Scientific Researchers are finding - and seeking to replicate - areas of brain stimulation common across all spiritual and faith-based experiences.

Is communion with your God or Spirit merely a figment of your imagination? Or does it make sense that spiritual experiences stimulate specific areas of the brain? This is the question researchers are trying to answer as they study devout worshippers of different faiths, measuring their brain activity as they meditate, pray, or recall powerful experiences.

While interpretation could go either way towards proving or disproving the existence of a higher power, it is logical that a Buddhist in meditation has an active right prefrontal cortex (responsible for attention and planning), given the meditative requirements of intensely focusing on one thought or object. And on the same coin, who’d argue the merits of nuns experiencing an activated caudate nucleus, common when experiencing feelings of love - coinciding with reported feelings of “unconditional love” while in prayer.

So, is science or faith the real player here?

Maybe it’s both:

Moreover, no matter what neural correlates scientists may find, the results cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. Although atheists might argue that finding spirituality in the brain implies that religion is nothing more than divine delusion, the nuns were thrilled by their brain scans for precisely the opposite reason: they seemed to provide confirmation of God’s interactions with them.

Either way, mastering the replication techniques described here could provide vast benefits for the general public, like improving immune systems, decreased depression, or just a more happy, healthy person. Faith and Science… maybe they CAN get along.

Scientific American::Searching for God in the Brain