Religions - The Consciousness Library

Jainism, Yoga, and Ecology: A Course in Contemplative Practice for a World in Pain

Religions March 28, 2019 C. Miller 3 citations

This article proposes an introductory course to Jainism vis-à-vis the categories of yoga and ecology. Following a short introduction, the main section of this paper introduces the contents of the syllabus for this upper division undergraduate theological studies course. Students will learn not only the history and philosophy of Jainism, but will also undertake basic Jain contemplative...

DOI: 10.3390/rel10040232 Full text

Divine Light and Melodies Lead the Way: The Santmat Tradition of Bihar

Religions March 28, 2019 Veena R. Howard

This paper focuses on the branch of Santmat (thus far, unstudied by scholars of Indian religions), prevalent in the rural areas of Bihar, India. Santmat—literally meaning “the Path of Sants„ or “Point of View of the Sants„—of Bihar represents a unique synthesis of the elements of the Vedic traditions, rural Hindu practices, and esoteric experiences, as recorded in the poetry of the medieval...

DOI: 10.3390/rel10040230 Full text Santmat Sants Religious experience Medieval sant tradition +4

Sprouts of the Body, Sprouts of the Field: Identification of the Goddess with Poxes in South India

Religions February 28, 2019 Perundevi Srinivasan

In south India, when a person is afflicted with poxes of any variety, it is believed that the goddess Mariyamman has “arrived„ in the person. The Tamil term “ammai„ means pustules or “pearls„ of poxes as well as mother/goddess. Indigenous discourses, gleaned from resources, such as songs and narratives, facilitate our interrogation of the Hindu “religious experience„ that underscores the...

DOI: 10.3390/rel10030147 Full text Mariyamman Ammai Poxes Affliction +6

Thought Experiments as a Tool for Undermining Methodological Naturalism

Religions February 22, 2019 Travis Dumsday

There is a substantial literature on the question of whether methodological naturalism (MN) is and/or should be among the principles operative in the natural and social sciences; moreover the status of MN has been one of the battle grounds in prominent debates regarding the demarcation lines between science and theology (e.g., the debate over whether intelligent design hypotheses can ever count...

DOI: 10.3390/rel10020127 Full text Near-death experience Thought experiment Theology Science +2

From a Jewish Communist to a Jewish Buddhist: Allen Ginsberg as a Forerunner of a New American Jew

Religions February 7, 2019 Yaakov Ariel 1 citation

The article examines Allen Ginsberg’s cultural and spiritual journeys, and traces the poet’s paths as foreshadowing those of many American Jews of the last generation. Ginsberg was a unique individual, whose choices were very different other men of his era. However, it was larger developments in American society that allowed him to take steps that were virtually unthinkable during his parents’...

DOI: 10.3390/rel10020100 Buddhism Judaism Faith Religious studies +6

The Evolution of Chinese Shamanism: A Case Study from Northwest China

Religions December 4, 2018 Haiyan Xing, Gerald Murray 8 citations

This paper presents information on the shamanic religious system practiced among the Tu ethnic group of Qinghai Province in Northwest China. After presenting ethnographic information on the spirit beliefs, rituals, and shamanic specialists of the Tu, the paper will use a systemic definition of religion to (1) identify changes that have occurred in the focus of Tu shamanism and the role of the...

DOI: 10.3390/rel9120397 Full text Shaman Religious system Chinese ethnic groups Historical materialism +1

The Strategy of Ontological Negativity in Meister Eckhart’s Metaphysics and in Philosophical Traditions of India

Religions November 26, 2018 Tatyana Lifintseva, Dmitry S. Tourko 1 citation

In this article, the authors investigate ontological strategies in Meister Eckhart’s metaphysics, which remounts Neoplatonism and the Corpus Areopagiticum, and in two schools of Indian philosophical tradition, the Advaita Vedanta and Early Buddhism. Along with differences in the anthropology, epistemology, and soteriology of these traditions, we can find similar strategies of ontological...

DOI: 10.3390/rel9120386 Mysticism Metaphysics Neoplatonism Soul +11

Contemplative Practice, Doxographies, and the Construction of Tibetan Buddhism: Nupchen Sangyé Yeshé and The Lamp for the Eye in Meditation

Religions November 15, 2018 Manuel Lopez

In this article, I would like to reframe our understanding of the role played by doxographies or classification of views (Skt. siddhānta, Ch. panjiao 判教, Tib. grub mtha’) in the Buddhist tradition as it pertained to Tibetan attempts at defining and organizing the diversity of Buddhist contemplative practices that made their way into Tibet since the introduction of Buddhism to the Tibetan...

DOI: 10.3390/rel9110360 Full text Meditation Doxography Non-conceptuality Nyingma +3

Introduction to the Special Issue of Religions—“Transcendentalism and the Religious Experience”

Religions August 27, 2018 Kenneth S. Sacks

In his 1837 oration “The American Scholar,” Emerson demanded that, above all, […]

DOI: 10.3390/rel9090253 Full text N/a

It’s Like Growing Roots inside Something Deeply Familiar: An Explorative Qualitative Study of Anthroposophic Mantra Practice and the Subsidiary Exercises

Religions August 16, 2018 Terje Sparby 5 citations

Anthroposophic meditation is unique in that it arises within a European context and emphasizes cognition, self-development, and sociocultural renewal. This article presents the perceived effects of two of the most common Anthroposophic meditation practices within the current sample (N = 30). The first, Anthroposophic mantra practice, seeks to connect the practitioner to a spiritual reality. The...

DOI: 10.3390/rel9080245 Meditation Mantra Sociocultural evolution Cognition +5

Pedestrian Dharma: Slowness and Seeing in Tsai Ming-Liang’s Walker

Religions June 26, 2018 Teng-Kuan Ng 5 citations

This paper studies the ways that Walker, a short film by the Malaysian-Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-Liang, visualizes the relationship between Buddhism and modernity. Via detailed film analysis as well as attention to sources in premodern Buddhist traditions, this paper argues that its filmic performance of Zen walking meditation serves two functions: To present slowness and simplicity as...

DOI: 10.3390/rel9070200 Full text Buddhism and modernity Contemplative studies Kinhin Slow cinema +4

The Paranormal in Jane Jensen’s “Gray Matter”

Religions April 18, 2018 Pavel Nosachev

The main research issue of this article is to determine the extent to which Western esotericism influences the formation of computer game plots. The methodological framework is the occultural bricolage theory (C. Partridge). This article looks at how the paranormal is represented in the game “Gray Matter”, created by J. Jensen. Jensen has always used occult bricolage as the main method for...

DOI: 10.3390/rel9040134 Full text Western esotericism Religious studies Game studies Paranormal +3

Transcending Gender: Female Non-Buddhists’ Experiences of the Vipassanā Meditation Retreat

Religions March 22, 2018 Brooke Schedneck

Female non-Buddhists have been writing detailed descriptions of their personal experiences in vipassanā meditation retreats since the 1960s. These memoirists relate to the English-speaking world their experience of the retreat process and self-transformations. Early memoirists traveled Asia in order to learn and practice vipassanā meditation. These memoirs are as much about the meditation...

DOI: 10.3390/rel9040090 Full text Meditation Buddhism Theravada Women +2

Walking Meditation: Being Present and Being Pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago

Religions March 15, 2018 Alison T. Smith

The Camino de Santiago has witnessed an unprecedented number of walkers in recent years. Traditionalists feel that the Camino is suffering from excess—too many visitors and too much strain on the infrastructure, accompanied by an ignorance of what it means to be an “authentic” pilgrim. Contemporary pilgrims often use ancillary services to transport their bags, approaching the Camino as an...

DOI: 10.3390/rel9030082 Full text Mindfulness Santiago de compostela The camino francés Thich nhat hahn +4

A Day in the Life of an Aesthetic Tāntrika: From Synaesthetic Garden to Lucid Dreaming and Spaciousness

Religions March 14, 2018 Kerry Skora

This essay addresses the question of the relationship between Aesthetics and Tantra, in the world-view and life-world of Hindu Tantric visionary Abhinavagupta (ca. 975–1025 C.E.) and his tradition. I respond to a classic work on Abhinavagupta’s understanding of aesthetic experience and religious experience by shifting the focus from ultimate experience to the life of a liberated being. I argue...

DOI: 10.3390/rel9030081

Reincarnation in America: A Brief Historical Overview

Religions November 3, 2017 Lee Irwin

American theories of reincarnation have a long and complex history, dating from 1680s to the present. It is the purpose of this paper to highlight the main currents of reincarnation theory in the American context, giving a brief historical survey. Sources surveyed begin with Native American traditions, and then move to immigrant traditions based in Western Esotericism, Christianity, Judaism,...

DOI: 10.3390/rel8100222 Full text Reincarnation Rebirth Past life memories Paranormal +6

Prayer, Meditation, and Anxiety: Durkheim Revisited

Religions September 14, 2017 John Bartkowski, Gabriel Acevedo, Harriet Van Loggerenberg

Durkheim argued that religion’s emphasis on the supernatural combined with its unique ability to foster strong collective bonds lent it power to confer distinctive social benefits. Subsequent research has confirmed these propositions with respect to religion and mental health. At the same time, meditation has been linked to mental health benefits in intervention-based studies. Our investigation...

DOI: 10.3390/rel8090191

The Scythe and the Pentagram: Santa Muerte from Folk Catholicism to Occultism

Religions December 22, 2016 Manon Hedenborg White, Fredrik Gregorius 41 citations

Santa Muerte is establishing a presence among practitioners of contemporary occultism in Europe and North America. The occult milieu is highly different from the Mexican cult of Santa Muerte, having a strong heritage of secrecy and tradition as social capital and being mostly middle-class in orientation. Nonetheless, this Catholic folk saint with a mostly pragmatic, popular, and grassroots cult...

DOI: 10.3390/rel8010001 Saint Occult Context archaeology Grassroots +9

A Cognitive Approach to Tantric Language

Religions November 30, 2016 Sthaneshwar Timalsina

By applying the contemporary theories of schema, metonymy, metaphor, and conceptual blending, I argue in this paper that salient cognitive categories facilitate a deeper analysis of Tantric language. Tantras use a wide range of symbolic language expressed in terms of mantric speech and visual maṇḍalas, and Tantric texts relate the process of deciphering meaning with the surge of mystical...

DOI: 10.3390/rel7120139 Full text Tantra Metaphor Metonymy Conceptual blending +4

Strange Bedfellows: Meditations on the Indispensable Virtues of Confusion, Mindfulness and Humor in the Neuroscientific and Cognitive Study of Esoteric and Contemplative Traditions1

Religions September 6, 2016 Jeffrey C. Ruff 3 citations

Several recent publications in the study of esoteric traditions have drawn together insights from scholars of religions and philosophy, contemplative communities, metaphor and conceptual blend theories, cognitive sciences, neurosciences, and physical anthropology. These interdisciplinary explorations revolve around contemplative practices (meditation, mindfulness, ritual traditions, etc.). This...

DOI: 10.3390/rel7090113 Full text Tantra Tantric sādhanā Buddhist mindfulness Ritual trance +4

Buddhist Ritual from Syntax to Cognition: Insight Meditation and Homa

Religions August 16, 2016 Richard Payne

The concept of “ritual syntax” is developed by relating it to cognitive studies of ritual, providing a fuller theoretical basis. Developing theoretical grounding requires differentiating between the members of five pairs of concepts: production is not the same as analysis, syntax is not the same as semantics, ritual is not the same as the mental, cognition is not the same as the mental, and...

DOI: 10.3390/rel7080104

Contemplative Science and Secular Ethics

Religions August 8, 2016 Brendan Ozawa-de Silva

This article argues that the emerging project of contemplative science will be best served if it is informed by two perspectives. First, attention should be paid not only to non-analytical and/or mindfulness-based practices, but to a fuller range of contemplative practices, including analytical styles of meditation. Second, the issue of ethics must be addressed as a framework within which to...

DOI: 10.3390/rel7080098 Full text Meditation Contemplative science Compassion Secular ethics +1

Connecting Consciousness to Physical Causality: Abhinavagupta’s Phenomenology of Subjectivity and Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory

Religions July 1, 2016 Loriliai Biernacki

This article demonstrates remarkably similar methods for linking mind and body to address the “hard problem” in the work of 11th-century Indian philosopher Abhinavagupta with a currently prominent neuroscienctific theory, Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory 3.0. Both Abhinavagupta and Tononi and Christof Koch hinge their theories on the identity of phenomenal subjective experience with...

DOI: 10.3390/rel7070087

Contemplative Media Studies

Religions August 26, 2015 Kevin Healey 10 citations

The psychological and socio-economic implications of digital technologies call for scholarship that engages questions about the nature of human consciousness, the construction of the self and the ethics of technical development. In this article, I outline a framework for an approach called contemplative media studies. This approach incorporates several different scholarly threads, namely: via...

DOI: 10.3390/rel6030948 Full text Contemplative studies Digital media Silicon valley Self

Reason, Rhythm, and Rituality. Reinterpreting Religious Cult from a Postmodern, Phenomenological Perspective

Religions July 10, 2015 Martina Roesner

Contemporary philosophy of religion is often focused, at a theoretical level, on the epistemic value of religious doctrines, and at a practical level, on the possible impact of organized religion on secular society and politics. However, the cultic dimension of religion, such as prayer, religious service, ascetic practices, and other rituals, is considered as completely “irrational” and...

DOI: 10.3390/rel6030819 Full text Phenomenology Philosophy of religion Postmodern philosophy Religious rituals +6

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