This article examines the concept of Shabbat as “beyond time” (le-ma’alah min ha-zeman) through a sustained engagement with Zoharic Kabbalah and Hasidic thought, followed by a carefully delimited bridge to Richard Feynman’s physics of time. Beginning with the Zohar’s architecture of “two Shabbatot” and its association of the upper Shabbat with the sefirah of Binah, the analysis traces how...
Altered states of consciousness range from psychotic disintegration to mystical union, with oceanic affectivity - experiences of ego dissolution, boundlessness, and affective merging - constituting a central feature. While such states can be induced by psychedelics, they also occur through trauma, meditative practices, or within compulsive addictive cycles. In addition, oceanic states may offer...
Different forms of meditation, like Vipassana and Shoonya, require distinct attentional features. For instance, Vipassana, which involves systematically scanning different body parts, may demand a sustained yet dynamic focus with a temporally stable and regular attentional emphasis. In contrast, Shoonya meditation has been described as involving a non-directed or defocused attentional stance,...
The recognition of collective optimal experience remains structurally unresolved in psychology. Existing frameworks-from group flow to collective effervescence-have extended optimal experience to the collective level, yet they have generally treated individual reports as the primary endpoint for determining whether such experience has occurred, leaving unresolved how collective recognition...
Classical psychedelics such as N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) modulate consciousness via serotonergic receptor agonism, and are increasingly investigated for their psychotherapeutic potential. When combined with the monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) inhibitor harmine—mimicking the pharmacological profile of ayahuasca—oral DMT induces a psychedelic experience lasting 4–5 h. While some neuroimaging...
Mystical dynamics-the notion that mystical oneness may unfold involving ego disintegration, renewal, and luminous light-has been discussed anecdotally by psychedelic researchers and therapists but has not yet been empirically examined in controlled settings. This study investigated the occurrence and dose-dependency of mystical dynamics in healthy participants after administration of...
This article proposes a dual-self states framework in which reflective and experiential modes of consciousness are understood as dynamic configurations along a processing continuum. The reflective/experiential self-state corresponds to narrative, denotational, and self-referential consciousness underpinned by default mode network activity. The experiential self state is characterized as an...
Mysticism is often understood as an altered state of consciousness associated primarily with religious traditions. In spite of characterizing their experiences as ineffable, mystics across traditions have persistently attempted to articulate such experiences, producing diverse textual and pedagogical forms. This paper examines two distinct modes of articulating mystical experience—spiritual and...
A previous study argued that the spiritual trajectory of the Twelve Steps, read alongside the Hasidic recovery of relational address, resolves the ancient quarrel between a personal God who is addressed as Thou and an impersonal Infinite into which the self is absorbed; it proposed that Hasidism reorients mystical depth toward relational responsibility rather than dissolution.¹ The present...
Jewish theology sustains a persistent tension between two spiritual grammars: personal encounter with God as an addressable "Thou," and mystical union in which the self is attenuated or absorbed into an impersonal infinite. This essay argues that while rational Orthodoxy protects divine personalism through transcendence and restraint, and Kabbalah often radicalizes transcendence into...