March 6, 2012
Pehr Granqvist, Berit Hagekull, T. Ivarsson
Abstract In this article, the authors argue that mystical experiences are linked to disorganized attachment via a proposed mediator—the propensity to enter altered states of consciousness (absorption). Using a sample of predominantly religious/spiritual participants (N = 62), they report that disorganized attachment, as identified with the Adult Attachment Interview, predicted lifetime...
Anthem Press eBooks
March 5, 2012
Vijaya Ramaswamy
1 citation
Trances, visions, speaking in many tongues, irrational social behaviour including the discarding of clothes have been widely interpreted by psychoanalysts as a psychopathological condition. However, parapsychologists are increasingly looking at the grey zone that blurs the rigidly held distinctions between psychoses and spirituality. Stanislav Grof, in his remarkable book Beyond the Brain:...
PLoS One
February 17, 2012
Erich Studerus, Alex Gamma, Michael Kometer et al.
372 citations
Responses to hallucinogenic drugs, such as psilocybin, are believed to be critically dependent on the user's personality, current mood state, drug pre-experiences, expectancies, and social and environmental variables. However, little is known about the order of importance of these variables and their effect sizes in comparison to drug dose. Hence, this study investigated the effects of 24...
January 6, 2012
José Carlos Michelazzo
The science and media had opened great space for meditation, showing especially the physical and mental benefits into mechanic daily life of our age. Although it is not possible to deny these benefits, the meditative practice, especially the Master Dōgen’s Zazen, has indeed much more to do with a little less visible and attractive side. In the place of quick benefits, there is pain and the...
2012
Laura A. Cariola
Religious-mystical and psychotic altered states of consciousness (ASC) are assumed to share common phenomenological and psychobiological features, including regressive cognition and changes in body boundary awareness. This study aimed to assess the frequency and strength of associations between primordial thought language and body boundary imagery in the discourses of mystical and...
ERA: Education and Research Archive
2012
Patricia Catherine Worthingham
This integrative study provides an historical review of humankind’s relationship with desire as regarded by philosophers and theologians of western civilization. It examines desire as reflected in the characteristics of our culture and the societies we have built since early history; then highlights which desires, according to Dr. Steven Reiss’ research into what motivates and makes life...
Oxford University Press eBooks
December 23, 2011
Philip Wexler
1 citation
Modern society has seen a dramatic change toward the sacred. The prevalence and availability of mystical techniques and practices along with specific economic and social conditions have created a base for the revitalization of a spiritualized, mystical consciousness: a veritable mystical society. This chapter examines the effect of such changes on education and pedagogy. The central hypothesis...
Kanz Philosophia : A Journal for Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism
December 22, 2011
Seyyed Ahmad Fazeli
One of the fundamental problems of Theoretical Mysticism is the explanation of the world as being something other than God after having accepted the Unity of Existence. This paper seeks to present, after having explained certain necessary premises, the theory of manifestation as one that can explain and analyze multiplicity. In this article we especially seek to solidify the relation of such...
Homo Politicus
December 20, 2011
Andrzej Szyjewski
1 citation
The huge number of interpretations and approaches to religious experiences makes discourse in the scientific studies of religion on the scope and significance of these phenomena extremely difficult. Especially misleading is the identification of them with mystical experieces, as well as attempts to depreciate these types of experience that are alien to researchers. A possible solution is the...
Acta Theologica
December 15, 2011
Celia E.T. Kourie
3 citations
In addition to the unprecedented interest in spirituality in recent decades, both at a popular level and also as an academic discipline, there has also been a resurgence of research dealing with spirituality and scripture. It is readily acknowledged that the hegemony of the historical-critical method is no longer tenable. As a method which sees the text as an artifact of history, there is...