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Fingerprints of God: What Science Is Learning About the Brain and Spiritual Experience Paperback – May 4, 2010

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 127 ratings
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The New York Times bestseller that explores the startling discoveries that science is making about faith.

Barbara Bradley Hagerty's new book, Life Reimagined: The Science, Art, and Opportunity of Midlife, is out now from Riverhead Books

Is spiritual experience real? Or is it a delusion? When we pray, what happens? Can science explain God? In Fingerprints of God, National Public Radio religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty attempts to answer these and other vexing questions about the science of spiritual experience. Along the way she tells the story of her own intriguing spiritual evolution, delves into the discoveries science is making about how faith affects our brains and explores what near-death experiences reveal about the afterlife. The result is a rich and insightful examination of what science is learning about how and why we believe.
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  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Riverhead Books
  4. Publication date
    May 4, 2010
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.85 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9781594484629
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1594484629
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Editorial Reviews

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“With honesty, discernment, humor, grace— and an enormous amount of reporting—Barbara Bradley Hagerty takes on one of the fiercest controversies of the last 500 years: Can we measure faith? Fingerprints of God reads like an elegant mystery story as Bradley Hagerty launches a search for evidence of God within us and the universe as a whole. People of faith and science will be grateful for the chance to join her on her quest."—E. J. Dionne Jr., author of Souled Out and syndicated columnist

“Barbara Bradley Hagerty has done something truly remarkable here. She has brought her considerable reporting skills and wonderfully wry writing to the question of who or what is God. By meticulously documenting scientific studies and interspersing them with the experiences of a number of individuals, including herself, she opens doors to those answers. Fingerprints of God is its own scientific and spiritual journey, one well worth taking.”—Cokie Roberts, author of Ladies of Liberty and news analyst

“Fingerprints of God is a courageous and immensely enjoyable book. In Barbara Bradley Hagerty's investigation of the science of spirituality, I found answers for questions I've pondered for years. Many people will find themselves in these pages.”—Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz

“What a book! The pages crackle with fresh insights into the nexus of faith and science. Striking just the right balance between skepticism and open-mindedness, Bradley makes for the perfect guide on this journey of discovery. Read this book. It'll inform and entertain – and just might change the way you view the world.”—Eric Weiner, author of The Geography of Bliss

“You can find God in many places, from the condemned on death row to the deepest folds of the human brain. In this groundbreaking book on the emerging science of faith, Barbara Bradley Hagerty discovers the links between science and spiritual experience. Fingerprints of God will provoke you, intrigue you, and inspire you.”—Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking

About the Author

Barbara Bradley Hagerty is the award-winning religion correspondent for National Public Radio. She’s the recipient of the Templeton Foundation-Cambridge University Journalism Fellowship in Science and Religion, and a Knight Fellowship at Yale Law School. Before joining NPR, she was a reporter at The Christian Science Monitor for 11 years. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1594484627
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Riverhead Books; Reprint edition (May 4, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781594484629
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1594484629
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.85 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 127 ratings

About the author

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Barbara Bradley Hagerty

Barbara Bradley Hagerty

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Barbara Bradley Hagerty is a New York Times bestselling author and contributing writer for The Atlantic. Barb worked for NPR for nearly 20 years, covering criminal justice and religion. She’s received a number of awards, including the American Women in Radio and Television Award (twice) and the National Headliner's Award; her reporting was part of the NPR coverage that earned the network the 2001 George Foster Peabody and Overseas Press Club awards after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Barb earned what she calls a “baby law degree” from Yale Law School, where she attended the first year on a Knight Fellowship.

Barb’s three books sprung from questions that haunted her. In Fingerprints of God, she addressed the existential question: Is there more than this? In Life Reimagined, she researched the midlife question: Is it all downhill from here? And in Bringing Ben Home, she tackled the tragic question: Why are the innocent condemned?

Barb lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, Devin, and their Golden-Lab mix, Patchett.

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4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
127 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Drema D
5.0 out of 5 stars she sought answers to questions like “Is spiritual experience real
Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2018
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Lifelong Christian Science devotee Barbara Bradley Hagerty, inspired by a spiritual encounter she could not explain, spent years exploring the nature of God. Fingerprints documents her journey through the labyrinth of stories from people who’ve experienced a transcendent connection with something Other that changed them forever, and Hagerty’s quest to learn whether there is hard, documented science to explain these experiences. Through more than a decade of interviews with scientists, medical practitioners, and neurotheologians, she sought answers to questions like “Is spiritual experience real?” and “Is there a reality outside this one?” and “What do people really see during near-death or other out-of-the-body experiences?” From the MRI chamber to the all-night peyote ceremony, Hagerty followed every available lead, chased every clue, with surprising—and sometimes astounding--results. Along the way, she met extraordinary people with remarkable tales that cast credible doubts on the lines between “real” and “imaginary.”

Hagerty starts out as a Christian Scientist. Throughout the book, she compares her new findings to the belief system that has supported her throughout her lifetime. By the end of the book, she admits to having lost some of her long-held assumptions, but overall her research only informs what she believed all along. The big difference is that she no longer believes her own religion is the only right, true faith. She has come to understand that, as she says in the book, faith is like a spoked wheel. God is the hub. All spokes lead to God. It doesn’t matter which one you choose. And—she asserts this clearly—it is a choice. Science can’t prove there is a Divine, any more than they can prove there is not. The choice is up to us how we interpret these experiences, and how we allow them to inform our lives.

Now let me tell you right up front that this is not the first time I’ve read Fingerprints. Still, as a deeply spiritual woman with personal numinous experience, I am always inspired by this book. Hagerty asks hard questions and presents intriguing scientific data from documented experiments. She reminds me of mystical Truths I already knew but had forgotten in the day-to-day business of life. Each time I read it, I find myself reevaluating my own assumptions, adjusting my beliefs to fit new knowledge, and remembering that I am a part of, not apart from, the Whole. For me, it is a refresher course that never seems to disappoint.

Hagery’s book will suit anyone who ever asked the Big Questions, anyone who ever had a mystical experience, or anyone who seeks connection with something beyond All This. Whether you maintain a particular religious faith, or consider yourself a Seeker, Fingerprints offers deep and satisfying food for thought.
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S. McGee
4.0 out of 5 stars "The unspoken ethos ... is (to) leave uncomfortable questions alone"
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2009
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So writes Barbara Bradley Hagerty of the nature of most organized religions. Thankfully for her readers, that isn't her nature or ethos, and the result is a fascinating look at the question of whether science can provide any insights to the nature of religious experience or even the existence of a "God". Readers, and the subject as a whole, are well-served by Bradley Hagerty's research and reporting but less so, alas, by the NPR veteran's writing style.

The author's starting point -- in her life and in the book -- is deeply personal. Raised as a Christian Scientist, she had drifted away from her childhood beliefs only to be unexpectedly shaken by what she cannot help but describe as a transformative religious experience. Touched by "the fingerprints of God", she feels a sense of transcendence and connection to everything and everyone; the after-effects prove lasting and help send her on a quest to explore this kind of spiritual awakening that thousands -- perhaps millions -- of others have had and define in different ways based on their own religious traditions and cultures. The one commonality is the nature of that experience: it's as if one of those television reality TV interior decorators show up on your front door and start rearranging your life. "They arrive (unbidden), and immediately begin punching through walls and removing countertops. They haul away most of the furniture, including your favorite red leather chair ... These experiences don't ask, they simply move in, insisting you'll love it when they're done, and then with a brisk clap of the hands, they're gone, leaving you stunned, panting, and utterly transformed."

In today's largely secular era -- while many people may believe in a god or gods, in North America and Europe is just isn't considered correct to discuss religious convictions openly -- Bradley Hagerty's rather quixotic quest is intriguing and rather high-risk, as her arguments and conclusions are likely to alienate die-hard scientists as well as theologians who cling to the 'truth' as revealed in their branch of their religion, from Pentecostal Christians to Shi'ite Muslims. Not surprisingly, she concludes that while science can't prove the existence of God, it also can't explain religious phenomena or rule out the existence of some kind of religious force. But if you look for God in the math of the universe, if you perceive God as the Mind that rigged existence to create life, then science can indeed accommodate a god. "If you see God in the breathtaking complexity of our brains, as the architect of our bodies and our minds who planted the question Is there more?--well, science has room for that kind of God," she writes.

The topics that Bradley Hagerty reviews are fascinating, as is the ambivalence of some of the people she talks to about their scientific research. (Not surprisingly, those who have experienced a religious epiphany are quite happy to hold forth.) Despite efforts by financier and philanthropist John Templeton to bring together those most incompatible disciplines, science and religion, by financing scholarly research into both, many practitioners of the former still reject the very idea that there can be any common ground. That makes Bradley Hagerty's willingness to explore these ideas in a way that's generally accessible all the more welcome, regardless of whether the reader agrees with her conclusions or even her approach.

The book's biggest flaw is its style. The author is at her best when she's talking about her own personal feelings, insights and experiences. When she's being a reporter -- venturing into the labs of the scientists she interviews or the homes of those with whom she's discussing their conception of God -- she can't shake off her background in radio, and what works on radio is clunky and clumsy in a book. Halfway through the book, whenever Hagerty introduces a new character, I learned to expect that I would be given a full description of him or her, the place they were meeting, the ambience, the weather, etc. etc., and then the dialogue would be recounted as if it were a Q and A. To wit: "Michael Persinger was ramrod slim, taut, with a puckish expression. He wore a dark blue three-piece suit, with a gold watch and chain tucked into his vest. I liked him immediately." The author and Persinger then spend about a third of a page discussing why he likes to mow his lawn while dressed in a three-piece suit. Then the Q & A. Frankly, it made me want to scream in frustration. A good writer -- or perhaps a wise editor -- could have transformed this book from a pedestrian read about a fascinating topic into one where the caliber of the writing does justice to the subject.

Inevitably, there are few answers here for those trying to understand religion or the role faith plays in many lives. But given the role that faith tends to play in dividing us from each other in daily life, the author's ultimate conclusions are intriguing and, in a way, reassuring. Just don't read this if you're looking for a firm answer as to whether God, in the way you perceive him, exists, or for an answer about which religion is 'right'.

There have been a lot of books lately revolving around whether or not God exists, with Christopher Hitchens arguing vehemently against in  God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything  and Chris Hedges, among others  I Don't Believe in Atheists. Chris Hedges  taking an opposing view. In the heat of that debate, a lot of the nuance that Bradley Hagerty explores here can get lost, which is why this book is particularly valuable.

Recommended primarily for the intellectually curious and open-minded reader who is willing to wade through some of the clunky writing to get to the ideas the author explores. As noted above, don't read it if you're a Pentecostal looking for evidence that Catholicism is wrong and Islam evil, or a Hindu looking for proof that your world view is spot on. I'm rating it 3.5 stars, marked down because of the fact that despite my fascination with the material, I had to push myself to keep reading in face of that ponderous writing, but rounding it up to 4 stars.
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Evan Griffith
5.0 out of 5 stars A scientific examination of spiritual experience (but wow!)
Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2015
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I bought this book twice. Once in audio format, and then again in the Kindle version. It was that good.

Hagerty is riveting in the quietest of ways. Each experience she relates, hers and others, draws you further into her exploration of the existence of God. This is not your typical feel-good tome. Hagerty gives weight and substance to counter arguments, which only deepens the sense of a real examination from all angles.

Ultimately it's the personal stories that carry you beyond what can be defined by science . . . and into a mystical groping for understanding. The author's even tone and sober approach make the insights gleaned along the way soar. Because there was no hype. Almost the opposite. There were times my heart was bursting from the rush of discovery. The subtlety of the author's style allows you to make your own leaps.

I'm doing 'Fingerprints of God' an injustice here . . . I'm struggling to articulate why this is a necessary book to read. I hope you do. It's that significant.
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Pamela Shemilt
4.0 out of 5 stars this is an ambitious investigation full of wonderful discoveries involving self and others supported by quantum physics ...
Reviewed in Canada on October 7, 2015
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this is an ambitious investigation full of wonderful discoveries involving self and others supported by quantum physics as it pertains to spirituality. A gratifying read demonstrating how brain chemistry is affected and facilitates metaphysical awakening to Divine experience.
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