ABSTRACT
Religious experience is very common in the population and there are many studies of mystical or religious experience. There is as yet no explanation of religious experience that satisfies both those who have had the experiences and those who seek a scientific basis for them. The problem for neuropsychiatry is that there appears to be no place in the brain for consciousness or mind. The chapter explains there are many people who, like E. Schrodinger, feel claustrophobic when asked to accept that the broad sweep of the soul is contained only within the grey porridge of the brain. Intra-carotid sodium amytal which puts one hemisphere of the brain to sleep, shows that injection into the left carotid artery in a subject who is singing affects the words, while an injection into the right carotid artery affects the melody.
