Spirituality
Another useful section is the “User’s Guide” which has a listing of books, websites research institutes that may be a resource for people who want to know more about this topic.
The Biology of Belief
Excerpt from Time Magazine 2/23/2009
Most folks probably couldn't locate their parietal lobe with a map and a compass. For the record, it's at the top of your head — aft of the frontal lobe, fore of the occipital lobe, north of the temporal lobe. What makes the parietal lobe special is not where it lives but what it does — particularly concerning matters of faith.
If you've ever prayed so hard that you've lost all sense of a larger world outside yourself, that's your parietal lobe at work. If you've ever meditated so deeply that you'd swear the very boundaries of your body had dissolved, that's your parietal too. There are other regions responsible for making your brain the spiritual amusement park it can be: your thalamus plays a role, as do your frontal lobes. But it's your parietal lobe — a central mass of tissue that processes sensory input — that may have the most transporting effect.
The Science of Mind
In the early 1900s Ernest Holmes, a lecturer in metphysics, founded The Science of Mind and Philosophy. Holmes was egar to talk about all the books he had been reading and wanted people to realize that there was a universal truth that threaded its way through all the great religions, mystics and philosophers. The fundamental premise of the philosophy was "Change your thinking, Change your life." This expressed both the early understanding of the unconscious mind and the ability to change the "programming" and the greater spiritual principle that we are all connected, are using a part of one great mind, Universal mind.
Eventually, Holmes developed a universal philosophy for spiritual living that explores the understanding of the human's relationship to or with the universe. The religions emerging in the late 1700's through the early 1900s emphasize the existence of a higher universal power or force in an through everything. It expresses the concept that every individual can create their own reality via meditation and prayer. At the heart of Spiritual Mind Treatment (affirmative prayer) is the understanding that our beliefs are demonstrated in the world around us, as the world relates to us. To change our circumstances we must change our beliefs.
Other core Science of Mind concepts include a belief in the continuity of the individual soul as well as a belief that conditions and circumstances in our lives are controlled through the power of the Universal Mind and that healing of the sick can occur through the power of this Mind. Some adherents believe in reincarnation while others do not. Sin is looked upon as an activity that produces undesirable results in our lives, rather than punishment for wrongdoing. Heaven and hell are states of mind, rather than actual places, Religious Scientists say. Science of Mind neither affirms nor denies the divinity of Jesus, but views all humans as divine children of God.
