D'Aquili and Newberg's neurotheology: A hermeneutical problem with their neurological solution

Abstract

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in scientifically understanding the neurological grounds for religious or mystical experiences and two researchers who have focused on this area are Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew B. Newberg. In their work, The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience (d'Aquili and Newberg, 1999), they contend that as a result of a similar-in-kind neurological deafferentation that leads to a dissolution of the sense of ‘self’ and unification with what they term Absolute Being mystical religious experiences can be classified as similar in kind across mystical traditions. In fact, they state that the conceptual description of the mystical state is derivative after the experience and results in the similarity of phenomenological description for these experiences (d'Aquili and Newberg, 1999, p. 165). To the contrary I hope to show that the conceptual framework from within which the mystic views the experience not only colors the experience, but leads to a hermeneutical component that differentiates the phenomenal feel of said mystical experience and that a neurological foundation for this can be found in the notion of the brain as plastic and embodied.