Mystical experience in the men of the cave: a Lacanian reading of al-Kahf
Tayebeh Barati, Pyeaam Abbasi
al-Irsyad Journal of Islamic and Contemporary Issues December 29, 2020 DOI: 10.53840/alirsyad.v5i2.111 (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 the mystical experience of the Men of the Cave in the eighteenth chapter of the Quran, al-Kahf, can be analyzed through Lacan's three orders — imaginary, symbolic, and real — and that their journey culminates in jouissance, described as 'pleasure in pain.' |
Abstract
In his contribution to psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan introduces three orders according to which every psychoanalytic phenomenon can be described. These three orders are the imaginary, the symbolic and the real. The imaginary is the order in which the subject thinks of everything as his/her own. For the subject there is no distinction between the other and the subject itself. In the symbolic order the subject comes to realise that there is a gap between him/her and the other. S/he, then, starts to feel a lack which for the rest of his/her life the subject tries to fill in. The real is considered as the most important order in which the subject tears away from the symbolic and tries to experience, once again, the unity it had in the imaginary order. It is in this phase that the subject experiences what is known as jouissance or the 'pleasure in pain'. The present study tries to look at the eighteenth chapter of the Holy Quran, al-Kahf (The Cave), in the light of psychoanalysis studies and Lacan's theories in order to analyse the mystical experience that the Men of the Cave go through to reach their final jouissance.
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 |