Religion Neuroscience

Great teachers like the Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, and Gandhi were all born with brains built essentially like anyone else’s—and then they changed their brains in ways that changed the world. Neuroscience now reveals how the flow of thoughts actually sculpt the brain, and more and more, we are learning that it’s possible to strengthen positive brain states. By combining breakthroughs in science with insights from thousands of years of mindfulness practice, you too can shape your own “Buddha’s Brain” for greater happiness, love, and wisdom.

Neuroscience, Psychology, and Religion is the second title published in the new Templeton Science and Religion Series. In this volume, Malcolm Jeeves and Warren S. Brown provide an overview of the relationship between neuroscience, psychology, and religion that is academically sophisticated, yet accessible to the general reader.

The Inner Work will take you on a hero’s journey through the uncharted depths of your subconscious mind to understand your shadows and unlock the greatness of your full potential. Through the uprooting of limiting beliefs and transcendence of themes of consciousness which perpetuate suffering, true freedom and lasting happiness will finally be revealed. By process of radical self-analysis and a practical three-step method, The Inner Work invites you to let go of your struggle with life. If you are a human, and you want to be happy, this book is for you.

Two New York Times best-selling authors unveil new research showing what meditation can really do for the brain. In the last 20 years, meditation and mindfulness have gone from being kind of cool to becoming an omnipresent Band-Aid for fixing everything from your weight to your relationship to your achievement level. Unveiling here the kind of cutting-edge research that has made them giants in their fields, Daniel Goleman and Richard J Davidson show us the truth about what meditation can really do for us.

In The Soul of Desire, psychiatrist Curt Thompson suggests that underneath all our longings is the desire to be known - and what's more, that this fundamental yearning manifests itself in our deep need to make things of beauty, revealing who we are to others. Weaving together neuroscience and spiritual formation to open up new horizons for thinking not only about the nature of the mind but about what it means to be human, The Soul of Desire is a mature, creative work.

With advances in neuroscience, many Christians are confused about what the soul is and its role in human flourishing. This confusion is rapidly increasing through the writings of “neurotheologians” such as Curt Thompson and Jim Wilder, who imply our brains are ultimately the cause of our thoughts, beliefs, desires, choices, and very identity.

In this groundbreaking book, world-renowned Buddhist teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche invites us to join him in unlocking the secrets behind the practice of meditation. With an infectious joy and insatiable curiosity, he weaves together the principles of Tibetan Buddhism, neuroscience, and quantum physics in a way that will forever change the way we understand the human experience.

A neuroscientist and surgeon makes an argument for the existence of a spiritual human soul in this eye-opening book. Many scientists and doctors believe that there is no such thing as the soul. That there is no part of us that persists beyond death. We are not spiritual in any respect. We are...

God is great-for your mental, physical, and spiritual health. Based on new evidence culled from brain-scan studies and a wide-reaching survey of people's religious and spiritual experiences, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg, MD, and therapist Mark Robert Waldman offer the following breakthrough discoveries: Not only do prayer and spiritual practice reduce stress, but just 12 minutes of meditation per day may slow down the aging process.

New York Times bestselling author Sam Harris’s first book, The End of Faith, ignited a worldwide debate about the validity of religion. In the aftermath, Harris discovered that most people—from religious fundamentalists to non-believing scientists—agree on one point: science has nothing to...

In this captivating, insightful book, acclaimed physicists Alan Lightman and Martin Rees illuminate the life and work of numerous scientists in order to demystify the scientific process and show that scientists are concerned citizens, just like the rest of us. “Remarkable. . . . Illuminating...

In this book, Andrew Newberg explores the latest findings of neurotheology, the multidisciplinary field linking neuroscience with religious and spiritual phenomena. He investigates some of the most controversial - and potentially transformative - implications of a neurotheological approach for the truth claims of religion and our understanding of minds and brains. Newberg leads listeners on a tour through key intersections of neuroscience and theology, including the potential evolutionary basis of religion.

Is there a God? It's a question billions of people have asked since the dawn of time. You would think by now we'd have a satisfactory, universal answer. No such luck...or maybe we do and we just need to look in the right place. For Dr. Jay Lombard that place is the brain, and more importantly the mind, that center of awareness and consciousness that creates reality. In The Mind of God, Dr. Lombard employs case studies from his own behavioral neurology practice to explore the spiritual conundrums that we all ask ourselves.

"Effortless mindfulness" is a new way to immediately enter an optimal flow state available to us in the midst of our busy lives. In The Way of Effortless Mindfulness, Kelly teaches that when you "unhook" awareness from chattering thoughts, you can access a peaceful mind and a naturally embodied wakefulness. From this heartful space, students report they find that right action comes easily and a loving tenderness for all of life is freely available. This book outlines practical and supportive material from neuroscience, psychology, and the wisdom of various spiritual traditions.

Joseph Selbie explores the current understanding of the brain's dismaying life-controlling influence on our thoughts, emotions, and behavior, and balances that understanding with neuroscience's discoveries of neuroplasticity and our innate ability to rewire the brain for any new purpose. Break Through the Limits of the Brain delves into the scientific support for the existence of a subtle, nonlocal reality that strongly suggests that we exist simultaneously in both a subtle and a physical reality—and that our thoughts, life force, emotions, and memories originate nonlocally.

I cannot teach anybody anything; I can only make them think. (Socrates) This book is based on scientific and philosophical insights observed, analyzed and researched by the author. A unique collection of earthly and heavenly questions arising during our intellectual evolution. The diverse issues addressed include: Genesis, Love and Sex, Why Women Live Longer than Men, Time Space and Relativity, I am Body and Soul, Children of Tomorrow, The Philosophy of Negotiation, Spiritual Evolutions and the Power of Belief, Scientific and Philosophical Insights, Neurophilosophy Sex is the glue for the ...

En este volumen, Grinberg explora con profundidad las intersecciones entre las funciones cerebrales y las experiencias chamánicas, basándose en los postulados de su teoría sintérgica. Con una mirada rigurosa pero abierta y sensible, plantea que la realidad no es una entidad fija, sino una construcción perceptual moldeada por la conciencia, una idea que pone en diálogo a la neurociencia con la sabiduría ancestral de los pueblos indígenas.

As a neuroscientist, Marjorie Woollacott had no doubts that the brain was a purely physical entity controlled by chemicals and electrical pulses. When she experimented with meditation for the first time, however, her entire world changed. Woollacott's journey through years of meditation has made her question the reality she built her career upon and has forced her to ask what human consciousness really is.

An interdisciplinary deep dive into Buddhist jhāna meditation and how it can transform our understanding of self and consciousness.

For the modern world, it seems as if sexuality and spirituality have always been at odds. But what if the two are actually deeply connected? And what if science could prove this connection? From neuroscientist Andrew Newberg, Sex, God, and the Brain argues that our religious and spiritual experiences derive directly from our sexual being. While others have speculated on a connection between religion and sex, Newberg is the first to demonstrate that the underlying biological mechanism of religious, spiritual, and sexual experiences are identical.