NOVUS ORDO
Chapter 6: A God of Love
Diego didn’t answer but his stress indicators said all I needed to know. I found the proper tile on the computer’s screen and with a tap uploaded the first of the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation programs.
Inside the corpus callosum of Diego’s brain, Neural-mites began to redirect electrical traffic. Other nanoids generated random currents of their own across targeted neural pathways. All the while, from outside Diego’s brain, an intricate choreography between magnets, radio and microwave antennas altered the electromagnetic fields of Diego’s temporal lobes. Within minutes all signals in and out of the connective core were scrambled, shutting down communication between the two hemispheres of the brain.
Diego was resisting, making a herculean effort to concentrate through his prayer but the starburst was weak, its pulse inconstant. I imagined him beyond the closed observation window, shaking his head, trying to banish the fog rising behind his eyes.
I activated a batch of Neural-mites spread throughout his forebrain and they began transmitting their own scrambler signals. These random electrical surges disorientated Diego further, rendering concentration all but impossible. The starbursts of prayer flickered erratically for a few seconds before disappearing completely.
With a few more taps of my fingers across the control board another group of nanobots in Dolan’s midbrain were pressed into action. These Neural-mites stirred the ventral tegmental area into the production and release of dopamine. The hormone spread quickly. The last shreds of the boy’s resistance were drowned under a wave of euphoria. Diego’s heart rate and breathing began settling immediately.
A little over twenty-seven minutes later I finally achieved cyber-neural synchronization. Diego was cycled into the program, feeling at one with the universe. His brain began producing dopamine on its own, releasing it in incrementally greater quantities as cortisol levels dipped across the board. The EKG monitor showed him well into theta rhythm as he progressed deeper into a state of bliss.
I let him enjoy ‘Nirvana’ for fifteen minutes before I began increasing the electromagnetic stimulation to his right brain, particularly those areas and pathways that the Stimuli-Matrix associated with Diego’s sense of self.
Without intelligible input from the right hemisphere, Dolan’s left brain interpreted the stimulation as an incorporeal presence in the chamber with him. I strengthened the sense of presence he felt by continuously increasing the power of the electromagnetic waves bombarding his right temporal lobe. Short and gentle pulses of radio and microwaves added depth and texture to the sensed presence.
With a push of a button, nanobots began stimulating those areas of his brain that had been identified with his sense of wonder and awe. While they evoked and gradually deepened the sense of reverence Diego felt, I programmed Neural-mites in his front and right temporal lobes to mimic the electrical patterns of his previous prayers.
On the holographic projection, the two starbursts of energy blinked and winked at each other across the divide of the central sulcus. Dolan, I knew, was convinced that he was communicating with the presence sharing the chamber with him. This ‘realization’ opened wide the hormonal floodgates and Diego soon felt himself afloat in a sea of ecstasy while ‘communing with his God.’
I let him enjoy the ‘spiritual euphoria’ for thirty minutes before I shut the program down abruptly.
Diego’s brain protested the sudden loss of stimulation with a violent, system-wide, electrical storm which produced in the boy the massive disorientation and that pure panic felt in dreams where one free falls through the dark. It passed quickly and the electrical activity leveled off, becoming concentrated in the forebrain as Dolan began trying to process what he had just been put through.
I gave him a few minutes to sort it out. I watched him via video and turned on the microphone to the chamber. “Well Mr. Dolan, how was your little chat with God?”
“That wasn’t God.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I said. “But you’ve got to admit that you felt like you were communing with God, didn’t you?”
“It did feel like I was talking to someone.”
“Someone or something vast and wonderful and loving, wouldn’t you say?”
He started to say something but stopped himself.
“As an intern, I was subjected to the same procedure,” I admitted to the boy. “I still remember how convincing, how utterly overwhelming it was, the sense of communicating with an incorporeal presence.”
“Yes, it was quite intense,” Diego conceded. Only, I can’t recall what was said.”
“That’s because there’s nothing to recall,” I said. “Nothing was actually said. What you experienced as communion with God was in reality just two of your brain’s lobes firing electrical signals at each other. The role of God was played by your right temporal lobe. ‘You’ was your frontal lobe. It was an illusion, Diego, an artificially created electro-chemical simulation of a naturally occurring cerebral phenomenon. It’s a mere illusion of the brain that you religionists waste years and whole lifetimes chasing. What you call God is no more than a creation of the mind, an illusion, not an actual being. Can you see that, Mr. Dolan?”
“No, I don’t see how fiddling around with my brain disproves God’s existence.”
“No, the transcranial manipulation doesn’t disprove God’s existence per se,” I agreed. “It should however prod you to think about what you believe. You’re an intelligent young man, Diego. I know that you’re capable of being objective and questioning everything you were taught. Would you do that for me, Diego?”
“I will if you will, Doctor Johnson.”
“Fair enough,” I said, not meaning a word of it. “We’ll trade notes in the morning.”
Begin the tale with Chapter 1.