How Enlightenment Changes Your Brain: The New Science of Transformation

Description

In this original and ground-breaking book, Dr Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman turn their attention to the pinnacle of the human experience: enlightenment. Through his brain-scan studies on Brazilian psychic mediums, Sufi mystics, Buddhist meditators, Franciscan nuns, Pentecostals and participants in secular spirituality rituals, Newberg has found the specific neurological mechanisms responsible for an enlightenment experience - and how we can activate those circuits in our own brains. In his survey of more than one thousand people who have experienced enlightenment, Newberg has also discovered that in the aftermath they have had profound, positive life changes. Enlightenment offers us the possibility to become permanently less stress-prone, to break bad habits, to improve our collaboration and creativity skills, and to lead happier, more satisfying lives. Relaying the story of his own transformational experience as well as including the stories of others who try to describe an event that is truly indescribable, Newberg brings us a new paradigm for deep and lasting change.

Dr Andrew Newberg is the director of research at the Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Medical College. He is the author of several books, including the bestselling Why God Won't Go Away. www.andrewnewberg.com Mark Robert Waldman is on the faculty at Loyola Marymount University's College of Business, where he teaches the NeuroLeadership programme. He is a business and personal development coach and the author of 12 books, including Why We Believe What We Believe and Words Can Change Your Brain, co-authored with Newberg. www.markrobertwaldman.com

'A scientist explains why we're hard-wired to need spirituality.' -- The Daily Telegraph