This article presents an ethnographic analysis of the presence and adaptation of Sufism in Nepal's hill regions, a context largely neglected in anthropological studies of South Asian Muslim communities. Existing scholarship has focused primarily on Muslims of the Terai plains, leaving the lived religious practices and cultural negotiations of Himalayan Muslim populations understudied....
This study explores the convergences between the mystical teachings of Rumi and Jesus Christ as reflected in Sufi poetry, Gospel narratives, and Christian ascetic writings. Through a comparative analysis of symbolic imagery, archetypal motifs, and spiritual practices, the article argues that both figures articulate a shared mystical language centered on Divine Love, inner transformation, and...
This paper offers an in-depth comparative analysis of the concepts of Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) and the Masnavi poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207–73) regarding the theme of the inner path and the soul's archetypes. Despite the apparent dichotomy, Jungian analytical psychology and the Sufi mystical tradition reveal remarkable similarities in their understanding of human consciousness...
The origins of human spirituality extend far beyond organised religions and formal philosophical systems, emerging instead from early experiential practices embedded within indigenous cultures
W. B. Yeats is a lyric poet. His poetry has a celtic flavour often tinged with mysticism and melancholy. The early poetry of Yeats is steeped in the spirit of the rich mystic mythology of the Celtic race, but later he turned from pleasant lyrics to verse with sterner discipline and deeper thought. Yeats' obscurity enriches his poems rather than impoverishing it. Sometimes he indulges in...
Abstract This article offers a comparative study of the religious epistemologies of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī and Gregory Palamas, highlighting their shared resistance to the overintellectualization of theology through Greek philosophical categories. Both thinkers critique the limitations of Aristotelian and Platonic conceptions of knowledge, particularly their abstraction of the divine and the...
In the Chhayavadi era of Hindi literature, mysticism emerged as a major poetic tendency, the influence of which is reflected in the works of almost all the prominent poets of the period. However, the nature of mysticism in the poetry of Mahadevi Verma is expressed in a distinctive, profound, and highly refined manner. In her poetry, the spiritual relationship established between the individual...
This article reconceptualizes malāmat not as a marginal Sufi discipline but as a distinct ethical paradigm that redefines the relationship between selfhood, action, and moral legitimacy. Situating the discussion within late-modern conditions shaped by technological mediation, algorithmic evaluation, and regimes of visibility, it argues that ethical value has increasingly been externalized...
Contemporary accounts of mystical “non-dual” or minimal-dual consciousness often describe a state beyond the ordinary subject–object framework. In this paper we propose a novel parametric introspection framework, according to which such a breakthrough is not achieved by doctrinal affirmation or mere insight into metaphysics, but by driving specific introspective parameters to critical values....
This essay offers a creative and psychologically grounded dialogue between Carl Gustav Jung and Hazrat Inayat Khan, the early 20th-century Indian Sufi mystic and musician who brought Chishti Sufi mysticism to the West. While Jung is well known for engaging Christianity, Gnosticism, and Eastern religions, Islam—particularly its mystical dimension—has remained underexplored in Jungian psychology....
This paper systematically investigates psychoactive substances and their ritual consumption practices within the Daoist cultivation tradition. As a category of Daoist ingestive (fushi 服食) culture, these substances, derived either from specific botanicals or through artificial synthesis, are ceremonially administered to induce mystical experiences in practitioners, ultimately facilitating their...
Abstract This study explores spiritual experiences in online video games and dreams from the perspective of analytical psychology, focusing on how such experiences activate the archetype of initiation in adolescents. Method: The present study adopted a Jungian psychological perspective to analyse symbols and psychological processes emerging in dreams that occurred after interaction with video...
This paper develops a quadripartite panpsychist theory of shamanism(s). This fourpart framework revives and combines four theories: (i) mystical constructivism, (ii) role-taking theory, and (iii) mental imagery cultivation as a cultural practice founded upon (iv) a panpsychist philosophy of ultimate reality. I argue that this quadripartite model allows for the recognition of something ‘real’ in...
This work scientifically analyzes the factors that shaped the passion of one of the greatest scholars of Turkic literature, Alisher Navoi, for writing mystical ghazals, as well as the stages of his creative development. It is shown that the emergence and development of the mystical spirit in Navoi's work was inextricably linked with the philosophy of Sufism, the influence of the medieval...
Tārtam Vāṇī, the core doctrine of the Nijananda Sampradāya, exemplifies one of the most intricate symbolic and esoteric works of early modern North India. Authored by Mahāmati Prannāth Ji (1618–1694), the literature encapsulates metaphysical concepts via intricate metaphors, composite linguistic structures, and symbolic cosmologies. It expresses complex esoteric principles regarding the soul,...
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 paper explores the concept of spiritual longing in the poetry of Ghani Khan through the Hallajian doctrine of fanā (self-annihilation), arguing that desire in his poetic vision functions as a form of devotion rather than emotional yearning. While Ghani Khan’s poetry has been widely discussed in aesthetic, existential, and socio-political terms, its engagement with mystical longing as a...
This chapter explores the many ways Mexico became central in Ginsberg’s poetic evolution. Inspired by the example of his mentor, William S. Burroughs, Ginsberg visited several archaeological sites in Mexico such as Palenque, which inspired one of his most successful early poems, “Siesta in Xbalba.” Ginsberg traveled widely throughout the country and continued the mystical quest which began with...
The publication of The Divine Names: A Mystical Theology of the Names ofGod in the Qurʾan marks a noteworthy addition to the growing body ofliterature on Islamic metaphysics, Qurʾanic hermeneutics, and Sufi theology.Composed by the understudied yet intellectually formidable NorthAfrican Sufi ʿAfīf alDīn alTilimsānī, this work represents one of themost philosophically nuanced treatments of the...