Article reviewing Christopher Bache's perinatal account of near-death experiences (NDEs) and suggesting that it does not go far enough. The author then presents a new model, bliss/abyss, derived from the study of mysticism; shows that pleasant and frightening NDEs can be accommodated within the model; and discusses the predictions that can be drawn from the new theoretical framework.
The deleterious effects of the modern divorce of spirituality and theology can and must be redressed by the revival of mystical theology, theology that is ultimately concerned with the union of God and humanity. Aquinas’Summa Theologiae provides a model of such a mystical theology, a work which is both an exhortation to contemplation and an act of contemplation. The mystical themes of the Summa...
Breaches the wall between the psychotherapeutic and the sacred as respected pioneers in the field give their vision of the synergistic potential in these two powerful traditions. Since its original publication in 1980, this book has become a classic in transpersonal psychotherapy. This new edition contains articles by the major figures in the field, including new contributions by Stanislav...
Kabbalah Refracted: Review Essay KABBALAH REFRACTED Review Essay by MarkVerman Depanment of Religion Carleton College 123 Through a SpeculumThat Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism, by ElliotWolfson. Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1994. 452 pp. Elliot Wolfson is arguably the country's premier scholar of Jewish mysticism. Through a Speculum That Shines (hencefonh...
For Michel de Certeau, believing was rooted in a foundational experience, situated in a Christian tradition where the relationship to scriptures is central. Now, in this immense inheritance, he chose as object of election and familiarity mystical texts, not ‘mystical experience’ but the writings of mystics, that is, a particular type of writings implying a mode of believing. He loved the...
In trying to define the difference between conventional and ultimate truth, the Mādhyamika Buddhist author Jñānagarbha ends up in paradoxical formulations. Putnam's discussion of Nietzsche's remark that “as the circle of science grows larger it touches paradox at more places” is presented as an illustration for Jñānagarbha's case. No comparison of Putnam and Jñānagarbha is intended as regards...
Explores Whitman's reception among ardent followers (including George Fox, Father Taylor and Elias Hicks) in the light of Whitman's extra-literary, mystical or neo-religious impact, emphasizing the disparate, essentially incompatible perspectives of "the detached critic" as opposed to the "attached devotee"; compares Whitman's reception to that of "poet-masters" in Eastern cultural traditions.
It is argued that while counsellors have adopted the principle tenets of phenomenology—consciousness and meaning—they have built their work on an interpretation of intuition which is contrary to phenomenological rationale and presents it as a form of knowing which is esoteric and mystical. Phenomenologically, intuition differs from no other way in which sense is made of the world. Intuitions...
Ulrike Wiethaus' ambitious goal is to make medieval mysticism intellectually accessible to a modem western audience (2).To do this, she draws analogies between modem psychologies open to the existence and significance of "altered states of consciousness" and the accounts of ecstasies and visions within Mechthild of Magdeburg's The Flowing Light of the Godhead.The study is divided into two...
Reviews 299 function, patron, designer, choice of atelier and cultural milieu are treated very briefly in the concluding chapter. This study of a remarkably individual yet very Byzantine monument will be of enduring value. The photographs are commendably crisp and highhghts from the artificial lighting are kept to a minimum and away from thefigures.Appropriately, an Italian edition has been...