MORGAN FREEMAN (VOICEOVER): Ian Ball had
never been a religious person.
He never really thought about God.
But scarring from brain surgery brought
on a series of visions that made him question everything.
This carried on for about three or four weeks.
About how often?
- Every day. - Every day?
Every morning.
I felt like I was being sort of transported
and being revealed fundamental truths
about the nature of reality.
One of which is that all inanimate objects are
conscious, all beings are conscious, including
walls, tables, and chairs, which seemed
very counterintuitive to me.
I mean, how can you have consciousness without a brain?
The other thing that seem to be happening
was that everything is bound together in one thing
by an endless unconditional love.
And there was this huge wave of emotion
that came with this experience, which was
really powerful and uplifting.
MORGAN FREEMAN (VOICEOVER): Are you religious?
I was an agnostic.
I didn't know how to understand it.
I don't know if it was God.
You don't know that it wasn't.
I don't know that it wasn't.
I don't know what it was.
Mhm.
Ian wanted to find out whether his visions
had a medical cause.
So he joined the Cambridge University study
conducted by Dr. Joseph Tenant.
It was searching for a connection between epilepsy
and mystical experiences.
That's a scan of the tumor that was the cause
of the seizures I was having.
So I mean, as you can see on this scan,
the growth from the skull, the left temporal lobe.
And so this is pushing up against Ian's the brain.
And so they had to cut off that section away.
But obviously, when you do that, you leave a bit of scarring
on the left temporal lobe.
So it seems something about the temporal lobe
is potentially capable of producing
spiritual experiences.
You have not come to any sort of conclusions yet on it?
We can't induce a seizure on someone of a mystical nature
and hope that we can get a good scan of it under an MRI.
We don't know when the seizures are happening.
Can't you come to some sort of conclusion behind that?
Not quite yet.
I would.
I would jump right to it.
God exists.
That's Joan of Arc, Saint Bernadette.
Do you think that there is a possibility
that they experienced this sort of epilepsy?
It is possible.
So there was a neurological paper
that speculated that Paul's vision on the road to Damascus
was epilepsy.
But I mean, so what?
Because the thing that occurred afterwards
was Paul was moved to go preach and become Saint Paul.
Right.
As a scientist I can't tell you whether these
are metaphysical or not.
The thing we can look at is to say that something in the brain
is capable of producing religious experience
and can do so even when it's not intending to.
All right.
Here's the $64 question.
How has it changed you?
Well, I think it did remove any sense
of that I had that the universe is a meaningless, cold place.
I think it gave a kind of foundation of meaning for me.
And I think the idea of was it a revelation
or was it just an aberration in the brain?
I've come to the conclusion it doesn't really matter,
because the thing that really sticks with me is that feeling
of endless unconditional love.
And I don't think that really matters
whether it came from a divine force or from my damaged brain.