Last week, the YouTube algorithm apparently thwarted my interests in religion and science and showed me a recent interview in which neuroscientist Andrew Huberman talks about a new practice he has adopted: prayer. He is a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine in the USA and author of one of the internationally most popular podcasts.
Although there are scientists and academics who visit churches or other religious temples, this is not the case with Huberman. “I remember praying in secret my whole life,” he told fellow MIT scientist Lex Fridman. “When things weren’t going well and I couldn’t understand what was happening, I prayed secretly and felt ashamed.”
Huberman does not pray according to any religious tradition. “I hesitated to talk about it because I don’t believe in forcing religion on people,” he explained. “I believe that someone who is an atheist or agnostic can also pray.”
The scientist sees prayer as a kind of therapy that he uses alongside meditation. For those who ask about the difference between praying and meditating, he clarifies: “Prayer is powerful in a way that all other tools, like meditation, are not, because it works on a deeper level.”
But what are his prayers? “I pray to God for help to remove my character flaws so that I can perform better in every role in my life. But I’m not asking for a magical hand to come down and take care of everything.”
He says that prayer is becoming more and more important in his life. “It’s clear to me that if we don’t believe in something bigger than ourselves again which doesn’t have to be through traditional religion we will eventually destroy ourselves.”
Huberman adopted the practice about a year ago but bristles at the idea of explaining it as a natural or psychological phenomenon. “The scientist in me wants to understand how this works,” he admits. “But the idea is simply to say: There is a power greater than mine, greater than nature as I understand it, something that I cannot and do not want to understand or control. I just give myself to her.”
It is strange that this search for religious experience is emerging in the scientific world at a time when startups like Koreans Meadow or Biblely are proposing to replace pastors with artificial intelligence services. Huberman’s case still raises the question: Is there a future for religious practice experienced individually and without a church?