a cultural phenomenon? To understand this relationship, we will turn to the perspective of human biology. If spirituality truly addresses a universal and vital aspect of human nature then we would expect classically spiritual phenomena such as spirits and spirit realms to be a natural consequence of human biology and express itself in everyone independent of worldview, just like heart function and emotional functioning. How will we investigate this hypothesis?
We will investigate this hypothesis by looking into the research on spiritual experiences. According to the consciousness definition, an experience is spiritual to the extent that the experience of consciousness changes / alters and becomes salient. Therefore, investigating the experiences where consciousness changes the most is likely to shed the most light on the biology of spirituality. It is for this reason that this section will focus on altered states of consciousness (Tart, 1972).
During altered states, consciousness and its phenomena may become highly changed and salient, and in some cases, one may become completely immersed in consciousness. It is for this reason that psychedelics, a drug class known to occasion powerful altered states of consciousness are called “mind-manifesting” (Swanson, 2018). It is also reasonable that altering consciousness will make consciousness salient, since our attention is known to be grabbed things that change out of the ordinary (Horstmann, 2015). It is therefore hard to think of a more apt phenomenon to investigate, in order to identify the biological basis of spirituality, than altered states of consciousness according to the consciousness definition. However, this connection between altered states and spirituality does not just fall out of the consciousness definition. As we will see, this is a connection which has been well established in the literature too.
I will conduct this investigation in a series of steps. I will begin by (1) introducing altered states and (2) its relationship to spirituality. Then I will (3) explain why psychedelics is a uniquely effective tool for studying altered states, and (4) use the research on psychedelics to investigate the relationship between altered states and biology. Then I will (5) introduce modern theories of consciousness and finally (6) I will use the theory and findings to understand the relationship between spirituality, biology, and ordinary human functioning.
As a disclaimer, it should be remembered that I will remain agnostic as to the ultimate nature of spirituality in this thesis. Therefore, the following discussion of the biology of spirituality should not be understood to imply that spirituality is biological, physical, neural or anything else in its ultimate nature. The only assumption I will be making is that there is a meaningful relationship between human biology and human nature. Therefore, if spirituality is reflected in human biology, then spirituality likely reflects an aspect of human nature. It should also be understood that the deeper spirituality is reflected in human biology, the bigger a part spirituality will be indicated to play in human nature.
With that, we will begin by introducing altered states of consciousness.
(1) What are Altered States of Consciousness?
Altered states can be understood in contrast to ordinary or normal states of consciousness. Although volumes may be filled with the philosophical issues of differentiating normal and altered states, we will suffice with a loose and practical definition for our purposes. In his book Altered States of Consciousness Charles Tart defined the difference as follows – “For any given individual, his normal state of consciousness is the one in which he spends the major part of his waking hours. That your normal state of consciousness and mine are quite similar and are similar to that of all other normal men is an almost universal assumption, albeit one of questionable validity. An altered state of consciousness for a given individual is one in which he clearly feels a qualitative shift in his pattern of mental functioning, that is, he feels not just a quantitative shift (more or less alert, more or less visual imagery, sharper or duller, etc.), but also that some quality or qualities of his mental processes are different” (Tart, 1972) So what is an example of altered state of consciousness?
Tart goes over various examples in his book including states of sleep and dreaming, meditation, hypnosis and psychoactive drugs. Maybe the most familiar of these are dream states. It seems clear that when one is dreaming, one is not simply experiencing more or less of everyday waking consciousness. In fact, many dreams may be described as extremely non-ordinary. For instance, dreams showcase non ordinary characters such as dead people, dinosaurs and magical creatures and non-ordinary events such as flying and telekinesis. Since dreams are both highly common and also highly non ordinary both qualitatively and quantitatively, they may serve as the prototypical representation of an altered state.
(2) How are Altered States Related to Spirituality?
Altered states appear to be closely linked to spiritual experiences. So much so that William James’ “The variety of religious experience” has been credited as a seminal work in the study of altered states of consciousness (Goleman & Davidson, 2018).
Going back to the earliest form of spirituality, shamans have universally been reported to perform their spiritual work under various kinds and degrees of altered states, also known as Shamanic States of Consciousness (SSC) (Harner, 1990). In fact, a shaman has been defined as someone who contacts the spirit world through altered states of consciousness. A shaman may enter a light altered state or a powerful altered state depending on the purpose. As previously mentioned, the traces of shamanism are everywhere to be found in world religions and this includes entering altered states for spiritual purposes.
The Abrahamic religions invoke such methods expressive prayer involving an altered state of effortful speech and imagination as well as contemplative prayer which involves an altered state of effortlessly letting go (Nelson, 2009). The eastern meditative traditions such as Hinduism and Buddhism invoke altered states such as concentrative meditation involving the repetition of mantras or a concentration on an image, as well as mindfulness types of altered states where the focus is on an awareness of the present moment. In the Daoist traditions including the art of qi and alchemy, practitioners will alter their state by performing intricate sequences of body movement to awaken the energy body or to transform their experience to become increasingly spiritual (Mitchell, 2018) Spiritual and Mystical experiences are also often reported under the altered states induced by psychedelic compounds such as psilocybin or LSD (Griffiths et al., 2008; Swanson, 2018).
In a phenomenon called spontaneous spiritual awakenings (SSA) people report spiritual experiences accompanied by powerful altered states involving a transcendence of one’s ordinary experience of self and an experience of complete union with what is perceived as ultimate reality, such as god or the divine (Corneille & Luke, 2021). Finally, near death experiences are reported by 17% of people who have had close encounters with death, which include passing through a tunnel, seeing a mystical light and experiencing a review of parts or all of the experiencer’s life (Long, 2014).
Overall, it is safe to say that altered states are highly common in the spiritual scene and highly associated with the occurrence of spiritual experiences. Although it is possible to have spiritual experiences without dramatic alterations of consciousness such as when simply paying attention to one’s stream of consciousness, the tight connection between spirituality and altered states makes altered states useful to investigate for the purposes of understanding the biological basis of spirituality. In other words, given this tight connection, if we can get a grasp of the biological basis of altered states of consciousness then the biological basis of spirituality will likely follow.
(3) Psychedelics as a Means for Understanding Altered States and Spirituality
There appears to be few or no better way of studying altered states than through a class of psychoactive compounds known as psychedelics (mind-manifesting drugs). Psychedelics have provided a unique opportunity to understand the science of altered states and therefore of the spiritual experiences to which they can lead. This is because psychedelics appear to be capable of inducing powerful spiritual experiences with a high degree of reliability, making it far more reliable to study in the lab than things like Near Death Experiences or Spontaneous Spiritual Awakenings (Carhart-Harris et al., 2014).
Indeed, it is clear that psychedelic experiences fall square into what would be considered highly spiritual experiences under my definition. The experiences include “I saw movement in things that weren’t actually moving”, “I felt unusual body sensations” “My imagination was extremely vivid”, “I experienced a disintegration of my ego”, “I felt I was merging with my surrounding”, “The experience had a supernatural quality”, “I felt like I was floating” (Swanson, 2018). As we can see, the common thread among these experiences is that the experience of consciousness is altered and therefore highly salient, making them highly spiritual experiences according to the consciousness definition of spirituality.
However, these experiences do not only fit the consciousness definition of spirituality used in this thesis, they also fit that of many people who have the psychedelic experience. In the words of one of the leading edge psychedelic researchers “In the psychology of religion, one of the most remarkable findings has been that it is possible, by way of a single high dose of psilocybin, to reliably induce profound spiritual experiences in healthy volunteers that are effectively indistinguishable from spontaneously-occurring spiritual experiences” (Griffiths et al., 2006) Evidence shows that the higher the dose the more likely the experience is to meet the criteria of a mystical experience (Lyvers & Meester, 2012). In other words, it is clear that psychedelics are able to produce altered states and spiritual experiences reliably and, in a dose, dependent manner. Therefore, looking into the biological research of psychedelics we will be able to shed light on the biology of spirituality.
(4) How are Altered States Reflected in Human Biology?
As we saw in the history section, science has witnessed a renaissance in psychedelic in recent decades, and the results has given us useful material with which to understand the biology of altered states and spirituality. We will now go over some of the major findings, before interpreting these findings with modern theories of consciousness to understand what it means for the relationship between spirituality and ordinary human life in the following sections.
The first major finding is that psychedelic effects strongly correlate with the activation of a serotonin receptor named the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor (Swanson, 2018). It has been found that blocking this receptor also blocks the subjective effects of psychedelics and that the stronger the affinity a compound has for this receptor the more powerful the subjective effects of psychedelics. So, however psychedelics ultimately work in the brain, it appears that the mechanism depends on the activation of this particular serotonin receptor.
The second major finding comes from brainwave evidence using MEG and EEG imaging technology (Swanson, 2018). When groups of neurons fire in a particular part of the brain, the power, frequency and location of their activation can be detected using electrically or magnetically sensitive sensors incorporated into the imaging technology. These groups of neurons fire in synchrony and in an oscillating pattern making them appear as waves with varying amplitude(power) and frequency on the monitors. These waves have been divided into various bands of frequencies and each frequency has been correlated with different states of consciousness. It turns out that psychedelics consistently reduce the power of these oscillations in a broad range of frequencies. In particular, reductions in the alpha band of frequencies have been correlated with various subjective effects depending on the location. Alpha band reductions in the parietal and occipital lobes were correlated with the occurrence of geometric visuals and vivid imagination, while reductions in the anterior and posterior cingulate cortices as well as the Parahippocampal areas have been correlated with mystical experiences and ego dissolution.
Finally, the third major finding comes from fMRI imaging technology which is capable of visualizing the varying degrees of neural activation across the brain in the form of three dimensional pixels (Voxels). Each voxel contains around 1 million neurons (Guest & Love, 2017). When voxels in different parts of the brain are synchronized in their activation patterns, it can be inferred that the neurons inside these voxels are working together to perform some kind of function. This phenomenon is known as functional connectivity (Swanson, 2018). The brain exhibits many different forms of functional connectivity for many different functions, some of which are highly recurrent called networks and others which are rare or possibly entirely novel. The known forms of networks have been divided into two categories, functional networks which are associated with engaging in cognitive or perceptual tasks, and resting state networks which are associated with taskless conditions. Possibly the most famous RSN is the default mode network (DMN) a network associated with self-referential thinking, ruminating about the past and planning for the future (Ekhtiari et al., 2016). Importantly, the DMN has been found to anti-correlate with task-positive functional networks, a rule we will find to be broken under the effects of psychedelics.
Using fMRI, we can see that psychedelics significantly alter the patterns and dynamics of functional connectivity in many ways. 1. Functional connectivity between key hubs of connectivity is decreased. 2. The DMN weakens in power and disintegrates. 3. Networks which normally cannot activate simultaneously are now able to do so. 4. The repertoire of functional connectivity patterns is greatly expanded, and new patterns are explored (Swanson, 2018). Importantly, the prevalence of these four patterns have been correlated with the subjective effects of psychedelics. The author concludes “Taken together, the recently discovered neurophysiological correlates of subjective psychedelic effects present an important puzzle for 21st-century neuroscience. A key clue is that 5-HT2A receptor agonism leads to desynchronization of oscillatory activity, disintegration of intrinsic integrity in the DMN and related brain networks, and an overall brain dynamic characterized by increased between-network global functional connectivity, expanded signal diversity, and a larger repertoire of structured neurophysiological activation patterns.”
So as we can see, altered states of consciousness and spiritual experiences are reflected by dramatic changes in the brain. To understand what this brain changes mean and what they tell us about the relationship between spiritual experiences and ordinary life, we will need a framework with which to interpret them. As mentioned, these findings have inspired and informed modern theories of consciousness which will help us do that, That is they can help us situate spirituality in the context of the ordinary human brain. How then does modern theory interpret these findings?
(5) Introducing Theories of Consciousness
As mentioned, the results of the spiritual renaissance have inspired and informed modern theories of consciousness and its alterations (Pollan, 2019). These theories hold the promise of a theoretical unification of the most different states of consciousness ranging from full blown mystical experiences of cosmic unity to the most ordinary experiences such as waiting at the bus stop (Swanson, 2018). They also hold the promise of grounding this unification in the biology of the human brain (Carhart-Harris et al., 2014) such that a spiritual or any other state of consciousness may eventually be identified through brain imaging. For this reason, they are of great service to the testing of the biological hypothesis which posits that spirituality is reflected in basic human biology and to understand how the biology of spirituality shows up in the everyday lives of ordinary people.
A couple of major theories have interpreted the findings covered above, however we will not be covering all the theories here as they would be lengthy and unnecessary to introduce for the purposes of showing how spirituality is reflected in human biology. For this purpose, we will be focusing mainly on a theory called Entropic Brain Theory (EBT) (Carhart-Harris et al., 2014). The reason for this is that EBT is easy and intuitive to work with, while being based on leading edge fMRI data and compatible with many well accepted modern theories of consciousness. Another big bonus of this theory is that it is based on the concept of entropy, making it compatible with many other sciences which use this concept. So what is entropy?
Entropy is a concept used to describe the state of a system on a spectrum from orderly/predictable (low entropy) to disorderly /unpredictable (high entropy) (Carroll, 2017). When a system is in a state of low entropy (orderly) it is therefore very easy to predict what it will look like in the future. You may picture a brick. On the other hand, when a system is in high entropy (disorderly), it is very hard to predict what it will look like in the future. Think of the weather. Again, this property can be used to describe any system including our brain. Sometimes our brain is more disorderly and harder to predict and vice versa, in terms of experience this may be roughly translated to rigidity and flexibility. This dynamic of flexibility versus rigidity of experience appears to be reflected in the state of the brain and with the advent of fMRI brain imaging it became possible to measure by calculating how hard it is to predict a future image of the brain from a prior image (Carhart-Harris et al., 2014). If the brain is rigid like a brick then this will be quite easy, if it is flexible like the weather then it will be quite hard.
EBT says that the brain is constantly fluctuating between flexibility and rigidity and that both ends of the spectrum can be healthy and pathological. On the extreme rigid end, we may experience pathological conditions such as depression, addiction, and OCD. On the extreme flexible end, we might experience pathological conditions such as early psychosis. However, at the same time, EBT proposes that healthy states display a good deal of rigidity. This may be observed through the characteristic rigid patterns of our resting state networks including the DMN, which are part of healthy functioning. EBT also proposes that there is health to be found in highly flexible states, such as dreaming consciousness, creativity, and the psychedelic state.
Now that we have an interpretational framework in mind, how then, can it help us make sense of the evidence from psychedelics?
(6) How do Theories of Consciousness interpret the Evidence?
Using the perspective of EBT we can see the neurobiological evidence of altered states in a clearer light. As a reminder, the MEG and EEG data showed that the neuronal firing rate drops in the key hub areas of our rigid Resting State Networks (RSN’s) under psychedelics, and through the fMRI data we can saw that this reduction leads to the disintegration of those networks, causing an eruption of new functional connectivities across the brain. In other words, we see a loosening of our stable patterns (low entropy) which allows for the exploration of new patterns (high entropy).
Another well accepted theory known as hierarchical predictive processing (PP) can help shed more light on this picture. PP states that these high level RSN including the DMN are sitting at the top of the hierarchy of information processing, constraining the activity of lower levels, and organizing everything from our global sense of self and our attentional patterns all the way down to our sensory perceptions (Swanson, 2018). In other words, PP hypothesizes that these RNS’s are orchestrating our entire experience and orchestrating it in a rigid and predictable way, giving us a stable sense of self and of the world. This means that if these networks were to be disrupted, then our world would go up in airs. In more technical terms, there would be a cascade effect rippling from the top through all other levels and modules across the brain which are being organized by these global networks at the top. The resulting state could be described as anarchy or as we know, high entropy. It is for this reason that one unifying theory of psychedelic drug effects was named “The Anarchic Brain” (Carhart-Harris & Friston, 2019).
In summary we can say that psychedelics cause the dramatic increase in entropy, by disrupting the stable hierarchy of organized processing which usually keeps the brain running in predictable patterns of relatively low entropy. So, what can we generally say about the perspective of modern theories of consciousness on altered states?
From these perspectives we can visualize a spectrum of conscious states ranging from high to low flexibility. Ordinary healthy states exist in an adaptive point of balance between rigidity and flexibility maintained by a range of interacting hierarchical neural networks. When these networks become too dominant, we become rigid, our brain may become tyrannical. When these networks become loosened, we become flexible, and our brain may become anarchical. As we move from balance to either of these directions, we begin to see the emergence of altered states of consciousness. Some of these altered states are healthy such as dreaming and creativity on the flexible side, while others are pathological such as depression and addiction on the rigid side, although both healthy and pathological expressions exist on both ends of the spectrum. Like all other systems our brains move in and out of homeostasis/balance as a natural and healthy part of their functioning. From this perspective, altered states of consciousness are as natural as the need to pee or the urge to eat. They simply represent a divergence from homeostasis. If altered states of consciousness are fundamentally natural, what does this mean for spirituality?
Review and Discussion
– How can EBT explain the biological relationship between spiritual experiences and ordinary human experience? –
The biological hypothesis stated that spirituality has a clear biological basis and is on a natural continuum with ordinary human experience in a way that expresses itself in ordinary life. What have we found?
First of all, we have seen that the states of the brain naturally fluctuate on a spectrum from low entropy (rigid) to high entropy (flexible) and that different naturally occurring states of consciousness can be placed on this spectrum. It appears that as entropy increases, the experience of consciousness changed and becomes increasingly salient until one’s experience is completely immersed in consciousness. In other words, until one is having a spirit world experience by the consciousness definition. At first the rocks and trees may begin to come alive, and as entropy rises the lake may try to have a conversation and eventually you are likely to lose your sense of self and merge with the totality of experience. In other words, there appears to be a tight link between the level of entropy in the brain and the level of spirituality of an experience. Therefore, we can say that insofar as fluctuations of entropy are a natural feature of human functioning, so are fluctuations of spirituality in experience. In other words, the fluctuations of entropy may be at the heart of the biological basis of spirituality, as it is fundamentally implicated in the alteration of the experience of consciousness.
However entropy is a highly abstract notion. Can we get a more biological picture of the basis of spirituality? We have seen that as entropy rises the oscillatory power of neurons may drop significantly across many different areas in the brain. This interrupts the regular, predictable operations of those areas, forcing them to explore new patterns and connections. When those interrupted areas are central hubs of high-level functional networks, such as the DMN, then all the areas and networks which are entangled with these hubs may also become interrupted. Therefore, an increase of entropy may lead to a cascade of interruptions of default activity and a proportional cascade of novel activity in the brain. In other words, what was just described appears to be the general biological dynamic that corresponds to increasing entropy and therefore to increasing spirituality.
This concludes the investigation into the biological basis of spirituality, but how then does spirituality relate to natural human functioning? If spirituality is intimately connected with the entropy of the brain, then we ask – in what natural human functions does entropy increase? -. According to EBT, entropy may increase during the natural functions of dreaming and creativity among others. This shows that the same biological mechanisms behind spirituality are also behind natural and common human functions. In other words, the biological basis of spirituality appears to be on a clear continuum with natural human functioning. Indeed, according to the consciousness definition, creativity and dreaming are both on the continuum of spiritual experiences as they entail a salient alteration of the experience of consciousness.
There is plenty more to say on the relationship between spirituality and biology, and entropy may be just one among many aspects of this relationship. However no further analysis is required to establish that 1. That spirituality has a fundamental biological basis and 2. That this basis expresses itself in natural human functioning. Given that these two propositions have been demonstrated we can conclude that spirituality as it has been defined in this thesis, is indeed universal to human nature.
The “neither spiritual nor religious” therefore also possess this nature which expresses itself in their creativity and dreams among other ways. However, this section does not only support the universality hypothesis, it also supports the vitality hypothesis. This is because if spirituality is so fundamentally wired into human biology, then it is also likely to play a vital function as indeed creativity and dreaming may be considered. However, the general implication of this section, is that the wisdom and practices of spiritual traditions is likely to be relevant for the health of all people including the “neither spiritual nor religious”. It is therefore important to reconcile spiritual knowledge with their worldview which currently may not be allowing them to benefit from the knowledge of spiritual worldviews.
Understanding the universal nature underlying spirituality is central to answering the research question, and we therefore have an important piece in place already. However, it is not the only necessary piece. To understand whether the spiritual dimension of human nature should be considered vital to human life we must investigate the relationship between spirituality and health.
Author – Sagi Andersen