This study contributes to the understanding of the efficacy, safety, and experience of ketamine-assisted therapy. The paper documents how individuals describe the effects of a protocolized and personalized use of ketamine (‘the relational dose’) in the context of group couples therapy based on Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT). Little is known about simultaneously administering ketamine to both...
The open data initiative Altered States Database (ASDB) collects psychometric questionnaire data on the subjective experiences of pharmacologically and non-pharmacologically induced altered states of consciousness. The ASDB is updated yearly and can be utilized by both researchers and non-scientists to access information or undertake further work on the data. The current update adds data...
Adoption of potentially consciousness-altering practices may be leading to a rise in emergent phenomena (EP): sudden unusual mental or somatic experiences often interpreted as spiritual, mystical, energetic, or magical in nature. It is unclear how frequently these altered states of consciousness occur and what the clinical implications may be. Anecdotal accounts and prior literature suggest...
Classical serotonergic psychedelics such as lysergic acid diethylamide or the naturally occurring compounds psilocybin and mescaline produce profound changes in mood, thought, intuition, sensory perception, the experience of time and space, and even the experience of self. Research examining psychedelic compounds has had a complex and turbulent evolution. Many cultures throughout the world have...
This study offers a comparative examination of the mysticism practiced by European spiritual thinkers in the 14th century and Sumatran Sufis in the 16th to 17th centuries, revealing striking inter-cultural similarities in their spiritual quests secluded from the urban tumult. These mystics, though divided by geographic and temporal distances, engaged profoundly with religious metaphysics,...
AbstractChapter 3 describes proposed psychological mechanisms of change within the EMBARK psychedelic therapy model for the treatment of depression. Twelve mechanisms of therapeutic change are described across the six EMBARK clinical domains: Existential–Spiritual: (a) spiritual self-development, (b) mystical experiences; Mindfulness: (c) freedom from rumination, (d) a more flexible identity,...
The subject of this article is the mystical poetry of Parvin Etesami (1907–1941). In it, we analyse the religious foundations of the poet’s work of the first half of the twentieth century (a turning point in Persian culture), which continue the Persian tradition of searching for God on the paths laid by her predecessors and express her knowledge of God in old poetic forms ( monazere, qasida )...
This essay examines the intriguing connections between Carl G. Jung, the Sufi mystic Ibn ‘Arabi, and Jung’s engagement with the Biblical “Answer to Job,” bridging vast cultural and temporal gaps. It explores Jung’s transformative dialogue with Pueblo spirituality and his introspective challenges with Islamic concepts of divine submission, culminating in an analysis of “Answer to Job” through...
This article offers an investigation of Foucault’s Confessions of the Flesh—published in 2018, thirty-four years after the death of the author—through a literary approach. It argues that “The Laborious Baptism,” the second section of the first chapter of the book, “The Formation of a New Experience,” has an immersive quality of writing that signals a way of writing “from within,” to take up an...
An examination of analytic philosophers' approaches to and critiques of the intelligibility of experiences of 'pure consciousness', non-intentionality, and selflessness in light of mystical experiences. Whether neuroscience can determine whether experiences of 'pure consciousness' are possible is also examined.