“Memories of a Strange Man, Andrei Bely” as a diary of states of consciousness
Valery Petroff
Литературный факт March 1, 2022 DOI: 10.22455/2541-8297-2018-10-210-235 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mystical experience |
| Keywords | Andrei bely” William wordsworth Spots of time Fyodor dostoevsky Friedrich nietzsche Plato’s anamnesis Abraham maslow Oceanic feeling Teleology Wilhelm wundt Rudolf steiner Autobiography |
| Key points | Argues that Bely's autobiographical texts focus on spiritual journeys and mystical experiences rather than everyday life, using ego-documents to objectify consciousness and repress trauma through speech acts. |
Abstract
The article discusses the autobiographical practices of Andrei Bely in the “Memories of a Strange Man” (1918–19) and other publications, later in one form or another included in “Notes of an Eccentric” (1922). It is shown that the works in question differ from “ordinary” autobiographical and memoir texts by the fact that their author deliberately ignores the details of everyday life and focuses on the reconstruction of his spiritual journeys, on tracing and analyzing the ecstatic moments of mystical illuminations that are constitutive for the process of the rise of his self-conscious “I”. At the same time, ego-documents serve as a means of objectifying of “states of consciousness”, repression of traumatic experiences by transferring them from existential plan into speech acts (illocutionary or perlocutionary) that facilitate self-identification, self-reflection and, ultimately, creative recreation of oneself.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on mystical experience, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis | 1983 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Psychedelic Mystical Experience in the Human Encounter with Death | 1969 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Vectorial Cerebral Hemisphericity as Differential Sources for the Sensed Presence, Mystical Experiences and Religious Conversions | 1993 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The epistemic innocence of psychedelic states. | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mystical Experience and Religious Doctrine | 1982 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |