This study explores the notion of spatiotemporal phenomena, particularly bilocation within the religious and mystical traditions of Islam and Sufism to understand deeper spiritual truths and their implications for the interconnectedness of material and metaphysical realms. Hermeneutical and phenomenological analyses have been employed to discern the complexities of bilocation (Time and Space)...
Javanese-Islamic mysticism believes that humans can find God (in union with Him) through wisdom. The concepts are similar to Sufism, such as Ittiḥād, ḥulūl, and Waḥdat al-wujūd. This study aims to discover the formulation of Javanese-Islamic mysticism teachings in Serat Nitisruti by Prince Karanggayam. The primary data were obtained from Javanese manuscripts, namely Serat Nitisruti, compiled by...
Recent research into psychedelics has found them to be an effective treatment for disorders related to depression, anxiety, and post traumatic stress disorder. Mystical experiences have proven to mediate the therapeutic effects for outcomes; however, Spanish measures have not been studied thoroughly. In this study we explored the psychometric properties of the Mystical Experience Questionnaire...
This paper argues that Friedrich Nietzsche was a mystic and that his post-Gay Science (1882) thought should be understood as an unfolding expression of his mystical experiences. Drawing on Nietzsche’s Nachlass (notes), letters, and published writings, I show that he undoubtedly had at least two major mystical experiences and that these experiences were the source of all the cardinal motifs of...
The scientific claim that psychedelic drugs like psilocybin reliably occasion mystical experiences was justified using the Mystical Experiences Questionnaire (the MEQ), a survey first developed in the 1960s by Walter Pahnke using W.T. Stace’s Mysticism and Philosophy. Scholars in Christian mysticism reject the adequacy of Stace’s work for Western theistic mysticism, especially Christianity. One...
In You Shall Be as Gods, Erich Fromm (1900–1980) defines his position as nontheistic mysticism. This research clarifies the term, considers its importance within Fromm’s humanism, and explores its potential origins. The nontheistic mystical position plays a central role in Fromm’s understanding of the relationship between mysticism and organized religion, religion and religiosity, and it...
This article arose from the study of apophatic theology also known as the via-negativa. Apophatic theology, by definition, refrains from stating what and who God is instead of focusing on what God is not. It renders religious language as a sign-system inadequate in describing God, his nature, and human numinous experiences. Yet, language is the fundamental modelling system that stimulates our...
Frontiers in PsychologyApril 23, 2024Huy P. Phan, Bing Hiong Ngu, Chao-Sheng Hsu et al.7 citations
Life and death education, as noted from the literatures, has been studied and researched extensively in China, Malaysia, and Taiwan. Our own research undertakings over the past several years, situated in different sociocultural settings have delved into aspects of life and death that could help advance theoretical understanding of the subject matters (e.g., does the meaning of “effective life...
The idea of divine love as expressed in Sufi mysticism and the Bhakti movement is examined in this essay, along with the similarities and differences in its conception, application, and moral implications. I examine how Sufi mystics view divine love (ʿIshq e Haqiqi) as a transformational force that dissolves the ego and joins the seeker with the transcendent Absolute, cultivating moral virtues...
This article charts some of the conversations around psychedelics, mysticism, Catholicism, and the Catholic mystics. I provide a context for the current “psychedelic renaissance” and bring the focus to psychedelics and Catholicism. The literature’s frequent comparisons of psychedelic mystical trips with Catholic mysticism raises questions about the legitimacy of religious ways of knowing, the...
This is an anthropological study of the hierarchically ordered Muslim cosmology with its seen and unseen spheres. Cosmology and mystic participation in Islam are manifested, for instance, in Sufism (tṣawwuf). This paper proposes that the connection between the visible and invisible spheres of the Muslim cosmology is embodied in the Sufis’ bodily rituals, mystic participations and esoteric...
Psychedelic substances are known to facilitate mystical-type experiences which can include metaphysical beliefs about the fundamental nature of reality. Such insights have been criticized as being incompatible with naturalism and therefore false. This leads to two problems. The easy problem is to elaborate on what is meant by the "fundamental nature of reality," and whether mystical-type...
В настоящей публикации рассматриваются взгляды русского религиозного философа С. Л. Франка на общие проблемы в философском и религиозном познании. Через обращение к основным работам русского философа: «Предмет знания», «Непостижимое», «Реальность и человек», а также к статьям, опубликованным в разные периоды творчества философа, в статье делается попытка найти в работах Франка общее проблемное...
The purpose of this essay is to introduce the reader to the tradition of Hesychasm—a form of monastic asceticism rooted in the tradition of the Desert Fathers and given a systematic articulation by the Byzantine author Gregory Palamas (1296–1359)—and to consider how the mystical experiences described in Palamas’s Triads compare to the altered states at the center of contemporary psychedelic...
Psychedelic drugs are currently being investigated for their potential to facilitate a variety of long-lasting psychological changes. One area that has yet to be systematically investigated in psychedelic research, however, regards changes in aesthetic experience (i.e., one’s attitudes, perceptions, and expression of art). This is surprising given the wealth of anecdotes directly noting...
Abstract The growing interest in the rapid and sustained antidepressant effects of the dissociative anesthetic ketamine and classic psychedelics, such as psilocybin, is remarkable. However, both ketamine and psychedelics are known to induce acute mystical experiences; ketamine can cause dissociative symptoms such as out-of-body experience, while psychedelics typically bring about hallucinogenic...
Abstract This paper discusses the nonconceptual theory of mystical ineffability which claims that mystical experiences can’t be expressed linguistically because they can’t be conceptualized. I discuss and refute two objections against it: (a) that unconceptualized experiences are impossible, and (b) that the theory is ad hoc because it provides no reason for why mystical experiences should be...
In the burgeoning field of mysticism studies, this pioneering research sheds light on the often-overlooked intersectionality of totemic mysticism and unique spiritual experiences. Departing from traditional Abrahamic perspectives, the study critically challenges normative paradigms that marginalize or pathologize these experiences. By employing an interdisciplinary methodology, which fuses...
This innovative study ventures into the less-trodden domain of mysticism studies, unveiling the complex interplay between totemic mysticism and distinctive spiritual phenomena. Moving away from the conventional confines of Abrahamic religious interpretations, it boldly questions established views that have either marginalized or misinterpreted these spiritual experiences. Through a...
The purpose of this article is to study the 'sacred' plants, diverse from those exclusively medicinal but with an unquestionable ethnobotanical value because, added to their healing properties, they develop mystical experiences and altered states of consciousness analogous to the ecstatic trance. _Psychoactive_ plants have played an important role in medicine, religion, _ritual_ life, and...