Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
August 9, 2026
Krystian Szut
preprint
This paper challenges a largely unexamined assumption of contemporary consciousness studies: that consciousness is an intrinsic property of objects. Drawing on the Madhyamaka analysis of emptiness (sunyata) and dependent origination, and on independent convergences in relational quantum mechanics and ontic structural realism, we defend the Relational Thesis of Consciousness (RTC): consciousness...
Journal of Aesthetic Education
August 8, 2026
Rebecca M. Taylor
Abstract:In this article, I call for a return to Plato’s conception of “education of the soul” through a new pedagogical framework, Represencing, that engages the transformative capacities of aesthetic experience. Philosophically grounded in the work of William James, John Dewey, and Maxine Greene, Re-presencing is a ritualized practice of heightened consciousness and deep inquiry with an...
Revista Psicopatologia Fenomenológica Contemporânea
August 8, 2026
This article investigates the conditions of possibility for the Praecox-Gefühl (PF), the feeling of atmospheric strangeness experienced in the encounter with the schizophrenic patient, as described by Rümke. It aims to offer a phenomenological description of this experience of empathic incomprehensibility, taking as its basis the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, especially his work...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
August 7, 2026
David (daoud) Matta
preprint
Transcendent experiences are episodes in which the ordinary sense of being a bounded self set over against a world becomes attenuated, reported from contemplative practice, spontaneous mystical episodes, aesthetic encounter, and psychedelic states. Their comparative study remains caught between perennialist claims of a shared essence and constructivist claims that shared descriptions are...
International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research
August 6, 2026
Abstract Paulo Coelho's Hippie (2018) reimagines his own passage across the 1970s “Magic Bus” route from Amsterdam to Kathmandu as a hybrid of memoir and myth, folding autobiography into a narrative of spiritual seeking. This essay argues that the novel uses the physical itinerary of the historical Hippie Trail to stage an internal itinerary, in which the countercultural rejection of Western...
PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
August 6, 2026
Tenzin Trepp
preprint
This paper develops a novel account of minimal-dual awareness as a disciplined epistemic method that systematically alters the access conditions of consciousness to reveal structures of temporality and cognition. Building on an Existential Realism (ER) framework, we argue that conventional, detached cognition often conflates reality with existence and thereby obscures the special role of the...
Comparative Studies in Society and History
August 6, 2026
Matt Tomlinson
Abstract Recent work on metaphysical healing practices extends William James’s observations on what he called the “mind cure.” Four titles are reviewed on the topics of mindfulness, ayahuasca use, Spiritualism, and shamanism. In the United Kingdom, advocates join forces with parliamentarians to promote mindfulness as the key to ensuring a psychologically healthy nation. At commercial ayahuasca...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
August 6, 2026
Maria Laura Mele, Stefano Federici
IntroductionPsychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) is an emerging complex intervention for psychiatric and existential conditions (i.e., forms of distress related to meaning, mortality, and identity, such as that arising in life-threatening illness); however, a systematic characterization of the evaluation methods used across the entire clinical intervention remains incomplete. This scoping review...
Missiology: An International Review
August 5, 2026
L. Nguyen
This paper examines the Vietnamese expression “ Ông Trời có mắt ” (“Heaven has eyes”) as a window into the moral, theological, and symbolic worlds of Vietnamese religiosity. While often interpreted as a proverb of cosmic surveillance, the saying points to a deeper and more relational understanding of Ông Trời , the transcendent figure who sees, judges, and cares for human life. Across Vietnam’s...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 5, 2026
Swapan Samanta
This article introduces the Somatic Codification Hypothesis (SCH), a theoretical framework that models the karaṇa system of the Nāṭyaśāstra —the foundational Sanskrit treatise on performance—as a systematic codification of pre-reflective, stimulus-driven bodily responses, alongside, rather than in place of, its established expressive, devotional, and aesthetic readings. The claim advanced here...