Does Prayer Shut Off Your Brain?

According to a  study released by researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark, the brain’s executive network—the portion of our neural circuitry devoted to complex problem solving and truth seeking—is less active during certain modes of religious experience, especially those wherein supplicants perceive spiritual charisma in a spiritual leader and receive intercessory prayer. Uffe Schjødt, the study’s  head researcher , is on Aarhus’ religious studies faculty, and in his research, scanned the brains of 20 Pentecostal Christians and 20 non-believers as they listened to prerecorded prayers. In addition to the modified functioning of the believers’ executive networks, Schjødt also found that—at least when induced remotely—the believers’ mental reaction correlated not with the spiritual status of the prayer readers, but with what listeners had been told about them. The “religious experiences” sought after by Schjødt were had by those who believed the recorded voices to be those of faith-healers:

We find that recipients’ assumptions about senders’ charismatic abilities have important effects on their executive network. Most notably, the Christian participants deactivated the frontal network consisting of the medial and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex bilaterally in response to speakers who they believed had healing abilities. An independent analysis across subjects revealed that this deactivation predicted the Christian participants’ subsequent ratings of the speakers’ charisma and experience of God’s presence during prayer. These observations point to an important mechanism of authority that may facilitate charismatic influence, a mechanism which is likely to be present in other interpersonal interactions as well.

Hardened materialists will read this as just another nail in spirituality’s coffin, further egging us on to abandon antique superstitions and the supposed worth of religious experience. But as happens so often, this sentiment is a stretch on the logical limits of science, and draws a conclusion from Schjødt’s study that simply isn’t there. Naturally, there are the usual objections. It’s universally acknowledged that not all perceived religious experiences are real experiences of the transcendent; some are, in fact, self-created. But that fact alone doesn’t get us anywhere; rather, it points us to an assumption in the study’s normative suggestion about religious belief: Whatever experience occurs with a faith-healer originates in the faith-healer himself—not in the supplicant’s personal faith, and that faith’s object. From a theological perspective, of course, it’s the personal faith that matters—not the supposed spiritual power residing  in anyone, faith-healer or not. In other words, the study’s subtle suggestion presumes a godless universe, where science tells the entire story about the nature of spiritual experience. The study’s claim about momentary lapses in skeptical thinking during prayer are not only expected, but have an equally plausible naturalistic explanation, since we so often suspend our skepticism in the presence of those we consider authoritative. Schjødt seems to concede this point in the study, mentioning that we may have  similar reactions to other perceived authorities such as politicians, parents, or doctors. And those authority figures, we might add, command more universal assent than any religious figure, rendering suspect insinuations of dangerous charismatic control by religious leaders.

Aside from the mistake of confusing the descriptive with the normative, Schjødt’s study and others like it can offer Christians useful fodder for thought. On the one hand, the study gives us a good idea of how  not to make the case for faith. Just as a scientific account of religious experience is neither complete nor indicative of atheism, so do theistic arguments from religious experience need metaphysical grounding so as not to come off as quackery. Further, the soft punching bag offered to Schjødt by the Pentecostal test subjects, with their all-or-nothing emphasis on visceral spiritual experience over rational assent to theism, is something Christians can easily avoid. Mother Theresa,  as we recall , lived a life largely void of religious experience, but displayed the essence of faith by carrying on anyway. Not that that will stop atheists from going after the Church’s straw men. It certainly would be interesting, though, to see how Schjødt’s study would conclude were the Pentecostal test subjects replaced with a lineup of popes.