Today’s Science and Spirituality will be presented in French and English, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Inquiring viewers, today on Science and Spirituality, we present an interview with Canadian director, writer, and film professor at the University of Montreal, Canada Dr. Isabelle Raynauld, regarding her film “Mystical Brain”, the 2008 winner of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television’s Prix Gémeaux, or Gemini Prize, in the best nature and science documentary category.

“Mystical Brain” follows a group of researchers from the University of Montreal as they conduct a study into the role of the brain in transcendental experiences, sometimes called “communion with God” or “samadhi,” that occur during prayer or meditation. The study participants were nuns from the Carmelite Catholic order.

The film also covers the work of neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA who has also done similar work with Tibetan Buddhist monks. Dr. Raynauld, who is the winner of the 2002 Jutra Award for “Best Documentary” and a two-time recipient of the Prix Gémeaux, now shares how she first became interested in creating this film.

I had been wanting to make a film about the brain for many, many years. I’m interested in what is inside human beings. So now we have MRI technology, and we can actually look at how the brain functions, I thought, “Okay, now I can finally have a visual image, and a colorful one, of the changes that happen in the brain, depending on what we’re thinking about, how we’re feeling and all that.” So I had been thinking about that for quite a while.

And then a producer from the National Film Board of Canada, Colette Loumède, called me up and said, “I would really like to work with you,” and that’s exceptional, we usually have to chase the producers. So I was so amazed by her trust; I went in to see her. And then I gave her three subjects that I wanted to work on, including the one about the brain.

And she picked that one. And the reason she picked it is that it had a spiritual aspect to it. Because basically between the time she called me and the time we met, I came across Mario Beauregard’s research. He’s a colleague here at the University of Montreal. I didn’t know him, but we have an internal journal here at the university. So I read an article about him, about his research, and at that time he was studying brain activity of Carmelite nuns.

So I thought, “Wow, what an amazing double, the chance to go inside!” Because for me that’s what I’m interested in is what people really feel inside; what they really think. And the other thing that I really was curious about is the soul. Do we have a soul? Where does it go after death? Are there souls floating around us? I’m very interested in that.

I believe that there are traces of souls when people die. What is the relationship between our souls and our brain activity? Do our souls die when our brains turn themselves off? And (what is) the difference between brain, mind, and consciousness?

Although she realized that producing such a documentary would be challenging, Dr. Raynauld was excited by the opportunity. I always choose subjects that will permit me to learn something. I didn’t know anything about neurosciences and I thought, "Okay this will challenge me enough, keep me busy." So it’s a film where I discovered many things. I learned a lot and I’m really glad I made it.

Let us now view some excerpts from her documentary, "Mystical Brain."

The Mystical Brain A film by Isabelle Raynauld

Hallo, Sister Denise? It’s extremely difficult to convince the Carmelites, who are cloistered Sisters, to leave their convent and participate in this sort of study, although there are differences between the Carmelite orders. At first, they laughed a bit at our naivety. They said obviously we were not going to find God in the brain. What interests us above all is how the brain reacts during prayer.

Was God created by the brain or did God create the brain to use it? In fact, these are interesting philosophical questions.

It’s very exploratory; we have no idea what we’ll find.

Where are you taking me?

To the anechoic chamber it’s a laboratory where we do EEG recordings.

And what is EEG?

It’s a technique called electro-encephalography that allows us to measure the brain’s electrical activity.

This is the soundproof room?

Yes, it’s acoustically insulated from the electromagnetic field. It’s a fine environment to experience union with God.

Very good.

All set?

Good luck. (Thank you.) We’re starting to see slow waves appear.

Here, wow… in the altered state of consciousness of people who meditate, we often see theta activity appear. Theta activity is associated with dreams. It’s a relaxed state, but something is happening in terms of cognition. It’s not easy to maintain a deep concentration on theta activity for a long time. It takes a lot of training to do that.

We will soon return with more excerpts from “Mystical Brain.” Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Science and Spirituality on Supreme Master Television. Our focus today is “Mystical Brain,” a documentary by Canadian director and University of Montreal film professor Dr. Isabelle Raynauld. The film examines the relationship between spiritual experience and the brain.

We now continue with more excerpts from “Mystical Brain.”

We are limited in terms of technology and science. There are certain things that we cannot measure directly with the tools available today. Hence, we can’t measure the soul or things like that. It’s not even certain that the soul has a weight or occupies a volume in space.

So usually we believe soul or self is here, in the heart, in the center of the heart. Now it seems whether the soul can be identified… identified or not, it seems the soul is here, not here.

In science, we speak of correlates, correlations. With mystical experiences, we only speak of correlates and associations. While a Carmelite is having a mystical experience, what part of her brain works the most? That’s all we know.

Our eighth Carmelite.

This allows us to quantify and measure the impact of a mystical experience on the brain. We can now broach these subjects from a scientific point of view.

It’s quite surprising: we attend to physical health, to learn, to improve our external situation. But we hardly attend to the way our mind functions. Yet that’s what determines our quality of experience at each moment. So it’s quite paradoxical that we give it so little time and attention. We lack inner culture on the way the mind works.

And that’s unfortunate, because it’s not mysterious or particularly complicated. It just requires a bit of effort. Of course, training the mind results in certain qualities. Clarity, a sense of serenity, lower vulnerability to external conditions. Go ahead.

Now I’ll attach the Velcro. We’re running late.

Let’s go.

That’s okay?

Yes. That’s good.

Good!

Would you like to come with me? (Okay.)

What exactly are you looking at?

We will observe the regions activated during the “mystical” state and compare that to the “human” state. Same as during the EEG study.

The difficulty with this study is that the magnetic resonance imaging device is very noisy.

The device generates noise levels near 120 decibels. That’s the equivalent of a jet passing by. However, with the techniques we use, we are able to reduce that level until it becomes quite tolerable.

Start human experience, five minutes.

It seems to be going well. She didn’t squeeze the bulb. She’s not saying anything. Everything seems fine. We’ll see if she managed to enter into the experience without being distracted by the noise – we’ll find out. It went well. The experience is less intense, subjectively. She was nonetheless able to enter into union with God.

In our interview with her, Dr. Raynauld kindly gave us some fascinating insights into the making of the film.

This documentary depicts real time experiments with living subjects. What special techniques and pre-arrangements where involved in this specific case?

That’s an excellent question; the fact that we were filming Buddhist monks in Wisconsin (USA) and in Montréal, Canada, Carmelite nuns. Of course the first problem we encountered was the fact that the nuns are cloistered and not all of them wanted to be filmed.

So we had two solutions, one was we will film the ones that accept to be filmed, and the others we will just suggest their presence by filming the technology of testing. And I had a real ethical problem that I was concerned with personally, which was that I didn’t want to alter the research results by the presence of my camera, being there live while they were researching.

So we were very careful with both the teams in Canada and in Wisconsin to choose subjects that were willing but that could also feel that they wouldn’t be intimidated by the apparatus. And I was very respectful of not filming during the actual research and interviewing them afterwards and doing a reenactment, not of the whole study, but for example of having the Carmelite nun go inside the MRI.

Actually one of them I filmed right before she went in for real, but another one we just asked her to re- walk into the room. Whereas with the Buddhist monks, with Matthieu Ricard, he was very, very comfortable with the camera, probably because of all those years of meditation.

He has no problem concentrating, and so I interviewed him while he was getting prepped with the electrodes on his head and all that and during the research as well. When they were taking their measurements, I walked out of the room but I was there in-between measurements and afterward, so that I could film the whole process of the research. That’s really important to me. We salute Dr. Isabelle Raynauld as well as those who participated in the making of “Mystical Brain,” a film that thoughtfully explores the relationship between science and spirituality. Next Monday on our program will be the second and final part of our interview with Dr. Raynauld and will feature more excerpts from her documentary.

For more details on “Mystical Brain” or to watch it online please visit: The DVD version of “Mystical Brain” is available at

Thank you, wonderful viewers, for your company on today’s episode of Science and Spirituality. Coming up next is Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News. May you enjoy everlasting peace of mind.

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There’s a lot of diseases caused by smoking. So prevention is the most important factor in the public health.

Iraqi Minister of Health Dr. Salih Mahdi Mutlab al-Hasnawi, honored recipient of the Shining World Leadership Award.

Thank you very much for Supreme Master Ching Hai.

Find out more about Iraq’s role model health efforts, Saturday, May 15 on Supreme Master Television.

Today’s Science and Spirituality will be presented in French and English, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, Croatian, English, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Thoughtful viewers, today on Science and Spirituality, we present part two of an interview with Canadian director, writer, and film professor at the University of Montreal, Canada, Dr. Isabelle Raynauld, regarding her film “Mystical Brain”, the 2008 winner of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television’s Prix Gémeaux, or Gemini Prize, in the best nature and science documentary category.

“Mystical Brain” follows a group of researchers from the University of Montreal as they conduct a study into the role of the brain in transcendental experiences, sometimes called “communion with God” or “samadhi,” that occur during prayer or meditation. The study participants were nuns from the Carmelite Catholic order.

Dr. Raynauld, who is the winner of the 2002 Jutra Award for “Best Documentary” and a two-time recipient of the Prix Gémeaux, now shares how she approached creating this film.

The film also covers the work of neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA who has also done similar work with Tibetan Buddhist monks.

As a director I wanted to keep that freshness, to keep that naivety, to keep my questions open, so that a normal spectator, somebody who doesn’t know much about this topic, could enter the subject and not feel intimidated by the fact that these were quite advanced scientific questions that were posed and in a very scientific context, such as the one at (University of) Wisconsin-Madison with Dr. Davidson’s research and who works with Matthieu Ricard who is a Buddhist monk, quite well known in fact. So it’s a film where I discovered many things, I learned a lot and I’m really glad I made it.

What would be the information you’re trying to convey to the public through this movie ?

It would be the questions that this research poses, that’s important to me. To make academia more accessible, that was very important to me. I wanted to show how researchers function on a day-to- day basis, when they have an idea and they say, “Okay, we’re going to have a research grant to go study Carmelite nuns.”

How do they go about achieving that? So I wanted the spectators to be allowed inside this world of sciences. I wanted to be allowed inside it, and I’m really grateful that the researchers such as Mario Beauregard and (Richard) Davidson, accepted me in their world and answered my questions.

Let us now view some excerpts from her documentary, "Mystical Brain."

Many scientists in the world of neuroscience consider human beings to be biological robots, defined and controlled by electrical and chemical processes in their brains, also defined in large part by genetics, by their genes. That’s a common viewpoint. What we are demonstrating is that’s inaccurate. Human beings are highly complex and sophisticated biological robots. But human consciousness, the mind, is something more than mere electrical or chemical activity in the brain.

How can we take people who are more vulnerable and improve their emotional dispositions? How can we change them to make them more resilient? How can we make people happier? And those are the kind of questions which have been of great interest to us. And that’s where the work in meditation fits in, because meditation is a family of procedures that are really designed to decrease human suffering and to improve wellbeing.

That’s where these concepts of meditation and belief come in, because we in our Western society are so focused on health simply being the absence of disease. But health is much, much more than that.

However this time, we’ll ask you to give us a report, while you are meditating, on the intensity of your experience.

We have been doing research with Buddhist monks and other long-term practitioners. These are individuals who have spent a minimum of 10,000 hours in their life training their mind. And it goes all the way up to about 62,000 hours. So these are the Olympic athletes of meditation. These are the people who are real experts. And it is like studying a chess master.

The work that we are doing, however, is broader than just these long-term practitioners. We are also studying people who are just training to meditate. After just two months of training, there are very robust changes that we see in the brain, as well as in the body, that are positive.

Scientists have already found spectacular differences between beginners and experienced meditators. But it has not yet been shown that this is actually the result of meditation. So it’s important for us that in the next step, we succeed in following over time the changes induced by meditation.

Now you’ll have plenty to do. The cerebellum is still visible. (Yes.) It’s intriguing. So far, we’ve done 14 out of 15 subjects. So these are not quite the final results. But they’re pretty close. That’s straight in the insula.

The regions that stand out are linked to the emotions.

Yes, that was one of our questions.

When we return, we will continue with our excerpts from “Mystical Brain,” and will have more from our conversation with the director, Dr. Isabelle Raynauld. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Science and Spirituality on Supreme Master Television. Our focus today is “Mystical Brain,” a documentary by Canadian director and University of Montreal film professor Dr. Isabelle Raynauld. The film examines the relationship between spiritual experience and the brain. Dr. Raynauld now speaks about two of the main scientists who appear in the film.

What I liked about Mario Beauregard is that he was very honest about what motivated him to do this research. He was also very, I think lucid, about the limits of what he was trying to test. And he had an assistant who is now a doctor in neurosciences, Vincent Paquette who was also very generous and open about explaining to the camera what they’re trying to do and just being completely honest about the results.

And with Dr. Davidson, what I found really interesting is that he had the capacity, because he has a lot of funding, to test his Buddhist monks over many, many years. And really explore in-depth how the meditation affected their brain and how the technique of empathy could alter the brain’s chemistry, so that was really fascinating.

We now feature more excerpts from “Mystical Brain.”

This is where we present, every year or every other year, our most interesting, hottest results.

How many people are you expecting?

Well, especially… from 32,000 to 38,000.

People from what countries?

All over. All over the world.

Ours will be the only poster about spirituality.

That’s for sure!

We presented the preliminary results for seven Carmelites.

Right there I use what we call a mysticism scale.

I’m a journalist with Science & Vie

Mental activity per se can influence the brain.

And this very poster, and many posters of a similar kind, will be evidence to support the theory. And that’s the kind of non-reductionist approach that Professor Beauregard and I find particularly conducive to the wellbeing of society.

At that very moment that they are experiencing, like the maximum peak of this mystical experience, how do you know that that very moment, everything that you are showing is happening?

We asked them to perhaps give us a sign. But they told us that if they would do that it would break their state. They would get out of the state. So it’s very difficult.

So it’s hard. It’s hard.

Oh, it’s very hard to test like that. (I know.) It’s a one shot deal, because for them it’s very difficult to do this.

Is it really? (Oh yes.)

It’s a great challenge for us to study something that is very difficult to get a hold of. It’s much easier for us to take a brain picture of somebody moving their finger, and we can say, “Okay we see the motor cortex.” That’s easy.

But when somebody is doing mediation or prayer and they have all kinds of wonderful experiences and they feel connected to God and they feel their body having certain feelings, that’s a very complex set of processes going on. And trying to actually understand how that all fits together, both scientifically and spiritually, I think is going to provide us a tremendous amount of information, and a whole new way of thinking about who we are as human beings.

This fascinating documentary has attracted widespread interest and attention in Canada. Dr. Raynauld now speaks about audience responses to “Mystical Brain.” When the film came out here, it wasn’t a big theater, but it was full every night. And what was interesting is that in the cinema you had people that came from sciences and people who had spiritual activities themselves, whether they were nuns or people who did meditation.

So we had an excellent dialogue after each screening about the relationships between science and religion and science and spirituality; about the coherence or non-coherence that we can find in between the two fields, and that fascinated me.

So I’m very excited to know that this film is gaining interest and momentum because that’s why we make movies. I want to touch people. If my work can touch people and resonate in them as having some part of truth, regarding their personal experience of life, well I’ll be a happy girl.

Do you think that movies we produce and watch have a role to play in the world’s spiritual progress?

I hope so. I think that spirituality and our ways of seeing life, our ways of perceiving what’s good and bad in our lives has to go through a personal experience. I think that real change for human beings can only be achieved if what they’re seeing on the screen, resonates with a personal experience that they can identify with.

If we can make films that touch people in their personal experience or open, broaden their understanding or point of view on a certain topic, well then I think movie making is really worth it.

Our gratitude goes to Dr. Isabelle Raynauld for bringing the world an excellent film that helps us better understand the connection between mind, body, and spirituality. May her fine filmmaking continue to uplift our world in the future.

For more details on “Mystical Brain” or to watch it online please visit: The DVD version of “Mystical Brain” is available at

Thank you, wonderful viewers, for your company on today’s episode of Science and Spirituality. Coming up next is Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News. May our planet always be united by love.