William James proposed in 1902 that states of mystical experience, central to his idea of religious experience, can be identified based on their ineffability and their noetic quality. The epistemological category of the noetic quality, modified by W. T. Stace in 1960, plays a central but somewhat confounding role in today’s biomedical research involving psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and...
ManuscriptNovember 20, 2021Mark Vladimirovich Shugurov, Olga Viktorovna Kostina
The paper aims to analyze the heuristic potential of the Christian religious and mystical experience comprehension through the subject of culturology. The authors focus on the culturological approach to this experience which is conceptualized as a cultural tradition. Particular attention is paid to the Christian mysticism as spiritual and at the same time cultural heritage. The scientific...
Multiple laboratories have proposed measures of subjective effects of psychedelics as potential mediators of their therapeutic impact. Other work has identified individual differences that covary with subjective responses in informative ways. The range of potential measures of responses, traits, and outcomes is vast. Ideas for new measures are likely numerous. The field will progress...
N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a classic psychedelic capable of inducing short-lasting but profound changes in consciousness. As with other psychedelics, the experience induced by DMT strongly depends upon contextual factors, yet the neurobiological determinants of this variability remain unknown. The present study investigated changes in neural oscillations elicited by inhaled DMT, and...
Laplage em RevistaOctober 3, 2021Shirin Shokati Asl, F. Sheikhloovand, Mohammad Farahmand Sarabi et al.
This paper recognizes Rumi's views on the subjects that constitute the nature of mystical experiences, which has been less considered by researchers and has provided evidence to test the theory of researchers such as William James and Walter Stace in the field of mystical experiences. First, some explanations about mystical experiences are presented, then, respectively, the common...
In his recent book, Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment, John Pittard challenges J.L. Schellenberg’s rejection of mystical experience as worthy of enjoying presumptive doxastic trust for two main reasons. First, Pittard holds that Schellenberg wrongly focuses only on avoiding error while placing no emphasis on gaining truth. I argue that, contra Pittard, Schellenberg’s account...
Trajectories of intersection and divergence between philosophical and religiously mystical versions of the ontology of being-in-time are studied in the article. It is concluded that the soul is constituted in qualitatively different time than “I”. If the soul is the junction of times, then “I” lives in the place of time breaking. The exit from time to eternity is preceded by the transformation...
Background: Psychedelics are able to acutely alter emotional reactivity and self-consciousness. However, whether regular, naturalistic use of psychedelics can be linked to more persistent, trait-level changes in these domains remains an open question.Aim: To test three hypotheses: i) psychedelics use is related to higher positive and lower negative emotional reactivity; ii) psychedelics use is...
Ayon Maharaj’s Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality: Sri Ramakrishna and CrossCultural Philosophy of Religion (2018; henceforth, IPIR) is an excellent book. It contributes to cross-cultural philosophy of religion by showing not only that a profound philosophical dialogue between prima facie different philosophical traditions is possible and needed, but also by making a clear case that Western...
Throughout history, people have described alterations of consciousness in which they experienced a sense of transcendence, being part of a much larger unity, sometimes encompassing the whole universe, or of being pure awareness. These experiences have been foundational for many religious and spiritual practices, albeit they have sometimes been treated as suspect or outright psycho- and or...