Religions - The Consciousness Library

The Digital Kōan: Artificial Intelligence, Non-Self, and Contemplative Practice

Religions September 13, 2026 Heather Kempton

This article introduces the concept of the digital kōan, an AI-mediated contemplative prompt that functions as a catalyst for self-inquiry rather than a source of spiritual knowledge. Drawing on Buddhist psychology, cognitive science, and contemplative phenomenology, it examines how dialogue with conversational artificial intelligence can reveal the constructed nature of identity and illuminate...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17091074

Mysticism: Process and Event? From Causality to Motivation in the Phenomenology of Mystical Experience According to Edith Stein

Religions September 10, 2026 Gwendolyn Araya Gómez

(1) Background: This article situates Edith Stein within the 20th-century debate on the nature of mystical experience, framing it as a philosophical problem concerning the relationship between divine initiative and human freedom, and aims to reassess dominant developmental interpretations of mysticism. It argues that, alongside theological models such as that of Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange,...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17091055

From Technique to Wisdom: Translation-Induced Polysemy of Zhiguan 止觀 Across Chinese Breath-Meditation Texts, the Chengshi lun, and the Dunhuang Commentary Haneda 182 (羽182)

Religions August 31, 2026 Zheng Wang

The Chinese binome zhiguan 止觀 is conventionally associated with śamatha-vipaśyanā. In Chinese breath-meditation texts, however, it also refers to fixing the mind and observing the breath. Related Indic materials use sthāna/sthāpanā and upalakṣaṇā for comparable functions, although precise source terms cannot always be established. Here “translation-induced polysemy” denotes the accumulation of...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17091024

4E Cognition and Major World Religions’ Anthropology and Ontology

Religions August 26, 2026 David H. Nikkel

4E cognition offers resources supporting an anthropology and an ontology that overcome mind/body and related dualisms that contradict the original understandings of some major world religions, including the Western monotheisms and some Asian religions. 4E cognition embraces a holism with respect to the human organism, enabling a rapprochement with the Hebrew biblical, New Testament, and...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17080904 Full text 4e cognition Holism Major world religions Affordances +1

From Scripture to Practice: The Semantic Multivalence of Parimukhaṃ Satiṃ Upaṭṭhapetvā and the Divergence of Vipassanā Meditation Traditions

Religions August 26, 2026 Byoungjai Lee

The Pāli formulaic phrase parimukhaṃ satiṃ upaṭṭhapetvā appears throughout the Nikāyas in contexts ranging from breathing meditation to non-breathing practices and idiomatic descriptions of meditative states, yet its central term, parimukha, was never defined within the canon. The subsequent commentarial literature did not unify this semantic openness. Rather, through a cumulative process in...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17080909 Full text parimukha sati Pāli Interpretation +2

Meditation and Aspiration at Kagyu Monlam Chenmo in Bodh Gaya

Religions August 26, 2026 Malwina Krajewska

This article examines practices of meditation and aspiration performed during the Kagyu Monlam Chenmo in Bodh Gaya, within the Karma Kagyu institutional and devotional network associated with the 17th Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje. It focuses on the collective recitation of Samantabhadra’s King of Aspiration Prayers, not only as a liturgical performance, but as a contemplative practice shaped by...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17080911 Full text Buddhist meditation Aspiration prayer Kagyu monlam Karmapa +2

The Distinctiveness of Yiqing (疑情) in Ganhwa Seon Practice Theory: A Comparison with Contemporary Meditation Classification Frameworks

Religions August 26, 2026 Bon-Su Ku

This study contrasts the Ganhwa Seon (看話禪) practice theories of Dahui Zonggao, Gaofeng Yuanmiao, and Mengshan Deyi with the focused attention/open monitoring (FA/OM) model proposed by Lutz et al. and the three-family model developed by Dahl et al., both of which are meditation classification frameworks based on cognitive mechanisms. Although these two frameworks have served as standard models...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17080981 Full text Mindfulness Ganhwa seon Yiqing Faith +1

Family-Borne Efficacy: Shamanic Healing in Contemporary Xibo Households in Xinjiang

Religions August 26, 2026 Haiyan Xing, Shuyi Jia, Dongzhi Sangji

This article examines how patients and their relatives in contemporary Xibo families come to understand whether shamanic healing has “worked.” Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2026 in Qapqal Xibo Autonomous County, Yili, Xinjiang, it analyzes two closely observed healing rituals performed by the same shaman for two members of one family: a mother suffering...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17080972 Full text Shamanic healing Family ritual Ritual efficacy Xibo

“I Knew in My Soul It Was the Mood Stabilizer That Messed It Up!”: A Qualitative Study of Lived Experiences of Psychotropic Medication Tapering and Spirituality

Religions August 22, 2026 Stine Madsen Kvaløy, O. Synnes, Anne Austad

Psychotropic medication is widely used in the treatment of severe mental illness, yet its impact on spirituality—understood as relating to the transcendent—remains underexplored. This qualitative study examines how individuals who have reduced or discontinued medication experience and navigate spirituality. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven former inpatients, and...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17090993 Full text

The Onto-Epistemology of Sufi Experience in Khwāja Bāqī Billāh: A Naqshbandī Model Between Presence, Divine Unity and Ethic Authority

Religions August 18, 2026 Serhat Gültaş

One of the most fundamental and debated issues in the history of Sufism concerns not only the nature of mystical experience but also its epistemic value, its authority-generating capacity, and its normative legitimacy. Experiences expressed through kashf (unveiling), ilhām (inspiration), presence, witnessing, and annihilation have never been entirely rejected within Islamic thought, yet they...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17080976 Full text

Negation and Renunciation: Śaṅkara’s Vairāgya and the Dark Night of St. John of the Cross in Comparative Perspective

Religions August 4, 2026 Yixuan Liu

Negation appears across diverse religious traditions and provides a fruitful point of entry for comparative theological reflection. This paper compares St. John of the Cross’s account of the dark night in Christian mysticism with Śaṅkara’s understanding of vairāgya (renunciation or dispassion) in Advaita Vedānta. Rather than classifying Advaita as a form of Christian negative theology, the...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17080921 Full text

Reconciling the Irreconcilable: Sacramental Presence and Mystical Union in John Calvin and Ignatius of Loyola

Religions August 1, 2026 Hansol Goo

Scholarship since the mid-twentieth century has noted a compelling social and spiritual alignment between John Calvin and Ignatius of Loyola despite their position on opposite sides of the sixteenth-century confessional divide. While traditional Eucharistic debates emphasize irreconcilable structural and dogmatic disagreements, this paper argues that shifting the interpretive focus to the...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17080912 Full text

Filling in the Blanks: The Material Semiotics of Visual Meditation in the Buddhist Qizil Yoga Manual

Religions July 28, 2026 Karen O’Brien-Kop

This paper analyses the ‘grammar’, or rules, of meditation practice in the c. 5th-century Qizil Yoga Manual (QYM). The QYM was found in Kucha, a significant location in the Silk Road trade network. Meditation in this text means visual recollection, and the practices are largely structured around Buddhist Sarvāstivāda sequences with some hints of Mahāyāna or Tantric themes). As with certain...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17080898

“Simply Do Not Divine”: On the Cosmology, Moral Constraints, and Self-Transcendence of Divination in the Yijing

Religions July 27, 2026 Xunjian Lu, Fuming Wei

The phrase “simply do not divine, that is all there is to it” (bu zhan er yi yi 不占而已矣) attributed to Confucius in the Analects has long puzzled scholars in terms of understanding the Yijing. This study reexamines the proposition through a systematic analysis of the Yijing’s cosmology, moral constraints, and cultivation practices. Drawing on the Yizhuan (Ten Wings) and successive commentaries...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17070796 Full text yijing Divination Morality Correspondence +2

Mystical Expression and Teresian Parallels in the Work of Sóror Isabel Do Menino Jesus (Portugal, Seventeenth–Eighteenth Centuries)

Religions July 21, 2026 R. Sánchez

The present study focuses on the Portuguese Franciscan nun Sóror Isabel do Menino Jesus (1673–1752), a religious of the Convent of Santa Clara in Portalegre (Portugal), and the author of several writings of mystical, ascetical, and autobiographical content. Two of these texts were selected as the object of study: the autobiography and the mystical treatise, which are examined in parallel with...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17070866 Full text

The Possibility and Nature of Visionary Geography: An Inquiry into the Thought of Dariush Shayegan

Religions July 19, 2026 Tamer Yıldırım

This article explores spiritual unity beyond physical boundaries through the theme of the “geography of the soul,” conceptualized by Dariush Shayegan (1925–2018) as “visionary geography”. This study criticizes the quantitative world perception that emerged following the post-Galilean reduction of nature to a mathematical object, as well as a modernity that imprisons humanity within the...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17070859 Mysticism Humanity Soul Modernity +12

Religion in Sound: Exploring the Relationship Between Music and Religion in the Composition Harmony of the Spheres by Joep Franssens

Religions July 18, 2026 M.J.M. Hoondert, Nataliia Vdovychenko

This article explores the relationship between music and religion through a case study of Harmony of the Spheres by the Dutch composer Joep Franssens. Situated within the context of religious change in the Netherlands, where institutional religion has declined while spiritual and sacred repertoires remain culturally significant, this article asks how musical experience can generate, mediate, or...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17070858 Mysticism Harmony color Spiritual practice Performative utterance +15

Ritual and Narrative: An Analysis of Survival Resilience in Folk Shamanic Rituals in Tales of Hulan River

Religions July 16, 2026 Qi Zhao, Ruijia Zhang

Due to its brilliant literary narrative and profound ideas, Xiao Hong’s Tales of Hulan River has had a profound influence on the history of Chinese modern literature. Academia has conducted in-depth discussions on Tales of Hulan River, but these have largely overlooked the folk shamanic rituals and their crucial significance in this novel. The expression of literary narrative ideas cannot be...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17070852 Narrative Resilience materials science Contingency Psychological resilience +4

A Brief Discussion on Chan–Pure Land Syncretism in Dunhuang: Centered on Dunhuang Literature

Religions July 15, 2026 Xiao Lin

This article investigates the convergence of Chan and Pure Land practices in medieval Dunhuang, highlighting a fluid and integrative religious phenomenon that challenges conventional sectarian boundaries. Drawing on a rich corpus of manuscripts, including treatises, lecture notes, liturgical texts, and portrait praises, the study demonstrates how meditation-centered approaches, often associated...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17070847 Buddhism Meditation Introspection Syncretism linguistics +15

The Dialectical Mandala Model of Mindfulness: A Novel Model Revealing the Alchemical Logic Underlying Mindfulness Practice

Religions July 9, 2026 Orchid-Stone Chang Azanlansh

Contrasting mainstream operational definitions of mindfulness, this article introduces the Dialectical Mandala Model of Mindfulness (DMMM), a dialectically articulated framework integrating Daoist internal alchemy and Buddhist contemplative theory. It reconceptualizes mindfulness as a multilayered developmental architecture rather than a set of techniques or cognitive skills, extending beyond...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17070824 Mindfulness Meditation Dialectic Contemplation +14

Beyond Ludism: Anthropological Research as Interruption

Religions July 7, 2026 E. Koster, PA Versteeg

This paper critically examines methodological ludism as a research approach in the anthropology of religion, addressing the enduring insider/outsider problem. Methodological ludism, as proposed by André Droogers, encourages scholars to playfully engage with religious perspectives to transcend dichotomies between belief and analysis. While this ludic stance offers a dynamic alternative to...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17070810 Transformative learning Embodied cognition Dichotomy Ethnography +4

Embodied Sacred Orientation: A Comparative Spatial Theology of Ritual Directionality in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Architecture

Religions July 3, 2026 Sertan Bakar, Ali Mehdizade

This article examines the orientation that emerges during worship in the Abrahamic religions through the interrelation of bodily experience and architectural space. Drawing jointly on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the “lived body” and Mircea Eliade’s theory of sacred space, the study discusses how the directionality of worship in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam produces distinct...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17070800 Worship Situated Embodied cognition Phenomenology philosophy +10

Rethinking Self-Understanding in the Age of AI: From Reflective Outcome to Pre-Configured Self-Understanding

Religions June 29, 2026 Kwanghyun Han, Sejin Chang

This study reconceptualizes self-understanding not as a reflective outcome but as a conditionally constituted process grounded in the Buddhist principle of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda). Adopting a comparative philosophical analysis, it examines how traditional meditation and AI-mediated meditation differently configure the conditions under which experience and self-understanding...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17070781 Meditation Buddhism Experiential learning Contemplation +17

Spirituality and Religiosity in Meaning-Making After Stressful Life Events: A Qualitative Study Using the Meaning Making Model

Religions June 25, 2026 Melanie Neumann, Lea Benz, Wiebke Uhlenbrock et al.

This study investigates the role of spirituality/religiosity (S/R) in meaning-making processes following stressful life events (SLEs) within the framework of Crystal Park’s Meaning Making Model (MMM). A qualitative phenomenological design was applied, using semi-structured interviews with N = 27 German participants who had experienced psychological and/or physical SLEs. As the majority of the...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17070763 Religiosity Spirituality Conceptualization Meaning-making +8

Micro-Messiahs and the Revolutionary Dynamics of Psychedelic Diffusion

Religions June 24, 2026 Leor Roseman

Prophetic or messianic states of consciousness are charged with moral urgency and are active, historical, political, and sometimes infused with ego. In this paper, I inquire into psychedelic micro-messianic phenomenology and revolutionary dynamics through the historical case studies of Allen Ginsberg, Master Irineu, and John Wilson (Moonhead)—figures associated with the diffusion of LSD, Daime...

DOI: 10.3390/rel17070756 Mysticism Phenomenology philosophy Consciousness Dynamics music +11

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