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Journal of Religion and Health

ISSN 1573-6571

65 papers in the library · 591 citations · publishing 1982-2026

Papers

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Spiritual issues in anxiety states.

Journal of Religion and Health March 1, 1993 I M Rosen

This overview points to large areas of human concern that cannot be bounded by the biomedical, behavioral, and narrowly cognitive approaches that characterize current understanding and treatment of anxiety disorders. I look at some aspects of existential, wholistic, and transpersonal psychology that I have found especially useful in enhancing therapy of the anxiety spectrum.

Near-death experiences and the physio-kundalini syndrome

Journal of Religion and Health 1993 Bruce Greyson 33 citations

Near-death experiences (NDEs), transcendental experiences on the threshold of death with profound implications for both patient care and religious belief, have been hypothesized to be related to the awakening of a biological process known in Eastern traditions as kundalini. In a test of this proposed association between kundalini and NDEs, a sample of near-death experiencers acknowledged...

Mysticism and psychedelics: The case of the dark night

Journal of Religion and Health 1991 Christopher M. Bache 6 citations

This study uses a model of consciousness derived from LSD-assisted psychotherapy to illumine an enigmatic set of painful experiences that occur on the mystic's path known in Western circles as the "dark night." It argues that the dark night experiences described in John of the Cross's classic workDark Night of the Soul can be conceptualized in terms of Stanislav Grofs category of "perinatal...

Religious experience and public cult: The case of Mary Ann Van Hoof.

Journal of Religion and Health March 1, 1989 S L Zimdars-Swartz

This study focuses on the first year (1950) of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary reported by Mary Ann Van Hoof of Necedah, Wisconsin. It argues that Van Hoof's experiences met not simply the needs of the community-at-large, but also helped the seer draw meaning from an emotionally-deprived and abusive childhood. The study concludes by suggesting that public serial apparitions are complex...

Religious and therapeutic elements in Sufi teaching stories.

Journal of Religion and Health September 1, 1988 J R King

Like the teaching stories of many other religions-the parables of Jesus, Zen koans, Hasidic tales-the stories of the Sufis, or Islamic mystics, offer important insights into the nature of religious experience and emotional well-being. This paper discusses the comments of selected Sufi tales on the basic structure of situations, non-rational or lateral problem-solving techniques, the process of...

The initiation ritual as a model for oncology counseling.

Journal of Religion and Health December 1, 1987 L A Lorenz, F J Sullivan

This article examines the use of the initiation ritual of primitive people, described in the works of Mircea Eliade, as a model for counseling cancer patients, giving both meaning and structure to the interactions between patient and counselor. Within this model the patient's encounter with death, whether feared or actualized, can be used as impetus toward personal growth, whatever the stage of...

Near-death experience as mystical experience.

Journal of Religion and Health March 1, 1986 J Pennachio 31 citations

Near-death experience exhibits many attributes of mystical awareness. Assessing the mystical quality of psychedelic experience, Walter Pahnke identified a nine-category typology of mystical experience. It is used here to illustrate the mystical nature of near-death experience. The typology also describes the self-transformation which follows the mystical state of consciousness....

A reappraisal of Teresa of Avila's supposed hysteria.

Journal of Religion and Health December 1, 1985 C M Bache 18 citations

This essay offers a reassessment of Teresa's severe seizures which were such a characteristic feature of her mysticism. The diagnosis of hysteria is no longer viable, at the very least given its abandonment by clinicians. An alternative analysis is developed by phenomenologically comparing Teresa's seizures to parallel experiences of subjects in LSD-assisted psychotherapy. Using Stanislav...

Toward a model for spirituality and alcoholism.

Journal of Religion and Health September 1, 1984 G F Kohn

Spirituality is a significant factor in recovery from alcoholism, whatever definition of this condition one may use. One aspect of alcohol abuse is its apparent relationship to the balance between brain hemispheres. Excessive use of alcohol "anesthetizes" the object-based, language-oriented functions of the left hemisphere, associated with an "action mode" of consciousness. This allows greater...

Psychotherapists and the clergy: Fifty years later.

Journal of Religion and Health March 1, 1984 J M Spiegelman

Jung's two powerful articles on psychotherapy and the clergy, written in 1928 and 1932. are looked at from the vantage point of fifty years later and the author's experience in conducting analysis with many people from both vocations. He notes that relatively few people achieve the kind of integration of the ego that Jung writes about-an essentially religious experience-wherein the center of...

Neurology, psychology, and extraordinary religious experiences.

Journal of Religion and Health March 1, 1984 D A Helminiak

Temporal lobe epilepsy and certain personality disorders often result in experiences described as "religious." TLE research suggests a possible neurological basis for such experiences. Immediately the question arises about the authenticity of these experiences as religious. An experience is authentic if it furthers the authentic growth of the subject, regardless of what triggered it. So...

"Soul-making" in a schizophrenic saint.

Journal of Religion and Health March 1, 1984 J R Haule

"Soul-making" (cf. Jung and Hillman) is the process of integrating spiritual and bodily imagery into an intimated wholeness transcending conscious comprehension. Pierre Janet's case of the psychotic mystic, Madeleine, reveals that the patient had been "making" her own-soul even though his theory had no provision for soul. Janet's soul-stripping theory is contrasted with a soul-making approach,...

Near-death experiences and religion: A further investigation

Journal of Religion and Health 1984 Steven A. McLaughlin, H. Newton Malony 31 citations

The relationship between religion and near-death experiencers (NDEs) was examined by interviewing 40 near-death experiences who were given a series of instruments to measure religious orientation and religious change. No relationship was found between religious orientation prior to the NDE and the depth of the NDE. However, a significant correlation was found between the depth of the NDE and a...

Madness as religious experience: The case of Allen Ginsberg.

Journal of Religion and Health June 1, 1982 M Wasserman

Various writers have considered madness to be a religious experience. On the basis of the literature in the area and conversations with psychiatric patients, it is argued that madness as a religious experience can be viewed as a four-stage developmental process. The four stages are: 1) The hurt-and-be-hurt state of being, 2) The self-induced psychedelic experience, 3) The confusion-and-dread...

A transpersonal critique of behaviorism.

Journal of Religion and Health March 1, 1982 E E Thornton

Behavioral psychology has been neglected by pastoral psychologists to the hurt of both. An examination of the principles of behaviorism and some of the data on the behavioral treatment of the neuroses is followed by an analysis of B.F. Skinner's philosophy of science. A critique is developed from the perspective of transpersonal psychology, concluding with a possible reconciliation of the...