Religions
September 27, 2024
Michael Andrew Ceragioli
This essay argues that Josiah Royce's communal model of religious experience, presented in The Sources of Religious Insight, complements rather than merely criticizes William James's individualistic account in The Varieties of Religious Experience. Rather than opposing the two thinkers, the author contends that James's concept of the "sick soul" finding health through religious conversion gains depth when paired with Royce's emphasis on overcoming alienation through communal participation. The essay suggests that bringing together these two models offers an instructive account of individual transformation through communal renewal, particularly relevant in times of dislocation and self-preoccupation.
Religions
September 2, 2024
L. Liu
Wang Yangming's philosophy of oneness, while appearing to describe a mystical union with all things, is better understood as a form of introvertive mysticism. This is due to his specific definition of "thing" and the central role of the heart-mind. The realm of oneness arises from a heart-mind that pervades the universe, with liangzhi serving as both pure consciousness and the foundation of reality. Viewing his theory through a mystical philosophical lens reveals it as a spiritual philosophy that goes beyond mere ethical claims, deepening the understanding of his philosophy of mind.
Religions
August 28, 2024
David H. Nikkel
William James's polar categories of healthy-minded, once-born religion versus the sick soul who must become twice-born for religious peace do not fit James himself, according to biographers. This paper argues instead that James's life best fits the sick-soul pattern: he was a sick soul searching for and ultimately finding twice-born religion through mystical experiences. James theorized mystical experiences as connecting with divine realities in naturalistic ways compatible with the science of his time. Today, scientific knowledge makes direct divine input harder to evidence, but James's pragmatic criterion for truth—beneficial or adaptive effects—still offers value in religious experiences.
Religions
August 20, 2024
Maria Exall
Modern spirituality often assumes that spiritual experiences are experiential events, but this 'experiential bias' misreads pre-modern texts like those of Pseudo-Dionysius, which describe faith through negative dialectics rather than positive experiences. Scholars Denys Turner and Bernard McGinn argue that classical apophatic tradition denies 'mystical experience' as experience per se. Yet theologians Sara Coakley, Karl Rahner, and Louis Dupré have integrated experiential interpretations into their theologies—Coakley through spiritual sense in bodily theology, Rahner through spiritual touch in grace, and Dupré through religious significance in atheistic emptiness. This paper contrasts these integrations with the classical critique of mystical experience.
Religions
August 13, 2024
Fernando Carlucci, Daniel de Luca‐noronha
Empathy is central to religious experience in the Brazilian Umbanda religion, a syncretic faith blending African spiritual practices, Catholicism, and Kardecist spiritism. In Umbanda rituals, mediums embody spirits of old slaves (pretos velhos), creating profound empathic exchanges that facilitate communal healing and personal transformation. The article argues, through predictive processing theory and embodied cognition, that these empathic interactions are deeply rooted in participants' physical and social embodiments, not merely psychological. This perspective shows how Umbanda serves as both a spiritual practice and a socio-cultural mechanism helping individuals navigate personal and collective life challenges, exemplifying how religion can be a powerful conduit for social cohesion and personal introspection.
Religions
June 29, 2024
Tiantian Cai
In Yogācāra epistemology, prapañca refers to multiple dimensions of cognition, including consciousness, language formation, the conceptualization of subject–object duality, mental defilements, and ignorance. A contextual examination of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra shows that prapañca is associated with dualistic conceptualization and the evolution of consciousness within saṃsāra. It exhibits qualities of the beginningless conceptual structure of conditioned negativity and is related to language formation. The discourse presents prapañca as the root of suffering; liberation from it is a prerequisite for reaching enlightenment and achieving Buddhahood.
Religions
November 1, 2023
Haddy Bello
Edith Stein's philosophy of freedom centers on the idea that human beings achieve authentic self-realization by configuring themselves in the image of God, whose own life is lived in perfect freedom. Stein defines freedom as "I can" (Ich kann). This capacity rests on two foundations: the phenomenological concept of intentionality, drawn from Brentano and Husserl, and the human experience of divine love. The argument traces how Stein's thought, rooted in phenomenology, becomes increasingly shaped by theological and mystical concerns, culminating in the view that historical human fulfillment requires participation in divine life.
Religions
October 27, 2023
Abraham Vélez de Cea
Panikkar's philosophy of mysticism rejects both monistic views of oneness without a second and dualistic views of the divine as wholly other, instead proposing holistic experiences where the divine, the universe, and human consciousness are distinct yet constitutively interrelated. He argues that traditional dualisms—between this life and the next, worldly and heavenly existence, material and spiritual, body and soul, action and contemplation—have wrongly portrayed mysticism as negating life and escaping the world. Panikkar restores equilibrium among these diverse yet united aspects of Reality and the human condition. The article first introduces mysticism as an anthropological dimension involving holistic experiences, then examines pure consciousness and mystical experiences as results of mediating factors.
Religions
September 26, 2023
Claudio Campesato
Amalarius of Metz, an early medieval author, argued that liturgical music and singing produce a physical and emotional effect that goes beyond simply evoking emotions. In his work Liber Officialis, he described how listening to music creates a “spiritual state” of nakedness of the heart, making a person receptive to tears and sensitive to God’s voice. This represents a shift from the earlier patristic idea of compunction (penthos), where tears in prayer were linked to sorrow for sins and liturgical music was seen as an obstacle. For Amalarius, music’s natural power (vis) moves a person to a receptive state that prepares the soul to welcome the Word of God, leading to conversion and fruitful listening.
Religions
July 20, 2023
Sophie-Anne Perkins
Sixteen Western Vajrayāna Buddhist practitioners described contextual, epistemic, ethical, personal, practical, religious, and socio-cultural factors that challenged their ability to learn and engage in deity yoga, along with strategies they used to overcome those challenges. These factors have been largely overlooked by empirical meditation research, yet their relevance to practice efficacy, outcomes, and adverse experiences is now recognized. The testimonies also reveal that the cross-cultural transmission of Vajrayāna Buddhism involves adaptation and negotiation of practice approaches and environments to fit lay practitioners' needs, while meaning is synthesized from experiences with teachers, teachings, and tantric practice.
Religions
June 27, 2023
Antti Piilola
Ineffability—the quality of being beyond words—has long been central to philosophy of religion and mysticism. In apophatic theology, it safeguards divine transcendence by placing God beyond human concepts. It also defines mystical experience, either affirming its unique nature or challenging it as incoherent and paradoxical. This article explores whether a single notion of 'Being Ineffable' can unite mystical experience and its transcendent object while acknowledging the coherence problem. The author constructs an argument for absolute ineffability as the convergence of three meanings: as a definition of absolute ineffability, as a mystical experience of it, and as the Ineffable itself (God, the Absolute, the Ultimate). The argument attempts to transform ineffability from a negation into a necessary affirmation.
Religions
September 14, 2022
Leslie Ann King
Christian congregations struggling with polarized cultural environments and spiritual challenges from entrenched differences can benefit from the Pantañjali yogic system. This system offers Reformed Christian communities a way to develop yoga practices that integrate breath, movement, and appropriate Biblical texts. Three practice plans are provided. The honorable appropriation of yoga by a Christian community promises an integrative method and a spacious experience for practitioners, potentially enabling them to influence their faith community toward such relevant spaciousness.
Religions
August 19, 2022
Paul Slama
Modern metaphysics is the history of making transcendence immanent, a process visible in the concept of the 'idea of god.' This idea violently separates subjectivity from transcendence, creating a 'psycho-theological' tear: the divine leaves a trace in us through its very distance. The argument is traced through four archives: Descartes' third Meditation, Kant's refutation of the cosmological proof in the Critique of Pure Reason, Schelling's commentary on Kant, and Levinas' work.
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) attributed to Confucius in the Analects has long puzzled scholars. This paper argues that divination in the Yijing is founded on a cosmological principle—the Yi matches Heaven and Earth, so hexagram and line images mirror the cosmic order—and is governed by three moral constraints: jing (reverence), fu (sincerity/trust/correspondence), and zhen (upright steadfastness).
Religions
May 3, 2026
Muhammadullah Haji Moh Naseem, Meryem Gürbüz
The human-nature relationship in the poetry of 14th-century mystic Yunus Emre is grounded in the Qur'anic concept of amanah (entrustment), positioning humanity not as owners of the world but as beings in a relationship of testimony, decency, and equality. Nature serves as a framework for contemplation where divine order is visible, not as an object to protect or transform. Humans relate to the world through a consciousness of limitation and moderation, not domination. While Yunus Emre's ideas do not offer direct solutions to modern environmental debates, they provide a historical mystical perspective for rethinking the human-nature relationship.
Religions
March 27, 2026
Muhammed Tarik Ablak
In seventeenth-century Ottoman Mawlawī shaykh Neshāṭī’s poetry, religious experience is articulated differently depending on genre. His qaṣīdas and mathnawīs use explicit religious language addressing God and sacred figures, while his ghazals employ seemingly profane imagery of wine, love, and the beloved. This contrast reflects a conscious poetic strategy rather than secularization or doctrinal inconsistency. Through motifs such as the mirror, secret (sirr), annihilation (fanāʾ fīʾllāh), and spiritual contraction, Neshāṭī transforms human love into a vehicle for divine experience. The ghazal emerges as especially suited to conveying religious meaning through ambiguity, emotional intensity, and symbolic indirection rather than overt doctrine. Divine encounter is realized through the ghazal’s affective and symbolic potential.
Religions
February 26, 2026
Angélica Morales Arizmendi
Mystical experience is not an exceptional event but the clearest expression of the human condition, according to a philosophical dialogue between contemporary Spanish thinkers and the sixteenth-century Castilian mystical tradition. Drawing on Juan Martín Velasco, Miguel García-Baró, and Teresa of Ávila, the article argues that human beings are fundamentally subjects in exposure to Mystery, receiving themselves through a transcendent call to truth and goodness. The mystical and philosophical attitudes converge in their shared openness to reality and ethical orientation toward truth and the Good. This synthesis redefines the human as constituted by relation, receptivity, and responsibility, offering a renewed anthropology that addresses contemporary nihilism and spiritual disorientation.
Religions
February 17, 2026
Merve Günaltay Başak, Aynur Koçak
Creation myths from around the world share a common underlying structure in which the universe emerges through thought and word, despite their diverse cultural expressions. An analysis of primary mythological texts from Hindu, Maori, Maya, Maiana, Dogon, Polynesian, Ancient Egyptian, and Turkish traditions reveals that these narratives function as coherent models of creation, not just stories. Cognitive intention and verbal articulation are consistently portrayed as constitutive forces in the origin of existence. The study uses qualitative content analysis and hermeneutic reading to compare these traditions, showing that shared principles about the mental and linguistic foundations of the cosmos appear across cultures while each preserves its own distinctive imagery and phrasing.
Religions
January 27, 2026
Youngsun Yang
Jainism developed highly systematized meditative practices aimed at separating consciousness from the body and karma both in daily practice and at death. While sallekhaṇā (fasting unto death) has been discussed as a form of death with dignity, its deeper meditative dimensions have been understudied. This article examines classical Jain sources on deathbed meditation (samādhimaraṇa), particularly the kevalin's procedures at the third and fourth stages of pure meditation (śukladhyāna). It also addresses kevi-samudghāta, the technique of omniscient soul projection incorporated into the third stage of śukladhyāna in Hemacandra's twelfth-century Yogaśāstra. By situating samādhimaraṇa within its doctrinal, meditative, and soteriological contexts rather than reducing it to suicide or religious death with dignity, the article contributes to death-yoga studies, highlighting Jainism's distinctive role.
Religions
November 26, 2025
Michael Anthony Arbib
Early human ancestors had protosacred experiences—awe from a mountain, serenity from a grove—long before they had language, architecture, or religion. Depending on an individual's mental set, such experiences could create a sense of ultimacy later interpreted as religious. The cultural evolution of language enabled humans to become question-askers and storytellers, able to pose existential questions and offer group-accepted answers through narratives and ritual scripts. This transition allowed the design of architected sacred spaces that fostered shared community and sacred experience. The paper relates affordances and atmospheres to the aesthetics of space, emphasizing atmospheric flow during rituals, and offers examples from diverse religions and suggestions for empirical investigations.
Religions
October 10, 2025
Peter Mark Tyler
A practicing psychotherapist proposes a 'mystical therapy' by weaving together three traditions: the Christian mystical tradition of theologia mystica, modern psychotherapy from Freud through James Hillman and Wilfred Bion, and Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophical ideas about the mystical and the distinction between saying and showing. Drawing on three decades of clinical work, the author argues that these strands can be blended to re-boot the mystical tradition for contemporary seekers.
Religions
September 26, 2025
Yong Un Choe
Anthony de Mello's Sadhana practice integrates psychotherapeutic methods such as Gestalt therapy and Vipassana meditation into Christian spirituality. Drawing on Carl Jung's analytical psychology, the practice pursues wholeness through the union of opposites like extraversion and introversion, central to individuation. By incorporating Gestalt therapy into the Spiritual Exercises, Sadhana enhances awareness and addresses contact boundary disturbances, enabling self-reflection and restoration of one's relationship with God. The practice is evaluated as a novel case presenting new possibilities for contemporary Christian spirituality.
Religions
September 26, 2025
Matthew Crippen
William James's philosophy of science treats actionability, not evidential certainty, as the basis for both scientific and religious practices. This approach resonates with Indigenous American and Asian epistemologies, which James may have absorbed through American Transcendentalists or his Amazonian expedition. James's ideas support an animism that integrates Amerindian thought with the extended mind thesis. His pluralistic account of experience creates space for science and spirituality to coexist by undermining the assumption that they operate under radically distinct epistemologies.
Religions
August 30, 2025
Chen Lu
Jñānakīrti's Tattvāvātara, a late Indian Buddhist treatise preserved only in Tibetan translation, expounds Mahāmudrā teachings. Its chapter on Secret Mantra practices, intended for advanced practitioners, guides non-dual yoga by combining insight (prajñā) into emptiness (śūnyatā) with skillful means (upāya) such as tantric rituals including Vajradhātu maṇḍala visualization. The first half of the text quotes verses, notably from Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, while the second half draws on the Tattvasaṃgrahatantra and Guhyasamājatantra. This juxtaposition reflects an early form of Mahāmudrā as it entered Tibetan Buddhism.
Religions
August 27, 2025
Jinjing Zhu
The paper analyzes two allegories in the Zhuangzi—the Huzi and Lady Yu stories—to outline a four-stage mystical process. It begins with a lifeless stage achieved through purgation of self and world, followed by a revitalization where Oneness is experienced both introvertively and as extrovertive truth. Next comes an emptiness that transfigures reality by reconciling things and halting time and motion, culminating in the deconstruction of the transcendental Dao and alignment with the spontaneity of things. Oneness is not the final stage but a step toward reconciling Oneness and multiplicity, eventually leading to its deconstruction and a return to multiplicity. This paradox is central to Zhuangzi's mysticism.