This article corrects an idea in psychedelic science and culture that the ancient Eleusynian Mysteries used psychedelics, as claimed by Carl Ruck and co-authors in The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries (1978), revitalized by Brian Muraresku's The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name (2020), and popularized by social media heavyweights such as Joe...
Esotericism often refers to exclusive knowledge that only a few people possess. This field can encompass several disciplines, such as astrology, magic, and other forms of knowledge. Some social scientists stress that it is a rejected form of knowledge. The main objective of this research was to describe the esoteric traditions in one Minangkabau village community. It intends to show that there...
Symmetry governs complex systems from particle physics to biology. We demonstrate that consciousness dynamics follow symmetry-breaking cascades described by Painlevé confluence topology, bridging quantum topology, neuroscience, and consciousness theory. Analyzing exceptional individuals (mathematicians Grothendieck, Nash, Perelman, Cantor; physicist Einstein; artists van Gogh, Artaud) plus...
The purpose of this article is to demonstrate and elucidate the fruitfulness of Alfred North Whitehead’s doctrine of non-sensory perception for exceptional forms of experience. I begin by introducing Whitehead’s work, influence, and some of the characteristic ideological transitions associated with his thought. I then draw attention to his methodology as a form of radical empiricism beyond that...
Vietnamese university students are experiencing profound moral and psychological challenges amid rapid urbanization, globalization, and digital transformation. While higher education institutions increasingly prioritize technical competencies and employability, moral education and character formation remain underdeveloped. In response, Buddhist institutions across Vietnam have expanded retreat...
Higher-order representations are those that are about other representations. Humans and some other animals form higher-order mental representations concerning representations in our own minds, through the operation of processes of metacognition and introspection. These have been linked with a wide range of mental capacities and attributes, including consciousness. Recent research on large...
Hallucinations arise from disruptions in neural processes that construct perceptual experience from sensory input. Progress in consciousness science may therefore benefit from methods that precisely characterise their phenomenology. We introduce and validate the 6-Dimensional Visual Hallucination Questionnaire (6D-VHQ), a brief instrument designed to quantify visual hallucination content across...
The Open Data initiative Altered States Database (ASDB) collects psychometric questionnaire data on the subjective experiences of pharmacologically and non-pharmacologically induced altered states of consciousness. The ASDB is updated annually and can be utilized by both researchers and non-scientists to access information or conduct further analyses. The current update adds data published in...
February 27, 2026Kevin Sheldrake, Zoltan Dienes
preprint
Hypnosis is shown to be one of many ways a general capacity for phenomenological control shows itself. Phenomenological control is an evolved capacity to deceive ourselves so as to support socially useful beliefs. It allows one to strategically construct subjective experiences that misrepresent reality despite contradictory evidence in order to meet goals. It is so good at its evolved function...
This comprehensive literature review synthesizes the published scholarship on transpersonal psychology, transpersonal psychotherapy, and transpersonal hypnotherapy from the field's inception in the 1960s through 2026. Drawing from 283 unique scholarly sources across multiple databases, this review examines the theoretical foundations, philosophical underpinnings, clinical applications,...