While much has been written on the dialogue between postmodernism and the Christian apophatic tradition, there has been little focus on the role of what lies at the heart of this tradition: the practice of contemplation. By looking at contemplative authors such as Evagrius Ponticus and others, this article shows that contemplative practice, situated in a life of contemplation, relates closely...
The fundamental revelations to the founders of the three monotheistic religions, among many other revelation experiences, had occurred on a mountain. These three revelation experiences share many phenomenological components like feeling and hearing a presence, seeing a figure, seeing lights, and feeling of fear. In addition, similar experiences have been reported by non-mystic contemporary...
The paper argues that links between play and magic in British Object Relations point to the persistence of aesthetic concerns within psychoanalysis. Magical thinking is present in British Object Relations psychoanalysis from its beginnings in Klein's play technique and early aesthetic writings, surfacing elsewhere in Susan Isaac's educational experiments and her theories of metaphor. Marion...
In this paper, it is argued that “higher states of consciousness”–or mystical experiences–have two main sources: they can be caused by a disruption of the normal homeostasis of the human organism and also by an intensification of the “consciousness-energy” that constitutes our being. (These are termed HD and ICE states). The author investigates examples of both types of experience, and compares...
AdiccionesDecember 15, 2004Andrea Vélez Cárdenas, Augusto Pérez Gómez8 citations
El yajé es una sustancia alucinógena, que ha sido usada desde tiempos inmemoriales en las comunidades indígenas de Sur América con fines místicos, adivinatorios y religiosos. En la actualidad, esta sustancia empieza a salir de los contextos indígenas y se filtra en el contexto urbano, en donde su consumo se reviste de un significado y características propias. En el presente estudio se analizan...
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with weak (micro Tesla) complex waveform fields have been claimed to evoke the sensed presence of a sentient being in up to 80% in the general population. These findings have had a questionable neurophysiological foundation as the fields are approximately six orders of magnitude weaker than ordinary TMS fields. Also, no independent replication has been...
This essay deals with the Romantic subject as a philosophical and literary category. Recog nizing the diversity and complexity of literary production in the Romantic period, this study does not attempt to treat all the many aspects of this subject, but it instead focuses upan a few: the role of nature, the status of imagination, and the subject's relation to the transcendental reality. In its...
Among the newly enchristianed "extreme sports" category, ultrarunners and the sport of ultrarunning is on the fringe edge. What makes ultrarunners and their "sport" interesting is that ultrarunners regularly report experiences that can be equated to various types of mystical experiences during their "sporting" events. This paper briefly discusses ultrarunners, a hypothetical mystical (mythical)...
Abstract Evagrius Ponticus was one of the great pioneers of Christian mystical theology. He spoke of prayer as “the ascent of the mind to God” and argued that “pure prayer” must be unceasing, imageless, and wordless. At the peak of the mystical journey, the monk encounters what Evagrius called the “sapphire light of the mind,” both an interior illumination and a glimpse of the uncreated light...
This article engages with the post-1992 (Rio Earth Summit) writings of Leonardo Boff, one of the most prolific and widely read Brazilian writers in the religious field today. The article first outlines Boff's understanding of the prevailing global market paradigm, guided by 'liberal capitalist' values and at the point of crisis. Boff's appreciation of the emergent 'new science' paradigm as...