"Appendix: Who am I? The terrible problem of consciousness": P. 253-268.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-273) and index.

Matter matters : religious people are made of molecules too -- God head : the anatomy of religion -- The holy helix : genetically predestined to believe? -- Wholly mad or holy madness? -- Getting out of yourself : an introduction to other states of consciousness -- Finding God in a garden : how psychoactive substances can throw open the doors of perception -- Finding God in the bedroom : the sexuality of spirituality and the spirituality of sexuality -- Finding God in the intensive care unit : near-death and other out-of-body experiences -- Other portals -- Turning on and tuning in : brains as antennae -- Religious experience and the origin of religion -- Angels or demons? The suppression of religious experience -- Breathing God.

"Siberian shamans, whirling sufis and entranced bushmen; hypnotism and magic mushrooms; hymn-singing in the suburbs and ecstatic drumming in the African night; speaking in tongues and UFOs; near-death experiences and epileptic nuns; Neolithic tomb architecture; God-helmets, God-spots and God-genes. What does all this mean for the faithful and the faithless? What does it tell us about what it means to be human? Charles Foster takes us on a fascinating, fast-paced tour through the underworld and overworld of human spiritual experience. He examines the biological basis of religious ecstasy, meditative calm and mythical voyaging to other worlds. And he asks if these experiences tell us anything about the 'truths' that religions so loudly assert"--Publisher's description, p. [4] of cover.

Originally published: London : Hodder & Stoughton, 2010.