This article examines Ariel Bension’s reinterpretation of Jewish mysticism as a resource for modern Sephardic cultural-political renewal. Focusing on The Zohar in Moslem and Christian Spain , it argues that Bension situated the Zohar within the intercultural world of medieval Andalusia in order to recover the Eastern dimensions of Judaism and challenge Eurocentric accounts of Jewish...
José Esteban Muñoz's Cruising Utopia has assumed an emblematic status in queer of color critique's temporal orientation by cementing its attachment to the future. This association between queer of color critique and queer futurity emerges in large part from its opposition to the so-called antisocial thesis in queer theory—an opposition that is infamously staged as a conflict between Muñoz's...
This study addresses the relationship between neurotheology and mystical thought through the neurobiological foundations and meaning dimensions of religious and spiritual experiences. The point of departure of the research is the question of whether religious experiences can be explained solely by brain processes and to what extent the meaning they carry can be comprehended within the framework...
This study re-examines the mystical elements within the Datu legends of the Banjar community in South Kalimantan, Indonesia, not merely as passive folklore, but as active mechanisms for cultural resilience and social order.By critically expanding upon William James's classic framework of mystical experience (ineffability, noetic quality, transiency, and passivity), this research challenges...
The fishing community of Air Bangis, Pasaman, West Sumatra, has long been known for its strong religious life. At the same time, local mystical beliefs continue to shape their religious and cultural practices, exemplified by the malimo bagan tradition, which is believed to boost fish catches. Although these fishermen utilize modern satellite-based technology to locate fish, some attribute...
The philosopher John Niemeyer Findlay (1903–1987) held that the insights of mystical experience can be philosophically analyzed and articulated in rational form. Findlay provided two routes to the “mystical pole of the cosmos.” In the first, he appealed to the related notions of impersonality and impartiality to transcendentally deduce a “firmament of values,” which coalesce into an apical...
(1) Background: This article situates Edith Stein within the 20th-century debate on the nature of mystical experience, framing it as a philosophical problem concerning the relationship between divine initiative and human freedom, and aims to reassess dominant developmental interpretations of mysticism. It argues that, alongside theological models such as that of Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange,...
The portrayal of Isa in Serat Centhini, a nineteenth-century Javanese literary encyclopaedia from the Surakarta court tradition, reveals a rich intertextual interaction between the Gospel tradition, Islamic theology, and Javanese mystical cosmology. This raises an important hermeneutical question concerning how Christology should engage with non-Western literary traditions that reinterpret...
Abstract Apophatic theology is relevant to Christian spirituality today as a form of Christological ascetico-mysticism. This chapter demonstrates the spiritual pertinence of Dionysius the Areopagite’s apophatic theology through its connections to Scriptural Christologies and its opposition to specific formations of the self in the context of neoliberal capitalism. Studies of Second Temple...
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...
The relationship between Islam, local culture, and national identity has become a central concern in contemporary studies of Indonesian Islam. While previous scholarship has extensively explored Sufism, religious authority, Islamic revivalism, and cultural accommodation, limited attention has been paid to the role of local mystical spirituality in shaping collective national belonging. This gap...
This study aims to provide a historical and comparative explanation of the relationship between Khorasani mysticism and Andalusian mysticism in the 12th century CE, with a focus on the intellectual contributions of Sanāʾī and Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī. Despite the considerable geographical and cultural distance between eastern Khorasan and western al-Andalus, the mystical current in both regions...
This paper explores poetry as a form of liminal inquiry, positioning poetic practice as an embodied, intuitive, and relational mode of meaning-making within the complexity of teaching and learning. Drawing on a reflective collection of poems written during a doctoral course on Mysticism and Activism in Education, the author revisits this work from a current perspective as an educator and...
Understanding oneself is the key to grasping the realities of the human world. The entrance to this field is only possible through sharing views and understanding their ideas, since the ultimate goal of a mystic is to understand and convey his understanding based on order and practice. The basis of Mysticism and understanding is merely mind and thinking, because the process of thinking itself...
This is the a priori protocol for a scoping review (JBI methodology; PRISMA-ScR reporting) mapping evidence on (1) the measurement of psychedelic-occasioned mystical/spiritual experience and its association with clinical outcomes, and (2) classic serotonergic psychedelics for body dysmorphic disorder and obsessive-compulsive-spectrum conditions, interpreted through the osteopathic...
This article explores spiritual unity beyond physical boundaries through the theme of the “geography of the soul,” conceptualized by Dariush Shayegan (1925–2018) as “visionary geography”. This study criticizes the quantitative world perception that emerged following the post-Galilean reduction of nature to a mathematical object, as well as a modernity that imprisons humanity within the...
This article explores the relationship between music and religion through a case study of Harmony of the Spheres by the Dutch composer Joep Franssens. Situated within the context of religious change in the Netherlands, where institutional religion has declined while spiritual and sacred repertoires remain culturally significant, this article asks how musical experience can generate, mediate, or...
Published in Paris in 1977, Mahmud Shah Qureshi’s Poèmes Mystiques Bengalis was the first substantial anthology to translate Bengali Baul and Fakir songs directly from Bengali into French. Prepared within the broader intellectual and cultural framework of UNESCO’s Collection of Representative Works, the volume introduced French readers to the mystical, philosophical, and performative traditions...
This paper critiques the use of the term "mysticism" in psychedelic research, arguing its continued use is outdated and misleading. It highlights the confusion stemming from the historical context of "mysticism," particularly through the works of Walter Stace and Walter Pahnke, whose ideas have shaped the psychedelic discourse despite being flawed and largely unexamined. The paper is divided...
Among the Tamil mystic poets of the eighteenth century, Thayumanavar has a distinctive position, and his songs are valuable poetic compositions. They are the records of his spiritual experience. The songs embody the philosophical tenets of Saiva Siddhanta, the manifold emotions of human existence, and the soul's benevolent journey towards the realisation of the divine. Thayumanavar employs...