Luminarium may not be for every reader, but if you like to feel the intelligence of the author behind a story that addresses contemporary subjects, this one is for you. Alex Shakar's first novel, The Savage Girl, got glowing reviews and made it onto some "best of" lists, but I found the characters calculating, brittle and soulless. In Luminarium, the author clearly went looking for some spiritual underpinnings, as does his main character, and was successful in his quest.
Fred Brounian, the seeker in the story, is a twin. He and George grew up with yearnings for a better world and successfully created one virtually. Meanwhile the real world got worse: the attack on the World Trade Center, the resulting fear of terrorism and wars, and the rise of the military in American life. In fact, Fred, George and a third brother Sam suffered their own attack when Urth, their successful virtual-world company, was gobbled up by Armation, whose government contracts involved creating virtual worlds for military training. During this descent from utopia to total war, George fell fatally ill and now lies in a coma. He is being kept alive at a financial cost that is bankrupting Fred.
A modern man, fairly atheistic, who is intelligent and has always put his faith in technology and science, hits rock bottom and turns to religion is a bit of a cliché. But Alex Shakar doesn't do clichés except to turn them inside out by means of humor and irony. So when Fred signs up for a neurological study and puts on the "God helmet" while Mira, his researcher and guide, alludes to "faith without ignorance," he and the reader are in for some wild rides straddling the boundaries between science and religion.
An impressive degree of complexity makes reading Luminarium compelling. Fred falls in love with Mira, a woman full of mystery and contradictions. Concurrently he is receiving emails and texts from his comatose twin and while rationally he knows they have to be bogus, the chance that George is actually reaching out to him on some inexplicable spiritual plane propels him into researching religions ancient and modern and comparing his findings to the quantum physics he has always pursued in his spare time.
All of this is conveyed in some of the most consummate prose I have read. Fred's out of body adventures, brought on by the "God helmet" electrodes, are explained to him in terms of the targeted stimulation of various lobes in his brain. But descriptions of the ways Fred experiences feeling one with the universe, being overwhelmed by love for strangers and so forth, are comparable to those found in the books of Carlos Castaneda (which, starting with The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968, deal with a young man's training by a Mexican shaman leading him to spiritual power and an ability to see a deeper reality than what is apparent to the senses.) Fred must walk the streets of New York City while in these altered states, adding a bit of humor to the process. Though Fred's search for meaning in the midst of the chaos and anxiety of his current life leaves him mostly confused, Shakar's skills as a writer keep the reader from getting lost.
By the end of the story, most of the mysteries in the lives of Fred and his brothers are solved, and questions are answered. True to life, though, is a final chapter that opens a whole new set of possibilities for the future of Fred. I personally dream of a future where science and religion meet. Whatever your beliefs or dreams, Luminarium will challenge you and make you think about where our world is going. In our current state of rapid technological advance, Alex Shakar posits that we still need spiritual answers, that family and love matter, but loss and misunderstandings confront us at every turn. It is a wonder how he made such potentially weighty ideas so entertaining.
The "God Helmet"
When Fred puts on the "God helmet" in Luminarium he is participating in an experiment into Neurotheology, a fairly new scientific field of research into the relationship between the brain and spiritual experiences. The first investigations studied brain wave patterns in the late 1950s. As the technology for brain study advanced, so did neurotheology.
During the 1980s, Dr. Michael Persinger, a leader in the field, set out to demonstrate that stimulation of the temporal lobes could "cause" a spiritual episode. His main tool was the Koren Helmet (named for Stanley Koren of Laurentian University's Neuroscience Department who built it according to specifications provided by Dr. Persinger), which applies complex, irregular magnetic signals to the temporal lobes - the area of the brain that many working in this field feel is the source of spiritual and religious experiences.
Thanks to a journalist in search of a compelling headline, The Koren Helmet quickly became known as the "God Helmet". Dr. Persinger considers this a misleading description as while many participants have felt a presence when their brain is stimulated by the helmet, most, according to Dr. Persinger, attribute this presence to "dead relatives, the Great Forces, a spirit, or something equivalent," with only a few feeling "the presence of Christ".
Persinger's experiments gave rise to controversy, both from scientists who felt his work violated scientific standards and was not verified objectively, as well as from theologians. He did however advance the field, and studies continue.
Modern neurotheology uses brain mapping techniques to investigate the premise that humans have a common trait, possibly located in the brain, that is definable as spiritual or religious experience. Andrew Newberg, M.D. is Director of Research at Thomas Jefferson University and Hospital's Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine in Philadelphia. His 2010 book, Principles of Neurotheology, recommends collaboration between neuroscientists and specialists in the fields of religious studies, philosophers of religion, and theologians. You can browse a short excerpt from one of his earlier books, Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief, at BookBrowse.
Further Reading
Alex Shakar provides a list of books that inspired him as he researched both scientific and religious fields while writing Luminarium.
Thanks to a journalist in search of a compelling headline, The Koren Helmet quickly became known as the "God Helmet". Dr. Persinger considers this a misleading description as while many participants have felt a presence when their brain is stimulated by the helmet, most, according to Dr. Persinger, attribute this presence to "dead relatives, the Great Forces, a spirit, or something equivalent," with only a few feeling "the presence of Christ".
