DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals)
April 1, 2014
Tim Gard, Tim eGard, Maxime eTaquet et al.
104 citations
Fluid intelligence declines slower in middle-aged yoga and meditation practitioners than in matched controls. Resting state functional brain networks of practitioners are more integrated and resilient to damage. Mindfulness correlates positively with fluid intelligence, network resilience, and global network efficiency. The findings suggest that mindfulness may play a mechanistic role in preserving cognitive and brain function during aging.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals)
October 1, 2015
Daryl Bem, Patrizio Tressoldi, Thomas Rabeyron et al.
1 citation
A meta-analysis of 90 experiments from 33 laboratories in 14 countries found evidence for precognition—the ability to be influenced by a future random event before it occurs. The overall effect was highly significant (z = 6.40, p = 1.2 × 10⁻¹⁰) with a small effect size (Hedges’ g = 0.09). When the original author's experiments were excluded, the effect remained significant (g = 0.06, z = 4.16, p = 1.1 × 10⁻⁵). Bayesian analysis provided decisive evidence for the effect. Statistical tests indicated the database was not significantly affected by selection bias or p-hacking. The authors discuss the controversial status of precognition and related psi phenomena.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals)
July 1, 2026
Julia Turska, Charbel El-Hani, I. Ludwig et al.
This article combines philosophy and anthropology to examine how ontologies—understandings of what exists—are lived through embodied practices rather than treated as abstract concepts. Drawing on Tim Ingold's ecology of life and ethnographic fieldwork with an artisanal fishing community in Siribinha, Brazil, the authors focus on Caipora, a forest being that regulates human-nature relationships. The ethnography reveals Caipora's embodied manifestations in hunting, intergenerational conversations, and religious practices, showing that its ontology is central to social and practical life. The authors argue that ethnography is an effective method for generating insights about ontologies understood as embodied and socially entangled.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals)
April 10, 2026
Nicola Strizzolo, Nico Bortoletto
Lifestyle sport practitioners experience forms of transcendence, altered perception, and connection with nature that can be meaningfully interpreted through concepts associated with shamanic practice. Drawing on Roger Caillois' taxonomy, the paper identifies experiential and symbolic parallels between sport and shamanism, focusing on fandom, vertigo-oriented practices, and spiritualized imagery in extreme sports. An exploratory quantitative survey of master's students in shamanic studies investigates perceived overlaps between shamanic experience and sporting activity, particularly regarding transcendence, flow-like states, inner transformation, and embodied engagement with natural environments. The work proposes a new line of inquiry into how transcendence, ritualization, and ecological attunement shape contemporary sports practices.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals)
November 1, 2025
Hamidreza Shakerin
Near-death experiences (NDEs) resist explanation as mere memory reconstruction. The memory-reconstruction hypothesis, which claims NDEs are the brain's rereading of stored memories, fails to account for veridical perceptions (accurate observations of hidden or distant events), perceptual anomalies (360° vision, undistorted underwater sight, hyper-speed life review without blur), reports by congenitally blind individuals who gain sight during NDEs, children's accounts of unknown deceased relatives, shared experiences across cultures, and profound post-experiential transformations. The hypothesis lacks empirical support, contradicts known neurophysiology and optics, and cannot accommodate present-time or future-oriented information later verified. NDEs thus support non-material soul dualism and afterlife beliefs, undermining physicalist reductionism.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals)
August 23, 2021
Mahmoud Afrouz
A meta-analytical review of over forty-three articles on the theme of 'mystical journey' in comparative literature synthesizes findings across works such as Ardaviraf-nameh, the Divine Comedy, Seirolebad Elalma’ad, Mantiq ut-tayr, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and the Little Black Fish. The review identifies common criteria for comparability: accessibility to translated works, adaptations, direct inspiration from sacred scriptures, shared religious backgrounds, and common concerns in presenting mystical-journey stages. It introduces novel, unsearched comparative corpuses for future research, aiming to provide researchers with a more comprehensive conception of the mystical journey and new avenues for study.