Sharing Poetic Expressions:
2011
Bruce Ross
Ibn Gabirol (c.1021–c.1058), Rumi (1207–1273), and Rilke (1875–1926) each produced poetry that reflected what might be called mysticism. Some of the poetry of Ibn Gabirol and Rumi has in fact been incorporated for liturgical and devotional purposes. Rilke’s poetry, reflecting the challenges of the modern world, has been interpreted and alluded to by many artists, writers, and musicians. Ibn...
Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine
July 3, 2007
Otto Doerr, Óscar Velásquez
Background It is well known how often psychiatric patients report religious experiences. These are especially frequent in schizophrenic and epileptic patients as the subject of their delusions. The question we pose is: are there differences between this kind of religious experiences and those we find in religious texts or in the mythological tradition? Results An overview on famous mythological...
John of the Cross and the Cognitive Value of Mysticism
1990
Steven Payne
Philosophers who doubt the cognitive value of mysticism will perhaps have felt a growing dissatisfaction with the handling of the issues in the previous chapter, and at this point may want to lodge a general protest against the approach taken in the present study. They might charge that the strength of the critic’s case has been seriously underestimated by blithely assuming (according to the...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
November 1, 2026
Ronan John Perry
preprint
Could surviving physical information support the reconstruction of a temporally specific person, and would such a reconstruction preserve the original person’s conscious experience? This personal, non-peer-reviewed introductory paper proposes Continuity Science as a working name for bringing existing fields together to investigate what persists, changes, or is lost in a person over time,...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
November 1, 2026
Marius Popescu
preprint
The theological work of St. Symeon the New Theologian, long marginalized by ”official” academic theology and preserved mainly within monastic circles, has in recent decades become the subject of growing scholarly interest. This article examines the originality of St. Symeon’s theology—rooted firmly in Scripture and Patristic Tradition, yet distinguished by the central place it gives to the...
Discover Mental Health
October 31, 2026
Rafael S. Rodrigues, Marcio S. C. Longo, Fernando R. Beserra et al.
Psychedelics, such as ayahuasca, have shown therapeutic potential and are known to alter self-awareness dimensions. Recent studies have focused on the antidepressant properties of ayahuasca, showing that changes in self-perception such as ego-dissolution and mystical experiences are related to therapeutic outcomes. However, limited research has addressed how the individual's mindset (set),...
International Journal of Philosophy
October 29, 2026
Glen T. Martin
My lifelong quest has been to address the problem of nihilism raised so forcefully by the work of Nietzsche in the 19 th century. This nihilism remains, of course, very much manifest in the current world disorder. This quest was indicated in the title of my first book, From Nietzsche to Wittgenstein: The Problem of Truth and Nihilism in the Modern World (1989). In the course of this quest, I...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
October 29, 2026
Marcel Pierrelouis, Pablo Iturralde
1 citation
preprint
Psychedelic therapy is usually explained by what happens at the peak of the session. We argue the explanation sits on the wrong side of the experience. Drawing on first-person accounts of ego dissolution and on the reconsolidation literature, we set out a four-phase account in which the therapeutic event is not the dissolution and not the mystical peak, but the reassembly of self-referential...
Spirituality in Clinical Practice
October 29, 2026
Megan Sherman, Cynthia J Price
Research links the neural processes of spiritual experiences, or 'peak experiences' of eudaimonic well-being, to substance abuse recovery. Studies also identify health improvements among substance use disorder (SUD) treatment approaches that include interoceptive awareness training. However, the relationship between interoceptive awareness and spiritual experience within substance use recovery...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
October 28, 2026
Maria Åkesson, Pehr Granqvist, Robert Johansson et al.
BackgroundPsychedelic retreats are increasingly used to promote wellbeing outside clinical settings, yet the psychological processes associated with sustained improvements in wellbeing remain poorly understood. From a public mental health perspective, identifying mechanisms that support positive mental health beyond symptom reduction is of growing importance.MethodsThis naturalistic...