Erdélyi Társadalom
2007
András Máthé-Tóth
Ernst Troeltsch classified religious institutions into three categories: church, sects and mysticism. The three categories that we might consider as programmatic starting points indicate problematic fields in Troeltsch’s work. In all three fields Troeltsch finds what could be suitable for modern contexts: the non-authoritative church, the sect which provides religious variety and the mystique...
Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge
2007
Laurence Nemirow
AbstractThis chapter focuses on the objective grounds for and against the ability hypothesis (AH), which was developed as a response to the Knowledge Argument (KA) — a purported proof of the existence of “phenomenal information”. It argues that while KA capitalizes on the mysticism inspired by “So this is what it's like” and embraces the existence of propositional knowledge that cannot be put...
International Journal for the Psychology of Religion
2007
Based on the data from 778 respondents, it was shown that mystical experiences as addressed by CitationThalbourne's (1991) Mystical Experiences Scale are Rasch scalable, and an unbiased set of 19 items was identified that yields intensity measures at an interval level of measurement. Construct validity was established by demonstrating that the Rasch dimension has unambiguous semantics that...
The Heythrop Journal
December 20, 2006
Owen Ware
8 citations
This paper explores the ambiguity in Rudolph Otto's discussion of the mysterium tremendum in order to address a broader set of difficulties in The Idea of the Holy (1917). In doing so, I outline two common criticisms of Otto's position. The first attacks Otto for not providing a secure transition from the numinous experience of terror to the holy experience of faith. The second attacks Otto for...
MLN
December 1, 2006
Stephen Vicchio
Reviewed by: On Presence: Variations and Reflections Stephen Vicchio Ralph Harper. On Presence: Variations and Reflections. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2006. x + 132 pages. On Presence first appeared from a small press in 1991 and won the esteemed Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion. It is, without doubt, the finest of Ralph Harper's thirteen books. In many ways, it is a conclusion, a...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
December 1, 2006
Ilkka Pyysiäinen
Religionists often presuppose that “mysticism” aims at somehow emptying the mind. In the light of evidence, however, meditation seems rather to consist of ritualized action without an explicit emphasis on subjective experience. Boyer & Lienard's (B&L's) theory of ritualized action as “swamping” working memory thus might help explain the effects of meditation without postulating experiential...
Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology
November 1, 2006
Michelle R Lofwall, Roland R. Griffiths, Miriam Z Mintzer
57 citations
Ketamine is a noncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonist. Given the purported role of the NMDA receptor in long-term potentiation, the primary purpose of the present study was to further understand the dose-related effects of ketamine on memory. The study was also designed to provide information about the relative effects of ketamine on memory versus nonmemory effects and to more...
October 18, 2006
Arthur J. Magida
This chapter discusses the experience of Ram Dass at his bar mitzvah. Ram Dass or Richard Alpert is the epicenter of America's spiritual searchings, a teacher, eloquent guide, and agile translator of Eastern thought into American practice. Since the 1960s, he has helped shape Americans' attitudes toward consciousness, faith, drugs, religion, and mysticism, giving them perspective and a...
Journal of Religion & Film
October 1, 2006
Abstract Recognized as a masterpiece of French cinema, Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest (1951) dramatizes a young priest's encounters with grace during the months he spends in his first parish in the rural village of Ambricourt. During this time, the priest keeps a journal in which he records both the outer events of his life in Ambricourt and his inner experiences of a transcendent...
Neuroscience Letters
July 27, 2006
Mario Beauregard, Vincent Paquette
338 citations
The main goal of this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was to identify the neural correlates of a mystical experience. The brain activity of Carmelite nuns was measured while they were subjectively in a state of union with God. This state was associated with significant loci of activation in the right medial orbitofrontal cortex, right middle temporal cortex, right inferior...