Scientific ReportsNovember 28, 2025Theresa Rieger, Josefine Feuerstein, Niko A Busch et al.
The visual awareness negativity (VAN) has been identified as a potential neuronal correlate of consciousness (NCC). The VAN is typically found when comparing experimental trials in which a stimulus was perceived with trials in which the same stimulus was not perceived. However, if the VAN represents a reliable NCC, it should also be observed under conditions in which participants report...
This doctoral thesis develops a somatic psychotherapeutic framework for psychedelic-assisted therapy through interviews with twelve practitioners. Using Constructivist Grounded Theory, Heuristic Inquiry, and Integral Inquiry, it suggests that psychedelics deepen somatic experience, reopen attachment critical windows, and amplify relational processes. The framework integrates three phases:...
Disjunctivism is a much debated topic within present-day philosophy of perception. The pressing issue here is whether there is a fundamental difference in kind between perceptions and hallucinations. If a perception could counterfactually have been a hallucination with the same content, one can hardly claim that perceptions and hallucinations are fundamentally different in kind qua...
Caryāgītimanjarī is an abstraction of Vajrayāna philosophy or an upaniśada of Vajrayāna Buddhism. It is a gist of Vajrayāna philosophy and its doctrine or a āgama veda – a divine religious text of wisdom. These caryāgīti bring to life the sacred scripture (āgama), a sacred knowledge (veda) of ancient time (purāṇa) and it is described (bakhāne) in caryāgīti. It is rightly said so on caryāgīti:...
This article presents findings from a qualitative phenomenological study exploring the lived experience of nurses who have witnessed end-of-life dreams and visions (ELDVs) of dying patients. Using Seidman's Three-Interview Series, conducted asynchronously via email, eight nurses from Western Massachusetts contributed six comprehensive and two partial experiential accounts. The study revealed...
The Contemplation Sutra is central to the Pure Land Buddhist tradition, although its philosophical elements have received little scholarly study beyond doctrinal exegesis. This paper addresses the sutra as a systematic "salvific paradigm," using phenomenological tools to explain the fundamental patterns of religious awareness and soteriological orientation. Through rigorous examination of the...
Criticality describes a regime between order and chaos that supports flexible yet stable information processing. Here we examine whether neural dynamics can be volitionally shifted toward criticality through the self-regulation of attention. We examined ten experienced practitioners of meditation during a 10-day retreat, comparing refined states of meditative absorption, called the jhanas, to...
ReligionsNovember 26, 2025John R. Snarey, Eunil David Cho, Shelby L. Hall
William James’s two psychological classics—The Principles of Psychology (1890) and The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902)—are widely read but rarely connected. How are James’s psychological theories in The Principles applied in The Varieties? Most scholars say they are not. Our thesis is that, throughout The Varieties, James uses The Principles as the foundation...
Journal of perinatal medicineNovember 25, 2025Mochammad Besari Adi Pramono, Wiku Andonotopo, Muhammad Adrianes Bachnas et al.
Recent advancements in four-dimensional (4D) ultrasonography have enabled detailed observation of fetal behavior in utero, including facial movements, limb gestures, and stimulus responses. These developments have prompted renewed inquiry into whether such behaviors are merely reflexive or represent early signs of integrated neural function. However, the relationship between fetal movement...
The drive to find one unifying theory, one overarching universal principle that would subsume and explain all, has been a common theme of human striving for knowledge for many centuries. It reflects, perhaps, a deep intuition that within every experience there is such a unifying singular essence, present yet ordinarily hidden, which when discovered would restore one to the wholeness of...