This article explores the extent to which cognitive historiography can be employed to comment on debates concerning the interpretation of meditative experiences in select Buddhist texts. In particular, this article considers references to meditation-related fear and other associated emotional, perceptual, and cognitive changes. Qualitative data from Western Buddhist meditation practitioners and...
The present contribution offers a descriptive account of two recent books concerning shamanism, Homayun Sidky’s The Origins of Shamanism, Spirit Beliefs, and Religiosity: A Cognitive Anthropological Perspective (2017) and Sergio Botta’s Dagli sciamani allo sciamanesimo. Discorsi, credenze, pratiche (2018). The commentary starts by supplying a brief historical contextualization of the subfield...
In Book 11 of Apuleius’ novel Metamorphoses the protagonist, Lucius, transformed into an ass due to misusage of witchcraft encounters Isis through a dream while sleeping at a remote beach in central Greece. This incident results in the retransformation of Lucius into a man and his subsequent dedication to Isis. However, the information we have from the text regarding both what preceded and...