The biggest thing in Spirit Tech this week

Muse launches Brain Age

Interaxon, maker of the Muse headband, launched Brain Age, a weekly score that estimates a user's brain age relative to their actual age, using a combination of daytime EEG readings and short cognitive tests covering processing speed, spatial memory, impulse control, and selective attention.

The company says it is the only consumer brain age metric measured directly from the brain's electrical activity. It builds on a 2024 study that estimated people's age from more than 5,200 at-home EEG recordings, showing that EEG can predict age across a large sample. Brain Age applies that weekly to one person.

This new Brain Age metric from the Muse headband is another example of wearable companies helping us understand our inner states that were previously invisible to us. With a quantified Brain Age, people can now better understand what actions improve (or harm) their brain health.

Also this week

Tolan Raises $30M for AI Companion

Tolan has raised another $30M, doubling its total funding to $60M. Its app features a friendly animated character that helps users manage daily tasks, pursue goals, and navigate relationships and emotions.

Backed by investors including Khosla Ventures and Union Square Ventures, Tolan reports more than 250,000 active users and 70 million conversations over the past year.

This is another positive data point pointing to the growing interest in AI companions that offer both practical and emotional support.

Study Explores How AI Is Reshaping Spirituality

A new paper published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications introduces the concept of "synthetic spirituality", described as the forms of religious meaning and experiences that emerge through conversations between humans and AI.

From AI-powered spiritual teachers to chatbots that interpret sacred texts, these tools are making religious knowledge and guidance more accessible, personalized, and interactive across traditions. The author argues that AI is not simply changing how people access spiritual information, but potentially reshaping how they interpret religious teachings, seek guidance, and experience spirituality.

While these technologies offer new opportunities for spiritual exploration, they also introduce risks, including misinformation, bias, and misplaced trust in AI-generated guidance.

The paper is a conceptual analysis rather than an experimental study, and calls for further research into how AI is transforming spiritual practice and religious authority.

As Spirit Tech builders develop AI guides for spiritual practices, they should mitigate the risks mentioned in this paper while helping people get beneficial guidance to deepen their spiritual practice.

A New Way to Study Consciousness

The Meditation Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital imaged three advanced meditators during extended cessation, an advanced meditation state in which conscious experience itself briefly stops. It is reliably followed by mental clarity, equanimity, and peace. The team scanned them repeatedly on a high-resolution 7-Tesla fMRI.

They discovered that activity rose in the sensory cortices and in the brainstem nuclei that carry the body's internal signals, while higher-order association regions were turned down. These patterns match those of perceptual clarity and attention, and reduced distress.

The authors say the study demonstrated that loss of experience need not entail global neural suppression. More broadly, extended cessation provides a new way to study consciousness, amidst the loss of conscious experience, without drugs or anesthesia.

And while the study was small (N=3), the authors also suggest extended cessation as a potential "reset" mechanism that can foster equanimity and flourishing.

As researchers better understand these advanced meditation states, Spirit Tech builders gain insights into the neurocorrelates of these states to help them design products and experiences that may improve access to these rare and beneficial states.

Company Spotlights

• Sensoria Research: Non-profit building the scientific infrastructure to study, map, and navigate human consciousness. With neuroscientist Leo Christov-Moore, PhD. as Head of Research, it creates immersive events that function as living laboratories and equips psychonauts to contribute research-grade data to science.

Explore our Spirit Tech Organizations directory, a living map of 500+ orgs we track and update weekly.

New Jobs This Week

• Production Manager @ Gaia: Run logistics, scheduling, and budgets for the original series at Gaia, the Nasdaq-listed conscious-living streaming platform. Louisville, CO · $75k–$110k.

• Social Growth Creator/Manager @ Ingenio: Build Keen's short-form video presence across conversations on relationships, careers, and intuition, for the company behind 20+ spiritual and emotional-wellness marketplaces. Remote / SF (part-time) · up to $80/hr.

Browse the Spirit Tech jobs board for more roles, or to post one at your organization.