Earlier this year, the London Times ran a review of Unthinkable: An Extraordinary Journey Through the World’s Strangest Brains, written by Helen Thomson. As the review indicates, many altered states of conscious that people employ various thaumaturgic or theurgic methods to attain, would appear to have some basis in physical structures or phenomena. This could call into question the “reality” of the experiences attained. Though I think it also raises the question – why are human brains constructed that way? What sort of survival value do such features hold – and if none, how did we wind up with them? (this is not to discount similar features in other animals, plants etc. what we’re not able to access — and which might not exist anyway!)
