Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the ancient Hellenistic origins of Western esotericism. It explains that Western esoteric traditions have their basis in certain distinct patterns of thinking about the divine, man, and the universe which stretch back into classical antiquity. These patterns of thoughts can be can be such ancient teachings as Alexandrian Hermetism, Neoplatonism, theurgy, and to a limited...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the influence of the theosophy works of Helena Blavatsky on the revival of Western esotericism in the modern era. The Theosophical Society founded in New York in 1875 by Blavatsky played a vital role in propagating esotericism in the modern era. Theosophy was a major factor in the revival of the indigenous Western esoteric tradition and Blavatsky's writings presented the...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines 18th-century Freemasonry and illuminism and its influence on the history of Western esotericism. After Rosicrucianism supplied the myth of a secret society cultivating hermetic sciences, Freemasonry provided a vehicle for the historical transmission of theosophical and alchemical traditions. The Illuminist societies were high-grade varieties of Freemasonry and they were...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the influence of Rosicrucianism on the history of Western esotericism. During the early part of the 17th century, the original Rosicrucian manifestos attracted widespread interest and a wave of applications to join the order. Its first manifesto, titled Fama Fraternitatis, together with these other texts is strongly suggestive concerning the Protestant and Paracelsian...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the works of Swedish Christian mystic and theologian, Emanuel Swedenborg, and his influence on Western esotericism. Swedenborg occupied a key position in the history of Western esotericism as a major representative of 18th-century theosophy. He offered a relatively sober, matter-of-fact mesocosm full of spirits and his esotericism was heavily influenced by Enlightenment...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the influence of Renaissance period planetary and angel magic on the history of Western esotericism. It evaluates the works of German magician and occultist Henry Cornelius Agrippa in the Holy Roman Empire and English occultist John Dee in Elizabethan England as representative figures of the more elaborate esoteric systems which employed more syncretic forms of...
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October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the works of Jacob Boehme on theosophy and its relation to the history of Western esotericism. During the 17th and 18th centuries, esotericism found particular expression in the currents of Christian theosophy and Pietism which arose in response to the hardening orthodoxy of the Lutheran Reformation. Boehme established early his reputation as a leading Protestant mystic....
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May 29, 2008
Galen Strawson
561 citations
This chapter discusses the following statements: a materialist holds that every concrete phenomenon is wholly physical or material and a realistic materialist is a full-fledged realist about consciousness. Therefore it follows that a realistic materialist must hold that consciousness is a wholly physical phenomenon, and that at least some arrangements of matter are conscious or constitute...
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May 15, 2008
Michael Silberstein
38 citations
The first section characterises the kind of emergence defended in this chapter and situates it largely in the enactive paradigm of consciousness and cognition. The second section begins to cast doubt on physicalism and related doctrines in philosophy of mind that speak against ontological emergence. In the process, it becomes clear that ontological emergence cum enactivism is philosophically...
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May 1, 2008
Gary D. DeAngelis, Warren G. Frisina
Abstract This essay outlines the way Gary D. DeAngelis employs the DDJ in a course on comparative mysticisms. Beginning with Ninian Smart's definition of mystical experience as a “state of consciousness where one ‘acquires a fundamental insight into the nature of reality,'” DeAngelis leads students into a discussion of how the DDJ responds to two basic questions: “What is the nature of ultimate...
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September 1, 2007
Michael H. Antoni, Gail H. Ironson, Neil Schneiderman
Abstract Chapter 9 outlines the eighth session of CBSM treatment, which explores meditation (its physiological effects, medical applications, postures, and the meditative attitude). Mantra meditation is particularly focused upon. Anger management is also discussed, including the physical symptoms of anger, awareness of response patterns and power dynamics, and options for expressing anger.
Oxford University Press eBooks
June 23, 2005
Susan Blackmore
‘Time and space’ discusses a range of experiments and theories of consciousness using examples such as neuroscientist Benjamin Libet's ‘half second lag’ and the ‘cutaneous rabbit’ test. Theories considered include dualism, quantum computing, ‘higher-order thought’, and psychologist Bernard Baars' global workspace theory. None of these theories can solve the basic mystery of subjective...
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January 17, 2002
Zara Houshmand, Anne Harrington, Clifford D Saron et al.
9 citations
This chapter sees into the mountain slopes of the Himalayas, where Tibetan monks who have spent many years in training and learning Buddhist philosophy and psychology, live in a retreat far from the secular world. These well educated monks have taken the brave step of joining forces with scientists to help with the understanding of how hours of meditation can have a substantial effect on...
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December 7, 2000
Steven T. Katz
25 citations
This chapter begins with a review of extant scholarly literature on mysticism, ranging from William James's classic, pioneering work at the beginning of the 20th century, through the studies of Evelyn Underhill, Rufus Jones, Baron Von Hugel, and Rufus Jones, to the near-contemporary and contemporary investigations of Walter T. Stace, R. C. Zaehner, Frits Staal, Ninian Smart, Nelson Pike,...
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December 7, 2000
Ninian Smart
This chapter shows that while Brahmanism rested on a kind of sacramental and mantric ritual, Buddhism did not encourage such rites. Buddhism looked mostly on concentration, involving the purification of consciousness. The Buddhist theory of causation was inimical to both mantric causation and the use of ritual other than in a psychological manner. There could not be any strict revelatory...
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May 29, 1997
Mitsuo Kawato
13 citations
This chapter proposes several computational hypotheses about consciousness based on the recent studies on motor control and vision. Consciousness is classified into three different levels: vigilance, coherent perception and behaviour, and self-consciousness. This chapter focuses on the latter two classifications because the bidirectional theories developed in computational studies of motor...
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October 24, 1996
Robert Kirk
This chapter seeks to justify the contention that the notion of raw feeling is sound. It also makes clear what the intelligibility gap is. Another aim — the main one — is to develop solutions to the real problems, thereby showing how the intelligibility gap can be closed. The third aim is to make clear that the proposed solutions are solutions — to show that they require no leaps of faith....
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October 10, 1996
Austen Clark
1 citation
Efforts thus far have yielded an ability in principle to predict which classes of stimuli a given subject will find to be indiscriminable, and hence which pairs of stimuli the subject will find to be qualitatively identical. At least in some stimulus domains, one can predict which pairs of stimuli a given subject will find to present qualitatively identical sensory experiences. We can measure...
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October 10, 1996
Austen Clark
One would like a general theory of sensory modalities, a theory that could be applied to any sensory modality, including ones that humans do not share. It could be applied not only to the familiar human sensory modalities, but also to non-human ones such as electro-reception and echo location. In Nagel's words, one would like an objective characterization of the subjective character of a...
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March 28, 1996
Caroline Humphrey, Urgunge Onon
Abstract ‘Shamanism’ as a whole conglomerate of beliefs and practices was not only about the knowledge we have, but about the various kinds of knowledge we ordinary people do not quite have. This knowing was not, however, thought of as supernatural. It was knowledge of what was there to be known, but only certain individuals were gifted to know it or discover it, and they did so in different...
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March 28, 1996
Caroline Humphrey, Urgunge Onon
Abstract The traveller’s tale shows how even a deliberately prosaic representation of reality has its subtleties and its point of view. Its facticity is not transparent but constructed. Ritualization introduces other kinds of construction that can intensify the particular interpretations of reality of social groups and individuals. Just as ‘reading a book’ evokes a different visualization of...
Oxford University Press eBooks
March 28, 1996
Caroline Humphrey, Urgunge Onon
Abstract By now readers may be wondering about the almost perversely archaic content of the shamanic materials I have presented. Here were people in the 1920s and 1930s of this century, within reliable reportage-range of great revolutions and new ideologies. Cars, planes, radios, and telephones were not totally unheard of. Many people knew several languages. Daurs had taken part in wider...
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February 1, 1996
Richard Swinburne
God has reason occasionally to set aside the operation of the laws of nature and to bring about a miracle — in answer to prayer, or to reveal some truth; and there can be enough historical evidence to show that he has done so (perhaps in the Resurrection of Jesus). He also has reason to provide apparent experiences of his presence to many humans. The occurrence of such historical evidence of...
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November 30, 1995
Alan Richardson-Klavehn, John M. Gardiner, Rosalind I. Java
140 citations
Abstract This chapter covers tasks, retrieval strategies, states of consciousness, task dissociations, and process dissociations and dissociations in reports of subjective awareness. It also reviews and combines recent data to understand better the relationship between task performance, retrieval strategies, and states of awareness. This leads to the adoption of a framework that makes a...
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March 12, 1992
910 citations
A cautious welcome - an introduction and guide to the book, Anthony J. Marcel (MRC Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge), E. Bisiach (Instituto di Clinica Neurologica, University of Milan) ____, yishi, duh, um and consciousness, Kathleen Wilkes (St Hilda's College, University of Oxford) quining qualia, Daniel C. Dennett (Department of Philosophy, Tufts University, Massachusetts) consciousness,...