This study was investigating the correlation between neural activity and a mystical experience. A group of Carmelite nuns were measured for brain activity while they were engaged in a mystical experience, such as being united with God.
In light of the findings that this study produced the title of the journal article is accurate. The study’s results show that when a person experiences a mystical experience there was a significant amount of activity in many parts of the brain. This shows that mystical experiences are related to many different regions of the brain and also to different brain systems.
In the study, the mystical condition was told to remember the most intense mystical experience they had ever had as a member of the Carmelite order, and to relive it. The control condition was given the same instruction only the participants in this condition were to remember and relive the most intense state of union with another person, while they were a a member of the Carmelite order. The baseline group was simply told to engage in a simple restful state. The blood oxygen level was measured during the experiment in each of three conditions. There was a Mystical condition, a Control condition and a Baseline condition.
The explanations of the findings are acceptable given the design of the study. A group of fifteen Carmelite nuns took part in this study. None of the nuns smoked, nor did they have any psychiatric disorder or had a history of one. They also had no neurological disorder history. Informed consent was gained from all participants. The study was also approved as ethical by the CRIUGM.
One limitation with this study was the fact that the participants were not actually engaged in a mystical experience, they were just asked to remember one and to try and relieve it. They were not practicing a mystical experience at the time of study as they told the researcher that they were not capable of reaching a mystical state on command. However, from the results it can be seen that this didn’t pose too much of a problem. The data gathered indicates the participants did actually engage in a mystical experience during the study.
The report and headline suggested that mystical experiences are related to neural activity. Given the study that was described, this conclusion is warranted. The study describes how the participants were measured and which areas of the brain showed activity when the nuns were engaged in a mystical experience. Brain scans were also taken of the participants brains which also show the level of neural activity when they were in a mystical state.
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