Throughout history, people have described alterations of consciousness in which they experienced a sense of transcendence, being part of a much larger unity, sometimes encompassing the whole universe, or of being pure awareness. These experiences have been foundational for many religious and spiritual practices, albeit they have sometimes been treated as suspect or outright psycho- and or...
Despite ongoing polemical debates over the supposedly inherent opposition between science and religion, the current consensus in professional historical scholarship is that sweeping conflict narratives do not stand up to scrutiny. Where previous generations of historians of science and medicine often assumed intrinsic conflict, more recent investigations have instead demonstrated vast...