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Editorial

Genospirituality: Genetic engineering for spiritual

and religious enhancement

Summary The most frequently discussed role for genetic engineering is in relation to medicine, and a second areawhich provokes discussion is the use of genetic engineering as an enhancement technology. But one neglected area isthe potential use of genetic engineering to increase human spiritual and religious experience – or genospirituality. If

technologies are devised which can conveniently and safely engineer genes causal of spiritual and religious behaviours,then people may become able to choose their degree of religiosity or spiritual sensitivity. For instance, it may becomepossible to increase the likelihood of direct religious experience – i.e. ‘revelation’: the subjective experience ofcommunication from the deity. Or, people may be able to engineer ‘animistic’ thinking, a mode of cognition in whichthe significant features of the world – such as large animals, trees, distinctive landscape features – are regarded assentient and intentional beings; so that the individual experiences a personal relationship with the world. Anotherpotentially popular spiritual ability would probably be shamanism; in which states of altered consciousness (e.g.trances, delirium or dreams) are induced and the shaman may undergo the experience of transformations, ‘souljourneys’ and contact with a spirit realm. Ideally, shamanistic consciousness could be modulated such that tranceswere self-induced only when wanted and when it was safe and convenient; and then switched-off again completelywhen full alertness and concentration are necessary. It seems likely that there will be trade-offs for increasedspirituality; such as people becoming less ‘driven’ to seek status and monetary rewards – as a result of being morespiritually fulfilled people might work less hard and take more leisure. On the other hand, it is also possible that highly

moral, altruistic, peaceable and principled behaviours might become more prevalent; and the energy and joyousness ofthe best churches might spread and be strengthened. Overall, genospirituality would probably be used by people whowere unable to have the kind of spiritual or religious experiences which they wanted (or perhaps even needed) in orderto lead the kind of life to which they aspired.

c 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The genetic engineering imperative

The future continuation of modernizing societies(characterized by growth and progress in science,

technology and the economy [1]) may depend uponrapid progress in, and widespread usage of, geneticengineering, since there are numerous processes ofnatural selection at work in advanced societieswhich are likely to have been increasing theproportion of deleterious genes and reducing theproportion of socially-useful genes over severalgenerations – at least in developed nations[2–4].

Because these demographic trends seem to be sostrong – yet unacknowledged and therefore socio-politically irreversible – one probable implicationis that the development of genetic engineering

(including gene therapy and related stem cell andembryonic biotechnologies, etc.) should be re-garded as a social imperative, and pursued as rap-idly as possible [5,6].

It is widely – although not universally – appreci-ated that genetic engineering might potentially bevery useful. The most frequently discussed role forgenetic engineering is in relation to medicine,where deleterious and disease-causing genes could

0306-9877/$ - see front matter c 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2008.06.006

Medical Hypotheses (2008) 71, 825–828

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potentially be corrected. Assuming genetic engi-neering were safe, available and affordable; manypeople would be pleased to utilize medical geneticengineering.

The second area which provokes discussion is theuse of genetic engineering as an enhancement tech-nology. For example, biotechnology will probably

be able to increase intelligence, to improve happi-ness, and to boost physical skills or specific abilitiessuch as music or mathematics. This is more contro-versial than the medical deployment of geneticengineering – nonetheless it seems probable thatsafe and effective genetic enhancements would beused by many people if they were given the choice.

But one neglected area of enhancement tech-nology is the potential use of genetic engineeringto increase human spiritual and religious experi-ence – genospirituality or genospiritual engineer-

ing. I suggest that if, or when, such technologiesbecome a potential choice – then genospiritual

engineering will find plenty of takers.

Who would want to use genospiritualtechnologies?

Genospirituality would not be of interest to every-one, indeed I would expect there might be hostilityto the idea both from convinced atheists who re-gard religious and spiritual matters as false, non-sensical and probably harmful; and from sometraditionally religious people who would be suspi-cious of such apparently un-spontaneous and artifi-cial religiosity.

However, other people will take the view thatspirituality and religious experiences are real anddefinable subjective psychological states or humanexperiences. Leaving aside the question of whetherthese real psychological states and experiences re-fer to anything external, objective or supernatural;it could be argued that spiritual and religious sub-jective states may be regarded as valuable, desir-able and/or biologically adaptive for at leastsome people in some circumstances.

So, whatever the cause of religiousness and spir-

ituality, even if the cause is not accepted to besupernatural, it is at least plausible that significantnumbers of people would choose to have suchexperiences if they could.

What benefits might be obtained fromenhanced religiousness or spirituality?

The quest for a ‘meaningful’ life is of obvious andcompelling importance for many people. Of

course, there are plenty of people who find lifemeaningful and significant without the inclusionof any spiritual or religious elements. They are con-tent to live their lives without either spirituality orreligion.

But other people – probably the majority of thepopulation in most countries – look for something

more, or something else. They may find what theyneed from one (or more) of the major world reli-gions, or from other churches, or from New Agetype spiritual movements.

But a large proportion of the population ofmost countries apparently do not find what theyare looking for in these social structures. Theseare the people sometimes termed ‘seekers’ [7]whose life is spent searching for ‘meaning’ – thismay take the form of trying-out many churchesand spiritual movements, exploring art and cul-ture, trying psychopharmacology (either fromprescribed drugs or using self-medication with

drugs such as alcohol), or sampling from themany types of counselling, psychotherapy andpsychoanalysis.

However, despite this multiplicity of possiblesources of potential assistance, there are peoplewho feel that their life or the world itself is lackingin meaning, they feel alienated and cut-off fromexperience, they do not feel properly alive [8].These are the people who may in future seek asolution to their insoluble problems in changing

themselves by means of genetic engineering sothat they can enhance their spiritual and/or reli-

gious capacity.Other people who practice organized religion

may nonetheless wish for more powerful experi-ence, or for the potential to shape their ownbehaviours in a direction in-line with their hopesand beliefs. They are already religious, but wishto become more so.

Some potential uses of genospiritualengineering

It seems likely that soon the genes associated withan increased religiousness or capacity to have spiri-tual experiences will become known by genomemapping methods (which link variations in the gen-ome with traits and behaviours) becoming ever-cheaper, more sensitive and reliable, and morepowerful. Some of the discovered gene-behaviourassociations will on further investigation thenturn-out to be causal – and this would potentiallyenable genetic engineering (and therapy) to modifythe behaviours.

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If technologies are devised which can conve-niently and safely engineer these genes causal ofspiritual and religious behaviours, then peoplemay become able to choose their degree of religi-osity or spiritual sensitivity. In other words geno-spirituality may emerge with the potential tobecome a popular option among spiritual seekers

and those engaged in a religious quest.In order to clarify what might be the uses, I willdescribe a few sample spiritual or religious experi-ences that might be enhanced by genospiritualengineering.

It may become possible to increase the likelihoodof direct religious experience – i.e. ‘revelation’, orthe subjective experience of communication fromthe deity/deities [9]. In the past it was unusual toexperience direct communication with God/s, butperhaps this could be changed, and revelationmight become accessible to a much greater numberof people.

As another possible option, people may be ableto engineer themselves to experience ‘animistic’thinking – a mode of cognition in which the signif-icant features of the world (such as large animals,trees, distinctive landscape features, or even sometypes of complex organization or technology) areregarded as sentient and intentional beings [10].Animistic thinking is typical of early childhood inall societies, and is also believed to be universalamong those hunter-gatherers who were the ances-tors of modern humans.

One advantage of such changes could be that an

animistic person has a personal relationship withthe world, because the world is seen as composedof active agents. By contrast, the more typicalmodern mode of thinking sees the world as an ab-stract system of passive objects moved by imper-sonal forces – and this can create feelings ofalienation, loneliness and pointlessness.

Another spiritual experience which would likelybe popular is shamanism [11,12]. Shaman is the termused for the healers and ‘medicine men’ (or women)of many societies who may also do divination andmake important decisions for the tribe – and char-acteristically their work is done by means of statesof altered consciousness (e.g. trances, delirium ordreams) in which they may undergo transforma-tions, ‘soul journeys’ and contact a spirit realm.

In modern societies, it seems that only a minor-ity of people are able to enter shamanistic tranceswithout some kind of technological assistance.Some artists and other creative people (includingscientists) apparently do important work (forexample experience inspiration, or gain sudden in-sight) in states of somewhat-altered consciousness[8,10]. These mental states need not be regarded

as supernatural; but may simply offer a different,more associative, way of thinking.

Shamanistic trance states can be difficult orimpossible for people to achieve spontaneouslyand safely, and they may require the use of fairlyextreme-measures such as prolonged dancing,drumming in groups, use of mind-impairing halluci-

nogenic agents or other technologies. Indeed, themeasures necessary for modern individuals to in-duce a trance state at minimum time consumingand at the extreme are dangerous. It may also beseveral hours or more before the side-effects of atrance, or the method used to induce a trance,wears off, so that the person would be mentally un-able to do responsible tasks such as child-care,driving a car, or operating equipment.

However, in principle, it may be possible tomake genetic changes such that such trance statesmight be spontaneously attainable at will. Ideally,shamanistic consciousness could be modulated

such that trances could self-induced only whenwanted and when it is safe and convenient; andthen switched-off again completely when full alert-ness and concentration are necessary.

Trade-offs and priorities

It seems likely that spirituality and religiousnesswill not be found to be under the control of singlegenes or even just a few genes, but rather causedby the combination of suites of alleles, each of

which exerts a relatively small effect. Further-more, some of these genes will probably be pleio-tropic or multi-functional – such that alteringspirituality will have side-effects in terms of alter-ing other functions or behaviours.

Indeed, except where genospiritual engineeringis merely correcting deleterious single mutations;it seems likely that there will be trade-offs (asthere are likely to be trade-offs for most conceiv-able forms of enhancement technology). For exam-ple, higher IQ is predictive of longer lifeexpectancy and greater wealth and social statusin modern societies – yet increasing IQ may (atleast above a certain point) also be associated inmodern cultures with impairments from an in-creased tendency for short-sightedness to reducedfertility rates [13,14].

So we should anticipate trade-offs for increasedspirituality. One possible example could be thepossibility that increasing spiritual fulfilment mightmake people less ‘driven’ to seek status and mon-etary rewards. Greater contentment might benefitthe individual but perhaps may not benefit societyas a whole – if as a result of being more spiritually

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fulfilled more people worked less hard and tookmore leisure.

While greater religiousness may be associatedwith greater happiness, more altruistic behavioursand higher fertility [9], and these may turn-out tobe significantly causal – it is possible that geneti-cally-enhanced religiousness might lead to other

problems. Perhaps churches would get too power-ful and attempt to control science, technologyand the economy with disastrous effects. Or per-haps church members might become fanaticallyloyal and too easily manipulated into dangerousbehaviours.

On the other hand, it is also possible that highlymoral, altruistic, peaceable and principled behav-iours might become more prevalent; and the en-ergy and joyousness of the best churches mightspread and be strengthened.

Conclusion

In considering the desirability of genospiritual engi-neering, it is possible to take an ‘agnostic’ stanceover whether or not spiritual and religious experi-ence refers to an external and objective supernat-ural world. It might be agreed that, whatever theunderlying objective facts might be, some typesof religiousness and spirituality are plausibly asso-ciated with some good outcomes both in terms ofsubjective states of mind (making people feel bet-ter) and in terms of objectively observable social

behaviours (making people behave better). Thereare also some disadvantages of spirituality and reli-giousness – so the outcome is likely to vary be-tween individuals, according to the extremity ofspirituality or religiousness, between religions andspiritualities, and between societies.

Whatever the answer in a specific instance,genospirituality would probably – if available –be used by people who were unable to have the

kind of spiritual or religious experiences which theywanted (or perhaps even needed) in order to leadthe kind of life to which they aspired.

References

[1] Charlton B, Andras P. The modernization impera-tive. Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic; 2003.

[2] Fisher RA. The genetical theory of natural selec-tion. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press; 1930.

[3] Hamilton WD. The narrow roads of Gene Land, vol.2. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press; 2002.

[4] Lynn R, Harvey J. The decline of the world’s IQ. Intelli-gence 2008;36:112–20.

[5] D. Pearce, The Hedonistic Imperative. www.hedweb.com[Accessed 10.6.2008].

[6] Baschetti R. Evolutionary biological origins of morality:Implications for research with human embryonic stemcells. Stem Cells Develop 2005;14:239–47.

[7] Roof WC. Spiritual Marketplace: baby boomers and theremaking of American religion. Princeton, USA: Princeton

University Press; 1999.[8] Charlton BG. Alienation, recovered animism and alteredstates of consciousness. Med Hypotheses 2007;68:727–31.

[9] Stark R. Discovering God: the origins of the great religionsand the evolution of belief. London: HarperOne; 2007.

[10] Charlton BG. Scientific discovery, peak experiences and thecol-oh-nell flastratus! phenomenon. Med Hypotheses2007;69:475–7.

[11] Noel DC. The soul of shamanism. New York: Continuum;1998.

[12] Hutton R. Shamans: Siberian spirituality and the WesternImagination. London, UK: Hambledon and London; 2007.

[13] Mak W, Kwan M, Cheng T, Chan K, Cheung R, Ho S. Myopiaas a latent phenotype of a pleiotropic gene positively

selected for facilitating neurocognitive development, andthe effects of environmental factors. Med Hypotheses2006;66:1209–15.

[14] Lynn R, Van Court M. New evidence for dysgenic fertility forintelligence in the United States. Intelligence 2004;32:193–201.

Bruce G. CharltonEditor-in-Chief-Medical Hypotheses

E-mail address: editorMeHy@yahoo.com

 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

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