The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain: A Neurologist’s Search for the God Experience

Inspired by his 30 years as a doctor collecting stories of near-death experiences as well as his personal experience, the author examines the stories of people who have reported out-of-body experiences. Those experiences are described in a variety of ways: as a sense of flying a jet aircraft, or walking on the beach, or watching the universe synchronize with a ball bouncing in a pinball machine. Nelson spends a great deal of the book examining dynamics of the brain and how memory functions; he includes chapters on sleep and taking drugs. He presents the brain as a “spiritual organ” full of wisdom. “The borderlands of spiritual experience affect a very special expression of consciousness, the sense of our individual self—the first person perspective of the ‘me’ which is, except in rare cases, where most of us live,” he writes. This book presents a number of diverse occurrences but will not touch the nerve of the spiritual reader. (Jan.)