HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies
October 24, 2024
Yue Sun, Yuehua Chen
The contemporary interpretation of Lao-Zhuang’s thought reveals a multidimensional dialogue between tradition and modernity, the local and the exotic, and East and West. The interaction between Lao-Zhuang’s thoughts and Western religious philosophy can be explored through the lens of mysticism. By examining the non-material nature of the Tao, the transcendence of language, and the cultivation...
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies
June 3, 2024
Nita Trimulyaningsih, M.A. Subandi, Kwartarini W. Yuniarti
Positive changes or transformations have been the subject of study within spiritual traditions as well as humanistic and transpersonal psychology. The aim of the current study is to understand the process of transformation among Moslems in Indonesia, who follow spiritual practices, to achieve the nafs al-muṭma ínnah [tranquil self]. Ten participants in Yogyakarta province were involved in this...
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies
February 23, 2023
S. Supriyanto
8 citations
closer to God by cleansing the heart and purifying the soul, with the aim of achieving true happiness by dealing directly with God. This theory is called al-Hulul [unity with God]. (Takahashi 2019). Sufism is considered to be more friendly to local culture, and the majority of Javanese people have direct contact with religion and culture. Religion symbolises the value of obedience to God, while...
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies
December 17, 2021
H. Muhammad, Ilyas Supena, A. A. Junaidi et al.
To overcome various problems, the practice of shamanism has gained popularity in Javanese society. The belief of the society in this practice is increasing, mainly because of the involvement of the kyai (an honorific title of the Muslim clergy), who serves as a shaman. The kyai, in this regard, uses Qur’anic verses in his mantra. This study aims to reveal how the use of the Qur’anic verses is...
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies
August 3, 2021
Ahmad Ebadi, Mohammadmahdi Amoosoltani
According to property-emergentism, consciousness is an emergent property of certain aggregate neurological constructions, whereas substance-emergentism maintains that the emergence of consciousness depends on the emergence of mental substance or soul. In this article, we presented some arguments supporting substance-emergentism by analysing various properties of consciousness, including the...
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies
July 29, 2021
R. A. Northover
3 citations
The study reappraised Emile Durkheim’s totemic principle in relation to the origins of religion and culture, using, amongst others, speech act theory and recent southern African epistemologies, especially David Lewis-Williams’ theory of shamanism, potency and altered states of consciousness. The study was text-based, qualitative and interpretive, and used key texts from anthropology,...
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies
December 8, 2016
Cornel W. du Toit
Karl Jaspers’ Axial Age concept is used to depict the way humans interact with their environment. The first Axial Age (800-200 BC) can be typified among others as the age in which humans started to objectify nature. Nature was dispossessed of spirits, gods and vital forces that humans previously feared and used as explanation for the origin of things. Secularised and objectified nature became a...
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies
January 27, 2016
Celia E.T. Kourie
10 citations
Given the plethora of research conducted in the field of spirituality and mysticism over the last 30 years, it is almost a superhuman feat to keep up with the explosion of information. Of necessity, in a limited article of this nature, it is possible to discuss only a few salient aspects of the spirituality and mysticism phenomenon and by so doing contribute to ongoing research in this...
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies
January 27, 2016
Jock Agai
The scientific study of near-death experience (NDE) teaches that NDE does not entail evidence for life after death, but a study of NDE from an African perspective implies that NDE could serve as a yardstick which supports African traditional beliefs concerning death and resurrection. Using references from Ancient-Egyptian afterlife beliefs and those of the Yorubas of Nigeria, I argue that, for...
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies
August 28, 2015
Pieter F. Craffert
10 citations
The visible growth in possession and exorcism in Southern Africa can, amongst others, be attributed to the general impression in Christianity that, since Jesus was a successful exorcist, his followers should follow his example. Historical Jesus research generally endorses a view of Jesus as exorcist, which probably also contributes to this idea, yet there is no or very little reflection about...
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies
August 28, 2015
Andries van Aarde
Millennialism, eschatology, and apocalypticism. This aricle consists of four parts. Firstly, it describes briefly and elementarily the origins of millennialism as it manifested in the history of theoligy. Secondly, it reflects on some of the new and challenging ways New Testament scholars nowadays study eschatology and apocalypticism from a social-scientific perspecive on the conception of time...
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
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
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
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
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 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
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...