Religions
September 18, 2025
Ron Cole-Turner
1 citation
Psychedelic drugs show promise for treating mental health conditions by disrupting prior patterns and increasing neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. The social context during and after psychedelic experiences causally impacts outcomes. Modern cultural contexts may thwart spiritual integration, but local support groups help, especially for those reflecting on spiritual or religious themes. Christian communities can provide both a local social context and a set of theological beliefs that support spiritual growth and psychedelic spiritual integration.
Religions
September 9, 2025
Fides del Castillo, Gregory S. Ching, Clarence Darro del Castillo et al.
1 citation
Near-death experiences (NDEs) often lead to religious change, but most research has focused on Western contexts. In a mixed-methods study of 683 Filipino adults who reported having NDEs, most participants said their spirituality increased or stayed the same afterward. Only age significantly predicted perceived spiritual change. Qualitative analysis of narrative responses identified six themes: altruism and helping others, challenges to spirituality, increased religious practices, no changes or decreased faith, reflection and growth, and validation of divine presence. The findings show how personal experience, identity, and cultural beliefs shape religious meaning-making after NDEs, offering a culturally grounded understanding of spiritual change.
Religions
August 20, 2025
Márk Losoncz
1 citation
Pure consciousness—characterized by unstructuredness, maximal simplicity, selflessness, awareness as such, zero-perspective, and absence of specific phenomenal qualities—can be fully experienced in the psychedelic state, and this experience is phenomenologically indistinguishable from pure consciousness achieved through meditation. This directly refutes Metzinger's claim that meditation is the sole best candidate for attaining pure consciousness. The article advocates soft phenomenological perennialism, which holds that all pure consciousness experiences share an identical core, whether induced by psychedelics or meditation. Such experiences can yield epistemic insights into consciousness, self, and reality, and can inform understanding of religious-spiritual concepts like God, though naturalistic critiques caution against religious-spiritual interpretations. A spiritual naturalistic interpretation of pure consciousness is increasingly important.
Religions
July 29, 2025
Dennis F. Kinlaw
1 citation
Literary reading can give rise to experiences that readers identify as spiritual, according to this theoretical and philosophical paper. Framed by William James's concept of mystical susceptibility and psychological models of spirituality as altered states of consciousness, the essay examines how engagement with narrative may occasion shifts in perception, affect, and cognition. Drawing on theologians like Teresa of Avila, affect theory from Rita Felski, and cognitive studies from Tanya Luhrmann on absorption, the article suggests that absorption—a psychological and aesthetic phenomenon—connects empirical studies of attention and transformation with theological and affective insights. Literature is proposed as a form of engagement capable of opening readers to spiritual insight measurable through qualitative means.
Religions
July 22, 2025
Mateo Sánchez Petrement
1 citation
The essay argues that new materialist theories from critical posthumanism and psychedelic drugs can mutually enrich each other. Posthumanism's focus on relationality and embodiment helps articulate the ontological and ethical implications of psychedelic experiences of interconnectedness, while psychedelics can enact a 'posthuman phenomenology' that reveals human entanglement with more-than-human environments. The author contends that psychedelics' potential for social transformation is best understood through a materialist lens, not by opposing science to spirituality. Pushing against the science-spirituality binary, which reproduces modern individualism, the essay calls for increased attention to material transcorporeality. It concludes that realizing psychedelics' political value requires a 'material spirituality' grounded in a non-reductive redefinition of matter and consciousness as embodied.
Religions
June 13, 2025
Sabine Grunwald
1 citation
Bodhisattvas—awakened beings in Buddhist traditions—are examined through multiple lenses: as symbols, ideals, mystical figures, naturalized beings, and integral visions. The paper contrasts Theravāda and Mahāyāna Buddhist motivations with secular Western interpretations, such as neurophysicalism and participatory spirituality. The traditional paradox of liberating oneself and all beings while realizing emptiness (śūnyatā) is explored, along with issues of illusion, moral agency, mysticism, devotion, and naturalization. Ethical foundations of traditional Buddhist and Western bodhisattva concepts are critically compared, and their moral implications are discussed within the context of moral relativism in Post-Truth American culture.
Religions
April 1, 2025
George Faithful
1 citation
The Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross wrote poetry while imprisoned, using first-person female narrators who undergo metamorphoses—becoming a dove, flame, or a knight—to pursue love. John interpreted these figures as the soul seeking God. The metaphors create cognitive dissonance in readers, prompting self-transcendence toward divine union. This process mirrors Christ's self-emptying (kenosis) and the apophatic tradition of negating human knowledge about God.
Religions
February 8, 2025
Philip Wilson
1 citation
Philosophy of religion should move away from abstract theorizing and toward the concrete, lived reality of religious belief, as argued by John Cottingham. This paper uses Ludwig Wittgenstein's methods to support that shift, showing how literature—such as Shūshaku Endō's Silence, Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, and the Gospel of John—is not merely illustrative of religion but constitutive of belief itself. Wittgenstein's remarks on mysticism in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus are read as a literary transmutation that creates a non-abstract mysticism, placed in dialogue with Angelus Silesius's poetry and Leo Tolstoy's The Gospel in Brief. Wittgenstein's thought is also relevant to debates on cultural Christianity.
Religions
November 1, 2024
Dominic Nnaemeka Ekweariri
1 citation
The author argues that Jean-Luc Marion's later work attempts to incorporate hermeneutics into his phenomenology of givenness, but ultimately still subordinates meaning to givenness alone, compromising the perspective of the witness. The article defends this 'hermeneutic gaze' rooted in the witness's symbolic ground, showing how givenness and the gifted interact dynamically in call and response. In religious experience, the hermeneutic gaze modulates whether the divine word is received as an ecstatic illusion that turns the subject back to himself or as symbolic meaning that inscribes him into a faith community.
Religions
September 24, 2024
Konstantinos Zorbas
1 citation
In Tuva, South Siberia, people often blame misfortune on magical assault and vampirism. Based on fieldwork with an Association of Shamans, this article examines rituals that redress curse afflictions under Russian political domination. It argues that parasitical worship and occult threats are central to political power in Tuva and beyond. Shamanic healing symbols draw on hunting and animal spirits from Indigenous Siberian cosmologies, with healing efficacy built through engagement with these symbols. Ritual risk underpins symbolic resolution. While shamans give refuge to displaced spirits, Tibetan Buddhism offers an alternative healing path. The analysis reveals indigenous perceptions of a cursed landscape where darkness and political sponsors are confronted by Buddhist rituals, highlighting the unresolved drama of itinerant spirits and shamanic ancestral souls.
Religions
September 15, 2024
Magdalene Thomassen
1 citation
The article examines why Edith Stein, after her early doctoral work on empathy, stopped using the term in her later philosophy. It argues that the concept of 'empathy' became too narrow for what Stein wanted to describe. Following her conversion to Christianity, Stein expanded her understanding of personhood and social relations, integrating them with the experience of a loving God. The author shows how Stein's early ideas on empathy, otherness, and personhood reach their full development in her later writings, where the encounter with otherness and the unfolding of the person are inseparable from divine love.
Religions
August 23, 2024
Patricia Enedudu Idoko
1 citation
Mystical experiences are central to major religious traditions, often centered on an ineffable mystery. This article compares the Islamic mystic Rabia al-Adawiyya and the Christian mystic Catherine of Genoa, avoiding both essentialist approaches that only seek universal similarities and constructivist approaches that focus solely on differences. Instead, the comparison highlights both similarities and differences to illustrate an interreligious spirituality that transcends traditions. The study is structured in four parts: an introduction to mystical experiences, overviews of the two mystics' lives, a comparative analysis of their mystical characteristics, and a discussion of how their experiences model interreligious spirituality and friendship.
Religions
March 6, 2024
Zhengfu Chen
1 citation
The Miao (Hmong) community in Southwest China blends shamanic healing with scientific medicine, rooted in a worldview where soul and body are intertwined and ancestors, spirits, and shamans coexist. Through autoethnography, participant observation, and interviews, this research follows a Miao woman’s healing journey, showing how traditional customs and local knowledge are synthesized with modern treatments. Despite barriers such as limited healthcare access and high costs, many Miao still consult shamans, demonstrating resilience in navigating both systems. The work argues that recognizing this syncretism can improve intercultural communication and foster culturally sensitive healthcare, ultimately enhancing well-being for the community.
Religions
February 23, 2024
Jianyu Shen
1 citation
Early Jewish and Daoist hagiographies share a common pattern for constructing the image of saints as quasi-divine beings during their earthly lives. Comparing Sefer Shivchei Ha-Ar”i and Shenxian Zhuan reveals three key phases: mystical birth, life in seclusion, and divine encounters. In these stages, sages receive esoteric wisdom and godly features that make them extraordinary exemplars of religiosity. Both traditions emphasize human-centered sainthood rather than divine endorsement, where painstaking periods of self-isolation and learning with true masters are more crucial to the transformation of identity than predestined birth. The earthly realm serves as a dynamic incubator that breeds holiness for the most qualified souls.
Religions
December 26, 2023
Yixuan Liu
1 citation
A comparison of the six stages of spirituality in medieval Christian mysticism, as proposed by Bonaventure, with the six-fold sādhana of Advaita Vedānta, as taught by Śaṅkara, reveals both similarities and differences in the pursuit of ultimate reality. Bonaventure's stages—Sense, Imagination, Reason, Intelligence, Understanding, and Spark of Conscience—aim at unity with God, while Śaṅkara's practices—mind control, sense control, mental tranquility, endurance, potential faith, and concentration—seek unity of Brahman and Self. The comparison explores how medieval religious believers in both traditions desired ultimate reality and suggests possibilities for dialogue between Christianity and Advaita Vedānta.
Religions
October 25, 2023
Grzegorz Polak
1 citation
The pleasure of nibbāna, according to the Nibbānasukha-sutta, lies in experiencing nothing. This paper reconstructs the philosophical background of this counterintuitive claim by re-examining Nikāya passages and drawing on cognitive science and philosophy of mind. It argues that the five khandhas, especially viññāṇa, refer to consciousness with phenomenal, introspectable, reportable content that can be integrated into memory. Such consciousness is not constant; its low frequency in absorption or flow states contributes to their pleasurable nature and altered sense of time and self. The paper hypothesizes that the presence or absence of this consciousness relates to dukkha or sukha, with saṅkhāra playing a key role. It also discusses limits of introspection and non-introspectable pleasure, concluding that early Buddhist transformation involves no longer identifying with one's own consciousness.
Religions
September 11, 2023
Byongchang Kang
1 citation
Polarization, a pressing global issue, can be understood and addressed through the East Asian Buddhist teaching of the One Mind, as outlined in the Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith. The deluded and polarized mind arises from the human condition but is not separate from awakening. By recognizing the One Mind—the common foundation of equality and interconnectedness of all sentient beings—people can return to an original still and pure mind that perceives reality beyond discriminating thought. Cultivating mindfulness and awareness of the mind, along with recognizing fundamental interconnectedness, offers a solution to post-truth, epistemic bubbles, and echo chambers.
Religions
May 9, 2023
Giulio Osto
1 citation
Pietro Rossano, a key figure in 20th-century interreligious dialogue who served over twenty years in the Vatican office for this field, understood dialogue as having anthropological, theological, and mystical dimensions. His work, especially with Muslims in meetings like the 1976 Tripoli gathering, can be interpreted through the three keys of Spirit, Word, and Love, connecting the Bible, dialogical thought (notably Ferdinand Ebner), and Christian theology of dialogue.
Religions
January 6, 2023
Johannes Bronkhorst
1 citation
The article examines whether the Buddhist noble truths are actually true, using recent neuroscience and psychology, particularly Mark Solms's theory. It focuses on how memories shape personality and how memory reconsolidation could affect those memories, explaining how the cessation of suffering and desire are plausible. Access to relevant memories is a poorly understood process, and the author proposes ways it might be achieved.
Religions
December 21, 2022
Edward Howells
1 citation
John of the Cross holds that God is desire and that union with God involves a meeting of human and divine desire, yet his negative theology programmatically negates desire on the spiritual journey. He describes the lack of satisfaction of desire as darkness and emptiness, which is the main manifestation of desire during spiritual transformation. The apparent opposition between human and divine desire is resolved through a gradual uncovering of what lies beneath the presenting experience of desire in the soul's constitution as a subject. Desire is transformed, but this transformation can be affirmed only at the level of the subject's transformation.
Religions
June 23, 2022
John Michael Chase
1 citation
Drawing on Pierre Hadot's insights, this paper argues that while explicit discussions of breath control and psychosomatic techniques are absent in early Greek thought, analogous practices likely existed, possibly as early as Socrates. Evidence from Aristophanes and Plato suggests Socrates may have engaged in a two-stage meditative practice resembling Zen Buddhism: first, a top-down, egocentric focused meditation leading to sensory absorption, followed by a bottom-up, allocentric open meditation for a universal perspective. The paper also examines contemplative withdrawal in Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Evagrius Ponticus, and Gregory Palamas.
Religions
May 27, 2022
Brian D. Somers
1 citation
Modern mindfulness-based programs often adopt an individualistic, self-help perspective that may undermine their effectiveness for treating depression, which is partly caused by isolation. Buddhist mindfulness emphasizes interdependent origination (緣起) and community (the sangha as one of the three jewels), defining salvation as the liberation of all beings from suffering. This thesis argues that mindfulness practices framed as a personal, goal-oriented project risk isolating practitioners, especially those already secluded in a private world of self-improvement. A Buddhist interpretation that highlights interdependence and community is therefore desirable for addressing depression.
Religions
April 7, 2022
Brian Macallan
1 citation
Religious experiences, though culturally widespread and grounded in research, are often dismissed as culturally biased or psychologically misleading. This paper does not argue for their truth or falsity but offers an autoethnographic account of how such experiences have functioned in the author's life. Three forms are described narratively: early Charismatic experience, synchronous encounters, and psilocybin exploration. The author suggests these experiences are broadly shared and can be personally and socially transformative, situating each within its originating context.
Religions
January 23, 2022
Jennifer Carmichael
1 citation
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a decline in empathy for others and the planet, driven by a dualistic mind-body conception and capitalist consumerism that reifies a fixed self. This paper argues that Nagarjuna's Buddhist concept of emptiness, from the Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, combined with mindful observation of bodily experience, reveals the self as a web of interacting processes within a larger web. This understanding undermines the notion of an inherent self and situates the conventional self as interrelated with the world, facilitating a shift toward empathy. The paper suggests this approach can aid recovery from the pandemic and help build a more empathetic global community.
Religions
January 17, 2022
Martin Vašek, Andrea Blaščíková, Rastislav Nemec
1 citation
The Czech theologian and philosopher Karel Říha (1923–2016) developed a metaphysics grounded in triadic thinking—knowledge, wanting, and Being—influenced by Maurice Blondel. He argued that moral conversion is a mystical transformation where individuals find themselves through devotion to others, achieving the goal of metaphysics based on interpersonal relationships. In this process, metaphysics eliminates itself and integrates into theology, which concludes that truth pursues us rather than being in our power. Říha united himself with a Will whose direction and demands are unknown, leaving nothing of his own. His work merges metaphysics and mysticism.