Religions
June 24, 2022
Johannes Bronkhorst
15 citations
Mystical experience is best understood not as a special kind of consciousness but as the removal of the factors that construct ordinary, standard consciousness. Standard consciousness is built from the mutual connectedness of mental contents; when those connecting factors are suppressed, the resulting experience is largely negative—defined by what is absent rather than by positive content. This account explains why mystical experiences are often described as ineffable and provides a framework for assessing their epistemic status. It also suggests implications for how we think about mind, consciousness, and the self, by showing that ordinary consciousness is a constructed phenomenon that can be dismantled.
Religions
January 6, 2023
Johannes Bronkhorst
1 citation
The article examines whether the Buddhist noble truths are actually true, using recent neuroscience and psychology, particularly Mark Solms's theory. It focuses on how memories shape personality and how memory reconsolidation could affect those memories, explaining how the cessation of suffering and desire are plausible. Access to relevant memories is a poorly understood process, and the author proposes ways it might be achieved.
Preprints.org
April 25, 2025
Johannes Bronkhorst
preprint
Greater depth of attention, often called concentration or absorption, can alter how we experience the world and, in extreme cases, lead to religious experiences. Little is known about the neural correlates of these states. This paper proposes that certain serotonin receptors (5-HT2A) play a decisive role. When activated, these receptors dampen external or internal stimuli. The paper argues that attention consists primarily in the exclusion of stimuli, so attention corresponds to activation of 5-HT2A receptors. This provides an objective measure of depth of attention via degree of receptor activation, hypothesized to contribute to understanding the link between religion and the brain.
Subhasita Journal of Buddhist and Religious Studies
April 23, 2025
Johannes Bronkhorst
Spiritual techniques from Buddhism and Yoga, such as deep meditation, align with the psychological mechanism of memory reconsolidation, where traumatic memories are consciously re-accessed and their emotional meaning renewed. This qualitative literature study and transdisciplinary discourse analysis shows that these practices activate a neuroplastic state in the brain that supports releasing emotional baggage and improving psychological well-being. The findings suggest that ancient spiritual traditions offer psychological mechanisms for emotional and cognitive transformation relevant to contemporary mental health, bridging mystical and scientific approaches.
Asian Traditions of Meditation
October 31, 2016
Johannes Bronkhorst
The essay argues that the confusing descriptions of meditation in Jaina canonical texts, such as the Āyāraṅga and Uttarajjhayaṇa, led to many discontinuities and innovations in the history of Jaina meditation. The term dhyāna (jhāna) is used for both meditative and non-meditative mental activity, and canonical lists of four types of dhyāna were typically misread as types of meditation. Only one type, "pure meditation," was considered truly meditative, but it was often thought to occur only in the last moments before death or to be inaccessible in the present age. Post-canonical writers like Hemacandra filled the resulting vacuum, sometimes drawing on experience and external influences.