Religion
February 10, 2026
Michal Pagis, Shlomo Guzmen-Carmeli
This paper sheds light on the interactive process in which religious practitioners work to achieve states that appear to contradict individual agency. Drawing on ethnographic studies of Buddhist meditation retreats and Torah study in a Haredi yeshiva, we track the delicate balance between ‘doing religion’ (active engagement) and ‘being done by religion" (experiencing religious forces as taking...
Religion
November 21, 2023
Andreas Nordin
1 citation
The research literature on religious dreaming demonstrates the commonness of supernatural agent (SA) imagery, as well as various ritualistic and divinatory uses of dream content in the waking state.Less well mapped is the related domain of dream imagery about rituals (DIR).This article aims to provide a survey and analysis of DIR items and interactions in line with dream and ritual theories,...
Religion
January 13, 2020
Brian C. Wilson
2 citations
The current revival of interest in psychedelics, coupled with the death late last year of Ram Das (Richard Alpert), make for a fitting occasion to look back again at the origins of the psychedelic ...
Religion
July 29, 2019
J. Bakker
ABSTRACT Except for a few studies that explore the intersections between esoteric ideas/practices and white supremacy, race has largely been ignored in the field of Western esotericism. This article seeks to partake in remedying this lacuna. To do so, it provides a deconstructive analysis of the way race has operated in the field. I argue that race, although consistently overlooked, has...
Religion
May 5, 2011
Andreas Nordin
9 citations
Dreams are a universal human experience and they form cultural themes in folk traditions and religious rituals, such as pilgrimages and dream incubation. Dreams and dream beliefs are important since they contain representations of interacting supernatural agents that have full access to information of strategic importance to humans. The relevance of dreams often relates to the dreamers'...
Religion
2001
Leon Schlamm
13 citations
I identify two problematic strands of Ken Wilber's transpersonal theory. First, I question Wilber's claim that his spectrum model is supported by the materials of all the world's major mystical traditions. I argue that his integral, hierarchical perspective privileges some traditions but distorts others. Drawing heavily upon Andrew Rawlinson's recent, taxonomic study of mystical traditions,...
Religion
October 1, 1993
Willard R. Johnson
1 citation
This paper presents an interview on the visions of the contemporary Native American shaman Luciano Perez. Born of southern Mexican Indian (P'urepecha) ancestry in Laredo, Texas, on 31 December 1950, he was trained in shamanic practice by the Lakota Sioux spiritual leader Leonard Crow Dog. He begins the interview with general comments on visions, how he experiences them and how they have matured...
Religion
July 1, 1982
Richard A. Hutch
9 citations
Researchers in psychology of religion in America and Britain have inherited the theoretical and research traditions established by W. James, S. Freud and J. Dittes. New nomothetic or theoretical frameworks have been called for in order to organize a plethora of idiographic data. A response to the call has been slow, but Paul Pruyser designated at least six areas in which the development of...