"..it is hard to believe that an unprecedented mental state, betokening union with the Almighty and filled with unutterable bliss--never known on the earthly plane--can be the experience of the mind or soul alone, without involving the body or the brain.

"However brief it might be, the transcendental flight of the soul must be reflected in the cerebral matter in some way.  Conversely, it can happen that as the result of a reaction caused in the brain by intense concentration, constant worship, prayer, extreme longing for the beatific vision or consuming love of God, continued for long periods of time, a process of transformation would start in the organ conducive to the extraordinary experiences of the mystical type.

"The current explanations for astonishing states of mind, as for instance those of child prodigies, lightning calculators, mediums and mystics, are mostly hypothetical, the result of cogitation by intelligent minds.   They are not the fruit of direct experience because the elements involved are too subtle for empirical study.  The result is a multi coloured dish of highly spiced cuisine, cooked up by a bright cluster of star mind-healers of our time." (1)

The organic revolution within the brain

"In the light of the fact that the human organism is a chemical laboratory of the most elaborate kind, the possibility of a biochemical synthetic process in the neuronic material to create a different pattern of consciousness, as happens in the case of certain drugs, cannot be ruled out.  In fact, there is a growing apperception of the fact that mental disorder can be the immediate result of organic imbalances in the brain.

"It is to this aspect of Mystical Ecstasy that I wish to draw the attention of the world.  Once the study of this rare state of mind is taken up and pursued with vigour, as is done in the other branches of science, a two-fold harvest is sure to result: firstly, a clear understanding of the mystical trance, and secondly, a widening of the horizon of science itself." (2) 

The above quote was taken from The Wonder of The Brain, published in 1979. It proved to be a prophetic claim. In early 1999 it was announced:

"Religious belief and experience are usually regarded as beyond scientific explanation, yet neurologists at the University of California, San Diego, have located an area in the temporal lobe of the brain that appears to produce intense feelings of spiritual transcendence, combined with a sense of some mystical presence.  Canadian neuroscientist Michael Persinger, of Laurentian University, has even managed to reproduce such feelings in otherwise unreligious people by stimulating this area.  According to Persinger:

'Typically people report a presence...[another] individual experienced God visiting her.  Afterwards we looked at her EEG and there was this classic spike and slow-wave seizure over the temporal lobe at the precise time of the experience -- the other parts of the brain were normal.'

"The fact that we seem to have a religious hot-spot wired into our brains does not neccessarily prove that the spiritual dimension is merely the product of a particular flurry of electrical activity.  After all, if God exists, it figures He must have created us with some biological mechanism with which to apprehend Him." (3)

"When the Canadian psychologist Dr. Michael Persinger got hold of a [transcranial magnetic stimulator] he chose..to stimulate parts of his temporal lobes.  And he found to his amazement that he experienced God for the first time in his life." (4)

"If religious beliefs are merely the combined result of wishful thinking and a longing for immortality, how do you explain the flights of intense religious ecstasy experienced by patients with temporal lobe seizures, or their claim that God speaks directly to them?  Many a patient has told me of a 'divine light that illuminates all things' or of an 'ultimate truth that lies completely beyond the reach of ordinary minds.."  Of course, they might simply be suffering from hallucinations and delusions of the kind that a schizophrenic might experience, but if that's the case, why do such hallucinations occur mainly when the temporal lobes are involved?  Even more puzzling, why do they take this particular form?  Why don't these patients hallucinate pigs or donkeys?" (5)

The unifying possibility of scientific confirmation

"With the first objective confirmation of this divine potential in human beings, the wider areas of discord between contending political ideologies and the conflicting doctrines of faith will slowly begin to narrow down till complete accord is achieved.  The convinced scientists and the scholars will be the first to take up the cry.

"Those who think that the dream is too rosy to be true have only to bring the image of the mental climate at the begining of this [20th] century before their eye.  Could anyone believe then that in a few decades man would land on the moon and make plans for travelling to other planets in space?  Nature will always have surprises for the intellect." (6)

Success and failure in the realm of spirit

"There are many people who after years of ceaseless efforts, sacrifice and suffering find no change in their state of consciousness, and in the essential aspects of their personality continue to be the same as they were before.  In their despair they either blame the teacher or the whole system which they followed or even question the justice of the divine Being toward whom all their devotion, sacrifice, and effort were directed.

"Is it not an anomaly that while, in the intellectual sphere, out of millions who devote their lives to the various sciences and arts and make colossal sacrifices to win distinction in them, only an extremely few rise to the stature of a Shakespeare, a Kalidasa, an Omar Khayam or a Confucious.  The rest reasonably attibute the rise to exceptional talent, based on some still unknown biological law.  In the spiritual realm the seekers after God do not often take the same reasonable view and, instead of attributing their failure to a law of nature, assign other causes for it." (7)

References:

(1 -p65; 2 -p66   ) The Wonder of the Brain G.Krishna.  Publ: FIND Research Trust, 1979
(4 -p175; 5-p177) Phantoms in the Brain  VS Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee.   Publ: Fourth Estate 1998
(6 -p55                ) The Real Nature of Mystical Experience  G.Krishna.  Publ: New Age Publ., Toronto 1979
(7 -p55                ) Kundalini - the Secret of Yoga G.Krishna.  Publ: FIND Research Trust 1972

Further reading: