Neuroscience Cannot Encompass And Explain Mystical Experiencing

Wednesday, 25 June 2025, 12:46 pm
Opinion: Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Neuroscientists are discovering more and more how the human brain works, even as they understand less and less the mind in meditation.

For example, “aphantasia” refers to an apparently inherited neurological condition in which the person with this condition has no “mind’s eye.” Simply put, some human brains appear to not create and traffic in images.

Einstein had the opposite condition – hyperphantasia. His famous thought experiments regarding the speed of light and its relationship to time were intimately connected to an acute ability to visualize complex physical scenarios in his mind’s eye.

For example, he saw himself riding along a beam of light, which gave him the insight that the speed of light is constant, regardless of the observer’s motion. This led to the development of special relativity.

The point is that the mind’s eye can and does play an important part in science, art and everyday life. However just as the map is not the territory, what is visualized in the mind’s eye is not what is, which requires direct perception in the moment.

Many philosophers maintain direct perception isn’t possible, that humans are unavoidably “hermeneutical” creatures -- meaning that we always interpret experience, and never directly experience what is.

That’s false however, and to robs us of the greatest capacities of the human brain: the capacity to see things as they are and be openly aware of the numinous.

Indeed, with respect to relationship to nature and others, having an image of a flower or a person is the meaning of seeing “through a glass darkly.”

So are people with aphantasia any more prone to meditative states than “neurotypical” people, in whom words and images typically inundate the mind and brain?

Probably not. People with aphantasia have the same feelings from their experiences as neurotypical people; they just don’t “amplify them later through mental imagery,” but retain memories of prior experiences through other means, such as sound or smell.

Amplification of prior experiences in any way contrasts sharply with the art of methodless meditation. A complete, temporary cessation of memory, words and images occurs when sufficient unwilled and undirected attention gathers in the brain through passive awareness. The state of stillness of thought in all its functions allows the brain to be imbued with direct perception of the intrinsic wholeness and holiness of the earth and the cosmos.

It’s essential to understand what science can and cannot do. Neuroscientists believe that the scientific study of the human brain can encompass and explain mystical experiencing, but that’s false. Naturally occurring meditative states cannot be studied, reduced and encoded into knowledge, since they arise from passive awareness and all-inclusive attention.

In short, mystical experiencing means the ending of the known, and knowledge must be set aside for stillness and silence to spontaneously occur.

The scientist studying any phenomenon is necessarily separate from the phenomenon s/he studies. That defines the inherent limits of science, and of knowledge itself.

Therefore it’s hubristic of scientists to assert, explicitly or implicitly, that their observations, machines and theories supersede experiencing meditative states and mystical experiencing.

Indeed, to the extent that scientists put their knowledge before the attentive stillness of the mind, they contribute to the fragmentation of humanity and the earth.

Can a scientist who studies the brain also bring about meditative states within him or herself?

Certainly, though he or she would understand that doing science and awakening meditative states are two completely different modes of being. Clearly, the scientific mind must leave off for the authentically religious mind (that is, without beliefs) to be.

So there’s no insurmountable barrier to being both an adept meditator and an expert scientist. However science and knowledge have to take a backseat to actually experiencing the wholeness and holiness of nature and the cosmos.

Speaking personally, I have a strong tendency toward both meditative states and mental imagery, though there is no urge or desire to amplify mystical experiences later through mental imagery.

Why? Brain scans looking for circuitry that give rise to hyperphantasia suggest that mental imagery emerges from a network of brain regions that talk to each other. However, in the meditative state, brain regions cease talking to each other as the mind effortlessly grows quiet.

The brain neither records meditative states or mystical experiences in any detail, nor gives rise to the desire to amplify them later through mental imagery, since it’s clear that doing so prevents them from occurring anew.

In short, there’s no crosstalk between different regions of the brain when the brain as a whole is passively and holistically aware of the movement of images, words, memories, knowledge and emotions as they arise.

That’s meditation as I understand and practice it. It gives rise to non-directed attention, which effortlessly quiets the mind and opens the brain to the background silence of the universe and the sacredness of life.

Martin LeFevre

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Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Scoop Contributor

Martin LeFevre is a contemplative and philosopher.

His sui generis “Meditations” explore spiritual, philosophical and political questions relating to the polycrisis facing humanity.

lefevremartin77@gmail