0:02

Hi everyone, Dave DiSteno here, host of How

0:05

God Works. We've had a lot

0:07

of new listeners join us over the past year. And

0:10

so, while we're hard at work on our next season

0:12

of the show coming this fall, we

0:14

thought we'd dig into the archives and share a

0:16

few of our favorite episodes. Ones

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that explore some of the biggest, most

0:21

universal questions and challenges in life. And

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we'll do it, as always, through the

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combined lens of spirituality and the

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science behind it. So

0:30

whether these episodes are new to you, or

0:33

offer a chance for further reflection, we hope

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you'll enjoy them. And if you do,

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tell your friends. Our show

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please share it with friends, family, or

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anyone else who you think might enjoy it. We'll

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be back in September with all new episodes

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for season 7 of How God Works. See

0:54

you then. The

1:01

first time Liz Milner heard the voice of God, she

1:04

was a schoolteacher in her early 20s, living

1:06

near London with her husband. And

1:08

they were going through a really tough time in their

1:11

relationship. I made a

1:13

lot of mistakes. I was drifting away from

1:15

my husband. I was unhappy. I

1:17

would say our marriage was on the point

1:19

of breaking apart and dissolving

1:22

at that point. Until

1:24

she took a group of students on a camping trip in

1:26

the north of England, in the dead of

1:28

winter. While there one

1:30

night, she had to get up to go to the bathroom,

1:33

which, when you're camping in the cold,

1:36

can mean a long, unpleasant walk across

1:38

a field. It

1:41

was raining. It was dark. It

1:44

was windy. And I was walking through that field,

1:47

and I

1:51

literally heard the voice of God say,

1:53

Liz, come back to

1:55

me, come back to your husband, come

1:57

back home. for

32:00

the community or not? Yeah, well, that's, you know,

32:02

on the show, we talk a lot about religious

32:04

practices as tools that help people flourish

32:07

in life. And so that does not surprise me

32:09

at all. Where

32:14

do you think belief comes in? That

32:16

is, is it necessary to

32:18

believe in a divine power in

32:21

order to have a profound mystical experience?

32:24

Oh, definitely not. Okay. Definitely not.

32:27

No. And I mean, and this

32:29

is just apparent throughout the data

32:31

that you can dissociate belief

32:33

and faith from mystical experiences,

32:35

even from experiences that people identify as

32:38

sacred in nature. And this is coming

32:40

into even greater focus in the current

32:42

brain mapping work that I'm doing to

32:44

differentiate brain circuits that support dogmatic beliefs

32:47

from the brain circuits that support mystical

32:50

experiences. So there is definitely a difference

32:52

between kind of being creed-oriented and thinking

32:54

about what the tenets of your faith

32:56

are and what your beliefs are versus

33:00

that kind of profound experiential experience

33:02

that sometimes we can't

33:04

put into words. Yeah. Yeah.

33:06

No, again, with the

33:08

data that I'm looking at, with multiple data

33:10

sets, with large sample sizes in these independent

33:13

data sets, it's very

33:15

apparent to me that we're

33:18

localizing these sets of

33:20

beliefs and these sets of experiences to different

33:23

circuits in the brain. You talk

33:25

about something called existential mysticism as

33:28

being essential for humans to

33:30

help them meet a

33:32

lot of the challenges that we face historically,

33:34

but even more so now urgently as

33:37

a society with global reach. What do

33:39

you mean by that? Yeah. When I look

33:41

at a lot of what

33:44

I think are existential crises, meaning

33:46

like threats to our existence as

33:49

a species. So for

33:51

example, just culture conflict, environmental

33:55

catastrophe, I

33:58

see a lot of these types of issues. types

34:00

of existential threats, having the potential

34:02

to be resolved or at least

34:04

be mediated by a

34:08

more widespread appreciation for

34:11

mystical and transcendent experience.

34:14

Part of that is a

34:16

place that I'm coming to from personal

34:18

reflection and personal observation on

34:20

how, as I am more

34:22

connected to my own spiritual life, I do

34:24

tend to have a deeper appreciation for

34:27

nature. I tend to have a deeper

34:30

sense of intimacy and respect for the value of

34:33

all human life. And

34:36

also, as I'm looking at the brain circuits

34:38

that are associated with some of these experiences,

34:40

it's pretty startling to

34:43

me in a positive way of being kind

34:45

of astonished and taken in awe that

34:48

it does seem as if the

34:50

stimulation of these brain circuits that are

34:53

associated with mystical experiences orient individuals

34:55

in more pro-social ways. That's just

34:57

a natural outcome of greater

35:00

levels of cooperativeness, of

35:02

greater levels of compassionate

35:04

regard, of reduced

35:07

inclinations toward violent behavior.

35:11

And so when I talk about this phrase

35:13

like existential mysticism, it's

35:15

the notion that that

35:18

ability to experience

35:22

life and being as something

35:25

that has a very

35:27

transcendent quality to it that we

35:29

can all be intimately connected to

35:32

is something that I see as

35:34

helping to mediate so many of

35:36

the things that really are urgent

35:39

crises in our contemporary society. Hearing

35:44

an invisible entity's voice, feeling

35:46

a divine presence, if

35:49

you haven't experienced it, it can be

35:51

tempting to write it off as a glitch of the mind. And

35:54

for people with a serious mental illness, it

35:56

can be. But for most

35:58

who have experienced it,