Neuroscientist | Author | Entrepreneur | Dreamer | Seeker |
Mona Sobhani PhD
MONA SOBHANI, Ph.D., is a cognitive neuroscientist, author, and entrepreneur. A former research scientist at the University of Southern California, she holds a doctorate in neuroscience from the University of Southern California and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University with the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project. She is co-founder of Pala, a full-stack consulting company that uses behavioral and humane technology design to create consumer software products. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, VOX, and other media outlets. She is the author of Proof of Spiritual Phenomena: A Neuroscientist’s Discovery of the Ineffable Mysteries of the Universe, which details her transformation from a diehard scientific materialist to an open-minded spiritual seeker. In the Brave New World of Psychedelic Science newsletter, she writes about the psychedelic renaissance and consciousness. She lives in Los Angeles, California. https://monasobhaniphd.com
My 10 Best
(In no particular order)
Many Lives, Many Masters
This was the book (alongside a confluence of other life factors) that broke me open to the possibility of a spiritual dimension to life. I first heard of this book on one of Chelsea Handler’s podcasts during an interview episode with psychic medium Laura Lynne Jackson. They were both raving about the book and how everyone needed to read this psychiatrist’s case study. I ordered the book without even reading the description, trusting Ms. Handler’s taste. Dr. Weiss’s impeccable pedigree, atheism, and skepticism balanced the wild and difficult-to-believe stories of past life regression and spirits that the book told. Although it would be a long and arduous journey to transform from a hardcore materialist to a spiritual seeker, this book set me on the path.
Food of the Gods
While not a strictly spiritual book, this book by visionary ethnobotanist Terence McKenna, PhD began to place spirituality for me into the broader context of human history and culture. Dr. McKenna was also a strict materialist until he traveled to the Amazon to perform his work, and encountered a reality more real than everyday reality through shamanic practices. He discusses how our modern world has disconnected us from nature and the spiritual dimension, and how psychedelic plants can help us reconnect.
Supernormal
I always wondered how exceptional human experiences (such as intuitive knowing) were tied to spirituality. In this book, Dr. Dean Radin addresses this question by weaving together the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and scientific evidence to make the case for a universal consciousness that extends beyond the human brain. This was one of the first books I read that contained real scientific evidence for the reality of “supernormal” abilities, so it was very mind-expanding.
Cosmos & Psyche
On my spiritual path, I had a very hard time understanding the concept that ‘meaning’ could be naturally embedded in objects or events in life, because in science we learn that all meaning is created in the human brain and then projected onto the external world. Through his logical and poetic prose, Dr. Tarnas describes the difference between the Western worldview and the anima mundi worldviews of many of the indigenous peoples of the world, which helped me finally make sense of how the Universe/Cosmos could hold meaning. He then tells the tale of how he went from being a skeptic of astrology (as a recent Harvard graduate studying LSD psychotherapy) to realizing it held value after tracking the movement of the planets to individual and world events over the course of 30+ years – all after a suggestion from a colleague that astrological transits could be used to predict the types of experiences people would have on psychedelic trips (they do), when no other factors could. The mapping of the Cosmos to human events through archetypes was what I needed to make sense of meaning.
The Flip
This book by Dr. Kripal was pivotal in my journey. It describes how, despite the fact that mainstream science dismisses many non-ordinary phenomena as “impossible,” these phenomena commonly occur to a shockingly large portion of the world’s population. The book describes how mainstream scientists strongly clutch to these views – until they have a life-altering personal experience that causes them to “flip” their worldviews. These are the “flipped” scientists (that’s me!). Although I try not to cling to identity anymore, this book gave me a group to identify with when there was a void where my old traditional scientist identity used to exist.
The Stormy Search for the Self
All of Dr. Grof’s books have been indispensable and life-altering. He is another person who was a traditional materialist physician, who was slowly transformed by his personal experiences of providing psychedelic psychotherapy and holotropic breathwork. This book is a guide that provides valuable tools for people who are undergoing personal transformational crises, and I found it extremely useful as I struggled to understand my own feelings, experiences, and personal crisis.
Transcendent Mind
This book from psychologist Imants Barušs, PhD and neuroscientist Julia Mossbridge, PhD rethinks the science of consciousness based on a data-driven approach to examining the possibility of a universal shared mind. It covers a wide variety of topics and is a great resource for consciousness researchers.
Other Lives, Other Selves
I’m fascinated by the intersection of psychology and spirituality. Dr. Woolger was a traditional Jungian depth psychologist who stumbled upon past lives in sessions with his patients. The book is a combination of patients’ stories and academic analysis of psychological frameworks/schools of thought that could account for the phenomena. Ultimately, he also ties in spiritual frameworks as they come up in the sessions and map onto the patients’ experiences. Like Stan Grof’s work, Dr. Woolger’s work is methodical. What I like most about the past life regression work is the profound healing that occurs, with people’s lifelong problems disappearing after deep emotional catharsis. For me, it ties spirituality to something very practical for humans.
The Happy Medium
While I love scientific and philosophical books, I also love first-hand accounts of spiritual phenomena and abilities. Psychic medium Kim Russo’s book The Happy Medium was one I read early on in my spiritual journey. I loved Ms. Russo’s warm personality, humor, and her story of how—despite having exceptional intuitive/psychic gifts herself—she was always a skeptic. I particularly love how she explains the way she receives intuitive information and describes how she has had to finetune her abilities over her life, highlighting the fact that practice makes perfect in every dimension of life, even the spiritual dimension!
Man’s Search for Meaning
I read this book in graduate school (for neuroscience) for a class. It had a very profound effect on me. Through the lens of Dr. Frankl’s personal experiences as a prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp, he describes how finding some personal meaning in life, as well as actively imagining a positive future, seemed to contribute to a prisoner’s longevity. I think it is a beautiful example of how our internal states can carry us forward despite our external circumstances.