Oxford University Press eBooks
May 24, 2018
Christopher Partridge
2 citations
The final chapter examines post-1960s developments in the study of shamanism, focusing on the ideas of Carlos Castaneda and Terence McKenna, both shaped by the psychedelic revolution. It discusses the growing tendency to frame contemporary indigenous and ancient shamanic cultures as psychedelic cultures. Since the late nineteenth century, interest in psychoactive plant use within indigenous religious contexts has increased, significantly stimulated by R. Gordon Wasson's theories.
Oxford University Press eBooks
September 10, 2009
Dan Arnold
2 citations
The chapter argues that the Buddhist concept of *svasamvitti* (reflexive awareness) and Fodor's methodological solipsism share a core commitment: the immediate content of consciousness is always a mental representation, never an external phenomenon. It explores various interpretations of this claim in Indian Buddhist literature from the 6th through 19th centuries and notes that arguments for these positions are strikingly similar in form and detail to those Fodor offered. The authors propose that contemporary cognitive science can engage in fruitful dialogue with Buddhist philosophy.
Oxford University Press eBooks
May 22, 2025
Serena Scarpelli, Valentina Alfonsi, Luigi de Gennaro
1 citation
Nightmare disorder is a REM parasomnia that causes distressing dreams and significant impairment. This chapter reviews diagnostic criteria, neural correlates, and lifespan changes, noting common comorbidities including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicidality, anxiety, and personality disorders. The authors discuss therapeutic strategies and propose that nightmares may serve as a reliable index of well-being, arguing this research area warrants further investigation. Suggestions for future studies are offered.
Oxford University Press eBooks
February 17, 2025
Shannon L. Mariotti
1 citation
Contemplative practices like meditation, mindfulness, and yoga are becoming common in the United States. This book argues that these practices, often seen as personal retreat, actually hold democratic political value. By connecting political theory with qualitative interviews and observation, the author shows how such practices create new ways of imagining politics, forming selves, and building community. At a time when democracy seems to decline and contemplative practices rise, the book suggests that the attentional ecologies cultivated by the Mindfulness Revolution may address democratic deficits. It highlights resonances between theorists of democracy and ordinary practitioners, focusing on education and inclusive pedagogy.
Oxford University Press eBooks
June 22, 2026
Ralph W. Hood, Malynda Clark
This chapter examines the common core thesis of mystical experience by situating contemporary empirical psychology within the longer intellectual history of psychology, philosophy, and theology. It traces how William James and Walter Stace defend the distinction between experience and interpretation, establishing a foundation for cross-cultural, phenomenological, and psychometric study, while critics such as McGinn and Wulff question the adequacy of measurement approaches. The chapter argues that psychology's embrace of positivist empiricism narrows its scope and excludes transcendent phenomena, contrasting this reductionism with historical and philosophical perspectives that affirm the ontological and epistemological significance of mystical experience. It argues for methodological pluralism that integrates empirical, philosophical, and theological approaches to investigate transcendent experience without reducing it to pathology or cultural construction.
Oxford University Press eBooks
June 22, 2026
Galen Strawson
The chapter argues that Bertrand Russell's neutral monism, often mischaracterized in contemporary philosophy, coherently resolves the mind–body problem. Russell simultaneously identifies as a neutral monist, a materialist, and a physicalist in the original senses of those terms, while being a realist about consciousness. He contends that conscious experience reveals something of the intrinsic nature of the physical world. He remains officially agnostic about panpsychism, though consistently open to it. The author defends Russell's own claim to have completely solved the mind–body problem against common misunderstandings.
Oxford University Press eBooks
May 21, 2026
Donovan Wishon
This chapter traces the development of Bertrand Russell's philosophy of mind from panpsychism and idealism through dualism to neutral monism. It contends that Russell's positions were consistently shaped by engagement with empirical psychology and natural science. His changing accounts of mentality were tied to evolving views about experience, the subject of experience, and introspection. The trajectory is argued to be more complex and less linear than often acknowledged, involving both continuities and substantive revisions.
Oxford University Press eBooks
March 2, 2023
No Summary
Oxford University Press eBooks
December 1, 2022
Stephen Ross, Anthony P. Bossis
Major academic centers are resuming clinical research into psilocybin and other serotonergic psychedelics combined with psychotherapy to treat psychiatric and existential distress in terminally ill patients. Despite advances in palliative care for medical and pain symptoms, effective treatments for depression, anxiety, and demoralization at the end of life remain scarce. The World Health Organization and the Institute of Medicine have identified addressing spiritual and existential distress as essential for improving emotional well-being and quality of life in advanced illness. This chapter covers the history, anthropology, neuropharmacology, safety, and efficacy data from two waves of psychedelic research, suggesting psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy may offer a paradigm shift for improving existential, psychosocial, and spiritual well-being in palliative care.
Oxford University Press eBooks
August 1, 2021
Chris Letheby
A philosophical monograph examines whether psychedelic therapy conflicts with naturalism—the view that only the natural world exists. The book reviews evidence that LSD and psilocybin, given safely in controlled settings, can reduce anxiety, depression, and addiction and improve well-being for months or years, often through 'mystical' experiences. This raises a concern: Do psychedelics work by inducing false metaphysical beliefs? The author concludes this 'Comforting Delusion Objection' fails. Exotic metaphysical ideas arise but are not the main driver of change; instead, psychedelics alter the sense of self and one's relationship to their mind. Controlled psychedelic use can yield genuine knowledge and spiritual growth within a naturalistic framework.
Oxford University Press eBooks
February 19, 2019
Wendy Kline
This chapter examines home birth within the counterculture, where childbirth was seen as a path to spiritual transcendence. It traces unexpected intellectual exchanges between hippies, midwives, and psychiatrists about birth's meaning, fueled by developments in psychiatric research and psychoactive substances. Focusing on The Farm, a long-lasting hippie commune in Tennessee founded by travelers from San Francisco, the chapter shows how the founders brought tools from Communist China and Czechoslovakia. The story illustrates how alternative approaches to mainstream medicine, in both childbirth and psychiatry, emerged in the 1970s.
Oxford University Press eBooks
April 21, 2016
Kelly Bulkeley
Ritual healing through dreaming is a cross-cultural religious phenomenon. This chapter examines it through the case study of Aelius Aristides, a second-century Roman who recorded dreams at the temple of Asclepius, alongside examples from other traditions and theories from cognitive science and psychology of religion. The authors argue that religions can stimulate, via dream incubation rituals, a natural placebo effect that aids the body's innate capacities for healing, recovery, and self-repair. Special attention is given to the placebo effect and the power of specific interpersonal relationships to generate a healing response.
Oxford University Press eBooks
July 10, 2014
Ted Honderich
The authors argue that two dominant theories of consciousness—dualism and functionalism—are both flawed, though for different reasons than usually recognized. Dualism wrongly assumes consciousness is non-physical without a clear understanding of physicality. Functionalism, the prevailing scientific view, holds that being conscious is unphysical, a consequence of propositions such as the multiple realizability of consciousness. This makes abstract functionalism as vulnerable to objections as dualism. The authors question whether most science actually adopts "physical functionalism," which they contend is self-contradictory when understood naturally.
Oxford University Press eBooks
April 26, 2012
Jonardon Ganeri
The chapter examines subjective accounts of the 'immersed' self, contrasting them with bodily accounts that ground the self in bodily feeling. It presents a key thesis of Buddhist philosophy of mind: proto-intentional psychological processes—proto-cognitive and proto-affective—jointly constitute conscious intentional experience. This experience presents the world with attention on objects perceptually registered under schematic stereotypes, organized in a hodological appraisal space of affordance and obstacle, shaping diachronic flow. The theory's elegance lies in recognizing the irreducibility of phenomenal character, admitting joint contributions of sensation and conceptualization, acknowledging affect-saturated experience, and making attention intrinsic to experience.
Oxford University Press eBooks
December 23, 2011
Steven Sutcliffe
The new age has been difficult to define and theorize within the academic study of religion. This chapter examines how new age elements compare with the "world religions" model of rationalized bureaucratic organization and locates the new age within a discursive shift from mysticism to spirituality. It traces a general development in syllabi on the new age: from phenomenological descriptions of comparative mysticism and new age spirituality based on biographies, practices, and beliefs, toward a more theoretical interest in accounting for the structure and production of new age formations as a contribution to comparative problems in religious studies. Several pedagogical strategies are discussed.
Oxford University Press eBooks
February 2, 2011
Nevill Drury
This chapter profiles three twentieth-century occultists—Dion Fortune, Austin Osman Spare, and Rosaleen Norton—as key bridging figures linking earlier magical practitioners with the contemporary neopagan movement. Dion Fortune, introduced to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1919, formed her own meditative group in 1922, the Christian Mystic Lodge of the Theosophical Society, later the Fraternity of the Inner Light, and engaged with mythological dimensions of magic. Austin Osman Spare, an English trance artist and occultist, developed the magical concept of the relationship between Zos and Kia, influential in Chaos magick, and contributed to the study of magical consciousness through atavistic resurgence. Rosaleen Norton, an Australian witch and occult artist, dedicated her practice to the Great God Pan and other entities, and her provocative artworks led to legal controversy.
Oxford University Press eBooks
May 1, 2008
Gary D. DeAngelis, Warren G. Frisina
This essay outlines how Gary D. DeAngelis uses the Daodejing (DDJ) in a course on comparative mysticisms. Students begin with Ninian Smart's definition of mystical experience as a state of consciousness where one acquires fundamental insight into the nature of reality. DeAngelis then guides discussion of how the DDJ addresses two questions: the nature of ultimate reality and how one may experience that reality. These questions lead students to explore epistemological issues, particularly what the DDJ means by claiming it is possible to "know" a Dao that is itself "unknowable."