International Workshop on Applied Reconfigurable Computing
December 1, 2007
Elliot R. Wolfson
Scholarly depictions of mysticism, as varied as they have been, frequently include visions and dreams on the list of common characteristics. Literary and other material artifacts attest that communion with what is considered in a particular milieu to be the fount of inspiration can provoke revelatory experiences, and the history of Judaism is no exception to this rule. Dreams, in particular,...
Currents in Biblical Research
October 1, 2007
Ra'Anan S. Boustan
This essay outlines the fundamental methodological and empirical advances that the study of Heikhalot literature has experienced during the past 25 years with the aim of encouraging specialists and enabling non-specialists to approach this complex material with greater precision and sophistication. The field of early Jewish mysticism has been profoundly shaped by the increasing integration in...
International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis
October 1, 2007
Herbert Spiegel
Hypnosis has had a gradual conceptual emergence from an alleged mystical experience, to sleep, to a psychological shift in concentration that activates a preexisting neuro-physiological circuitry. Data are presented to support the thesis that hypnotizability exists on a spectrum that has biological as well as psychosocial components. When there is synchrony between the bio-psychosocial...
September 11, 2007
Danko D. Georgiev
In this paper we try to make a clear distinction between quantum mysticism and quantum mind theory. Quackery always accompanies science especially in controversial and still under development areas and since the quantum mind theory is a science youngster it must clearly demarcate itself from the great stuff of pseudo-science currently patronized by the term "quantum mind". Quantum theory has...
Sophia
July 1, 2007
Patrick Laude
This paper highlights the contributions of three major Islamicists, Louis Massignon, Henry Corbin, and Frithjof Schuon, to the understanding of the Qur’ân. Their works point to the epistemologic primacy of the contemplative and esoteric dimensions of the Book. Its linguistic texture and modalities are here understood as expressing the very limits of language, the proportional reciprocity...
The Jewish Quarterly Review
June 1, 2007
Jonathan P. Decter
AARON W. HUGHES. The Texture of the Divine: Imagination in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Thought. Bloommgton: Indiana University Press, 2004. Pp. x + 273.Over the past decade, a number of scholars have come to question the existence of a clear dichotomy between philosophy and mysticism in late antique and medieval thought. Scholars for generations have argued the allegiances of such enigmatic...
Journal of Analytical Psychology
June 1, 2007
Steven M Joseph
3 citations
Jung made use of kabbalistic images and motifs in various parts of his opus, including in his alchemical studies, in Aion, and extensively in Mysterium Coniunctionis. He also recorded an important dream after his heart attack which made use of kabbalistic symbolism in Memories, Dreams, Reflections. In this paper I explore Jung's ideas in relation to Kabbalah, first, by differentiating between...
Jewish Mysticism
May 31, 2007
Rachel Elior
This chapter provides an overview of the corpus of mystical writings in the traditional Jewish world, developed over the course of thousands of years. With all its cultural and historical manifestations, mysticism embraces a rich world of thought, creativity, imagination, and inspiration, transcending existential experience. Mysticism deals mainly with another reality that exists beyond the...
Jewish Mysticism
May 31, 2007
Rachel Elior
This chapter describes the mystic. A mystic is one who is gifted with spiritual greatness, vision, imagination, inspiration, and the ability to be exalted; one who is able, awake or in dreams, to cross boundaries of consciousness and to experience a feeling of immediate contact with higher worlds; one who experiences a transition from one reality to another through visions or dreams. By using...
Neurology
March 5, 2007
Kevin R. Nelson, Michelle Mattingly, Frederick A. Schmitt
60 citations
In a study of more than 13,000 Europeans, 5.8% reported the out-of-body experience (OBE) form of autoscopy.1 Occurring in diverse clinical settings, OBE is also typical of near death experience (NDE). NDE are responses to life-threatening crisis characterized by a combination of dissociation from the physical body, euphoria, and transcendental or mystical elements. Persons with NDE may have an...