Rating: 
Summary: Close to pseudoscience
Review: This book was very disappointing. It attempts to use science to prove the existence of god. It reminds me of the archaic belief of Descartes that the soul intersects the brain at the pinneal gland in the brain. There are some questionable interpretations of SPECT scans but I'm not expert here but I had hoped for more scienctific detail. Where were the controls? This is not science.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting - but flawed
Review: I don't understand why people are giving the book, "one star."
Any so-called popular science book will naturally be not that rigorous. If it were, it would be a textbook, an nobody would buy it. I am not a neuroscientist, merely an aspiring one, (still in uni.); so for me I cannot discern the various unscientific arguments. But it was fairly enjoyable to read. But to those individuals who called it "pseudoscience" what did you expect? Any book that claims to "meld" science and religion or "reconcile" them has to be considered that. Science is science and religion is religion. Attempting to 'reconcile' them is like attempting to do the same with botany and music. For those interested in the "intersection" (Hint: there is none) b/w science and mysticism, i recommend "Quantum Questions."
It is a series of essays on science and mystics by nobel-prize winning scientists such as Einstein, Schroedinger, Pauli, et al.
Einstein's essay contains the famous quote about "cosmic, religious feeling" being the purest motive for scientific research.
Rating:
Summary: Not science, some spirit
Review: As a clinical neurologist and a believer in spiritual experience, I was interested to read of the experiments of imaging the brains of meditators with SPECT. I didn't get what I needed from this book to evaluate the results. The speculation that follows is even more arbitrary. The authors use eccentric terms such as "orientation association area" for part of the parietal lobe. They then use an eccentric interpretation of the function of this area of the brain. There is nothing about the confusion of a patient with a right parietal lobe stroke that suggests the boundary between self and non-self is a key feature of the function of this part of the brain. Such a stroke patient can be very bad at perceiving both self or non-self, without the labelling of things one way or the other being an issue. The emphasis on the perception of a boundary is clearly a bias derived from the subjective experience of the subjects, who were selected for their experience. The changes on SPECT might have no more significance than reflecting a state of mind that is more open, but less stimulated by something outside of us than we usually are, more closed to something outside or inside us than we usually are, or any number of other trivial interpretations. Further experiments are the logical next step, not assumptions. In the absence of peer review, how are we to know that there are any consistent changes at all? It is significant that the eccentric interpretations written here are not in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. They are musings, not science. Meanwhile there are the author's "operators" that describe brain function in an eccentric way and long arguments about poorly defined ideas, such as the one suggesting that there are reliable ways to separate mysticism from psychosis, despite the impossibility of defining either one precisely. It is an effort that invites circular reasoning, such as mysticism being mysticism because it's constructive while psychosis is destructive. Who says? Are cult leaders who are successful mystics while those who aren't psychotic? I know people who were once labelled psychotic, but found their experiences to be helpful to them. Should they have been labelled mystics or is it just that the labels come from the biased mind of the observer? Like the authors of this book, I don't see God going away, but it's not because of some SPECT scans that mean nothing more than the subjective reports of meditative states do. The real reason remains a matter of spiritual discovery, not physical science.
Rating: 
Summary: An Important book for our time
Review: This is an outstanding book. Having been brought up in a scientific household, I have long suspected that the prevalence of religion in human history can only be explained by evolutionary theory, i.e., there must be an evolutionary advantage to the brain structures that cause humans to believe in god, in the face of so much contrary evidence. This book does an elegant job of positing just such an advantage, but it also does more. It offers evidence of the precise brain structures that give rise to religious feeling, and makes a good case for how they came into being in the first place. Clearly the book will have its detractors, principally other scientists envying the authors' job of putting their hypothesis together. And it is certainly plausible that some aspects of their supporting evidence may be in need of refinement. In the main, however, they have made a major contribution to resolving one of the central issues of our time, the seeming conflict between science and religion. Moreover, they suggest a moral implication, which is that when people understand the common biological basis of religion, perhaps they will begin to realize the stupidity of religious intolerance. Can anything be more important to the survival of our species?
Rating:
Summary: Meditations effect on the Brain
Review: This book does not try to prove the existence of God, but what it does is emphasize that there is evidence that the existence of God is at least a possibility. The authors mainly takes a view that humankind can't help but ponder the plausibility of an afterlife. Their studies mainly focus on meditative states of various religions and shows why there is some truth or common theme underlying all religions which is hard to disagree with. Where the authors and I part company however is that he believes that "all roads can lead to Rome", per se, or at least that all roads lead you to the right road. However, the reader should focus on the neurological aspects which are interesting and where the author's strength lies. The rest is opinion, which they are certainly entitled to. The true beauty of the text is that they are able to at least able to add some physical, logical legitimacy to the notion of deep meditative states and the explanations given by those that have encountered them across various religions. To their credit, they do a decent job of adding some realism to a very controversial subject in the scientific community.
Rating:
Summary: Speculative books are OK when held lightly
Review: == Ardent religious adherents AND ardent hard-minded neurologists will both dislike this book. == This book is first and foremost the speculative interpretation of a certain set of brain experiments (SPECT scans) on sets of certain subjects (Tibetan Buddhists & Franciscan nuns) during deep spiritual meditation. The speculation boils down to this:
"At the heart of our theory is a neurological model that provides a link between mystical experiene and observable brain function. In the simplest terms, the brain seems to have a built-in ability to transcend the perception of the individual self" (p.174) Those brain states are not ones associated with delusion or imagination; instead they seem unique. And the authors then ask the question: "why would our brain be structured in such a way as to accomodate this ability?" This book *IS* speculation. But that is not inherently a bad thing. The authors are exploring unknown territory: the possible relations between brain functions and spiritual/religious experiences. And they do so in a tentative, cautious tone with no pretense of having figured anything out, except that this is a profoundly intriguing topic. Indeed, it is the lack of determined opinion one way or the other that will likely infuriate the religious adherent AND the hard-nosed materialist. It is an easy and lightweight read, and it's speculations should be held lightly. The chapters on brain function are *extremely* simplified (a source of infuriation for the hard-core 'scientific' readers), but sufficient to convey what is necessary to their discussions. Likewise, the breadth/depth of the spiritual/religious topics are highly simplified and generalized. But again, this book is not meant to be exhaustive on either area - it is only a conveyance of some interesting speculations. If you like a book that can pique your interest without giving you mountains of data or any definite final answers, then you might enjoy this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Ethical Qualms
Review: While this book contains some intriguing information, I am troubled by the authors' complete indifference to the ethics of subjecting perfectly healthy meditating people to quite possibly harmful radiation.
Rating:
Summary: Good book mared by moments of occasional pseudo-science.
Review: In the early 90's Gallup polls showed that over half of American adults have had "a moment of sudden religious awakening or insight." For this large portion of our population one can image how this experience would quickly become the true pillar of their faith. Whatever Thomas Aquinas may have done to try and prove God's existence in his Summa Theologica 800 years ago is unimportant to the real, undeniable experience over half of Americans have felt in their lifetime. That "oneness" with the universe and that great surge of both fear and overwhelming joy a simple commoner can attain by just closing their eyes and clearing their mind. Skeptics may show whatever logical and empirical evidence they wish for and against the spiritual realm, but eventually they must account for that feeling of infinite harmony attributed to meditation and prayer. Thanks to the latest in 21st century technology, that is exactly what Dr. Andrew Newberg and the late Eugene d'Aquili have attempted to do in their April release, "Why God Won't Go Away." The most compelling aspect when reading Dr. Newberg and d'Aquili's book is their experiments using a "SPECT camera" to take, as the title of the books first chapter puts it, "a photograph of God." Newberg and d'Aquili, working with eight Tibetan meditators and several Franciscan nuns, were able to use the SPECT to gain an "accurate freeze-frame of blood flow patterns" at the "transcendent peak" of mystical experience. What was found in these scans was an expected increase in the activity of the prefrontal cortex, home to your attention span; but also, and more interestingly, was a decrease in activity of the so dubbed, "orientation association area." The "primary job of the OAA is to orient the individual in physical space" but to accomplish this it must also generate a clear "distinction between the individual and everything else, to sort out the you from the infinite not-you that makes up the rest of the universe. Specifically, the "left orientation area is responsible for creating the" boarders of the self, while "the right orientation area is associated with generating the...physical space in which that self can exist." In fact, people with severe damage to this area of the brain have great difficulty maneuvering in physical space-often bumping into chairs or falling to the floor instead of successfully lying down to bed. But what the SPECT scans show is not a shut down of the OAA but that during spiritual events it becomes deprived of the "incoming flow of sensory information" which it needs to be able to find any boundaries between itself and existence. Put simply, the mind has "no choice but to perceive that the self is endless and intimately interwoven with everyone and everything." In his book Newberg and d'Aquili go on to describe the different levels of spiritual events leading up to the culminary, and rare, "Absolute Unity Being" state. They describe the two paths of meditation in which religions over time have used to attain this AUB and how Newberg and d'Aquili connect the origin of religion and myth to the ability of the brain to reach this state. In turn, they also give how the origin of this very "ability" lies in our ancient ancestors dread of death and a need for safety. Those are the positives. The most dismaying aspect of "Why God Won't Go Away" is Newberg and d'Aquili's conclusions from their own research. Their regular personal interjection of factless speculation greatly harms the work and teeters onto the point of scientific irresponsibility. Through out their book they try to draw connections between their research and the existence of "a primary reality that runs deeper than material... a state of pure being that encompasses the lesser realities," whatever that means. The irony lies in how Newberg and d'Aquili often point to the flaws in their own conclusions, but then fail to correct them. Just as often as they tell us that they believe "we saw evidence of a neurological process that has evolved to allow us humans to transcend material existence," they state (rather contradictory) that their "neurological model... does not explain whether absolute being is nothing more than a brain state or, as mystics claim, the essence of what is most fundamentally real." A reader is left with the question, if your research cannot state if this transcendent and non-material world exists; then why do you at other times draw the conclusion from your very research that it does exist? They even go on to tells us that their work "could support the argument that religious experience is only imagined neurologically, that God is physically 'all in your mind'" but then tries to draw the opposite conclusion later in the book with no evidence why. Newberg and d'Aquili repeatedly states that they have proven that this meditative state is not a delusion, but I am inclined to believe this is his attempt to soften the book so not to drive away religious readers and their wallets. Otherwise, how Dr. Newberg and d'Aquili are able to hold these contradictory ideas would be a true testament the brain's ability to over come reality and rationality, as well as be a fascinating matter of study for the next generation of neurologists to look into: "Why Reason Won't Stay" Overall the book is an important work in our understanding of the religious experience. This is a field of study everyone should be ready to set aside a few hours and 25 bucks to try and gain a basic understanding of, and it would seem, for now at least, that the most accessible and up-to-date way to do that is Newberg and d'Aquili's "Why God Won't Go Away," even with it's occasional moments pseudo-science. If you do buy this book, then I recommend you draw your own conclusions from those experiments and not take Dr. Newberg and the late Eugene d'Aquili's opinions too seriously.
Rating: 
Summary: Left open for logical attack, Read SB 1 or God by Maddox
Review: This author got started on the wrong premise and built on that, being worship is not real. Even from a evolutionary standpoint worship is a scientific part of our evolution in that our ancestors created god mentally hundreds of thousands of years past by simple belief in a creator or provider. If you support evolution then what is incorporated in us from evolution is real. Coming from a creationists point of view: If evolution is not real, then worship is very real (especially if God exists). This book is also way to short for this subject and really not much to comment on. leaves you a bit shy in general.
Karl Mark Maddox takes a much more real and scientific premise on both stances which is highly supported in a surprising paperback I have to recommend, titled SB 1 or God.
Rating:
Summary: a clinker
Review: This book started out strong with some clear research findings and ideas, and then trailed off into a variety of associated thoughts without much structure or sense. The meaning and implications of a brain area devoted to the experience of religious feeling remain unclear.
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