Dopamine and Mystic Visions

  Suppose for a second that we were to prove that mystic visions and religious revelations are just a question of neurotransmitter imbalances. Could our social order withstand such a postulate? Taken literally, it would mean that the narratives of our past are invalid to justify Kings, Churches and all traditional political orders, together with their claims of rights and properties. But would this mean that our history is just the expression of a mistake, that our existence as species is the grandiloquent and violent narrative of an error? We do not need a nihilist answer to this question. We could neither construct a meaningful present denying the new realm of experience provided by the modern myth of science.

  There is a rather vast neuroscientific literature that links high levels of dopamine with religious experience.