Four Reviews Coming in Publishers Weekly on Monday, June 11

The Spiritual Brain: How Neuroscience is Revealing the Existence of God
Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary. HarperOne, $25.95 (400p) ISBN 978-0-06-085883-4

Following C. S. Lewis’s dictum that “to ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see,” neuroscientist Beauregard and journalist O’Leary mount a sweeping critique of a trend in “the pop science media” to explain away religious experience as a brain artifact, pathology, or evolutionary quirk. While sympathizing with the attraction such “neurotheology” holds, the authors warn against the temptation to force the complex varieties of human spirituality into simplistic categories that they argue are conceptually crude, culturally biased, and often empirically untested. In recently published research using Carmelite nuns as subjects, Beauregard’s group at the University of Montreal found specific areas of brain activation associated with contemplative prayer. But these patterns are quite distinct from those associated with hallucinations, autosuggestion, or states of intense emotional arousal, resembling instead how the brain processes “real” experiences. Insisting that “we have never entertained the idea of proving the existence of God,” the authors concede that “the results of our work are assumed to be a strike either for or against God” and that “on the whole, we [don’t] mind.” Never shrinking from controversy, and sometimes deliberately provoking it, this book serves as a lively introduction to a field where neuroscience, philosophy, and secular/spiritual cultural wars are unavoidably intermingled. (Sept.)

The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam’s Mystical Tradition
Seyyed Hossein Nasr. HarperOne, $24.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-06-079722-5

Despite the popularity of Sufism, few books provide an overview of this mystical branch of Islam— a void Nasr, professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, fills nicely, albeit briefly, with this concise primer. Sufism teaches that all aspects of life—from nature to other people—are signs of God, and yet the grandeur of God is beyond human comprehension. The goal of each Sufi is to take an inner journey to transcend beyond the human state, “to illuminate the dark corners of our soul” and re-connect with the inner divinity implanted by God at creation. Nasr’s book is not a how-to introduction on removing the “veils” erected by imperfection, which manifest as evil and block our divine roots, but a wise and tantalizing overview. He also includes a detailed and rare history of the Sufi movement and a brief catalog of the various Sufi orders. Although readers with no prior background in Sufism may struggle with this rather dense intellectual study of the movement, it provides valuable information about the often-overlooked philosophical underpinnings of Sufism along with obscure details that will be fascinating to more advanced practitioners.(Sept.)

Heaven Is Real: Lessons on Earthly Joy—from the Man Who Spent 90 Minutes in Heaven
Don Piper with Cecil Murphey. Berkley Praise, $21.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-425-21555-5

Piper, well-known for his Christian bestseller 90 Minutes in Heaven, with over 1.4 million copies in print, takes his dramatic story one step further by describing the lessons he’s learned since he died on a bridge in Texas in 1989. Piper didn’t stay dead, but instead returned from the gates of heaven a changed man. “I left the bridge different than I had been when I started across,” he writes. Piper uses the bridge metaphor throughout, describing his salvation as the first bridge he crossed, then the traversal of another bridge to a “new normal” after accepting that his life was forever altered. Other journeys discussed include the bridge to compassion and the final bridge to heaven (for good this time). Undergirded with e-mails and letters from people who have read his book or heard him speak, Piper also leans heavily on the example of the Apostle Paul and the New Testament book of Philippians. Although the messages can be repetitive and the writing uninspired, Piper’s story is astounding and his life lessons are real: focus on the eternal, find the humor, accept help, give thanks and just hold on. (Aug. 7)

A Starred Review Coming in PW on Monday, June 11:

A Secular Age
Charles Taylor. Harvard, $39.95 (896p) ISBN 978-0-674-02676-6

In his characteristically erudite yet engaging fashion, Taylor, winner of the 2007 Templeton Prize, takes up where he left off in his magnificent Sources of the Self (1989) as he brilliantly traces the emergence of secularity and the processes of secularization in the modern age. Challenging the idea that the secular takes hold in a world where religion is experienced as a loss or where religions are subtracted from the culture, Taylor discovers the secular emerging in the midst of the religious. The Protestant Reformation, with its emphasis on breaking down the invidious political structures of the Catholic Church, provides the starting point down the road to the secular age. Taylor sweeps grandly and magisterially through the 18th and 19th centuries as he recreates the history of secularism and its parallel challenges to religion. He concludes that a focus on the religious has never been lost in Western culture, but that it is one among many stories striving for acceptance. Taylor’s examination of the rise of unbelief in the 19th century is alone worth the price of the book, and offers an essential reminder that the Victorian age, more than the Enlightenment, dominates our present view of the meanings of secularity. Taylor’s inspired combination of philosophy and history sparkles in this virtuoso performance that is a must-read. (Sept.)