| View Larger Image | Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality | Hardcoverby Barbara Bradley Hagerty (Author)
| List Price: | $26.95 | | Price: | $17.79 | | You Save: | $9.16 (34%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Hardcover | | Publisher: | Riverhead Hardcover | | Page Count: | 336 Pages | | Publication Date: | May 14, 2009 | | Sales Rank: | 20,383th |
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FEATURES | - ISBN13: 9781594488771
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
From the award-winning NPR religion correspondent comes a fascinating investigation of how science is seeking to answer the question that has puzzled humanity for generations: Can science explain God? Is spiritual experience real or a delusion? Are there realities that we can experience but not easily measure? Does your consciousness depend entirely on your brain, or does it extend beyond? In Fingerprints of God, award-winning journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty delves into the discoveries science is making about how faith and spirituality affect us physically and emotionally as it attempts to understand whether the ineffable place beyond this world can be rationally -even scientifically-explained. Hagerty interviews some of the world's top scientists to describe what their groundbreaking research reveals about our human spiritual experience. From analyses of the brain functions of Buddhist monks and Carmelite nuns, to the possibilities of healing the sick through directed prayer, to what near-death experiences illuminate about the afterlife, Hagerty reaches beyond what we think we know to understand what happens to us when we believe in a higher power. Paralleling the discoveries of science is Hagerty's own account of her spiritual evolution. Raised a Christian Scientist, she was a scrupulous adherent until a small moment as an adult triggered a revaluation of her beliefs, which in turn led her to a new way of thinking about God and faith. An insightful examination of what science is learning about how and why we believe, Fingerprints of God is also a moving story of one person's search for a communion with a higher power and what she discovered on that journey. |
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Exclusive: Barbara Bradley Hagerty on Fingerprints of God It took me more than a decade to muster the courage to write Fingerprints of God. The seed was planted on June 10, 1995, when I was reporting a story for the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine about evangelical churches. Kathy Younge and I were sitting on a bench outside Saddleback Church. She told me that her melanoma had returned after a remission, and she believed that the disease was not meant to kill her, but to give her a transcendent purpose. As we talked, the night darkened to indigo. The streetlamp next to our bench cast a perfect circle around us, creating the eerie sense that we were actors on a stage. The temperature had dropped into the 50's. I was shivering but pinned to the spot, riveted by Kathy and her serene faith. My body responded before my brain, alerting me to some unseen change. My skin began to tingle and my heart started beating a little faster. Imperceptibly at first, the air around us thickened; it grew warmer and heavier, as if someone had moved into the circle and was breathing on us. I glanced at Kathy. She had fallen silent mid-sentence. Neither of us spoke. Gradually, and ever so gently, I felt engulfed by a presence I could feel but could not touch. After a minute, although it seemed longer, the presence melted away. We sat quietly, while I waited for the earth to steady itself. I was too spooked to continue with the interview, and a few minutes later I was driving back to my hotel room. But I could not shake the questions. Was that experience a delusion, or was it real? Is there a spiritual reality that exists beyond our everyday physical world? Is there evidence of God? Not just people’s beliefs, but hard, scientific evidence? And most basic of all: Is there more than this? For a decade, I looked for books that would answer these questions. Finding none, I decided to investigate the only way I knew how – as a journalist. In 2006, I took a year-long leave of absence from National Public Radio to research the emerging science of spirituality. I spoke with dozens of prominent scientists who are bushwhacking through this controversial territory, often drawing the ire or ridicule of their colleagues who believe that everything can be explained by material means. In the meantime, I took a journey peppered with surprises and ridiculous situations. I traveled to Canada and donned the "God helmet" to see if activating my temporal lobes would unleash an encounter with the "divine." I attended to a peyote ceremony (although, like our former president, I barely ingested) and visited Johns Hopkins University in search of a chemical that would manufacture a mystical experience. I arranged for a minister to have his brain scanned while he prayed at the University of Pennsylvania, and tried to see if I could physically change my own brain through two weeks of meditation at the University of Wisconsin. And I spent endless hours with people who had enjoyed dramatic spiritual experiences. Some had had spontaneous mystical experiences, right out of the blue. Some transcendent moments were triggered by a trauma, others by drugs, or epilepsy, or near-death experiences. Some people spent hundreds of hours in prayer and meditation to cultivate the ability to connect with the divine. I confess that my exploration was not an entirely clinical. I was raised a Christian Scientist, and while I now consider myself a serious mainstream Christian, I have always believed in the presence and power of God. At the beginning I nursed a nagging concern that perhaps this God business is just a ruse, self medication in the face of certain death. I fretted that science would prove that all mystery, all transcendent experience, can be boiled down to brain chemistry and genetics. What I found—well, you’ll have to see. But I can say this: By the end of my research, I had redefined God and my view of reality. And perhaps at the end of the book, you will too. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 22 reviews)
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Well written, worth reading by Lee Allingham (San Carlos, CA)  4 Stars
October 03, 2009
In search of spirtuality and the essence of God, this book is definitely worth investigating. Well written and enjoyable. Some readers discount the author's own bias, but I rather enjoyed it. After all, she is human and she cannot possibly omit her own belief when writing a book such as this. The fact that she is spirtual and seeking has led her to do such a thorough research and ask poignant questions that many of us also ponder. I applaud her work.
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Most Readable and Balanced Book on the Science of Spirituality by Mommy Mystic (Los Angeles, CA)  5 Stars
September 15, 2009
I follow a lot of research in the field of neurotheology - science as it relates to spiritual experience - and overall I think this is the most informative, enjoyable, and balanced read out there on it. The author covers dozens of areas of research, and this could quickly become mind-numbing, but she intersperses it with her own personal spiritual journey, with interviews with the subjects of this research - many of whom tell of their own powerful mystic experiences - and with interviews with the scientists themselves, who are equally fascinating. So the book reads as more of a narrative, and the research is effectively 'broken up' with moving personal accounts. And I think the author gives both materialist/reductionist scientists and devout religious 'believers' equal credence and time, which is very rare.
I didn't see an overview of the research she covers in the other reviews, so for those interested here it is:
- Psychological research into individuals who have literally transformed their lives after a spontaneous mystic experience - particularly those who have recovered from addictions, or other self-destructive behaviors.
- Research into the efficacy of prayer, particularly mass intercessory prayer, and theories about the vastly different results various studies on this appear to have yielded.
- Genetic research into what genetic differences might be present in those drawn to spiritual practice or prone to spiritual experience, i.e. whether there is an inherited predisposition for spirituality.
- Research into how psychedelic drugs work on the brain, what chemicals are triggered during spiritual experiences brought on by these drugs, and possible chemical similarities to individuals who have similar experiences without the use of drugs.
- Studies of methods designed to methodically trigger spiritual experience by stimulating different parts of the brain.
- Research into epileptic seizures, and how and why the resulting brain changes often trigger spiritual experience (in fact, as the author reviews, an amazing number of history's mystics have been written off by scientists as having been epileptic, a theory she explores in depth.)
- Neuroscientific research into the brains of `accomplished' spiritual practitioners - specifically Tibetan Buddhist monks and Franciscan nuns, and the permanent changes in their brain that their spiritual practice has caused.
- Studies on individuals who have had near death experiences (NDEs) and the resulting implications for how science views consciousness.
Thorough, that's for sure! Towards the end she also discusses various descriptions/perceptions of God, and the paradigm shift science is undergoing at the moment in this field. If you are interested in this topic, I highly recommend this book.
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God leaves evidence for the alert among us by Jane C. Keller (Williamsport, Pa) 4 Stars
September 08, 2009
Fascinating -- a personal yet scientific approach to evidence of divine presence. A great read for the skeptical or the convinced.
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Wonderful book by Lynn Bachman Sherman (Vancouver, WA) 5 Stars
July 26, 2009
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the fascinating subject of spirituality and the amazing similarities that people share in spite of their religious views. I thoroughly enjoyed the mix of the author's personal experience and reflection with scientific research. It was a truly wonderful book~
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Read This by Beth C. Rubinstein (Berkeley, CA USA) 5 Stars
July 20, 2009
You just have to read it. So interesting and not challenging to those who have faith in God, etc.
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