Gamification is a specific type of experiential learning theory (ELT) that emphasizes student choice and activities to transform mundane tasks into a desirable opportunity to learn. This pedagogical approach is particularly useful in information-heavy courses, such as courses that engage in the study of religious mysticism or “hagiology”. In hagiology classes, students are exposed to new...
ABSTRACT Despite differences, Georges Bataille, theorist of non-knowledge and atheology, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Austrian logician, share specific parallels regarding their understandings of language and mystical experience. For both, mystical experience pushes beyond conventional discourse. Using analogous elements of critical and mystical discourse, each express rather antiphilosophical,...
Wang Yangming’s emphasis on the concept of oneness establishes a significant connection between his philosophy and mysticism. This comparative study draws upon his mystical encounters and conceptual framework. Although “all things form one body” appears to be a typical formula of extrovertive mysticism, his doctrine is more inclined to be classified as a type of introvertive mysticism because...
ABSTRACT:Wallace Stevens is often recognized as a philosophical poet, but his work also reveals a deep mystical dimension that places him in the tradition of negative theology. Stevens’s mystical tendencies are similar to, and in part inspired by, those of Rainer Maria Rilke, who also explored mysticism, eschatology, and the influence of Friedrich Nietzsche. Both poets use aphorisms and play...
The purpose of this paper is to examine the similarities and differences between the mystical poetry of Jalal ud-Din Rumi, a Persian poet who lived in the 13th century, and William Blake, an English poet who lived in the 18th century. The focus will be on their respective approaches to mysticism and spirituality, as well as their common themes of divine love, human transformation, and the...
The mystical experiences in various forms are fundamental to major religious traditions. The idea of “mysticism” brings up the concept of the ineffable mysterium, which is seen as the central theme around which religions are based. The comparative studies of Rabia al-Adawiyya and Catherine of Genoa do not intend, as with phenomenological and essentialist approaches to the study of religion, to...
The experiential bias in modern understandings of spirituality has led to readings of the pre-modern texts of Pseudo-Dionysius as referring to “negative experiences” of faith. Denys Turner, Bernard McGinn, and others have outlined the mistaken “spiritual positivism” of such readings and their contrast with the negative dialectics of the classical apophatic tradition. Indeed, the philosophical...
Christ Returns from the Jungle is an anthropological inquiry into the recent expansion from South America to Europe of the ayahuasca-based Santo Daime New Religious Movement (NRM).In it, the author addresses important research questions that could be used as a model for the study of all globalizing NRM's.These include the following: Who are the Europeans that choose to join this movement and...
Psychedelics can facilitate mystical-type insights and beliefs, such as the belief that the fundamental nature of reality is loving consciousness. These belief changes could underlie the positive effects of psychedelics on wellbeing. However, mystical-type beliefs have been criticized of being delusional, as they contradict naturalism. Here I argue that naturalism is one metaphysical position...
Ancient Chinese have expressed culture that communicated with gods and spirits through sound and language. This culture has contained mystical thinking that expressed orally, through spoken words, presenting a form of sound. This paper comprehensively examined and summarized the materials of mystical thinking in ancient Chinese from the texts of “Chen Wei”, analyzing the forms of mystical...
Sufism is a mystic body of religious practice found in Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic purification, spirituality, ritualism, asceticism and esotericism. Sufism is a path of spiritual advancements cum expansion of consciousness leading to awareness of self in the universe. The practice of Sufism leads to the development of innate spiritual and initiative abilities. Ancient...
This chapter proposes an archeology of the category mysticism, showing its different meanings in the Christian religious context, and then in human and social sciences. It argues that despite its essentialist uses in the 20th and 21st centuries, this category can still be relevant and effective. Instead of considering mysticism as a phenomenon separated from religion, limited to the private...
Ashraf Jahangir Semnani (d. 798 A.H.), is one of the mystics of Iranian descent of the Chishtiyya sect and one of the Sufi sheikhs living in India. One of his most important works is "Lataif Ashrafi Fi Bayan Tawaif Sufi". This work is in the form of a manuscript and is one of the comprehensive mystical encyclopedias and contains practical and theoretical mysticism topics as well as theological,...
This article proposes a model of comparative mysticism that bases its rationale for comparison in the dynamic interaction between three components: neurocognitive mechanisms and substrates, phenomenal experiences, and noetic accounts. In examining the phenomenon of ego - dissolution ( EDn ), using this model, a scholar can identify universal and contextual components of a mystic’s experiences....
This article discusses Ibn Sina’s concept of love. Through this concept, the researcher wants to show that Ibn Sina's thought is not only identical to empirical, logical, and rational peripatetic philosophy, but also Sufistic. This study employed a qualitative method using a philosophical tasawwuf approach. The results show that everything that exists – whether animate or not – contains the...
Abstract Background Previous international clinical trials have indicated that mystical experiences resulting from the consumption of classic psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin, may represent a subjective psychological mechanism of action associated with therapeutic effects for various mental disorders. The revised 30-item Mystical Experience Questionnaire is one of several psychometric...
Abstract Psychedelic substances, which can occasion mystical experiences, are sometimes used for religious and spiritual reasons. Despite strong links between psychedelics and spirituality, no previous systematic review has investigated connections between psychedelics and indicators of long-term spiritual growth. Thus, 34 empirical studies were analyzed with 19,724 total participants from 32...
I argue for a transformative revival or actualization of the very core of an integrative, methodologically secured form of intellect-mystical asceticism. This approach draws on traditional sources that are re-examined from a systematic—synthetic and transcultural—philosophical perspective and in light of the multi-civilizational global environment of the 21st century. The main traditional...
This article explores the practice of symbolization, investigating how flags acquire specific characteristics that enable their use as symbols. The main objective of this study is to describe the Macan Ali flag, with a particular focus on its connection to mysticism and Islam within the context of Javanese culture, specifically in Cirebon. This study reveals that the Macan Ali, when viewed as a...
The article examines the challenges of spiritual life in the late Middle Ages when people, unsatisfied with external ritualized expression, began searching for an individual «religious experience» that had an immediate, internal, and personal impact, the subject of which is God. This massive change in lifestyle to attain these «religious experiences» appears as a reflection of the gradual decay...