The history of psychedelia within the New Left counterculture often implies a cultural alignment between psychedelics and progressive values or the promise of radical communitarian social reform. In contrast to these potentials, this paper examines Silicon Valley's engagement with psychedelics, a community which has demonstrated considerable financial and personal interests in these drugs...
This study compares the critical neural correlates of two altered states of consciousness: near-death experience (NDE) and spiritual contemplative experience (SCE), a.k.a. mystical experience. For Centuries NDE and SCE have been reported by all faiths, including Abrahamic religious contemplatives: Christian mystics, Muslim Sufis, and Jewish Kabbalists. Their anecdotal reports show that both NDE...
Background The psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT has shown clinical potential due to its short duration and ability to induce mystical experiences. However, a phenomenon known as “reactivations” (similar to “flashbacks”) is a poorly understood and frequently reported phenomenon which appears associated with 5-MeO-DMT use and warranted further investigation. Aims This study examined whether differences in...
The Bajo people who are identical with marine life have many mantras and rituals as part of mystical behavior that is integrated with their religious life as adherents of the Islamic religion. This study aims to reveal the origins, types and models of mystical behavior of Bajo Muslims in Southeast Sulawesi and identify Islamic values in them. This research is a qualitative descriptive field...
This paper delves into the unique blend of spirituality and aesthetics in Bhima Bhoi’s bhajanas, highlighting the almost psychedelic qualities of his poetic language within the context of Mahima Dharma. Bhima Bhoi’s bhajanas are filled with vibrant imagery that pushes beyond the spiritual and cultural limits of his era, illustrating the core values of Mahima Dharma—such as monotheism,...
In this paper, we present the development of the Altered States Database (ASDB), an open-science project based on a systematic literature review. The ASDB contains psychometric questionnaire data on subjective experiences of altered states of consciousness (ASC) induced by pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods. The systematic review follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic...
This paper examines the epistemic value of non-religious mystical experiences. By taking a non-religious angle, it adds a complementary perspective to the context in which mystical experiences are generally discussed, i.e., the context of theological questions or perspectives informed by the philosophy of religion. While I am pessimistic about the possibilities of such experiences providing...
Abstract This section asks whether such an alliance between philosophy and mysticism is plausible. It begins by looking at the philosophical tendency to demarcate what is knowledge and what is (mystical) nonsense as a peculiar form of “view from nowhere”—a self-imposed exile that makes philosophy ghostly, a part of the whole that wishes to think (of itself as) the whole, a de-parted part. This...
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is being investigated as a treatment for a range of psychiatric illnesses. Current research suggests that the kinds of subjective experiences induced by psychedelic compounds play key roles in producing therapeutic outcomes. To date, most knowledge of therapeutic psychedelic experiences are derived from psychometric assessments with scales such as the Mystical...
This chapter argues that first-hand accounts of mystical experiences are rare nowadays. It follows the events that led up to Francis Spufford's first mystical experience back in 1997. The chapter examines how Spufford became aware of something else, a ‘whisper of presence’, the sense of being watched but absolutely safe, and it brought with it the conviction that the universe is sustained by ‘a...