"Anything we do or feel, from a simple activity like moving a finger to the deepest passion like love or rage, has its own characteristic pattern of brain wave activity."
Pietro Pietrini, MD, Ph.D.

Modern technology continues to prove what ageless wisdom has always asserted. Dr. Pietrini based his statement on the results of SPECT, a special X-ray procedure employed to peer into brain activity. MRI, PET, SPECT and other enhanced methods of observing the brain at work consistently reveal unique patterns and centers specializing in so-called neurological events. One such event is the religious experience and the brain is wired for religious experience.

Researchers do not dispute this built-in design, hard wiring if you will. The question is rather one of why? Some would assert that the biological basis for a religious experience is simply a Darwinian evolutionary mechanism that probably served to assuage the anxiety of a forward thinking creature, capable of self-recognition, etc. In other words, a survival mechanism that played at least two roles. The first assuaging anxiety and fear, after all, God will care for us and the second, assisting in the organization of societies working together and using a higher moral imperative to subvert the more primitive" strongest and fittest" adaptations. The dissenting opinion might argue that God created us with a built-in mechanism capable of knowing God and that is why the biology favors a religious experience. It would have been inherently unfair to deprive us of the very mechanism necessary to experience that which we all came here to experience.

Whatever the argument, the bottom line remains the same. We are all biologically wired for the religious experience and the religiously or spiritually oriented and connected people live longer and healthier lives than their not so inclined counterparts. There is a very real survival advantage to being spiritually in touch with the transcendent. If you want a good read of this subject, I recommend the new book, "Why God Won't Go Away" by Andrew Newberg, MD.

Younger and Healthier through Prayer and Meditation

According to a study published in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, a person has a better chance of staying healthy if they pray, meditate or read religious texts. Researcher Judith C. Hayes of Duke University Medical Center and her team evaluated the private religious habits of 4000 elderly subjects in deriving their conclusions. (June, 2000)