The original linked article is exceedingly vague, but apparently alludes to a fairly significant area of research that has been somewhat popular with certain people.

The premise of such tests, where the testing has been actually documented is that:

1. You wire someone up to see where activity is present in the brain.

2. You have the someone "think something mysterious" and see if different parts of the brain show activity.

3. You observe activity where it's otherwise unusual.

4. You conclude that there's a "god part" of the brain.

A difficulty is that about 3 decades ago, people were doing the same kinds of studies of brain activities. The measurement of activity, and isolation to a particular part of the brain was more difficult, and in some cases "invasive," whereas now it can be done by purportedly "non-invasive" things like CAT scans, but there has been little real progress in the ability to isolate and identify site-specific activity, other than "fewer deaths in the test subjects," perhaps.

In earlier tests, it was fairly conclusively shown that "meditative practitioners" diverted activity from the usual active foci, and "other parts" increased activity.

In the earlier tests, they also found that bored assembly line workers frequently "zoned" into a trance-like state, in which the heard voices of unknown people, "remembered" things they apparently never knew, and had a much more pleasant experience than when unnecessarily confining attention to "pick up bolt, screw in hole, pick up next bolt" - with changes in the foci of activity identical to the ones who meditated. With the "bored" there generally was no "mystical" connotation that they associated with the wanderings of their "hallucinations." The suppression of the normal conscious thinking - that wasn't really necessary - allowed activity in brain parts normally suppressed when a "more deliberate" thinking was needed. There was nothing particularly abnormal or amazing about the processes involved, and no connection to specific "kinds of thoughts" in the "zoned" (or entranced?) brain.

Singing hymns, and "chanting" (or participating in recitations) produced the same results. It's not at all an unpleasant thing, and it works at making people more receptive to "directed thinking" so it's very common in virtually all religions and philosophies. I would expect similar results with those who claim to "zone in the mood" at rock concerts, but that wasn't as common when the earlier testing was reported.

There may have been some, but I haven't seen a documented test recently in which other than "mysterious" stimuli were applied to invoke the "mysterious" brain activity. Those tests cannot "prove" that the mystery even exists. Until such comparisons are presented, the basic methodology is fatally flawed.

An additional factor is that nearly all such recent testing that I've seen reported (even incompetently) has been done exclusively by people looking for and expecting to find a specific "god effect." Nothing has been proved.

The rest of the discussion here is in places vaguely interesting, but is mostly just rehashing the SOSO.

John