In his new book, Dr. Andrew Newberg argues that our spiritual experiences and sexual being are directly connected.
Newberg, the director of research in the Department of Integrative Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, has demonstrated the link in the underlying biological mechanisms of spiritual and sexual experiences by conducting groundbreaking studies using PET/fMRI brain scans.
After over thirty years of neurological research into how practices such as Tibetan meditation, Christian prayer, and now orgasmic meditation affect the brain, Newberg has written a new book titled Sex, God, and the Brain: How Pleasure Gave Birth to Religion and a Whole Lot More. This latest book serves as a detailed guide on why the two realm of experience are linked neurologically and how to make the most out of that connection.
In an interview on the podcast Armchair Expert, Newberg said:
“The two forces that have kind of guided human history, one is the science technology—the wheel, fire, to iPhones—and then the other is the religious and spiritual, which for all of the issues that religions have had over the years, here we are two, five thousand years after, and they have survived Greece, the Roman Empire, Soviet Union, religions kind of keep going.”
Orgasmic meditation and how it is a spiritual experience
Orgasmic meditation piqued Newberg’s interest because its desired outcome wasn’t a sexual experience. Despite the connotation, a practitioner of this form of meditation seeks to have a deep spiritual experience. This struck Newberg as similar to what he had seen before in Tibetan meditation and Christian prayer.
“Could this be this little missing link that I have been looking for for many, many years, that looks to find a way of bringing together something that has a sexual element with something that has a spiritual element?” Newberg said in an interview with Eros Platform.
He added, “I was very intrigued by the idea that when people were doing orgasmic meditation, the goal was not a sexual experience even though there is the use of that sexual energy.”
Dr. Newberg said that the end goal of orgasmic meditation is “really about a meditative practice, a meditative experience, a spiritual feeling that people get.”
As one of the thirty most influential neuroscientists alive, according to the Online Psychology Degree Guide, Newberg has published over 250 peer-reviewed articles and 14 books. His new bestseller is the culmination of presenting the idea of neurotheology to a broader audience while still being backed by the incredible amount of academic research he has done on the topic.
Neurotheology, the term Newberg coined for his research, attempts to combine “the spiritual and the biological.” Newberg’s research has been crucial for understanding how spiritual experiences and the human body’s functions connect and complement one another.
