I have not yet any experience with it, so I may come back to this theme, but I have recently been looking into the potential of neurofeedback for spiritual development, in particular for training in meditation and self-hypnosis. Neurofeedback (NFB) consists in monitoring brain activity so that the individual can more easily learn how to influence his or her mental state. As such it is a subdomain of biofeedback, which covers the monitoring of various indices of bodily function (such as cardiac function, respiration, perspiration, muscle tensions etc). Biofeedback in turn, as regards its use by individuals at home, so in non-clinical settings, is a subfield of the growing trend towards what is now known as “quantified self“. Quantified self technologies allow for the capture of data regarding bodily functioning and condition with a view to harnessing the powerful goal-driven behavior of the human brain (well described by behavioral economist Dan Ariely).
In this context, I happened upon (to judge by the comments) a rather controversial post by Dr Christian Jarrett, a British psychologist, on Psychology Today (PT) website. Dr Jarrett writes that “Neurofeedback as a clinical tool definitely has a growing evidence base for a range of conditions. However, its use as a form of lifestyle therapy to achieve calm and enlightenment and good moods remains dubious.”
While I keep an open mind on NFB, I felt I needed to point out in the comments that the use of anything at all to achieve spiritual benefits “remains dubious“, if by “dubious” is meant “not empirically demonstrable”. This is intrinsic to spirituality…
Also, while one may perhaps regret, if it is the case, that some people who might otherwise take NFB seriously for demonstrable conditions do not do so because they perceive it as tainted with mystical associations, looked at from the side of those spending money on methods which might bring them spiritual development and not a solution to a specific underlying condition, NO such methods have demonstrable and indiscriminate efficacy. The choice of a method which at least has some scientific grounding to it, even if unproven, may be better than the choice of any of the many other methods which have none at all. If the author is right to dismiss the “spiritual” source of demand for NFB then essentially he is dismissing, it seems to me, spiritual inquiry itself. But then why be concerned with the futility of NFB for spiritual inquiry specifically, if spiritual inquiry itself is necessarily futile?
It seems to me, therefore, that the incorporation of NFB into spiritual training is at least as legitimate as any other practice in the domain of spiritual training. From the standpoint of a spiritual enquirer, Dr Jarrett’s article really does no more than state the obvious: caveat emptor. Unfortunately, much as I might like to, it is rare that I get to use scientific standards to guide choices of spiritual method. At best science may be suggestive. But spiritual inquiry is imperative and we are constrained to use the tools at hand in our choice of methods. Given this fact, NFB seems to me actually rather interesting.
I will post in the comments any reply I might get over on PT.