The Anthropologist and the Initiated: Reflections on the Ethnography of Mystical Experience among the Sufis of Aleppo, Syria
P. Pinto
December 1, 2010 DOI: 10.1177/0037768610383371 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Population | Sufi community members in Aleppo, Syria |
| Topics | Mystical experience |
| Key points | Argues that the religious self of Sufi community members in Aleppo is constructed through the embodiment of Sufi principles, forming a "mystical body" enacted in rituals and mystical experiences. Proposes that ethnographic practice must account for such embodied phenomena. |
Abstract
The construction of the religious self of the members of the Sufi communities in Aleppo, Syria, is achieved through the embodiment of principles of the Sufi tradition as a form of corporality that the author calls the mystical body. This corporality is shaped and enacted in the mystical experiences that the Sufis have during the rituals and religious practices linked to their initiation into the mystical path of Sufism. Thus, the author aims at raising some questions about the ethnographic practice of embodied phenomena such as the mystical experiences among the Syrian Sufis.
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 |