Thinking with Your Soul: Spiritual Intelligence and Why It Matters
Harvard professor and psychotherapist Wolman attempts to bridge the gap between science and spirituality with his PsychoMatrix Spirituality Inventory (PSI). A self-administered test in which readers rate the accuracy of 80 statements (e.g. I feel the divinity of people I meet; I attended religious services as a child) , the PSI is scored in seven categories: Divinity, Mindfulness, Intellectuality, Community, Extrasensory Perception, Childhood Spirituality and Trauma. While Wolman convincingly observes that "psychology too often leaves questions of the spirit unaddressed or dismissed," he fails to reconcile certain disparate beliefs of science and spirituality, as when he argues adamantly that "mind is not possible without the supporting physiology of brain" dismissing the possibility of continued consciousness after the death of the body and explains away near-death and out-of-body experiences as the effects of oxygen deprivation to the brain. Interestingly, he makes no similar attempt to explain such reported phenomena as remote viewing, prescience or intuition. Treating spirituality as an aspect of personality may elevate its status in the scientific community, but more spiritually minded readers may consider the quantification of metaphysical experiences an even further devaluation.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.