PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation)
August 6, 2026
Tenzin Trepp
preprint
This paper develops a novel account of minimal-dual awareness as a disciplined epistemic method that systematically alters the access conditions of consciousness to reveal structures of temporality and cognition. Building on an Existential Realism (ER) framework, we argue that conventional, detached cognition often conflates reality with existence and thereby obscures the special role of the...
Journal of Psychopharmacology
August 6, 2026
Tijmen Bostoen, Erwin Krediet, Annette van Schagen et al.
Background: The potential safety and efficacy of the psychedelic 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine-assisted therapy (MDMA-AT) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been researched in phase 2 and phase 3 clinical trials. We examined the occurrence and role of mystical experiences in MDMA-AT. Methods: Data were sourced from two phase 2 randomized trials of MDMA-AT for chronic PTSD, in...
Frontiers in Psychiatry
August 6, 2026
Maria Laura Mele, Stefano Federici
IntroductionPsychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) is an emerging complex intervention for psychiatric and existential conditions (i.e., forms of distress related to meaning, mortality, and identity, such as that arising in life-threatening illness); however, a systematic characterization of the evaluation methods used across the entire clinical intervention remains incomplete. This scoping review...
Missiology: An International Review
August 5, 2026
L. Nguyen
This paper examines the Vietnamese expression “ Ông Trời có mắt ” (“Heaven has eyes”) as a window into the moral, theological, and symbolic worlds of Vietnamese religiosity. While often interpreted as a proverb of cosmic surveillance, the saying points to a deeper and more relational understanding of Ông Trời , the transcendent figure who sees, judges, and cares for human life. Across Vietnam’s...
SAP
August 5, 2026
Cut Nuraini
This study aims to examine the process of rationalizing the meanings attached to offering rituals and trance phenomena within the *Rasulan* tradition in Gunung Kidul Regency, Special Region of Yogyakarta. Specifically, the research focuses on identifying communal educational values and analyzing the role of educational structures as drivers in transforming the community's mindset from a...
Sophia
August 5, 2026
Easa Saad
Abstract This paper examines the texture of desire in Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī’s ghazals and asks what it means for the object of this desire to not be an abstract ideal but a concrete spiritual exemplar, Shams al-Tabrīzī (d.1248CE). By exploring Rūmī’s eroticized depictions of Shams, the paper argues that Rūmī reconfigures the Persian ghazal’s conventional poetics of love into a mode of ethical and...
Religions
August 4, 2026
Yixuan Liu
Negation appears across diverse religious traditions and provides a fruitful point of entry for comparative theological reflection. This paper compares St. John of the Cross’s account of the dark night in Christian mysticism with Śaṅkara’s understanding of vairāgya (renunciation or dispassion) in Advaita Vedānta. Rather than classifying Advaita as a form of Christian negative theology, the...
Method & Theory in the Study of Religion
August 4, 2026
Ziqiang Zhao
This article examines the role of embodied knowledge in translating practice-oriented religious texts through a case study of Livia Kohn’s Sitting in Oblivion: The Heart of Daoist Meditation . While Kohn’s translation of the Tang-dynasty Zuowang Lun 坐忘論 exhibits clear markers of phenomenological literacy – experientially precise terminology, recognition of practice progressions, and technical...
Journal of Humanistic Psychology
August 4, 2026
Amir Freimann
This essay addresses a lacuna in humanistic psychology concerning stabilized spiritual consciousness. Building on Maslow’s “high plateau,” it introduces “Living Transcendence” as a phenomenological term for this stable trait. Drawing on research with spiritual exemplars, the trait is described as an experience with specific noetic, affective, embodied, and relational qualities, their constancy,...
August 3, 2026
David Stephen Calonne
Abstract Charles Mingus from early in his life possessed mystical tendencies that surfaced in his personal relationships and began to be expressed in his music. A gifted double-bass player, Mingus became friends with Farwell Taylor, who influenced him to begin a serious study of Hinduism. Mingus read widely in contemporary literature and became acquainted with Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary...