Rational Mysticism
Spirituality Meets Science in the Search for Enlightenment
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
The author of The End of Science chronicles the most advanced research into such experiences as prayer, fasting, and trances in this “great read” (The Washington Post).
How do trances, visions, prayer, satori, and other mystical experiences “work”? What induces and defines them? Is there a scientific explanation for religious mysteries and transcendent meditation? John Horgan investigates a wide range of fields—chemistry, neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, theology, and more—to narrow the gap between reason and mystical phenomena. As both a seeker and an award-winning journalist, Horgan consulted a wide range of experts, including theologian Huston Smith, spiritual heir to Joseph Campbell; Andrew Newberg, the scientist whose quest for the “God module” was the focus of a Newsweek cover story; Ken Wilber, prominent transpersonal psychologist; Alexander Shulgin, legendary psychedelic drug chemist; and Susan Blackmore, Oxford-educated psychologist, parapsychology debunker, and Zen practitioner. Horgan explores the striking similarities between “mystical technologies” like sensory deprivation, prayer, fasting, trance, dancing, meditation, and drug trips. He participates in experiments that seek the neurological underpinnings of mystical experiences. And, finally, he recounts his own search for enlightenment—adventurous, poignant, and sometimes surprisingly comic. Horgan’s conclusions resonate with the controversial climax of The End of Science, because, as he argues, the most enlightened mystics and the most enlightened scientists end up in the same place—confronting the imponderable depth of the universe.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Science author Horgan (The End of Science) tackles modern metaphysics from a critical perspective in this entertaining New Age travelogue, combining interviews with leading spiritual scholars like Huston Smith and Ken Wilber with visits to research centers where scientists study people's brainwaves while they meditate. Instead of accepting or rejecting the experts outright, Horgan assumes they might have something useful to tell us about spirituality, then respectfully challenges them to determine what that message might be. In some cases, Horgan has to put in extra effort to find something he can criticize, but his willingness to share his doubts and attractions with readers gives the book a refreshingly personal feel. Extending the candor, he applies the same rigorous interrogation to himself, sharing how his own spiritual views have been shaped by, among other things, experiences with psychedelic drugs as a young adult and a recent group experimentation with the South American hallucinogenic plant ayahuasca. (You'd be hard pressed to find many other science books with a sentence like "As Stan murmured reassuringly, his eyeballs exploded from their sockets, trailed by crimson streamers.") Here and there, the book drops tantalizing hints of a gnostic universe created by a neurotic God terrified of being alone, but it never fully loses the rationalist framework Horgan uses to avoid succumbing to spirituality's alluring excesses. The result is a title with crossover appeal: believers can point to Horgan's willingness to grapple seriously with their tenets, while skeptics can find ample support for the argument that it's all in our heads.
