Postmaterialist Psychology Has Arrived

Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable. - O. Wilde

I picked up a copy of Lisa Miller’s The Awakened Brain (2021) because of a longstanding interest in the mystical and the transcendental. The idea that a human being can experience certain egoless states I find appealing and reasonable. Humans are able to identify with social groups, nations, humanity, and life overall. These states of identification can come with feelings of awe and a reduced awareness of personal concerns and worries. As such, these states can foster compassion for and collaboration with others. In an earlier post, I argued that the cultivation and experience of positive emotions can be viewed as a spiritual matter (Krueger, 2009). With this orientation, conversations about spirituality may proceed without the need of intractable and untestable metaphysical assumptions.

I was well aware at the time that the project of spirituality, lively pursued at the fringes of scientific conventionality, would stubbornly seek entry into the mainstream, science-based discourse on what we can expect from nature. This is where Miller comes in. Miller is a professor at Columbia University, who has published evidence-based articles on the relationship between religious and spiritual beliefs on the one hand and psycho- and brain pathology on the other. In The Awakened Brain, Miller recounts her personal and professional journey, which began with training in psychoanalysis and cognitive therapy and led to an embrace of shamanism.

Miller’s best-known research is the finding that self-reported importance of religion is correlated with cortical thickness in some brain regions (Miller et al., 2014). These findings prompted speculation about the benefits of meditation, mindfulness, and general sensory openness. Clear causal conclusions, as the authors noted, could not be drawn, let alone conclusions regarding behavioral recommendations. Interestingly, behaviors of religious observance were unrelated to cortical thickness.

Miller lodges some reasonable and important complaints about clinical practice, especially in hospitals and clinics where sufferers of modest means come looking for help. The psychiatric profession, she observes, all too often adheres to a limited, mechanistic, and ultimately dehumanizing model. The care of patients often degenerates into a matter of management and warehousing. For these reasons, The Awakened Brain can be, in my opinion, a rewarding read.

As I read on, however, I became increasingly troubled by the author’s lack of restraint. If conventional – what Miller and her peers call “materialist” – science too often fails, what are the alternatives? A decade ago, Miller and colleagues published an 18-point “Manifesto for a postmaterialist science” (Beauregard et al., 2014). This manifesto calls for a paradigm shift on the grounds of the claim that conventional science blinds itself to a host of important phenomena that are presumably demonstrable with conventional scientific methods (e.g., experimentation and statistical analysis), yet are inexplicable in materialist (or rather, standard physical, chemical, biological, or psychological) terms. Among these phenomena, the manifesto lists mind effects on matter, PSI, consciousness while dead, and communication with the dead (although this may be limited to specially-talented mediums – and only when skeptical observers are not watching). Most far-reaching is the claim that mind is not produced by brain matter, but rather that it is the receptor of input from a larger, collective, and perhaps universal MIND.

Conventional scientists will say that these claims have been sufficiently refuted if they are not prima facie absurdities, so that continued criticism and review becomes tedious. Yet, advocates of these unconventional views continue to publish reviews of supportive meta-analyses and collections of stories (Beauregard et al., 2018). They will, in my estimation, continue to denounce the conventional framework of science as dogmatic and ideological, implying that there is an oppressive interest in keeping dualist and nonmaterialist ideas out of the discourse. At the same time, these advocates never tire of claiming that as early as 100 years ago, quantum physics validated their position. Perhaps. Schrödinger’s cat, it seems to me, still lies in the trunk, waiting to be brought to life – or death – by those who know how to look.

Miller, it seems, knows how to look at life in a new way. She liberally shares astounding personal experiences, such as being shown by a gaggle of honking geese how to avoid capsizing her kayak and being asked by her yet unconceived child whether she really wanted her in this world. I emphatically do not doubt the psychological reality of these experiences. They are indeed a testimony to what the human mind can conjure. I do doubt, however, that such experiences count as evidence for a non-materialist aspect of nature.

Having reported results from her Columbia laboratory, Miller has softened up the reader to contemplate some more far-out findings. I found what she describes on page 201 especially striking (the relevant footnote is found on pp. 256-257). After reviewing research on the healing benefits of human touch, published in a prestigious peer-reviewed journal (Goldstein et al., 2018), Miller seamlessly moves on to remote healing. Dr. Jeanne Achterberg, she reports, “used fMRI technology to examine whether healing thoughts sent at a distance might correlate with activation of certain brain functions in the subjects receiving the healing interventions.” They did, nine out of ten times, in this experiment in which the senders were indigenous Hawaiian healers. Whether other senders were tried as controls, I do not know. Nor does Miller report other technical aspects of the study that might be considered before strong inferences are made. The study is more fully described in a book from the publisher Shambhala, which specializes in "books that present creative and conscious ways of transforming the individual, society, and the planet." Miller’s footnote also refers to a paper by Schwartz & Dossey (2010), which reviews claims regarding “nonlocal” causal effects, such as, God help us, prayer. Proponents of nonlocal effects tend to focus on the good ones, forgetting if there were general principles at work, we should not only delight in receiving healing energy but also worry about harming energy. If prayer and blessings worked, so would, by the same logic, spells and curses. Beware of the voodoo you do!

Bumping up against books like Miller’s from time to time during my near 50-year-long journey as a reader of psychological literature has given me more déjà vu moments than I care to remember. I cannot assert with religious confidence that prayer, remote healing, and conversations with the dead (in which the latter talk back) will be definitively disproven. Experience suggests that such claims will continue to be made, though, and that they will be believed because they are cool and comforting. They also stroke the ego of the inner rebel. If one of these claims should earn the stamp of scientific respectability, today’s believers can assert that they were early adopters. Until then, they are visionaries. Literally. Alas, believers must ask themselves how much they are willing to stake. Will they hire a remote healer before consulting an MD and not just after the good doctor has failed? It can’t hurt, right?

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Postscript: Here is an example of a blog post that quotes the present essay without attribution and cheerfully declares that postmaterialist psychology has a solid foundation. The forever hopeful will see possibility where none exists, confuse possibility with probability, and then accept probability as certainty. Oscar Wilde would understand; Tertullian would be proud.