HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
August 28, 2015
Pieter G.R. de Villiers
This article analyses the experience of divine presence within an intimate divine-human relationship, as conceptualised in Philo’s writings, and compares this experience with mystical passages in John’s Gospel. The article explains their understanding of God and how the union with a transcendent God is mediated. The article investigates this union in terms of an underlying mystical pattern that...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
March 23, 2015
Francois Wessels
4 citations
In my experience, conflict and other forms of being stuck or (as it is commonly referred to in narrative texts) ‘stuckness’ are related to actions, behaviour or events. If we consider a narrative paradigm, they happen in the realm of the Bruner’s ‘landscape of action’. Efforts at escaping these problem-saturated experiences mostly resort to replacing these actions, habits, modes of operation or...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
August 21, 2014
Jakub Urbaniak
This article seeks to explore the mystical approaches to suffering characteristic of both Buddhism and Christianity. Through the analysis of the meanings, the two traditions in question ascribe to suffering as a ‘component’ of mystical experience; it challenges the somewhat oversimplified understanding of the dichotomy ’sage-the-robot versus saint-the-sufferer’. Thus it contributes to the...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
May 21, 2012
Stephen D. Edwards
The central thesis of this article was that the phenomenon of hope involves states and stages of consciousness development, which can be enhanced through breath control, meditation, prayer and related practices that have formed the essence of various spiritual healing traditions for millennia. In particular, it was argued that breath control can provide a vital foundation for consciousness...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
May 21, 2012
Kees Waaijman
This article discussed the use of the Bible in mystical texts by focusing on intertextuality as a literary approach which analyses the intersection of texts. It investigated how mystical texts, as phenotexts, relate to the Bible as archetext: firstly, the intertextual relations affect the surface of the text in a mono-causal way and secondly, they govern the production of meaning reciprocally....
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
January 11, 2012
Stephen D. Edwards, David J. Edwards
5 citations
This integral investigation explored phenomenological and neurophysiologic, individual and collective dimensions of Christian Trinitarian meditation experiences in a volunteer, convenience sample of 10 practicing Christians, 6 men and 4 women, with a mean age of 48 years and an age range from 21 to 85 years. Participants meditated for a minimum period of 15 minutes, during which...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
March 9, 2011
Cornel W. du Toit
3 citations
This article treats self-transcendence – like all transcendence – as a fact of human life. Inter alia this means that the human mind perforce operates in terms of binary concepts such as finitude–infinity, inner world–outside world, self–other, desire–fulfilment, separation–union and the like. We find these concepts in most myths of origin. The concept of desire (Eros), combining unfulfilment...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
March 9, 2011
Celia E.T. Kourie, Alex Kurian
1 citation
In our pluralistic society, the diverse religious traditions offer an opportunity for interreligious dialogue which has as its aim an appreciation of, and respect for, the integrity of individual traditions. Swami Abhishiktananda is a clear example of one who offered an alternative to Christian exclusiveness in his willingness to engage in an inter-spiritual lifestyle in which Eastern and...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
August 18, 2010
Andries van Aarde
This article aims at conversing with aspects of the contribution Pieter Craffert (New Testament scholar from the University of South Africa) has made in his book on the historical Jesus, The life of a Galilean shaman: Jesus of Nazareth in anthropological-historical perspective (2008). In the book traits of the “shamanic complex” are heuristically used to explain the layering of traditions as...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
August 18, 2010
John J. Pilch
The Church Father Epiphanius' description of the Tascodrugite practice of placing the forefinger on the nostril during prayer call be plausibly interpreted as a strategy for inducing an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Anthropological and neurophysiological research on how this human gesture achieves such an effect which is a pan-human potential suggests a similar plausible interpretation...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
August 18, 2010
Willem J. Smith
In the preface to his book, Theology and Psychology, Fraser Watts, a lecturer in Theology and Natural Science at the University of Cambridge, states that he approaches “… the interface between theology and psychology by looking at each discipline from the perspective of the other. This includes a religious perspective on several current hot topics in psychology, such as evolution, neuroscience,...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
August 12, 2010
George Drazenovich, Celia E.T. Kourie
8 citations
Contemporary research suggests that a path is now open for critical dialogue between mysticism and mental health. Data are accumulating regarding the frequency with which mystical experience occurs in the general population. Social science researchers are undertaking studies to determine whether people can knowledgably differentiate between the presence of a mystical experience and other types...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
February 19, 2010
Ignatius W. Ferreira
3 citations
The development of the human consciousness: Ken Wilber’s AQAL theoryKenneth Earl Wilber III, an integral philosopher, psychologist and mystic with an intelligence quotient of 160, was born on 31 January 1949 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in the United States of America, and is considered by some as one of the most important philosophers of the 21st century. He developed his integral philosophy...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
October 9, 2005
John J. Pilch
3 citations
This brief survey and analysis of the statements made by Paul about his experience of God calling him to be an apostle in Galatians 1:15-16; 1 Corinth 15:8-9; 2 Corinth 4:6; and Philippians 3:12 were chiefly conducted from an intentionally limited social science perspective. The article argues that the investigator can gain deeper insights into Paul’s statements “in his own words” by submitting...
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
November 3, 2002
John J. Pilch
17 citations
Luke reports more than twenty altered states of consciousness experiences in Acts of the Apostles. These are common and normal human experiences in approximately ninety percent of contemporary cultures. In the ancient Circum-Mediterranean world, it seems to have been common and normal in about eighty percent of those cultures. Insights from psychological anthropology, cultural anthropology and...