Lisa Miller || The Awakened Brain

Body Institute. Her innovative research has been published in more than one hundred peer review articles in leading journals, and she is the New York Times bestselling author of The Spiritual Child and most recently, The Awakened Brain. In this chat today, we mostly focused on the Awakened Brain. And what I really like about Lisa is that she's a really nice combination of rigorous scientist and a really spiritual

person herself. We had a really nice chat that was personal and it felt like talking to an old friend. I also like how we nerded out over this satistics and all the little nuances of this emerging science of transcendence and spirituality. She's a real pioneer in the field and it's my real great delight to bring her to this audience. So without further Ado, I would like to introduce you to doctor Lisa Miller. Well, doctor Lisa Miller, it's so delightful to have you on the Psychology Podcast.

It's so great to be here, Scott. Thank you for including me, including the awaken Vrain. I've so enjoyed following your work, and I think we are transcendent first cousins. I think so too. I'll take that. I really like that. I've been really enjoying your work and reading in your latest book, reading your Journey to such detail. It was very read like more like a novel than a science book,

you know, so that was really fun. I actually learned that from my students that you know, oftentimes in the first ten years of my twenty years at Columbia teaching, I would teach about things and then I'd ask everyone in the class what they thought. And one day I was going through my course reviews and I said, great, class, loved it. But you know, you ask us what we think,

But what does doctor Miller think? And it dawned on me that I think there's a culture within science of don't look at the man behind the curtain, or don't look at the woman behind the curtain. And the Wizard of Oz that somehow, you know, even the way that we write is in the distant third person. So it seemed to me that to really write a book about spiritual experience was to be behind the curtain and talk about the scientist as walking a journey in life. Yeah,

for sure. And you make it dramatic as well in your storytelling. Something surprised me though. You had this dramatic story about how you were saying. I loved your enthusiasm. First of all, I loved the enthusiasm where you're like, I, I couldn't wait to see the brain scanned results. I couldn't wait. The high spiritual brain was healthier and more robust than the low spiritual brain. And the high spiritual brain was thicker and stronger and exactly the same regions

that we can and wither in depressed brains. And you're excited was you should have been. And you had some cynic or someone who he was like, oh, you were right, doctor. The whole thing was direct. But then you said one thing you said, you know, you said, this isn't what we expected to see. Why isn't that what you expected to see? That's why you went into the whole field right is too because you believed in the power of spirituality.

That's what I didn't understand that line at all. Well, it's probably I think what was meant was that it's not what the team at large had expected to say. You believed in it. Absolutely. I was not surprised, although

I wasn't surprised by the direction of the findings. I wasn't surprised that there were indeed robust neuro correlates of spiritual awareness and that those should be neuroprotective against the next bout of depression that I could see in the other levels of analysis for the epidemiologic data, through the clinical course data, and it had been my experience, so I truthfully, Scott, there had been also a sort of premonition that I had about that. But the team, I

think was quite surprised. So that's what was meant there by the we that said it was so much more vivid and magnificent than I had even sensed. So even in science, I don't know if you've had these moments where you have an intuitive sense of where things may be going and you've yet to see the results and they could point in either direction, but you do have a sense. This was sort of one hundredfold more magnificent.

And it was one of those moments where I think of science as a form of witness, you know, just as in a church or a temple, someone can stand up in the first person give witness. We look at the chorus of human experience, and it was a witness as to who we really are, and it was it was a sacred moment in my life. Yeah, it certainly was. And I got chills just reading the story for you, you know, because it is very exciting and it's very

important to the field. But I was just thinking, like, but doctor Moll, you've been saying this since, you know, the days you were hanging out with already taking walks with him. So I was like, sure, surely you weren't surprised, But no, thank you for that clarification. That makes a

lot of sense to me. Sometimes some things are so feel so obvious to me, like that, of course they're going to find this X y Z. And I'm shocked that other people in the field are like cynical about They're like, oh, no, are you sure that hypothesis has sound? And you're like, just feel it, you know, it's true. Well, yeah, I mean you've been absolutely a fellow pathbreaker, and I guess that's very kind of you to say it's very true.

And my view is that all of the sort of skepticism and even at times, you know, unexamined, unscientifically founded, sort of poop pooing, that just means the work needs to get done. So we don't do philosophical psychology. We do empirical psychology. And the proof is of the numbers. And that is the best friend of someone who is a weed whacker and a pathbreaker like yourself. You know that that is empiricism as our friend. Every mistic needs

a little empiricism. I love that. I really do love that. Okay, so we started with the dramatic moment. Let's let's rewind a little bit and let's go back to your days at University of Pennsylvania. Cross paths through there too, didn't something I did? I did. I ran the Imagination Institute with Martin Seligman. I love it. So when you were working with Marty, were you as a grad student in

like PhD? Right, So, I was a doctoral student in clinical psychology and it was right at the time that Marty was starting to imagine the positive psychology movement, and it was so interesting, as you did Marity so well. Martin Seligman was as an undergraduate when he was at Princeton, a philosophy major, and he was really kind of a classic psychologist, and that he drew out of Aristotelian values in philosophy really the first template for the positive psychology movement,

and others have gone their own direction since then. But he was really a pathbreaker, and we'd speak, we'd have long, long walks where we talk in a and we agreed on many things. But there was one point where I love Marty as as a mentor and as a figure who I admire as an uncle figure. But we never agreed on what spirituality is. And Marty at the time thought that it was sort of the epiphenomenal, the feeling you get from right action in a truer Restutilian sense.

And since then that was the nineties, we now have buckets full of science. We have mri s studies showing the neural correlates of spiritual awareness. We have long term clinical course studies showing it is a pathway to renewal, not just back to baseline, but that we are made bigger inside when we have a spiritual response to trauma, post traumatic spiritual growth. So spirituality is an empirical area of focus has really burgeoned in the past twenty five years.

But I'll tell you, Marty showed me what a scientist is. And Marty's idea was he said, if you're going to be a scientist who reads or a scientist who writes, better be a scientist, right, have imagination, read outside the field, and always see how things could be overturned to be better. He was such a role model for me. I love that, yeah, and role model for many people for sure. But I love this this conversation you had with him because it really is a precursor to your modern day two modes

sort of distinction between achieving awareness and awakened awareness. But that that goes back to those conversations you had with him where he was really Marty loves to control, let's be honest, understanding how we can have control, how we can have hope, right, how we can have you know, these are these are he loves those things. But you you came on you like I think maybe there is

a different motive. That's all nice that's all nice. I'm not against control, but maybe there's a different mode of consciousness that's more vast and meaning oriented and loving. And well, I love that you did this. I love that you said this. I love that you had these ideas because you're a path breaker in the field because of that. So can you take us back to these conversations you

have with Marty about this? It was so wonderful. So we would walk for hours, you know, he was so generous to his as, you know, having professional colleagues with them, and we would walk for hours and we sort of think things through. And a model that I've been working with is that there's different modes of consciousness that we can effectively put our hand on the gear shift as if it were a stick shift car and move by choice, which is a very Marty idea, that we can move

by choice between levels of perception. Yes, Marty idea. He gave that to the field with learned optimism, you know, learned helplessness. Right, it's a choice. So at the time, though the model I had imagined was and again, I love scientific imagination. I tell my students it's the most

important skill you can have. All the scientific imagination had brought forth that there's a mode of work that I called sort of Dionesian, and it was being in the flow, and it was kind of a little bit like cheek sent ma high and it was being in the And then there was the view that there was an Apollonian state where you had a clarity and you were hands on and you were a doer. It's what grew into

achieving awareness in the awaken brain. But then there was this other mode of experience that I called at the time the Olympian state, where we stand on top of a mountain and there's tremendous perspective and that little nagging thing falls in its place along the landscape, and we're aware of the highest truth and my word is God. And I saw it as a transcendent spiritual state in

which we received inspiration. Whereas at the Apollonian level, what I called the achieving level, we put A and be and C together and it is a very important pursuit. We strategize about our lives, We tactically figure out where we're going, We prepare ourselves, we go to school and gain certain skills and information. But to really have a breakthrough in life, and I mean yes, creatively, yes, innovatively in our work, but even more importantly in our next

step is a soul on earth? What are we going to do with ourselves? That type of breakthrough came. I felt the most powerful use of our brain was receptive. It came as a catch in the catchers. It was inspired, like the touch on the Systeine Chapel, and that form what I called at the time Olympian I've come to call awakened awareness because it is awakening to something real.

You know, I think that psychology very often stops with the human as a closed system, the hermetic human, and it feels as if we are in connection with something more. And I'm saying in the awaken and that we can identify the neural correlates of transcendent awareness. But I want to go even further and draw on sister and brother areas of inquiry and the consciousness studies work and say we are perceiving something real, that inspiration came from somewhere.

So psychology too often stops. I think we will say I am grateful, but we won't say I'm grateful to whom. It could be a person, it could be from our higher power, the object of the preposition is missing, and so I am grateful to God. I'm grateful to my higher power. I'm grateful to the source of all life, to whom am I grateful for this magnificent life, because that, I feel sets us up to be in dialogue with

the source of life. That sets us up to be able to not just control our path and get what we want, but really be surprised, really be inspired, really go somewhere we didn't think we'd go, and that wow, it even turns out to be better than my wildness dreams. Sorry, poetic, did you feel this? Is this? Like? How did this come to you? These ideas? Have you had a lot of these kinds of spiritual experiences as a kid, even an undergraduate? You know, what are the moments that led

up to this revelation in grad school? Yes, I think like every child. My first book was called The Spiritual Child, and it was on the scientific basis that says we are neately spiritual beings. So just as we're born physical and emotional and cognitive beings, we are inherently spiritual beings. And that indeed that body of science mirrors my experience as a child. So as a child, I can remember, Scott.

I can remember, you know, being in dialogue with God who everyone won, God many names, higher power, Jesus, the universe, force, you know, source. But I remember that felt experience, could you. Yes, there were moments like when I was scared of flying and I was on the airplane and and I heard a voice saying, just relax, You'll be fine, and I trust me, And those kinds of moments that's so moving, Yes, and that voice when when I say I saw something, I heard something. The way I expressed is it was

absolutely clear, and it was in my mind's eye. I didn't think the guy next to me was saying that. Right, there's a perception and it is a powerful Godly inspired gift and it comes in and lands with a sense of knowing that that's exactly what it is. So you were a child when we knew that. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Even yeah in college as well helped me get over my fear of flying in college on an airplane as well. Or yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, mostly college, not even

as a kid, I didn't fly too much. But yeah, so this is so it's so interesting. You're such an interesting sort of hybrid model of scientists. And spiritual seeker, and obviously study the science is spiritually, but not all scientists who study the science of spirituality are particularly spiritual themselves. So it doesn't necessarily come for the wrong for the ride, you know, So you're an interesting hybrid model. So how do you So that's thank you, Scott. So I see

science as a form of witness. Right, we can stand up one by one and it's a polar or mosque or a church and tell our experience, and it is testamony, it is witness, the chorus of human experience. Our study samples are the voice of us and collective and in that sense, I see us as scientists as bearing witness. So science for me is a very sacred endeavor I mean, is to discover what's true. Absolutely, So you are a very your truth seeker and a spiritual seeker. Do these

things ever contradict each other? And then you have to kind of find some way of reconciling them. They've never conflicted, they've never conflicted. And well, but I think that's because you know, in our twentieth century Caulture, there is a tendency for some posts to say I'm a scientist, I only believe what can be shown out by science, and

science simply has not proven spirituality. And then on the other hand, there were people who would saying, a deeply spiritual person, I don't care if science can't prove the

science can't tell us everything. But it turns out that science and spirituality certainly can go hand in hand, and that science has a lens and we can point it at a great post of questions, including the impact of lived spirituality in the human life course, or perhaps the origins or ideology of lived spirituality, and we can even identify the neuro seat of spiritual perception and which of all the threads of spiritual life are the ones that are really tidal wave of changing in our lives. So

there's a lot of richness. In a way, it only augments the spiritual path because it's this mass witness, this math testimony. So let's let's unpack some of these findings. These major you have a lot of over the course of your career, so this may take a couple of days. But one finding I want to start off with is this finding that low levels of depressive symptoms were related to high levels of personal devotion. Find that's so fascinating and can you can you tell me how you operationalize

the construct personal devotion? Yes, thank you, Yes, that's my nerdy question. I'm so appreciative you read the book you read. Oh,

I have so many notes you references. Thank you so much. Fun. Okay, So basically what blew my mind was in nineteen ninety seven, I was a post stock at Columbia and the Medical School, and I'd been thinking about spirituality and religion because I saw it in my clients and it had been part of my own life, and I'd seen how life unfolds differently when there's a spiritual relationship or family holds a

spiritual relationship. So it was very frustrating to look through all of the social sciences and realized that there was within science at that time ninety five ninety six, effectively a theological debate of how will we as a field of science define spirituality? And you know, one person said it is absolutely a sense of peace and connection, and the next person would say, no, no, it is that

felt sense of unity and compassion. And everyone had a different definition, which they're certainly in their journey and titled to, but they were not scientifically derived definitions. So it was just this gift heavy. It was just amazing when I read an article by Ken Kemler that had been published in nineteen ninety seven, and his first article was in the American Journal of Psychiatry and kin Keller at the time was the leading genetic epidemiologist who applied the method

of twin studies. Twins race together, twins race depart. We can factor out the degree of commonality as a function of genes and environment and see the extent to which any trade is heritable versus environment. Warmed, okay, And so he'd taken this hammer and hit about everything that psychiatry cared about. He'd hit depression and bipolar in schizophrenia, schizophrenia, of course is about ninety percent heritable, and finding that, of course debunctiments. Your mother had paid you. It was

a schizophrenogenic mother. So he was really doing interesting groundbreaking work by applying the twins steady model. Well, he finally applied it well. He was radically innovative in the field through him finally applied it to spiritual life and in particular, using the Virginia twins, he looked at the extent to which heritability or environment accounted for three factors of spiritual life.

One was denomination, One was adherence to creed, which he termed personal conservatism, not in the political sense, but in the adherence to one's own tradition. And the third dimension was personal devotion. Now, how Canler come to this dimension of personal devotion? He had used the scale that Kessler, who was first at Michigan and then a Leather, had developed, and used it in a way that had never been

used before. He took this scale of personal devotion alongside the other two and applied it, basically, put the twin study method upon it. Around it And does our denomination have anything to do with their genes? No? Does the degree to which we adhere to denomination have anything to do with their genes? Nearly no. But the capacity through which we have a personal sense of connection to our

higher power is about the third heritable. So, inher splitting scientific terms, in looking at the variants amongst people, one third of the variability amongst us that can be attributed to broad hairtability, which means, for our friends, that we are all born with a natural capacity to be in relationship to our higher power, but two thirds environmentally shaped. Also says that our parents our pastor, priest, among rabbi, our friends, by the locker, doctor J's son, all the

way in to shape this innate capacity. One third heritable. We are naturally spiritual beings. Two thirds environmentally formed. Parents, think about what you're showing and teaching your kids, because every minute is a living minute of spiritual formation, and that accelerates an adolescence and emerging adulthood. So our teenagers are on a quest. Our teenagers on a hot quest, and it's hardwired and it's foundational to who they'll be the rest of their lives. I have three teenage kids,

and I watch this. What is my meaning? What is my purpose? Actually? What is the meaning the purpose? What is the nature of reality? And if there's moments, say sophomore year in college, where we actually don't know if there's any meaning in the universe and we really don't know, I mean the skin in the game that is an existential despair. And it's what I've come to see is

developmental depression. That is invitation. It's really the ignition of spiritual emergence in this precious moment of growth that is laid adolescence, early adulted. And it's fifty percent you'll love this. Longitudinal twin studies show there's a fifty percent increase in the heritable contribution across the middle delayed adolescence into an

emerging adulthood of personal devotion. The items there are I turn to God for guidance in times of difficulty, When I have a tough decision to make, I ask, really, what does my higher power want me to do? It is a dynamic, lived, transcendent relationship where on the plane you hear the voice of God in your mind's eye. There is a relationship two way. Yeah. Yeah, that's a similar pattern as IQ terms of increased territability as we age. So that's interesting. Yeah, I T as you know, is

actually even more heritable. Right, so that's what person inherrible, especially as you age it gets up to eighty Yeah, so you know, this spiritual capacity exists independent of personality. That exists independent, But it's very very very very very tiny associated with IQ like zero point one. It's really it is. You know, I love the term common sense because common needs. We all get it. Well, this is our most magnificent common birth rate. Yeah. I'm an individual

differences researcher. I found quite high correlations between openness to experience and lots of dimensions of self transcendent experience. I wouldn't say they're non trivial at all, you know, I would say they're actually only dimension of that's version extraversion

high strongly, it has to be my favorite one. That HAPs to be my favorite dimension of personality personally, well, because you are innovative, our creators, science poets are shamans, our priests and rabbis, people who are porous and open and take in life those who are more open open systems. In fact, is the only dimension of personality that goes hand in hand to be open to experience with awakening and transcendent awareness. Yeah, with harder bumps in life because

we feel yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. It seems like there's a just like a constellation of personality variables that are relevant to bring in. I'm going to just mention some more absorption. Seems to we see very we've found in our data set's very high correlations and highly sensitive people, especially the aesthetic appreciation aspects of being highly sensitive tends to be very relevant as well. So there need to

quality what I said, which was among the big five, Okay, gotcha? Yeah, yeah, the big five personality factors that end up in large epidemiological studies. Of those, it is only openness to experience, and of course that goes hand in hand with absorption. What do they correlate like point six point five some Yeah, it's it's at least at least sometimes. So the correlation between like with all, it depends what facet of self

trenscendency you're looking at. But with all A w A, David Yiden and I found a correlation between like the all experience and openness to experience that was like extraordinarily high. You know, So that's that's cool, that's always cool. Collaborate, we should collaborate. Hell yeah, do you know? But I was gonna say, do you know David Yidden in his work?

So I've crossed paths with it. It's beautiful work, you know because through Marty, Oh exactly exactly, because like I just keep thinking of him when I think of you, because like you were, you're the og of You're the og of working with Marty and pioneering this whole field. And then he's David Diden's that the pioneer and you know, the young pioneer, right, you know, what I'm saying. So I just keep thinking of how you all need to

or we all need to come from. I come from the creativity world into your world, do you know what I'm saying? Like I start creativity for twenty years, then I come into your world through through the root of creativity. And how are how are we wired for creativity? And there's a lot of in the whole Venn diagram, there's a lot of overlap between how we're wired for creativity and how we're wired for spirituality. You know here here and so that is the muse as inspiration. I would say,

that's sport, that is chapel. Yes, yes, absolutely, And of course doctor Keltner's work is very relevant and has made the case that we're wired for spirituality. But this is you're right, It wasn't obvious to the field, and there was a lot of pushback on the field for many years, going back to even my my hero Abraham Maslow. He kept making that argument over and over that like it's part of human being. Human is having these spiritual ways

of being and higher cells. And you know, people pooh pooh that in the within the field in the fifties and sixties, even though all the hippies in San Francisco embraced it. They love Dbraham Maslow, but you know, he got a lot of pushback from his academic colleagues, you know. So it just seems so obvious to me though that like, like, who could be cynical about that? But I guess it's not.

I guess it's not to everyone. Well, I think there's a common twentieth century way of thinking that we're moving past we're bridging past that now. But it used to sound like this, which is depression is biological. Addiction is biological. Spirituality is not biological. That was thinking. But it turns out there's indeed a broad host of biological correlates that go hand in hand with spirituality, and even more foundationally, there's a neurosceed of perception that I'm calling the awakened

brain that goes hand in hand with spiritual awareness. Yes, well that is kind of an outdated perception, but I think what is helpful, like as we move into the twenty first century, is to perhaps think of body, mind and soul as one that you know then you know, yes, it is both a spiritual experience. There are biological correlates and there is a way in through a choice and use of mind. So I think we're getting to more of a monolist perspective. Now, that doesn't mean biological reductionism.

I'm not saying that the brain makes all this stuff. That's kind of the industrial view. The brain makes thoughts, just like the conveyor belt makes cars. I think we're moving into a view of the brain in the twenty first century that does the brain receive consciousness? Does the brain reify consciousness turned into I mean, why is it that through certain practices neurons become strong and thick. Is

that the reification of consciousness? So we don't quite know what the brain is or how it works, you know, patterns that we can observe to go hand in hand with experiences or behaviors. But it's such an exciting, fascinating time to be a scientist and to be an emerging scientist. And our students really have a great moment. Yeah, And I love your students. Love I love like the students and teachers college in your program and coming to the

Spirituality Mind Budy Institute. It's wonderful. Thank you. I adored them. I just oh my gosh, it's just their enthusiasm and their love to learn about this field, you know, like that's it. That's what we need, is we need apprentic people who do apprenticeships on this topic and then go out there and become the ogs someday themselves. Right, That's exactly what we want. That's why we're doing this. So

it's so exciting when you see so much enthusiasm. Well, they love you and I appreciate your speaking with them, and you know they do go out and their lives are lives of service. That's spiritual activists. They in fact, when they convene our students at the Spirituality in my Money Institute, they are as close to an ideal society as I've seen. You know, they're very careful to not impute their ideas on others. They're very interested in each each other's journey. It's lovely to see the way we

can live. And a lot of them are gen Z and millennials, and I think that the roots of spiritual society are strong in gen Z. I think gen Z has de facto way of being non egotistical, not a closed system, an open system and aware awake system. Absolutely, and I love the distinction you make between those two kinds of systems. It's beautiful. I want to go a little bit back in your story to your Yale days, because my my office at Yale as a grad student

was in the basement next to a water heater. My office was and I and I actually am wondering I have I have? Was I in your old contemplative room that you could that have been my We had the same office. That's incredible. It was meant to be. It was meant to be, you said, being with doubt and sadness, questioning what I believed. I had many moments of doubt

and sadness in that room too. By the way, being with doubt and sadness questioning what I believed brought me beyond a one track intellectual way of being, intellectual way of knowing the world, and into a felt awareness of life, which eventually returned me to a sense of buoyancy and belonging. So you raising really interesting there, And that's the you know, the I think it's relevant to the field of post traumatic growth. You know, that's that's popping up now in

what weeds. Can these moments of despair, sadness, contemplation really turbo charge our spiritual you know, activate those spiritual regions of our brain. So I you know, I think it is so foundational to emerging as an adult. I remember, after going through what I've come to see as a developmental depression, I realized that the suffering of me, you know, terrible. First of it's real depression. It's a sophomore and the word sophomore slump does not do justice to this experience.

I remember, you know, feeling, oh no, it's coming, it's coming, and just like a shadow figure, this horrible sense of dread would come over me. And I was nineteen, and then I feel terribly anxious. And then I'd wonder what is the purpose of life? Does God exist? And this inquiry was really painful, It was really painful. And do we exist? I mean, you know, we're transient, We change ourselves change, there's you know, we're seventy percent guests, little

tiny microbes, and you know, do we even exist? And is there anything fundamental and that is enduring in family or friends or lovers? Is there anything that stays? And it was really you know, taken seriously, what is the existence that we live? What is the purpose written into life? Or is there any that process was excruciating, and I asked the questions of my head. I would look through

data empirically, I would logically play this through. I took just buckets full of classes Philosophy, Nietzsche, the existentialists, and everywhere I went at Yale, I was looking for the answer to the question what is the meaning of life? That's what I'm here for. I'm here for four years to figure out the meaning of life so that I can go live one based on meaning. It was a foundational quest and I couldn't find it in the way

that we were approaching texts at the time. In the classroom we were reading, you know, I went to World Religions, and we read in this very armor length way, as if we were looking through a foggy marror. We read about other faith traditions and their history and their figures. But there was never an engagement of experience. Let's try a contemplative practice. Let's explore winning your life. Have you had a felt of sense of guidance that was too

unprobabilistic to happen by chance? These down to brass tax questions about the transcendent reality were never addressed at the level of heart or felt experienced phenomenologically. And so I left sophomore year thinking wow, you know, and I looked horrible because there was you know, I was just weighed down by this. And then that summer I remember standing on banks of the Gulf of Mexico and seeing light in the water and feeling this euphoric, loving sense. Of course,

of course there's love built into the world. Of course, we're held that journey of nagging with the head, questioning with the head, but only receiving a convincing answer through an inspired moment, a mystical moment, an intuitive moment, a receptive moment, an awakened moment, and our cantrisman that seemed to me to have been the work to figure out that inside of us we are knowers. Right many epistemologies, we are knowers. We are logicians, and we are emparisis,

and we are mystics and we're intuitives. And when we can get all forms of human knowing in dialogue around the table and the skeptic gets to be there too, nice, then we really challenge and discover, challenge and discover. It's what I call quest. So the skeptics at the table, the skeptics, not the bouncer at the door. No one is the bouncer at the door, you know. And I think the problem with our opportunity and education is to

invite students to the table of human knowing. Nice, there's some things very poetic about your soul as well as the mind of your science. Right back at you. Actually, I have said that I feel like I'm a politic soul. Thank you, Thank you for saying that I feel seen. I feel seen. Can I tell you about a tweet that I wrote the other day? Oh please, and I

will take me seriously. I said, this is going to sound super woo woo, but I've noticed that when my being is infused with the energy and spirit of love, I feel like I'm vibrating more resonantly with the universe. I have a sneaking suspicion that the universe is inherently loving, and that hate disrupts that flow. I wrote that, and I get you know a couple of people good. That doesn't sound scientific. Will you tell me if there's any

scientific evidence for any of that. So you are absolutely right, and science mirrors that wisdom that you directly. I'm doing that. I'm doing the dance. Here's the science that when we are particularly when we've come through a road of trials

so you know and ask questions and broken through. When we're in a deep spiritual sense of connection, when we are awakened to the spirit and then through all life, the brain gives off a certain wavelength is captured by EEG and it gives it off right in the back of our head where many traditions, for instance, the yamaka goes the right posterior back of ahead. High amplitude alpha

is given off. And the more that we have engaged in pretendent awareness, daily spiritual awareness, knowing each other brother and sister, knowing events as non random that is, openings and guidance. The more we see life spiritually and live that way, the more that becomes the new normal, the set point, and the more we live that way, the more we give off high amplitude alpha. To your experience, Scott, high amplitude alpha goes by another name in another field,

and it's human's residence. It's the wavelength from the Earth's crust up one mile all the way around the Earth. Nature creation vibrates at the same wavelength as the spiritually engaged brain which I call per means what you experienced so immediately, which is we return to oneness, We return to our nature nature, We are indeed one with all life,

with spirit that gives life. So take that, Twitter trolls, listen to doctor Lisa Miller scientific valid what I said, Wow, that's so cool, beautifully and so accurately, which was you were vibrating with all life. You were indeed the oneness of all life. Can I say, I want to send you an article like not to give you homework, and I don't expect you to necessarily read it, but I want to say an article called what does that? I wrote called what does God feel Like? I'd love to

read that and tell people where they can find it. Oh, you can just google us my name Scott bar Kaufman, what does God feel Like? And the article should show up in Google. We can all read it. Yeah, I love that, so everyone can read it. Yes, please please.

The research is interesting that you're finding because it's just that that spirituality is a domain general mechanism, and you're distinguishing it from religion, from specific ideologies, so being able to pull apart ideology from the spiritual module that we all share as a human humanity is actually quite revolutionary. I mean, that's how many thousands of years of humanity has that no one pulled those things apart. You know, people,

how many wars have people fought over? You know, whose spiritual center is getting the right messages and who's getting the wrong ones from which source? You know, as opposed to we all got that part of the brain. You know, this is revolutionary. There is one spiritual brain and we all have it exactly. So the universal language is numbers, right, that's all the world. And what do we know from science? We know that the capacity for spiritual awareness is our birthright.

There's an innate spiritual brain in every one of us. Religion is the gift of our ancestors, our community, the books we read. It is environmentally transmitted. Now, for two thirds of people in the United States, their natural spirituality is embraced by the en environmentally transmitted religious tradition of their family and one which they discover, but the religious tradition that may help support mold guide their natural spirituality

is a gift of environment. Spirituality is in every one of us, and a third of people in the United States will say I'm spiritual, but I am not religious. I am spiritually aware in nature when I'm with my family with music and art, creativity, artists, Yes, totally, totally. Creating is often a spiritual experience for people, you know, in general, and creating our lives right as you say, and key to our lives. Yeah, yeah, and absolutely key to our lives. Yeah. It's a way of being. Yeah, yes,

a way of being. And so too is natural spirituality exactly where the most powerful part of our brain is receptive because how many people focus on the doing part of that stuff, you know what I mean? And that's it makes my eyes roll sometimes. So Scott, I want to emphasize the point that you shared. I think it's

very important. But if one spiritual brain ergo, religious war is incredibly outdated, and it is such a joy to share this science all around the world where either religions are not getting along or we don't do religion here or whatever. We all have a spiritual brain and it is allowing us to return to our nature, which is the open system, the oneness with all life. Yes, yes, quotes you're saying religious war is outdated. That is the best quote in like the history of humanity. You just

gave him my favorite quote of all of humanity. So no big deal. My willing that is that is our fate right, religious war is outdated? Yes, yes, so incredible because you know, also like Andrew Newberg's work. I don't know if you ever collaborated with him, you know, yes, and you know there's there's a a cadet of reason

boy as well. Yes, yes, And I've I've published papers on him on the on the creative brain, and it's lots of similar regions and things and some differences, and so you know, the default mode network is is that's actually an interesting sort of thing. I've been trying to reconcile between the creativity literature and the spirituality literature. If you really want to nerd out with me, is that a lot of people in the like the mindfulness world or whatever they they they they like treat the default

mode network as though it's the enemy. And then in the creativity world it's considered the best things in sliced bread, you know, And obviously you know, no brain network is all good or all bad at all times and no times. Obviously, However, those literatures tend to be separate from each other. And I've been trying to argue that there are times when it's profound, quite profound to keep that default network active and really dive into your yourself narratives and your meaning

making aspects. And then there are times when it's good to transcend it. But it's but it's not the enemy or or the angel. Well, I think you put that. Well, there's different moments in a creative process or a spiritual process, and there are times, you know, when I'm speaking about the spiritual brain, I'll say, we may want to quiet our brain so that we might then across the threshold

into an awakened state where we receive inspiration. If I'm thinking about creativity, there's times to quiet in times where you've got to keep that working on the back burner and bam, then it comes right. So I think a great project for us all is to sit down and do a mapping. Yes, human transcendent experience as a process. I love this. I love this, just like they've done

with the creative process. Yeah. No, that makes so much sense, so much since I've been talking to researchers in the field who study the neuroscience of like mindfulness, like Judson Brewer, and have tried to put together panels of my creativity

colleagues and him discussing how to reconcile these findings. You know, but I think that the process model is going to be the best way of thinking about it because and the systems systems way of thinking, because I don't like how the field this is like my pet peeve and so you're activating in my pet peep right now, is how the field tends to be treat as though they're like it's either all good or all bad at all times, right or no times like the psilocybin research, right, like

Michael Pollin's book The whole triumphant narrative was his book is that he quieted the default mode network. And I was like, oh, hell no, why is that like the ultimate in life is that you quieted the default mode network. That really like upset me because I think that's not the most complex, nuanced narrative we can have about the neuroscience of it, do you know what I mean? It makes for a good story, but it doesn't make for a truthful nuance of the importance of that brain network

for a full, meaningful life. It's so told from the level of experience. There's times to quiet our brain. But then I would say, so that we might then receive. So, you know, stop the racket. The check clear. What did he say to me? You know, stop the racket, so that we then might allow the muse to visit hear God's voice. That notion of a receptive faculty is more than just silence. It's not quiet in the brain. It's a prepared stance in being to receive. So you know,

I've been to school, Scott. It's so beautiful where I've seen middle school boys get into a state of what that scho we'll call the spasio as their recept transcendent practice. Seventh grade boy closes his eyes and what is God telling me? Now? What is my higher power? Whether it's Jesus, hash allowed the universe, force spirit? What is being said to me? Now? Can we do a practice? Yes? Is that? Okay? Yes? Please? Okay,

this is a practice. I always honor the teacher from whom it came, doctor Gary Weaver, who was a man who worked with court referred boys the ways that no one else wanted to work with. And the third time that these boys went before the judge, they had a choice of going to grown up prison or they could go out into the moab the desert with doctor Weaver, who loved these boys. These boys had been terribly abused and no longer had a connection to their higher power.

There had been spiritual injury, you know, and moral injuries. When the world as we know it doesn't hold spiritual injury. More foundationally is when we feel unworthy before God, or we can connect to our higher power, or we no longer feel open system to all life. He knew with all the science now you know thirty years later mirrors, which is at the heart of trauma, is a damaged capacity to be in relationship to God and all life

to system. And he brought these boys into the desert to help, which is what I find so valuable, help renew and reverse their spiritual injuries so that they could grow. We're going to do practice. Let's do it. Just you got me excited, Okay, let's do so. I'm going to invite you to clear out your inner space and close your eyes. Take seven breasths to open up your inner space. Sounds like screaming in the background. Those are peacocks. What is that? At the moment, I'm in I'm in Miami

and I live with peacocks. Incredible. Now we have to start over. Five. I invite you to set before you a table. This is your table, and to your table you may invite anyone living or deceased who truly has your best interest in mind, anyone living or deceased who truly has your best interest in mind, and with them,

while sitting there, ask them if they love you. And now you may invite your higher self, the part of you that is so much more than what you have or don't have, what you've done or not done, your true eternal higher self, and ask you if you love you. And now, finally you may invite your higher power, whatever word you may know, however you understand your higher power, and ask your higher power if they love you. And now, with all of those people sitting there right now, what

do they need to share? What do you need to know? What do they need to tell you? Now, when you're ready, I invite you back. Wow, amazing, this is your counsel and they're always there for you. Incredibly powerful practice. What incredibly powerful practice. I don't know if I can continue this interview right now. I'm going to address you. Put both feet in and really the journey right you chose to explore that. I will say that this is our birthright.

Those are real relationships. Our natural seat of transcendent relationship is loving and holding, It is guiding, and we are never alone. Oh my gosh, I just want to thank you so much for coming on my podcast today and enlightening everyone about how they can be more enlightened. I loved every minute of it, and thank you for this deep connection. Thank you, thank you. Thanks for listening to

this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at thus ecology podcast dot com or on our YouTube page thus Ecology Podcast. We also put up some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show, and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.