Two studies examined correlates of the Narrative Emplotment Scale (NES), which measures the extent to which individuals perceive chance events and unchosen experiences as meaningfully connected. In Study 1 (N=99), the NES demonstrated adequate test-retest stability and good internal reliability. The scale was positively related to paranormal beliefs, mystical experiences, and absorption. In...
October 1, 2009Ravi Prakash, S. Sarkhel, P. Rastogi et al.
Abstract The Yogic literatures are replete with examples of several unique mystical experiences in deeper states of meditation. These experiences have nevertheless remained largely untouched by the scientific community, possibly because of the extreme inexplicability of such states and the lack of sophistication in evaluating them. More amenable to scientific research, however, would seem to be...
Reviewed by: Western Esotericism in Russian Silver Age Drama: Aleksandr Blok’s The Rose and the Cross Edmund B. Lingan Western Esotericism in Russian Silver Age Drama: Aleksandr Blok’s the Rose and the Cross. By Lance Gharavi. St. Paul, MN: New Grail Publishing, 2008; pp. 194. $27.95 paper. Lance Gharavi’s Western Esotericism in Russian Silver Age Drama: Aleksandr Blok’s The Rose and the Cross...
Fascial or myofascial unwinding is a process in which a client undergoes a spontaneous reaction in response to the therapist's touch. It can be induced by using specific techniques that encourage a client's body to move into areas of ease. Unwinding is a popular technique in massage therapy, but its mechanism is not well understood. In the absence of a scientific explanation or hypothesis of...
Abstract In modern usage, “mysticism” refers to mystical experience and to practices, discourse, institutions, and traditions associated therewith. The term “mystical experience” enjoys a great variety of meanings, retaining some of that variety among philosophers. There is no choice but to stipulate meaning for the purposes of this article. A wide definition of “mystical experience” will be...
Menachem Kellner. Maimonides' Confrontation with Mysticism. Oxford and Portland, Oregon: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006. Pp. xix. +343.Melila Hellner- Eshed. A River Issues Forth from Eden: On Language of Mystical Experience in Zohar (Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Am Oved Publishers Ltd., 2005. Pp. 462.Moshe Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Thought and Ita...
Abstract Conomicidines A and B (1a and 2a, resp.) together with the diastereomeric isoconomicidines A and B (1b and 2b, resp.) were isolated from Tabernaemontana corymbosa as unresolvable mixtures of the (1′S,2′S)‐ and (1′R,2′R)‐diastereoisomers (i.e., 1a and 1b; 2a and 2b). These novel natural products are constituted from the union of an iboga alkaloid, ibogaine, and hydroxycinnamyl alcohol...
William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience is one of the world's most popular attempts to meld science and religion. Academic reviews of the book were mixed in Europe and America, however, and prominent contemporaries, unsure whether it was science or theology, struggled to interpret it. James's reliance on an inherently ambiguous understanding of the subconscious as a means of...
Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic plant brew from the Amazon basin used as part of healing ceremonies by the local indigenous people of the region for centuries, is now being consumed by growing numbers of people throughout the world. Anecdotal evidence and previous research suggest that there are spiritual effects experienced among participants who take part in ayahuasca ceremonies. The current...
The authors used a 5-round Delphi study with a panel of 7 experts in meditation research to achieve agreement on a set of criteria for a working definition of “meditation” for use in a comprehensive systematic review of the therapeutic use of meditation. Participants agreed that essential to a meditation practice is its use of (a) a defined technique, (b) logic relaxation, and (c) a...