ReligionsNovember 14, 2016Jeffrey S. Lidke8 citations
This paper is a call for the development of a neuroscientific research protocol for the study of the impact of Tantric practice on the autonomic nervous system. Tantric texts like Abhinavagupta’s Tantrāloka map out a complex meditative ritual system in which inward-gazing, apophatic, sense-denying contemplative practices are combined with outward-gazing, kataphatic sense-activating ritual...
In this article, I utilise current scholarship on synesthetic experience as a lens for evaluating the multi-layered cognitive and artistic processes by which Śrī Vidyā practitioners construct, visualise, and embody the primary symbol of their clan, the Śrī Vidyā diagram. This diagram is simultaneously a multi-hued visual image and a resounding symphonic field of luminous, reverberating...
The following analysis of Abhinavagupta’s system of mystical practice (termed the fourfold path or upāya-catuṣṭayam) aims to illustrate the ways in which the Western discourse of duality, because of its fundamental acceptance of a mind/body split, is an unsuccessful heuristic model for understanding non-Western mystical traditions. Specifically, I examine the hermeneutical limitations one...