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Relations between the Phenomena of Religious Mysticism (Altered States of Consciousness) and the Psychology of Thought: A Cognitive Psychology of States of Consciousness and the Necessity of Subjective States for Cognitive Theory

Harry T. Hunt

Perceptual and Motor Skills December 1, 1985 DOI: 10.2466/pms.1985.61.3.911 (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed
Topics Altered states of consciousness Mysticism
Key points Argues that mystical and altered-state experiences directly exteriorize normally masked semantic processes through cross-modal, synaesthetic embodiment of geometric and luminosity patterns, rejecting orthodox views of such imagery as primitive or nonsymbolic.

Abstract

Various apparent drawbacks and extensions are considered of a previously developed cognitive approach to mystical and altered-state experience as directly exteriorizing the normally masked processes of semantics or “felt meaning.” The humanly criterial “turning around on the schemata” as the basis for recombinatory symbolic operations would be based on the cross-modal or synaesthetic embodiment of the geometric and luminosity patterns “afforded” by the imaginal disassembling and reuse of visual-spatial perceptual microgenesis. Accordingly the more orthodox accounts of synaesthesias and geometric imagery as “primitive” or “nonsymbolic” are addressed and rejected. The cognitive-introspectionist reinterpretation of the phenomena of altered states in turn leads to a new understanding of ordinary insight, body-percept transformations in schizophrenia and yoga chakra experience, and the ‘void’ experience of classical mysticism. It appears that the juxtaposition of the psychology of thought and of altered states of consciousness is mutually and uniquely illuminating to both concerns.

Comparable studies

Other theoretical and historical papers on altered states of consciousness, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
Altered States of Consciousness 1966 Theoretical or philosophical paper
Functional neuroanatomy of altered states of consciousness: The transient hypofrontality hypothesis 2003 Theoretical or philosophical paper
The Psychedelic Mystical Experience in the Human Encounter with Death 1969 Theoretical or philosophical paper
A neurophenomenological approach to non-ordinary states of consciousness: hypnosis, meditation, and psychedelics 2022 Theoretical or philosophical paper
Hypnotic phenomena and altered states of consciousness: a multilevel framework of description and explanation 2003 Theoretical or philosophical paper

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Altered states of consciousness Mysticism Mystical experience