Why God Won't Go Away; Brain Science & the Biology of Belief by Andrew Newberg et al.

Andrew Newberg is a radiologist and instructor in religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He teamed up with his colleague there, psychiatrist Eugene d'Aquili; and together they ran studies aimed at understanding the neurobiology of spiritual experiences. They located an area of the brain called the orientation area, which is associated with knowing where the body ends and the rest of the world begins, giving us a perception of where we are in space. When people who meditate reach a deeply spiritual state, the orientation area becomes quiescent and the meditator experiences a transcendent reality beyond the normal reality of our everyday experience. The authors believe that the brain's capacity for transcendent experience is the basis for mysticism which is historically found in religions and cultures across the globe; it is the neurobiological aspects of spiritual experience that support humankind's sense of the realness of God. This spiritual state is analogous to the concept being developed in today's quantum mechanics that "both observer and observed are merging and interpenetrating aspects of one whole reality, which is indivisible an unanalysable." [David Bohm in Wholeness and the Implicate Order]

Lolly Willowes or the Loving Huntsman by Sylvia Townsend Warner

The very first Book-of-the-Month club selection back in 1926, Lolly Willowes is a peculiar tale of an English maiden aunt who becomes a witch and follower of the devil (the eponymous Huntsman.) With its blatant departure from realism the tale is obviously meant to be taken as allegory. When Lolly emerges from the restrictions of proper English family life and attempts to go her own way, why does she fall into witchcraft? Is the Loving devil good or bad? Is a mature woman's departure from self-sacrifice good or bad? Is the devil the only thing that can propel women into personal self-expression? Is it evil for women to want to leave the family and pursue independence? Is life in the outside world just too dangerous for a single woman? It beats me.