Power Up Your Brain (32 page)

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CHAPTER 15

SEARCHING FOR
YOUR SOUL

The search for the soul has preoccupied humans for centuries. At first, our ancestors thought the soul had its seat in the heart; later, numerous other organs, including the liver and the spleen, became candidates for housing the soul. Eventually, when we could not find the soul in any of these locations, we decided that it must reside in the head, inside the brain. Yet the ancient Egyptians had little use for the brain: while they carefully mummified all of a deceased person’s organs, they drained the brain by inserting straws through the nasal passage into the cranial cavity and tossed the whole bloody mess away.

Today, most scientists would argue that what we call consciousness is an epiphenomenon, or secondary by-product, of the brain—that is, that the neural circuitry in the brain creates consciousness. In fact, Francis Crick, one of the discoverers of DNA, states in his book
The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search
for the Soul
that everything to be learned about the soul can be found by studying the workings of the human brain. In contrast, shamans are more prone to believe the reverse, that the brain is an epiphenomenon of consciousness, and that consciousness itself utilizes complex evolutionary mechanisms to create the neural circuitry that allows us to become aware of ourselves and the universe.

Perhaps someday we will discover that
both
modern scientists and ancient shamans and mystics were right. Perhaps scientists will discover that, indeed, we are more than a sack of neurons, and perhaps mystics will discover that the brain and the body are both essential elements of consciousness. But what if we did not have to wait for leading scientists and spiritual leaders to pass a verdict on this matter? What if we were to conduct the experiment ourselves?

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD

Science provides answers to the great questions that once could only be answered by religion. When these scientific answers are first discovered, they seem like heresies to the established order. We once believed the world had been created 6,000 years ago, that the Earth was flat, and that our blue-green planet was the center of the universe. When Galileo tried to describe the science behind Copernicus’s discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun, he was sentenced to house arrest for his heresy. Yet, today, everyone accepts that fact that the Earth is not the center of the universe.

Many religions teach that we have a soul that is eternal and undying, even though our physical bodies eventually return to dust. Materialistic scientists would argue that of course, energy and matter cannot be destroyed, and every particle in our bodies will be recycled into rivers, eagles, or cosmic dust.

But the shaman believes that it is possible for each one of us to have the experience of an eternal aspect of ourselves.

Alberto:
Think with Your Heart, Feel with Your Head

I remember the first time I held a human brain in my hands. My friend Brian, a student in medical school, had invited me to join him that evening while he removed the brain from a cadaver that he and his dissection partner had been working on. Brian had the brain to himself, as his partner had passed on the experience, saying that she was going into obstetrics and had little interest in that part of the human anatomy.

The double door at the University of California Anatomy Laboratory
was a ponderous, institutional gray. The sound of its bar lock ricocheted
off cold linoleum. The room was the size of a small warehouse and
blue-gray bright with fluorescent light. There were four rows of Bakelitetopped
tables upon which vague shapes were draped with black rubberized
sheets. The stench of formalin wrinkled my nose. Brian set a
stainless steel hacksaw beside a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and
an empty beer bottle, then slid off the tall stool at the head of his table.