Cambridge University Press eBooks
September 28, 2000
Peter Carruthers
414 citations
Phenomenal consciousness—the subjective feel of experience—can be fully explained in naturalistic, scientifically acceptable terms. Peter Carruthers argues against the view that consciousness is inherently mysterious, developing a novel account based on higher-order thought. Drawing on interdisciplinary resources, he shows that this approach explains away extravagant claims about consciousness while substantively accounting for the subjectivity of experience. The book surveys a wide range of extant theories and is aimed at readers in philosophy and psychology.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
October 31, 2023
Shaun Gallagher
171 citations
Contemporary theories of embodied cognition, known as the '4Es' (embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive cognition), offer diverse approaches to understanding the mind, its relation to the brain, perception, mental representation, sense making, environmental roles, and social cognition. These views contrast with classic cognitivism, and the Element examines their strengths and weaknesses, major criticisms, and possible resolutions. It focuses on enactive theory and the prospects for integrating enactive approaches with other embodied and extended theories, mediated through recent developments in predictive processing and the free energy principle. The Element concludes with a brief discussion of practical applications of embodied cognition.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
September 22, 2014
J. Freer
129 citations
No Summary
Cambridge University Press eBooks
March 29, 2004
William S. Robinson
108 citations
William S. Robinson presents a dualistic theory of mind called Qualitative Event Realism, which argues against dominant materialist views by focusing on sensory experiences such as pain, afterimages, colors, sounds, and odors. The theory is relevant to the development of a science of consciousness pursued by philosophers, psychologists, and brain scientists. The book is aimed at students and professionals in the philosophy of mind and has cross-disciplinary appeal in cognitive psychology and the brain sciences.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
March 18, 2019
Carolyn M. Aldwin, Heidi Igarashi, Michael R. Levenson
62 citations
No Summary
Cambridge University Press eBooks
June 2, 2022
P. Mcnamara
35 citations
This updated and expanded edition reviews brain-based accounts of religious experiences, covering decentering, self-transformation, supernatural agent cognitions, mystical states, religious language, ritualization, and religious group agency. It incorporates major findings from the past decade on methodology, future thinking, and psychedelics, and systematically examines the rationale for using neuroscience approaches to religion. The account is intended for religious studies scholars and those interested in comparative religion, philosophy of religion, cultural evolution, and personal self-transformation, explaining how such transformation occurs within religious contexts.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
July 31, 2024
Brad Stoddard
14 citations
Entheogenic religions, which use psychoactive drugs, are often studied in ways that support practitioners' claims of legitimacy. This Element instead offers a historical and critical analysis, examining how entheogenic communities in the United States are produced, the historical factors behind the rise of psychedelics, and how the law shapes these groups. It argues that these communities, like all imagined communities, are culturally conditioned, socially constructed, and historically contingent. Exploring these contingencies reveals the broader sociocultural, historical, and economic frameworks underlying the growing link between psychoactive substances and religion.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
February 4, 2010
Vibeke S. Catts, Stanley V. Catts
12 citations
Phencyclidine (PCP), ketamine, LSD, and MDMA have been called psychotomimetics for their ability to induce psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorder without delirium. PCP clearly can cause lasting psychotic disorder beyond acute intoxication, but LSD and MDMA lack clear evidence of inducing psychotic disorder or schizophrenia in people without preexisting vulnerability. PCP and ketamine act as noncompetitive antagonists of the NMDA glutamate receptor, while LSD is a serotonin 5HT2A receptor agonist and MDMA an indirect serotonin agonist. Animal models using PCP show construct validity for schizophrenia, and ketamine serves as a safe human model, though more translational research is needed.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
November 12, 2009
Russell Reising, Jim Leblanc
8 citations
The day of an LSD experience frequently serves as a dramatic and clearly identifiable turning point in an artist's personal development, according to Stanislav Grof. This observation highlights how such an event can mark a significant moment in the creative and psychological trajectory of individual artists.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
July 25, 2017
Peter J. McKenna
7 citations
Delusions, central to madness and psychosis, remain poorly understood. This book provides a comprehensive review of what delusions are, their clinical features, the disorders they appear in, and similar phenomena in health and disease. It critically examines psychological and biological explanations for delusions, offering an in-depth analysis of the different approaches taken to understand them. The text is an essential resource for psychiatrists, psychologists, and neuroscientists working with or researching delusional patients and major psychiatric disorders.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
January 27, 2026
Z. Chen
6 citations
Mystical experiences transcend perceived reality and transform individuals, characterized by noetic and ineffable qualities. The text presents a fourfold hierarchy of mystical forms: monistic mysticism merges self and ultimate reality in oneness with ego-dissolution; nondualistic mysticism keeps the self distinct yet absorbed into a transcendent order, as in world religions; dualistic mysticism involves encountering a separate nonhuman reality, seen in shamanism and psychedelic states; pluralistic mysticism emphasizes multiple dimensions of self and reality, integrating embodied and spiritual aspects. These perspectives stress that transcendent realities require self-transformation and can inform daily life across cultures.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
January 1, 2025
Steve O’Brien, David Nutt
5 citations
MDMA-assisted therapy (MDMA-AT) for PTSD and other behavioral disorders has a complex history, moving from research to recreational use and back to medicine. The chapter argues that despite recent setbacks for its clinical application, MDMA-AT holds potential for transforming psychiatry. It covers pivotal trials and the challenges researchers face, while noting an uncertain future amid ongoing debates over ethics, methodology, and political influence.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
May 28, 2021
Tim Read
2 citations
Clinical research suggests significant efficacy for psychiatric disorders that have traditionally been hard to treat, with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy moving from a fringe subject to a significant new treatment method that all psychotherapists should be aware of and some may develop into a special interest.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
July 8, 2026
Borut Škodlar
The chapter explores the phenomenology of emotions in people with schizophrenia, examining both emotional vulnerabilities and transformative experiences. It describes how emotions can become alienating in this condition, while also noting that individuals often have a low threshold for breakthrough experiences ranging from despair and anxiety-laden psychotic states to moments of clarity resembling mystical experiences. The authors argue that understanding these emotional challenges, together with their transformative potential, can inform psychotherapeutic and rehabilitative approaches and help uncover healing dimensions.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
July 8, 2026
Hannes Gustav Melichar, Philipp Schmidt-Boddy, Thomas Fuchs et al.
Emotions are fundamentally embodied and intersubjective, not merely cognitive appraisals. Drawing on phenomenology and enactivism, this chapter argues that emotions constitute our experience of the world as meaningful and are inseparable from existential vulnerability—an ontological condition rooted in the lived body's exposure to others and contingency. The introduction surveys competing theories of emotion (cognitive, perceptual, feeling-based, motivational) and contends that all insufficiently address the lived body's richness. The volume's three parts move from phenomenological analyses of emotional life and vulnerability, through psychopathological perspectives, to the transformative role of embodied emotions in psychotherapy, establishing embodiment as the conceptual bridge integrating emotion theory, psychopathology, and psychotherapy.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
June 30, 2026
Marcus Boon
Marcus Boon examines William Burroughs' 1950s Amazonian encounters with yagé (ayahuasca) as a pivotal moment in his literary and spiritual development. Boon argues that these experiences informed Burroughs' later ideas about language as a virus, the cut-up method, and his cosmological view of control and resistance. The chapter situates yagé not as an anomaly in Burroughs' work but as central to its epistemological and aesthetic radicalism, intertwining Cold War paranoia, psychedelic experimentation, and postcolonial critique. Boon suggests that Burroughs helped carry yagé from the jungle into global discourse on language, healing, and power, complicating contemporary movements for psychedelic healing, spiritual tourism, and decolonial thought.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
June 12, 2026
Patrick Mcnamara
The author examines how group minds influence dream content, proposing that lucid dreamers can consciously interact with these collective influences. Typical dreams are described as deeply social, often featuring interactions with characters representing the dreamer's group memberships.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
June 12, 2026
Patrick Mcnamara
The author argues that certain experiences induced by serotonergic psychedelics can be understood as unstructured access to the content of group minds, and that ego dissolution during these experiences represents a fusion between the individual and a salient group mind. The paper examines whether and how people can voluntarily access and benefit from such group mind content.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
May 29, 2026
Christopher C. H. Cook
Possession states are a complex phenomenon with diverse cultural and religious forms, not necessarily linked to psychiatric diagnosis. A case study shows that demonic attributions can serve as negative religious coping, leading to spiritual struggles. Understanding the theological context of spirit possession beliefs is crucial for psychiatric diagnosis when patients belong to faith communities viewing such experiences as spiritually determined. Although possession states are uncommon in the UK, they are prevalent worldwide. Exorcism (or disobsession or spirit release) has been proposed as a controversial psychiatric treatment in some contexts; it can be helpful in appropriate settings but harmful when misapplied to certain diagnoses. This raises questions about collaboration with faith leaders, safeguarding vulnerable individuals, and avoiding pathologizing culturally normative practices.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
April 23, 2026
Michael H. Herzog, Aaron Schurger, Adrien Doerig
This paper critically examines quantum theories of consciousness, particularly orchestrated objective reduction (OrchOR), which proposes that proto-conscious events occur throughout the universe but full consciousness arises only at the subcellular level in neuronal microtubules. The authors outline challenges with this approach, arguing that existing theories linking consciousness to neural processes are insufficient and that quantum-based explanations face significant conceptual and empirical difficulties.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
March 27, 2026
Marcus Boon
This chapter examines Allen Ginsberg's lifelong drug experimentation, which he pursued as a means to attain transcendent states and challenge conventional reality. Beginning at Columbia University, Ginsberg kept detailed notes and avoided addiction. His work with Timothy Leary on psychedelics expanded his view of their social potential, and he became a prominent advocate for drug legalization and broader scientific and social experimentation, while remaining candid about their harmful effects. The chapter explores Ginsberg's reasons for drug use, his advocacy, and poems written under the influence, collected mainly in Kaddish and Other Poems (1961).
Cambridge University Press eBooks
March 27, 2026
David Stephen Calonne
This chapter examines how Mexico shaped Allen Ginsberg's poetic development. Inspired by William S. Burroughs, Ginsberg visited archaeological sites like Palenque, inspiring his poem "Siesta in Xbalba." He traveled widely in Mexico, continuing a mystical quest begun with a 1948 "cosmic consciousness" experience while reading William Blake. In poems such as "Paterson," Ginsberg wrote he "would rather go mad, gone down the dark road to Mexico, heroin dripping/in my veins,/eyes and ears full of marijuana, /eating the god Peyote…" than endure life in America. His poems and journals show Mexico's profound effect on his life and work.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
March 1, 2026
Melissa Lynn Maffeo
Sleep paralysis is a common but terrifying experience in which a person wakes unable to move, often feeling chest pressure and a sensed presence. This chapter argues that these episodes arise from the collision of sleep architecture and perceptual ambiguity: REM-sleep paralysis persists into wakefulness, and hallucinations emerge in this liminal state. The temporoparietal junction is implicated in out-of-body experiences and the sensation of a nearby presence. The chapter offers a neurobiological explanation for a phenomenon that cultures worldwide have described for centuries, blurring the line between brain and belief.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
March 1, 2026
Melissa Lynn Maffeo
Psychedelic substances such as ayahuasca, psilocybin, and LSD have been used for millennia in spiritual ceremonies, often producing transcendent experiences. This chapter traces their history from ancient rituals through colonization and the countercultural revolution to modern neuroscience. It explains how these compounds mimic serotonin and interact with brain receptors to alter consciousness, affecting the default mode network, ego, and self-referential processing. Such effects can produce feelings of oneness, ego death, and reductions in depression and anxiety. The chapter asks whether mystical states are supernatural or meaningful expressions of altered neural processing, and suggests that guided use with proper set and setting positions psychedelics at the intersection of brain, mind, and meaning.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
February 19, 2026
Dustin Breitenwischer
The author argues that William James, in his Varieties of Religious Experience, presents a hermeneutics of suffering that treats suffering as both a source of and a challenge to openness to understanding, rather than complying with a promise of experiential openness. Through a comparative reading of James, Ralph Waldo Emerson's struggle with his son's death, and Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method, the author contends that suffering marks an impaired connectivity within the self and between self and world, yet conditions the sufferer's reconnection with the social world. James, Emerson, and Gadamer use literary and philosophical imagination to center suffering as a hermeneutic process that entails the conditions of its own overcoming.