Objective: A recently published study showed the safety and efficacy of LSD-assisted psychotherapy in patients with anxiety associated with life-threatening diseases. Participants of this study were included in a prospective follow-up. Method: 12 months after finishing LSD psychotherapy, 10 participants were tested for anxiety (STAI) and participated in a semi-structured interview. A...
136 Finally, seven principles might guide both Evangelical and Reformed theology and piety. The first three are theological: mystical union correlates with several Reformed theological themes; Ambrose consistently holds a balance between Word and Spirit, creating a biblical theology of experience, a development of a sanctified reading of Scripture, and an experience of the fullness of God; and...
In this study I bring two disparate traditions together which have painted portraits of divinity as a divine lover and supreme beloved. One tradition is from sixteenth century Europe and the other from sixteenth century India. My focus here is on the function of contemplative experience and vision in relation to the scriptural depictions and descriptions of divine love within both Carmelite...
This article reviews mainstream scientific publications on near-death experiences (NDEs). We searched near-death experience in titles, key words, and abstracts at the Web of Knowledge database published between 1945 and 2013. We identified 266 relevant documents, the oldest from 1977. There was a strong predominance of opinion articles (book reviews, commentaries, and editorials), review...
This research explores the role that climbing plays in the spirituality of climbers.Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted following the framework of phenomenology which yielded five major themes.This study identified ways in which climbing was spiritually enriching, climbing's influence on spiritual development and wellbeing, how climbing led to having spiritual experiences and the...
Recent years have seen the emergence and proliferation of "legal highs" or "designer drugs," compounds purposefully designed as legal alternatives to controlled substances of abuse. This article describes methoxetamine, a dissociative drug belonging to the arylcyclohexylamine class including phencyclidine and ketamine. Methoxetamine acts principally on the glutamatergic N-methyl-D-aspartate...
A much repeated theme in spiritual experiences is that the subject often feels that he can experience multiple states at the same time or he can experience multiple states of time. This theme of simultaneous multiple states of awareness are a unique subject the scientific understanding of which remains almost nil. The most common simultaneously existing states of awareness recorded in the...
Relationality between Jesus the Son and God the Father becomes a perfect model of God and humanity. But, how do we understand the meaning of this relationality? Why in Hinduism, especially, in Advaitic tradition, this relationality issue becomes an essential element to realize the one God? Can we do a pilgrimage of our faith by comparing Christian and Hindu traditions? This study will examine...
A new era has emerged in research on entheogens largely due to clinical trials conducted at Johns Hopkins University and similar studies sponsored by the Council for Spiritual Practices. In these notes and queries, I reflect on implications of these developments for psychological studies of religion and on what this research may mean for Christian churches in the United States. I conclude that...
ABSTRACT In 1957, Aldous Huxley published The Doors of Perception, a work that would galvanize debates regarding the sacredness and profaneness of mystical consciousness. In connecting psychedelically inspired, unmediated perception with mystical, and perennial, modes of understanding, Huxley, critics like R. C. Zaehner declared, elided the conditions that make mystical consciousness possible,...