Journal of the American Academy of Religion
July 11, 2026
James Gentry
Abstract This article analyzes passages found in Tibetan writings from the early Great Perfection tradition that prescribe the cultivation and consumption of psychoactive fungi as an integral part of the Buddhist path. It identifies these passages as the first instances discovered in premodern Buddhist literature in which the use of psychedelics is unambiguously prescribed to hasten progress...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
September 1, 2023
Jingjing Li
2 citations
Abstract In this article, I elaborate on the approach to joy preserved in East Asian Yogācāra texts authored by Xuanzang and his disciple, Kuiji. I argue that these Yogācāra Buddhists propose a contextualist approach that does not presume joy to be an emotion with an essential property but rather perceives joy as always contextualized in lifeworlds at the personal and interpersonal levels. As...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
June 1, 2023
Justine M. Bakker
9 citations
Abstract Since 2001, visual artist Ellen Gallagher has been working on “Watery Ecstatic,” an ongoing, expansive project that depicts real and imaginary underwater life through drawings, films, reliefs, and paintings. Thus far, this series—indeed, Gallagher’s oeuvre—has not been studied by scholars of religion. Arguing that the series provokes an extended conversation about mysticism,...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
June 1, 2021
Giovanna Parmigiani
Why do people find conspiracy theories attractive, convincing, or useful? In this article, I analyze conspirituality-that is, the relationships between New Age spirituality and conspiracy theories-in Italy during the COVID-19 lockdown. After distinguishing between conspiracy-believing and belief in conspiracies, I claim that conspiracy-believing could be understood as an aesthetic (sensory and...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
March 31, 2016
Andrew Monteith
4 citations
Terence McKenna (1946–2000) spent thirty years advocating for the religious use of hallucinogenic substances. Picking up where Timothy Leary left off, McKenna inspired later generations of Psychonauts (“consciousness explorers”) and continues to do so even today. McKennan religion treats humanity as in flux, with imminent evolutionary milestones rapidly approaching. These metamorphoses will...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
October 18, 2011
Ann Taves
1 citation
This response was to have been published in 79/1. That it appears only now, a year after it was submitted by Professor Taves, is entirely the fault of the editor. RUSSELL MCCUTCHEON'S review essay obscures the many points on which we agree. These include the importance of analyzing the history of discourses of “religious experience” (see Taves 1999, 2005); the difficulties inherent in a...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
2011
Ryan Bongseok Joo
One surprising and yet relatively unknown aspect of contemporary Korean Buddhism is the significant influence of American and European Buddhism. Between 1989 and 2009, South Koreans witnessed well-educated “blue-eyed” monastic residents via the Korean media, and the emergence of new bestsellers by authors like Thich Nhat Hahn and Jack Kornfield, written initially for Western audiences but since...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
2009
Stephen Kaplan
Contemporary neuropsychology reveals that the parietal lobe contains neurons that are specifically attuned to the act of grasping and this act may be fundamental to the establishment of the phenomenal boundaries between subject and object. Furthermore, alterations to this process, such as the hypoactivation of this region during meditation or the hyperactivation associated with schizophrenia,...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
March 27, 2008
James Allen Grady
Since Georges Vajda's classic study, La Théologie ascétique de Baḣya ibn Paqūda, appeared in 1947, very few scholars have devoted book-length works to the thought of Baḣya. Diana Lobel's A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue represents the first widely available to English-reading audiences, and this would be enough to make it a remarkable contribution. But it is the breadth and depth of Lobel's exploration...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
2007
A Whitney Sanford
This paper argues that whitewater paddling constitutes religious experience, that non-western terms often best describe this experience and that these two facts are related and have much to tell us about the nature of religious experience. That many paddlers articulate their experiences using Asian and/or indigenous religious terms suggests that this language is a form of opposition to existing...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
2004
Hugh B. Urban
Although the forces of Eros and Magic have long been linked in western esoteric traditions, it is really not until the nineteenth century that we see the emergence of a large and sophisticated body of literature on the art of sexual magic. This article examines the rise of sexual magic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, placing it in the context of the larger discourse...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
1996
M. Flynn
33 citations
Maureen Flynn; The Spiritual Uses of Pain in Spanish Mysticism, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume LXIV, Issue 2, 1 July 1996, Pages 257–278, h
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
1994
Jonathan Shear
36 citations
Journal Article On Mystical Experiences as: Support for the Perennial Philosophy Get access Jonathan Shear Jonathan Shear Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume LXII, Issue 2, Summer 1994, Pages 319–342, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/LXII.2.319 Published: 01 July 1994
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
1993
Roger Walsh
26 citations
Roger Walsh; Phenomenological Mapping and Comparisons of Shamanic, Buddhist, Yogic, and Schizophrenic Experiences, Journal of the American Academy of Religion,
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
June 1, 1988
S. B. King
61 citations
Sallie B. King; Two Epistemological Models for the Interpretation of Mysticism, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume LVI, Issue 2, 1 July 1988, P
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
1987
Stephen Phillips
4 citations
Keiji Nishitani presents a Buddhist philosophy that at once speaks from Buddhist religious and expresses a sensibility. It is his defense of the that above all qualifies his philosophy as Buddhist. Nishitani is a Buddhist thinker not so much in drawing on the rich history of classical Buddhist philosophy as in drawing on his sense of the value of Buddhist meditation (zazen in Japanese) and...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
1978
Robert Α. F. Thurman
28 citations
“Hermeneutics” as a philosophical discipline of rational interpretation of a traditional canon of Sacred Scriptures authoritative for a religious community has usually been considered peculiar to the West. This notion is anchored only in the misconception that “Eastern” thought is somehow “non-rational,” or “mystical,” hence excused from the burden of reconciling the tensions between some forms...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
1977
Winston L. King
4 citations
The attainment of cessation (nirodha-samāpatti) is the highest meditational state possible in Theravada Buddhism. Those in this state are to all appearances dead, for it is the extinction of all feeling and perception, continuing for as long as seven days. It is seen as the actual realization of Nibbana in this life. The basic technique of this achievement is yogic. The meditator proceeds...
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
1977
William J. Wainwright
3 citations
Part I examines Walter Stace's classification of mystical experience, R. C. Zahner's criticism of that classification, and Ninian Smart's response to Zaehner. Zaehner rightly faults Stace for distorting theistic mysticism and for ignoring the Hindu tradition of love mysticism. Smart's criticisms of Zaehner are to the point, though inconclusive. However, his own thesis is incoherent. If (as he...