Mystical Experience and Decision Making
Rossano Cesare Zas Friz de Col
Religions February 26, 2025 DOI: 10.3390/rel16030296 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mystical experience |
| Key points | Argues that mystical lived experience, understood as the perception of mystery, inherently involves decision-making, and proposes that analyzing decisions through a phenomenological lens offers a hermeneutic key for interpreting mystical experience, illustrated through the significant decisions of St. Ignatius of Loyola. |
Abstract
The study of decision making is currently significant in various areas of knowledge, particularly in an interdisciplinary approach involving psychologists, economists, sociologists, cognitive scientists, and political scientists. This article explores the decision-making process in a new field: the mystical lived experience; i.e., approaches the perception of something present as unknown, the perception of mystery, within the decision-making process. It emphasizes that every perception requires a response, more or less conscious, and the mystical lived experience is no exception. The goal is to enhance our understanding and interpretation of the dynamics of mystical experience using a phenomenological analysis of the decision-making process as a hermeneutic key. The philosophical and anthropological background of this article draws from Karl Rahner’s transcendental experience, while the phenomenological and psychological perspective is informed by Louis Roy’s experiences of transcendence and Juan Martin Velasco’s studies on mysticism. The article first establishes the theoretical foundations of this new approach and then applies a decision-making analysis to the significant decisions made by St. Ignatius of Loyola, as detailed in his autobiography.
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 |