SCIENCE, BELIEF, & THE HUMAN BRAIN
Is God In Your Head?
An Evening With Dr. Michael Persinger and Dr. Robert Buckman
Photo Gallery
Event Details
March 10, 2006
MacLeod Auditorium, Med Sci Building (1 King's College Circle), University of Toronto. (Google Map)
Admission:
Adults: $8
Students: $4
Tickets purchased online will be guaranteed for you in advance. Please pick them up after 6 p. m. on the night of the event. If you are unsure about using Paypal, you can order tickets by e-mailing secular.alliance@utoronto.ca or by calling (416) 402-8856; however, you must pick up your tickets by 6:30 p. m. on the night of the event, and they will not be guaranteed.
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New! During the event we'll be raffling off tickets for a trip to Sudbury, where Prof. Persinger carries out his research. We'll cover a round-trip plane trip and a night at a hotel!
"Artificially inducing spiritual experiences: what are the implications?"
Press release, downloadable here (PDF):
Neuroscientist to explain replication of "God Phenomenon"
Is it possible to experimentally stimulate a "spiritual experience" Ñ seeing a dead relative, divine being or aliens or feeling a sense of oneness with the universe? Two noted secularists will tackle that question at "Belief, Science and the Human Brain: Is God All in Your Head?", an event hosted by the Toronto Secular Alliance at 7 p.m. on March 10 at the MacLeod Auditorium, 1 King's College Circle, Toronto.
Professor Michael Persinger, neuroscientist at Laurentian University, and Dr. Robert Buckman, President of the Humanist Association of Canada, will be speaking at the event. Using a special helmet, Persinger's research applies complex magnetic fields to the brain. When the right temporal lobe area is touched by electricity his subjects often report a spiritual experience. Persinger will speak on this as well as the cognitive evolutionary process that led to its development in the brain. This pioneering research has been featured on national television and magazine cover stories.
Dr. Buckman is a medical oncologist at the Princess Margaret Hospital, a well-known television personality who won a Gemini award for his show "Magic or Medicine?" and is the best-selling author of fourteen books. Based on the troubling number of people who claim they would kill if God told them to, Buckman will speak on the implications of the "God phenomenon" in the history of civilization. How does it lead to constructive and destructive group behaviour? Were figures like Joan of Arc God-inspired or simply epileptic? In response, he will argue the central thesis of his book, Can We Be Good Without God Ñ "believe whatever you wish but behave as if there were no supernatural beings to sort out our problems."