Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality
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Is spiritual experience real? Or is it a delusion? When we pray, what happens? Does consciousness depend entirely on your brain and the unique way it works? Can science explain God?In Fingerprints of God, the award-winning journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty explores these questions and more as she delves into the profoundly exciting discoveries science is making about how faith and spirituality affect us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. She probes the work of some of the world's top scientists to describe what their groundbreaking research reveals about human spiritual experience. From analyses of the brain functions of Buddhist monks and Carmelite nuns, to whether directed prayer can heal the sick, to what near-death experiences reveal about the afterlife, Hagerty reaches beyond what we think we know to understand whether the ineffable place beyond this world can be rationally-even scientifically-explained. Fingerprints of God is an extraordinary book: rich, insightful, and deeply human. The Washington Post - Christine Rosen In another writer's hands, much of the material in this book might have become fodder for ridicule…But throughout the book, one is struck by the humility Hagerty brings to her subject—something lacking in many contemporary debates over the meaning of faith and the existence of God—and her skepticism about the science offered up as proof of spiritual experience…Hagerty's engaging book poses a provocative challenge to anyone who has ever wondered where faith comes from, and what it can do for—and to—us.
Ch. 1 Crossing the Stream 1Ch. 2 The God Who Breaks and Enters 16Ch. 3 The Biology of Belief 45Ch. 4 The Triggers for God 63Ch. 5 Hunting for the God Gene 81Ch. 6 Isn't God a Trip? 104Ch. 7 Searching for the God Spot 134Ch. 8 Spiritual Virtuosos 164Ch. 9 Out of My Body or out of My Mind? 192Ch. 10 Are We Dead Yet? 216Ch. 11 A New Name for God 243Ch. 12 Paradigm Shifts 268Acknowledgments 287Notes 291Index 313
