Topoi June 25, 2026 Drew Chastain
Abstract In The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Albert Camus critiques mysticism for its attempt to escape the absurdity or meaninglessness of reality through a leap of faith (which Camus calls “philosophical suicide”). This critique does not so obviously apply to the atheistic mysticism endorsed by Brook Ziporyn in his Experiments in Mystical Atheism (2024). According to Ziporyn, the mystic atheist...
Kanz Philosophia A Journal for Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism June 25, 2026 Taufik Hidayatulloh, Khairil Ikhsan Siregar, Hery Purwosusanto
The crisis of religious authority, identity polarization, and informational disruption in the contemporary public sphere indicate a tension between religious truth claims and the demands of deliberate rationality within plural societies. Abdolkarim Soroush’s thought offers a conceptual distinction between religion as a transcendent reality and religious knowledge as a historical construction,...
Psychedelics June 24, 2026 Oliver Davis
This article liberates discussion of the politics of psychedelics from its present impasse. Across ten theses, it asserts that psychedelics are interruptive deautomating political technologies, which makes them conducive to democratic politics, in the radical sense: rather than consolidating liberal-democratic systems of representative or managed democracy, psychedelic experience tends to open...
Religions June 24, 2026 Leor Roseman
Prophetic or messianic states of consciousness are charged with moral urgency and are active, historical, political, and sometimes infused with ego. In this paper, I inquire into psychedelic micro-messianic phenomenology and revolutionary dynamics through the historical case studies of Allen Ginsberg, Master Irineu, and John Wilson (Moonhead)—figures associated with the diffusion of LSD, Daime...
June 21, 2026 Jonathan David, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Yair Dor-Ziderman et al. preprint
Background: Despite the rapid growth of psychedelic research, limited attention has been given to how psychedelics are used, experienced and integrated within highly conservative religious communities, and in Jewish contexts more broadly. This study addresses this gap by examining ayahuasca use among the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) community, a highly religious, conservative, and collectivist...
Space and Culture India June 20, 2026 P Kadek Wulandari Laksmi, P Komang Widhya Sedana Putra, Ign Oka Ariwangsa
Mystical illness beliefs—encompassing notions of witchcraft, spirit possession, and supernatural affliction—remain embedded in many societies and continue to shape health-related behaviour, work practices, and economic life. In Denpasar, Bali, where traditional spiritual frameworks intersect with an increasingly modern urban economy, such beliefs retain social relevance. However, empirical...
Open MIND June 16, 2026 Jan M. Keppel Hesselink
The academic study of Western esotericism has developed a sophisticated set of research approaches over the past three decades: historical-philological, discursive, sociological, anthropological, depth-psychological, and cognitive-scientific. Each approach illuminates important dimensions of esoteric traditions. What remains underdeveloped is a seventh approach: the...
Frontiers in Psychology June 10, 2026 Guy W. Fincham, Edward Caddye, Amy Kartar et al.
Background Breathwork that increases ventilatory rate or depth represents an accessible non-pharmacological modality for potentially inducing altered states of consciousness (ASCs). Despite gaining traction as a potential therapeutic tool, empirical controlled research on breathwork and ASCs remains limited. Methods We examined the effects of a single session of high ventilation breathwork,...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) June 9, 2026 Emma Dobbin
UPDATED 2026-06-09 Corrected dataset attribution from Timmermann et al. (2019) to Pallavicini et al. (2021) UPDATED 2026-01-21 Background: Psychedelic substances produce profound alterations in conscious experience, yet the neural mechanisms underlying phenomenal richness remain poorly understood. Static measures of neural integration and complexity have shown limited success in predicting...
Australasian psychiatry : bulletin of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists June 5, 2026 Osama Bhatti, Mohammad Qasim Latifi
BackgroundPsychiatry has long maintained an ambivalent relationship with religion and spirituality, often acknowledging their relevance while remaining cautious about clinical engagement.ObjectivesThis article examines the historical, conceptual, and clinical tensions surrounding spirituality in psychiatry and explores how contemporary psychedelic research has renewed attention to meaning and...