A Stroke Leads a Brain Scientist to a New Spirituality

There's a nice story in the NYTimes on Jill Bolte Taylor, the brain scientist whose stroke enabled her to experience her right brain almost in isolation. (See also my earlier post about her.) She has become quite a celebrity. Here are some extracts.

“I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world, and the more peaceful our planet will be.” …

Dr. Taylor shows the less mystically inclined … that this experience of deep contentment “is part of the capacity of the human mind.” …

Although her father is an Episcopal minister and she was raised in his church, she cannot be counted among the traditionally faithful. “Religion is a story that the left brain tells the right brain,” she said. …

Her message, that people can choose to live a more peaceful, spiritual life by sidestepping their left brain, has resonated widely. …

On Web sites like evolvingbeings.com and in Eckhart Tolle discussion groups, people debate whether she is truly enlightened or just physically damaged and confused.

A discussion among people seeking enlightenment debating whether Taylor is "truly enlightened or just physically damaged and confused" strikes me as particularly ironic. Taylor's whole point is that it's possible to stop forcing one's view of the world to conform to such rigid left brain categories.