Explore2024Shairy Quimbo, Lorena De la Torre Parra1 citation
Taky Samy is an ancestral Andean healing practice of our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and auric bodies. Taky Samy practices connect us with plants, animals, birds and Mother Earth, through the language of instruments made of ceramic, bamboo, deer, and condor feathers and bones. These practices are guided by the sacred word of prayer, mantras and songs that connect with the Great...
The many well-documented cases of paranormal phenomena in the Philippines may be interpreted as manifestations of the intuitive and deeply empathic interpersonal dynamics of Filipinos and the seemingly transpersonal nature of their individual psyches. A heightened sense of cultural empathy may explain various telepathic or prophetic experiences that are very common to the point of being an...
Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) is an efficacious intervention to aid recovery from substance use disorder. This study in a pilot sample of individuals in treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) characterizes longer-term changes after the MORE intervention and immediate effects of a brief MORE guided meditation session. Twelve female participants in residential treatment for...
The purpose of this study was to document both quantitatively and qualitatively the characteristics of spiritual awakenings and their transformational effects in scientists and academics who reported having experienced this phenomenon; it also aimed to explore barriers these individuals perceived to sharing their experiences with others within society. METHODS: An interview questionnaire was...
Many cultures believe that the first traces of human consciousness during the incarnation may be present before birth. Practices based on this belief exist in many cultures. However, formal scientific inquiry into the possibility of communicating with prenatal consciousness has never been explored. To evaluate if it is possible to communicate with a hypothetical prenatal consciousness of the...
Scientists have spent considerable time and effort studying and mapping the geography of the brain, with the expectation that this understanding will lead to insights related to the nature of the mind. This article discusses evidence that, while the mind utilizes sensory information processed by the brain, awareness is not limited to these structures. Research studies give evidence supporting...
Research suggests that worldviews define our relationship to the environment, including our responsibility to the environment and our planet. This paper examines two specific worldviews and their potential environmental impact: the materialist worldview, considered to be the dominant worldview of Western society, and the so-called post-materialist worldview. We believe that changing the...
Explore2023J C Thambyrajah, H W Dilanthi, S M Handunnetti et al.
Melatonin and its precursor serotonin are neurochemicals that play an important role in the physiological regulation of mood, sleep, and behavior. Studies have suggested the possibility of changes in the levels of melatonin and serotonin following meditation. However, the outcome of Buddhist meditation on both these two neurochemicals collectively have not been studied yet. To assess the effect...
ExploreAugust 1, 2022Jingni Ma, Dongrong Zhao, Naihong Xu et al.
OBJECTIVE In recent years, digital techniques, such as virtual reality (VR) has been employed in tandem with more traditional psychological interventions. The aim of this study is to investigate whether VR-based mindfulness training can improve mental health outcomes, and notably mindfulness levels amongst adults. In addition, this review seeks to summarise the various designed VR scenarios, as...
Evidence indicates that highly hypnotizable subjects may have larger area of the rostrum of the corpus callosum (CC). Mediumship can be defined as the alleged ability to communicate regularly with deceased personalities, and self-hypnosis is postulated as an underlying mechanism for this ability. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the CC area, hypnotic susceptibility, self-reported...
Thousands of people throughout the world are convinced that they have been abducted by aliens. We aimed to assess the emotional reaction to such an implausible event and propose some explanations alternative to severe psychopathology. A total of 19 individuals who reported memories of having been abducted by aliens were compared to a control group of 32 participants. We employed a battery of...
The Zone is a state of mind/body coordination that is much sought after by athletes because it is so conducive to achieving peak performance. The experience of this state can be so transcendent that some have come to view sport as a spiritual practice. An immensely popular recent movie about competitive chess, The Queen's Gambit, is not overtly about the Zone, addressing such popular themes as...
Numerous scientific studies have investigated the impact of yoga on cognition in children and adults. However, fewer studies have assessed the impact of yogic practices on cognition in children and adolescents with visual impairment. Despite their keen intellectual abilities and advanced linguistic skills, teens with visual impairment often experience difficulties with cognitive control and...
An Anomalous Information Reception (AIR) experiment was developed. To statistically examine the occurrence of AIR in multiple experimental tests and explore their predictive psychological mechanisms. First, we investigated whether human beings could guess the positive or negative content from 30 randomly selected images that would be presented on a computer screen, one at a time. Ninety...
Explore2022Elizabeth Schmitt Freire, Alexandre Caroli Rocha, Victor Scio Tasca et al.
Mediumship is understood as a kind of spiritual experience in which a person (i.e., a medium) claims to be in communication with, or under the control of, spiritual beings. In the last decades there has been a resurgence of studies on psychological, psychiatric and neuroscientific aspects of mediumship, as well as studies assessing the claim that mediums can obtain anomalous information from...
ObjectiveMeditation is a stress-reduction and contemplative technique that can improve emotional distress in people with chronic disease and may be especially beneficial for patients with rheumatic diseases. However, patient access to in-person programs is challenging. The goal of this pilot study was to evaluate the feasibility/acceptability associated with physician-directed use of a widely...
ExploreAugust 3, 2021K Maheshkumar, K Dilara, P Ravishankar et al.
Background: A combination of yoga practices has been documented to reduce stress and stress-induced cortisol levels. The objective of the current study is to examine the effects of six months of a single pranayama practice (Bhramari [Bhr. P]) on reducing salivary cortisol response to the cold pressor test (CPT) among adolescents. Methods: Twenty-six healthy adolescents between the ages of 11...
There is a paucity of research examining the phenomenology and energetic effects of spiritually transformative experiences with an energetic component, often referred to as kundalini awakenings (KAs). This limits our ability to understand and support individuals who have these often unexpected and powerful experiences. This study aimed to explore not only the nature of these experiences but...
This article, the first of a two-part series, explores the subject of Western esoteric healing. First, conceptual background is offered on Western esotericism and traditions of esoteric healing. Second, the concept of therapeutic knowledge, which emerged from the philosophy of medicine and medical anthropology, is introduced and described in detail, including its application to the study of...
Explore2021Kanupriya Sharma, Viraaj Pannu, Natasha Sayal et al.
To examine the molecular effects of mindful activities such as yoga and meditation DESIGN: This was an open label single arm exploratory yoga intervention study. 64 healthy individuals within the age of 18-60 years were recruited for this one month yoga intervention study. Common Yoga Protocol (CYP) is a standardized yoga protocol released by Ministry of AYUSH, India for International Yoga Day....
Meditation has been deemed a miracle cure for a wide range of neurological disorders. However, it is unclear whether meditation practice would be beneficial for patients suffering from epilepsy. Here we report on the comparison of the effects of focused-attention meditation and a control task on electroencephalographic (EEG) activity in a patient undergoing stereoencephalographic (SEEG)...
Research exploring the nature of near-death experiences (NDEs) is extensive. There are a variety of hypothesized mechanisms proposed to explain the origin of the experiences, including hallucinations due to physiological changes in a dying brain. However, there is growing evidence that these theories cannot explain a number of the characteristics of NDEs. In this article we present a detailed...
Historical records suggest that channeling has existed globally, in a variety of cultures, for thousands of years, and recent research suggests that channeling is more prevalent than most people realize. The present study used an online survey to explore mental health factors, personality characteristics, subjective experiences, and the impact of channeling on 83 participants who...
Explore2020Gioacchino Pagliaro, Renato Pelati, Domenico Signorini et al.
The positive effects of meditation on individual well-being have been extensively investigated in the last few decades. The impact that meditation can have on the surrounding environment, including on the well-being of nearby non-meditators, has been mainly studied in regards to Transcendental Meditation and, more recently, through the purported phenomenon of "distant healing". The aim of the...
Wisdom-based Buddhist-derived practices (BDPs) are concerned with transmuting suffering by cultivating insight into the ultimate nature of both the self and reality. Arguably the most important wisdom-based BDP is emptiness (Sanskrit: śūnyatā) that implies that although phenomena are perceptible to the human mind, they do not intrinsically exist. Despite its significance in Buddhism, emptiness...