John asked:

Hello. Thank you for this great service.

My question is concerned with understanding why the experience or vision of accepted gods like
Jesus, Buddha, Mohamed, Oden etc. does not occur in pagan cultures or to specific person(s) who
do not believe in such a god. And if it does occur, why does it? I can only think of one documented
example of this in history. (I'm sure there are probably many more?)

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I try not to answer questions like this any more, because I've done it so much... but I'll go for it. Look,
there are nocultures whatsoever where people do nothave "visions", "experiences", "states", etc.,
etc., which are usually termed "mystical" or "religious". None. Zero. Those experiences are universal
to human beings. But, the exact contentof those experiences varies according to the culture, i.e.,
according to the beliefs of the people having them. If you believe in something strongly enough, you
will experience it. I'll repeat that: If you believe in something strongly enough, you will experience it. If
you believe in the god Thor, and you have religious experiences, you will have visions of Thor which
seem utterly real to you. If you believe in Mary Magdalene, you will have visions of Mary Magdalene
which seem utterly real to you. If you believe in Krishna, you will have visions of Krishna. If you
believe in fairies, you will have visions of fairies. If you believe in flying saucers... etc., etc., etc. What I
fail to understand is why people don't see this and say, hey, maybe there's something common to all
this which weare producing from ourselves. Because virtually allthese religious experiences are
utterly incompatiblewith each other. Krishna and Thor cannotexist in the same universe. Yahweh
and Buddha imply totally different cosmologies, characteristics, afterlives... And on, and on, through
the thousandsof different religions that humans have believed in since the dawn of... whatever. Why,
oh why, do I need to go on about this? Isn't it glaringly obvious?

Well, fortunately, there aresome people who have asked this question and are actually researching
the basis of these experiences. Here are some readings:

background:

Eliade, M. 1961. The sacred and the profane. Translated by W. R. Trask, The Cloister Library. New
York, NY: Harper & Row.

Frazer, J.G. 1951. The golden bough: a study in magic and religion. Third ed. New York, NY: The
Macmillan Company.

religion:

Alper, M. 2001. The "God" part of the brain: a scientific interpretation of human spirituality and god.
Brooklyn, NY: Rogue Press.

Azari, N.P., J. Nickel, G. Wunderlich, M. Niedeggen, H. Hefter, L. Tellmann, H. Herzog, P. Stoerig, D.
Birnbacher, and R.J. Seitz. 2001. "Neural correlates of religious experience". European Journal of
Neuroscience13:1649-1652.

Giovannoli, J. 2000. The Biology of belief: how our biology biases our beliefs and perceptionsRosetta
Press, Inc.

Langdon, R., and M. Coltheart. 2000. "The cognitive neuropsychology of delusions". Mind and
Language15 (1):184-218.

Laski, M. 1990. Ecstasy in secular and religious experiences. Los Angeles, CA: Jeremy P. Tarcher,
Inc. Original edition, 1961.

general:

Hines, T. 1988. Pseudoscience and the paranormal: a critical examination of the evidence.Buffalo,
NY: Prometheus Books.

Schick, T., Jr., and L. Vaughn. 1995. How to think about weird things: critical thinking for a new age.
Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company.

Shermer, M. 1997. Why people believe weird things: pseudoscience, superstition, and other
confusions of our time.New York: W. H. Freeman and Co.

Young, A.W. 2000. "Wondrous Strange: The Neuropsychology of Abnormal Beliefs". Mind and
Language15 (1):47-73.

Please read some of these.

Steven Ravett Brown

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