Mystical experience — neuroscience and theology

Mystical experiences — the sudden dissolution of the boundary between self and world, the sense of unity with all things, the encounter with a presence or a light that carries unmistakable authority — are among the most widely reported and most poorly understood human experiences. Neuroscience can describe what happens in the brain during such experiences; it cannot determine whether the experience is merely brain activity or whether the brain is, in such moments, a receiver picking up a signal that is really there. The most honest conversation between neuroscience and theology does not claim to resolve this question — it maps the territory with as much precision as possible and holds the mystery with as much honesty as possible.