Religions - The Consciousness Library

Near-Death Experiences and Religious Experience: An Exploration of Spirituality in Medicine

Religions February 11, 2022 Jonathan Kopel, Mark Owen Webb 6 citations

There has been a continuous discussion of religious experience since William James, culminating in a rich and varied literature on the epistemology of religious experience in the late twentieth century. There has also been a burgeoning literature on near-death experiences (NDEs), largely on neurology and physiology and sometimes as possible counterevidence to naturalism. One important subject...

DOI: 10.3390/rel13020156 Spirituality Religious experience Subject documents Naturalism +3

Paying Attention: An Examination of Attention and Empathy as They Relate to Buddhist Philosophy

Religions January 23, 2022 Jennifer Carmichael 1 citation

The human response to the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a concerning decline in empathy for each other and the planet. A dualistic conception of mind and body coupled with a capitalist society that requires belief in an inherent self to fuel consumerism both complicate our ability to empathize because these ideas reify our conventional self. This paper argues that an understanding of the...

DOI: 10.3390/rel13020108 Full text

The Ecology of Religious Knowledges

Religions January 20, 2022 Juan Morales

Different religious traditions, beliefs, and experiences claim to have epistemic contact with the ultimate source of reality. However, this epistemic claim has encountered one of its most significant obstacles in the initial incompatibility of its multiple accounts. I argue that from the ecology of knowledges, the idea that intentions, body, and physical and social environments are constitutive...

DOI: 10.3390/rel13010011 Full text Religious plurality Religious objectivity Mystical religious experience

Equality of Access? Chinese Women Practicing Chan and Transnational Meditation in Contemporary China

Religions January 20, 2022 Ngar-sze Lau

This paper examines how the Buddhist revival, the Chan revival, and recent popularity of transnational meditation practices have facilitated Chinese women practicing Buddhist meditation in contemporary China. With the influence of the opening of China and growing transnational networks, there has been an increasing number of Han Chinese monastics and lay people practicing transnational...

DOI: 10.3390/rel13010061 Full text Chan Transnational meditation Han chinese Nuns +1

Christian Accommodative Mindfulness: Definition, Current Research, and Group Protocol

Religions January 20, 2022 Fernando Garzon, Andres Benitez-DeVilbiss, Vera Turbessi et al.

More clinicians are using mindfulness-based therapeutic strategies; however, Evangelical Christian clients sometimes worry about the Buddhist origins of these treatments. Christian accommodative mindfulness (CAM) attempts to address these concerns with culturally sensitive adaptations to mindfulness methods. We present a definition of CAM and propose some worldview adjustments to typical...

DOI: 10.3390/rel13010063 Full text Mindfulness Christian research Health outcomes Behavioral health

Metaphysics and Mysticism: Mystical Aspects and Elements in the Work of Czech Thinker Karel Říha

Religions January 17, 2022 Martin Vašek, Andrea Blaščíková, Rastislav Nemec 1 citation

Czech theologian and philosopher Karel Říha (1923–2016) followed the thinking of Maurice Blondel. He wanted to expand and deepen the basis of transcendental philosophy. He perceived the possibilities of a new metaphysics, which would be established only in a triadic way of thinking—knowledge, wanting, Being. He originally believed that the basic philosophical theory was the theory of moral...

DOI: 10.3390/rel13010084 Mysticism Metaphysics Transcendental number Karel +7

Religiosity and Spirituality of German-Speaking Pilgrims on the Way of St. James

Religions January 6, 2022 Detlef Lienau, Stefan Huber, Michael Ackert 2 citations

The article examines the intensity and structure of religiosity and spirituality of German-speaking foot and bicycle pilgrims on the Way of St. James within the framework of a multidimensional model of religiosity. The following nine aspects are distinguished: religious questions, faith, religious and spiritual identity, worship, prayer, meditation, monistic and dualistic religious experiences....

DOI: 10.3390/rel13010051

Bodily Contraction Arises with Dukkha: Embodied Learning to Foster Racial Healing

Religions December 23, 2021 Brian J. Nichols

Black somatic therapist Resmaa Menakem has persuasively argued that racism exist in our bodies more than our heads and that racial healing requires learning to become mindful of our embodied states. The reason that racism remains prevalent despite decades of anti-racist education and the work of diversity and inclusion programs, according to Menakem, is that racist reactions that shun, harm,...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12121108 Full text Meditation Embodiment Embodied learning Trauma +2

Art and Influence, Presence and Navigation in Southern African Forager Landscapes

Religions December 13, 2021 Sam Challis, Andrew S. Skinner 14 citations

With earlier origins and a rebirth in the late 1990s, the New Animisms and the precipitate ‘ontological turn’ have now been in full swing since the mid-2000s. They make a valuable contribution to the interpretation of the rock arts of numerous societies, particularly in their finding that in animist societies, there is little distinction between nature and culture, religious belief and...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12121099 Dichotomy Perspective graphical Interpretation philosophy Epistemology +4

Psychedelic Epistemology: William James and the “Noetic Quality” of Mystical Experience

Religions November 29, 2021 Ron Cole-Turner 16 citations

William James proposed in 1902 that states of mystical experience, central to his idea of religious experience, can be identified based on their ineffability and their noetic quality. The epistemological category of the noetic quality, modified by W. T. Stace in 1960, plays a central but somewhat confounding role in today’s biomedical research involving psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12121058 Mysticism Religious experience Epistemology Philosophy of religion +3

Encountering the Goddess in the Indian Himalaya: On the Contribution of Ethnographic Film to the Study of Religion

Religions November 25, 2021 Arik Moran 5 citations

This paper examines the benefits of ethnographic film for the study of religion. It argues that the exploration of gaps between colloquial descriptions of divinities and their practical manifestation in ritual is instructive of the way religious categories are conceptualized. The argument is developed through an analysis of selected scenes from the documentary AVATARA, a meditation on goddess...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12111021 Full text Ethnographic film Exorcism Goddess Himalaya +2

“Like a Vibration Cascading through the Body”: Energy-Like Somatic Experiences Reported by Western Buddhist Meditators

Religions November 24, 2021 David J. Cooper, Jared R. Lindahl, Roman Palitsky et al. 20 citations

There are numerous historical and textual references to energy-like somatic experiences (ELSEs) from religious traditions, and even a few psychological studies that have documented related phenomena. However, ELSEs remain an understudied effect of meditation in contemporary research. Based upon narratives from a large qualitative sample of Buddhist meditators in the West reporting...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12121042 Meditation Buddhism Narrative Scope computer science +6

The Spiritual Features of the Experience of qi in Chinese Martial Arts

Religions October 8, 2021 Veronica Cibotaru

I argue in this article, grounding on a phenomenological analysis of the experience of qi in Chinese martial arts, that the experience of qi in this framework can share the features of a secular spiritual experience, in other words of a spiritual experience that is not religious, at least not necessarily. I put in evidence five features that can characterize the experience of qi in Chinese...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12100836 Full text

Conserving the ‘Container’ of Tantric Secrecy: A Discussion with Western Śākta Practitioners

Religions September 26, 2021 Sophie-Anne Perkins

Secrecy has long limited the possibility of gaining emic insight into the spiritual experiences of tantric practitioners. By sharing reflections obtained via semi-structured interviews, the present article examines how a contemporary community of Western Śākta practitioners not only interprets the functions of secrecy and the necessity of maintaining it, but re-defines it in a way that...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12090729 Full text Tantra Śākta <i>sādhanā</i> Secrecy +2

Religious Disagreement, Mystical Experience, and Doxastic Minimalism: Critical Notice of John Pittard’s Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment

Religions September 26, 2021 Kirk Lougheed

In his recent book, Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment, John Pittard challenges J.L. Schellenberg’s rejection of mystical experience as worthy of enjoying presumptive doxastic trust for two main reasons. First, Pittard holds that Schellenberg wrongly focuses only on avoiding error while placing no emphasis on gaining truth. I argue that, contra Pittard, Schellenberg’s account...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12090673 Full text Pittard Schellenberg Doxastic minimalism Mystical experiences

Institutional Religion and Religious Experience

Religions September 22, 2021 Lidia Rodríguez, J. L. de León, L. Uriarte et al.

A number of empirical studies have shown the continuous lack of adherence and the growing autonomy of the population regarding religious institutions. This article reflects on the kind of relationship between deinstitutionalisation and religious experience based on the following hypothesis: the evident decline in religious institutions does not necessarily lead to the disappearance or the...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12100791 Full text

Cutting the Knot of the World Problem: Sri Aurobindo’s Experiential and Philosophical Critique of Advaita Vedānta

Religions September 14, 2021 S. Medhananda 1 citation

This article proposes to examine in detail Aurobindo’s searching—and often quite original—criticisms of Advaita Vedānta, which have not yet received the sustained scholarly attention they deserve. After discussing his early spiritual experiences and the formative influence of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda on his thought, I outline Aurobindo’s philosophy of “realistic Adwaita”. According...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12090765 Full text

A Psychospiritual Exploration of the Transpersonal Self as the Ground of Healing

Religions September 5, 2021 Monique M. Verrier 4 citations

This paper focuses on the transpersonal Self as the psychological and spiritual healing factor in psychotherapy and addiction recovery, and illustrates the importance of bringing awareness of the Self and the energy of wholeness into focus with clients in the therapeutic process. The concept and experience of Self is explored through the psychospiritual therapeutic model of Internal Family...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12090725 Full text

Sufism and the Sacred Feminine in Lombok, Indonesia: Situating Spirit Queen Dewi Anjani and Female Saints in Nahdlatul Wathan

Religions August 26, 2021 Bianca J. Smith

This article is a feminist ethnographic exploration of how ‘indigenous’ notions of a ‘sacred feminine’ shape Sufi praxis on the island of Lombok in the eastern part of Indonesia in Southeast Asia. I demonstrate through long-term immersive anthropological fieldwork how in her indigenous form as Dewi Anjani ‘Spirit Queen of Jinn’ and as ‘Holy Saint of Allah’ who rules Lombok from Mount Rinjani,...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12080563 Full text Sacred feminine Sufi orders Female saints Dewi anjani

Psychedelic Drugs and Atheism: Debunking the Myths

Religions August 8, 2021 Wayne Glausser 7 citations

Two recent surveys of people who took psychedelic drugs and reported “God experience encounters”, along with successful clinical trials using psychedelic therapy for depression, have given rise to public misconceptions about psychedelics and atheism. Specifically, three inferences have been drawn: (1) that the psychedelic experience tends to dissolve atheist convictions; (2) that atheist...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12080614 Atheism Mythology Epistemology Psychoanalysis +1

Effect of Raja Yoga Meditation on the Distress and Anxiety Levels of Women with Breast Cancer

Religions July 31, 2021 Raquel Vilanova Araújo, A. F. C. Fernandes, R. I. C. Campelo et al.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of Raja yoga meditation on the level of distress and anxiety in women with breast cancer. Method: A randomized, controlled, clinical trial was carried out in a specialized center between February and December 2019. The patients in the intervention group (n = 25) participated in four group meditation sessions for one month, and the participants in the control...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12080590 Full text

The Influence of Spiritual Transcendence on a Centering Meditation: A Growth Curve Analysis of Resilience

Religions July 26, 2021 Stephanie Dorais, Daniel Gutiérrez 15 citations

The authors longitudinally examined a spiritual meditation based on centering prayer. The study consisted of two primary aims: (1) to determine the effectiveness of centering meditation on increasing resilience and (2) to examine the temporal dynamics of spiritual transcendence on resilience during the meditation. Participants (n = 150) engaged in a 4-week randomized controlled trial, in which...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12080573 Meditation Transcendence philosophy Prayer Psychological resilience +4

“Deep Listening” in Buddhist Studies: Teaching and Learning during a Pandemic

Religions June 1, 2021 Frances Garrett, Sophie Chase

Co-authored between a professor and student, this essay discusses how an experiential learning assignment of “deep listening” was integrated into an online course on histories of Buddhist meditation. Paired with a group art project, the work provided not only an opportunity to practice critical communication skills, but also a sense of connection and community, which is especially important...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12060387 Full text Meditation Buddhist studies Trauma-informed pedagogy Student well-being +2

Reassessing Shamanism and Animism in the Art and Archaeology of Ancient Mesoamerica

Religions May 28, 2021 Eleanor Harrison-Buck, D. Freidel 33 citations

Shamanism and animism have proven to be useful cross-cultural analytical tools for anthropology, particularly in religious studies. However, both concepts root in reductionist, social evolutionary theory and have been criticized for their vague and homogenizing rubric, an overly romanticized idealism, and the tendency to ‘other’ nonwestern peoples as ahistorical, apolitical, and irrational. The...

DOI: 10.3390/rel12060394 Full text

Introduction to the Special Issue “Religious and Spiritual Experiences”

Religions April 29, 2021 Anne Austad, Hanneke Muthert 2 citations

William James’s seminal book, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902/2012), describes the phenomenology and ‘fruits’ (James 2012, p [...]

DOI: 10.3390/rel12050307 Full text N/a

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