Why We Believe What We Believe by Andrew Newberg & Mark Robert Waldman

Author:Andrew Newberg & Mark Robert Waldman [Newberg, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Published: 2006-09-12T04:00:00+00:00

Spiritual Beliefs and the Brain

Chapter 7

Nuns, Buddhists, and the Reality of Spiritual Beliefs

ONE NIGHT—A LONG, LONG TIME AGO—AN EXTRAORDINARY event befell a rather ordinary man named Richard Bucke, who had spent a pleasant evening with friends reciting the poetry of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Whitman. On his way home, without any warning, he suddenly found himself engulfed by what appeared to be a “flame-colored cloud.” At first, he thought the city had burst into fire, but then he realized that he was experiencing a profoundly powerful inner light.

The year was 1874, and at that time such visual experiences were considered either transcendent moments of enlightenment or evidence of a psychiatric disease. Bucke, who had just turned thirty-six, occasionally had brief but severe bouts of panic, which he diagnosed as “nervous dyspepsia.” Here’s how he described his panic attacks:

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