Acta Neuropsychologica
March 25, 2012
David T. Bradford
2 citations
The "neurotheology" developed by d'Aquili and Newberg is critiqued, beginning with its modular conception of mental process and its understanding of the contribution of language, deafferentation, and autonomic and limbic arousal in mystical experience.Neurotheology makes claims about ultimate reality and the neuropsychological means of its realization.A spatial perception that conveys the sense...
March 6, 2012
Pehr Granqvist, Berit Hagekull, T. Ivarsson
Abstract In this article, the authors argue that mystical experiences are linked to disorganized attachment via a proposed mediator—the propensity to enter altered states of consciousness (absorption). Using a sample of predominantly religious/spiritual participants (N = 62), they report that disorganized attachment, as identified with the Adult Attachment Interview, predicted lifetime...
Consciousness and Cognition
December 2011
Frederick Travis, Harald S. Harung, Yvonne Lagrosen
This study compared professional and amateur classical musicians matched for age, gender, and education on reaction times during the Stroop color-word test, brainwaves during an auditory ERP task and during paired reaction-time tasks, responses on the Gibbs Sociomoral Reflection questionnaire, and self-reported frequencies of peak experiences. Professional musicians were characterized by: (1)...
Psychopharmacology
December 1, 2011
Roland R. Griffiths, Matthew W Johnson, William A Richards et al.
938 citations
This dose-effect study extends previous observations showing that psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having persisting positive effects on attitudes, mood, and behavior. This double-blind study evaluated psilocybin (0, 5, 10, 20, 30 mg/70 kg, p.o.) administered under supportive conditions. Participants were 18 adults (17 hallucinogen-naïve). Five 8-h sessions were conducted...
Mental Health Religion & Culture
October 7, 2011
Lourens Minnema
7 citations
The mystical writings of Teresa of Avila and those of John of the Cross can be compared in many ways. The comparative approaches discussed in this paper focus on the use of spatial imagery. Both mystical authors express their transformative experiences in a variety of metaphors. Their choice of these metaphors is not arbitrary. On the contrary, it is very revealing. Several core metaphors...
Journal of Psychopharmacology
September 28, 2011
Katherine A Maclean, Matthew W Johnson, Roland R. Griffiths
907 citations
A large body of evidence, including longitudinal analyses of personality change, suggests that core personality traits are predominantly stable after age 30. To our knowledge, no study has demonstrated changes in personality in healthy adults after an experimentally manipulated discrete event. Intriguingly, double-blind controlled studies have shown that the classic hallucinogen psilocybin...
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
June 1, 2011
Zhuo Chen, Ralph W. Hood Jr., Lijun Yang et al.
63 citations
In the study of mysticism the debate has centered on whether a universal experiential core exists regardless of religious interpretation. The current investigation combines Jamesian empiricist and social constructivist perspectives to argue that stable experiential facets load variously on factors to construct local interpretations. Local interpretations reflect a family resemblance—a mystical...
December 1, 2010
P. Pinto
The construction of the religious self of the members of the Sufi communities in Aleppo, Syria, is achieved through the embodiment of principles of the Sufi tradition as a form of corporality that the author calls the mystical body. This corporality is shaped and enacted in the mystical experiences that the Sufis have during the rituals and religious practices linked to their initiation into...
June 1, 2010
Francis-Vincent Anthony, C. Hermans, C. Sterkens
Hood developed a Mysticism Scale based on the theoretical work of Stace. The scale was tested by Hood and others in a comparative perspective. Using an abridged version of Hood's Mysticism Scale, we join the debate with a study of a much larger number of Christian, Muslim, and Hindu respondents (1,920 college students) living in Tamil Nadu, India. Our empirical analysis yields a moderately...
Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum / Journal of Ancient Christianity
December 15, 2009
Claire Clivaz
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Die pseudo-klementinischen Recognitiones II 61-69 sind von modernen Kommen tatoren noch nicht ausreichend gründlich diskutiert worden. Die erwähnte Textpassage beschreibt einen beson deren Zeitpunkt in der Auseinandersetzung zwischen Petrus und Simon Magus, in dem der Apostel ein seltsames Erlebnis mit Simon teilt, das in der lateinischen Übersetzung Rufins mit folgender...