Mysticism

"Unutterable Experiences of Consciousness Alteration" (Introduction, pp. 1-15) , 2020

Any person interested in mysticism will find this book of great value. Although writing about mystical experiences can be likened to “sending a kiss by mail,” there is much to be learned from the essays here. The book covers topics ranging from the anthropology of Mongolian shamanism to psychedelic drugs, symbolic aspects of mystical experiences and attempts to communicate such experiences, attempts to scientifically explain mystical states, and questions of the very possibility of such explanations. Important and provocative questions are raised: What sort of experiences count as “mystical?” Of the variety of such experiences, how can they be explained? Are there only physiological and psychological grounds or is there a transcendent reality that is contacted during mystical experiences? If a transcendent reality, how is it that it appears different to different people? How can such experiences be described if they are ineffable? And, what difference might there be between a mystical experience and the ordinary experience of our everyday world? -- Burton Voorhees, Athabasca University This book is a vast, profound, and modern approach to mysticism. The high-level researchers and authors participating in the book come from philosophy, spiritual studies, cognitive sciences, art studies, psychiatry, and literature, bringing authentic and meaningful interdisciplinary approach to the subject. -- Louis Hébert, University of Quebec at Rimouski "Mysticism and Experience: Twenty-First-Century Approaches" embarks on an investigation of the concept of mysticism from the standpoint of academic fields, including philosophy, anthropology, religious studies, mysticism studies, literary studies, art criticism, cognitive poetics, cognitive science, psychology, medical research, and even mathematics. Scholars across disciplines observe that, although it has experienced both cyclical approval and disapproval, mysticism seems to be implicated as a key foundation of religion, along with comprising the highest forms of social, cultural, intellectual, and artistic creations. This book is divided into four sections: The Exposure, The Symbolic, The Cognitive, and The Scientific, covering the fundamental aspects of the phenomenon known as mysticism. Contributors, taking advantage of recent advances in disciplinary approaches to understanding mystical phenomena, address the question of whether progress can be made to systemically enrich, expand, and advance our understanding of mysticism. The "Introduction: Unutterable Experiences of Consciousness Alteration" is by the volume's editor, Alex S. Kohav.

Sophia, 1988

2011

This review is one step farther into our reflections on the fringes of epistemology. We started by analyzing the peculiarities of the senses and then moved into the conflicting worldviews of science and religion 1. In this review we try to bring some structure into the many views, contradictions and similarities about mysticism across cultures, which we—from the very start— take as special kind of perception. Key words. Illumination, meditation, mysticism, perception, religion.

Three Pines Press, 2019

A collection of essays that explores the many dimensions of the mystical, including personal, theoretical, and historical. Kohav, a professor of philosophy at the Metropolitan State College of Denver and the editor of this collection, provocatively asks why mysticism is such an "objectionable" topic and considered intellectually disreputable. Borrowing from Jacques Derrida's distinction between aporia (or unsolvable confusion) and a solvable problem, the author suggests mystical phenomena are better understood through the lens of mysterium, that which is beyond the categories of reason and can only be captured by dint of intuition and personal experience. In fact, the contributors to this intellectually kaleidoscopic volume present several autobiographical accounts of precisely such an encounter with the mystically inscrutable. For example, in one essay, Gregory M. Nixon relates "the shattering moment in my life when I awoke from the dream of self to find being as part of the living world and not in my head." The religious dimensions of mystical experience are also explored: Buddhist, Christian, and Judaic texts, including the Bible, are examined to explicate and compare their divergent interpretations. Contributor Jacob Rump argues that the ineffable is central to Wittgenstein's worldview, and Ori Z. Soltes contends that philosophers like Socrates and Spinoza, famous for their valorization of reason, are incomprehensible without also considering the limits they impose on reason and the value they assign to ineffable experience. The collection is precisely as multidisciplinary as billed. It includes a wealth of varying perspectives, both personal and scholarly. Furthermore, the book examines the application of these ideas to contemporary debates. Richard H. Jones, for instance, challenges that mysticism and science ultimately converge into a single explanatory whole. The prose can be prohibitively dense--much of it is written in a jargon-laden academic parlance--and the book is not intended for a popular audience. Within a remarkably technical discussion of the proper interpretive approach to sacred texts, contributor Brian Lancaster declares: "For these reasons I propose incorporating a hermeneutic component to extend the integration of neuroscientific and phenomenological data that defines neurophenomenology." However, Kohav's anthology is still a stimulating tour of the subject, philosophically enthralling and wide reaching. An engrossing, diverse collection of takes on mystical phenomena. - Kirkus Reviews The volume investigates the question of meaning of mystical phenomena and, conversely, queries the concept of “meaning” itself, via insights afforded by mystical experiences. The collection brings together researchers from such disparate fields as philosophy, psychology, history of religion, cognitive poetics, and semiotics, in an effort to ascertain the question of mysticism’s meaning through pertinent, up-to-date multidisciplinarity. The discussion commences with Editor’s Introduction that probes persistent questions of complexity as well as perplexity of mysticism and the reasons why problematizing mysticism leads to even greater enigmas. One thread within the volume provides the contextual framework for continuing fascination of mysticism that includes a consideration of several historical traditions as well as personal accounts of mystical experiences: Two contributions showcase ancient Egyptian and ancient Israelite involvements with mystical alterations of consciousness and Christianity’s origins being steeped in mystical praxis; and four essays highlight mysticism’s formative presence in Chinese traditions and Tibetan Buddhism as well as medieval Judaism and Kabbalah mysticism. A second, more overarching strand within the volume is concerned with multidisciplinary investigations of the phenomenon of mysticism, including philosophical, psychological, cognitive, and semiotic analyses. To this effect, the volume explores the question of philosophy’s relation to mysticism and vice versa, together with a Wittgensteinian nexus between mysticism, facticity, and truth; language mysticism and “supernormal meaning” engendered by certain mystical states; and a semiotic scrutiny of some mystical experiences and their ineffability. Finally, the volume includes an assessment of the so-called New Age authors’ contention of the convergence of scientific and mystical claims about reality. The above two tracks are appended with personal, contemporary accounts of mystical experiences, in the Prologue; and a futuristic envisioning, as a fictitious chronicle from the time-to-come, of life without things mystical, in the Postscript. The volume contains thirteen chapters; its international contributors are based in Canada, United Kingdom, and the United States.

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 1976

Maitree Prakashan, Latur, 2024

Researchers from the fields of psychology and anthropology tend to be fascinated by the empirical truth of mysticism, which looks at experiences as long as they are an aspect of human nature. The issue with this approach is that mystic experiences can sometimes go beyond what one would ordinarily experience. So, revolving around experiences based on empirical truth would not give justifiable results. Further, the diversity in religious beliefs, faith and experiences would not lead humanity to follow conventional research methodology and theoretical explanations in mystical studies. Finding meaning in mystical experiences would give temporary relief because the experiences ought to depend on other external factors. The differences in spirituality and religion further disconnects us from the ultimate aim of empirical examination of mystical experiences. The other factors, such as hallucinations and paranormal events present difficulties for research into the nature of mystical experiences. The use of external substances like psychedelic drugs to induce mystical experiences raises more questions about the reality-based approach to mysticism. The cognitive, affective, paranormal and transcendental dimensions in mystical studies raises a concern for the future opportunities that mystical studies might bring to its practitioners. As a result, once we start neglecting the epistemic databases of mystical experiences and instead focus upon the ontological opportunities of its applications, then the real objectives of mystical studies would be reached. Diverting our attention on experiences and achievements of mystical features will lead us nowhere. Thus, in this paper it will be revealed that the study of mystical experiences is not an opportunity for mystical practitioners but a challenge because of many reasons. One such reason is the standard approach that will limit the practitioner’s freedom of choice in the practice of mysticism, spirituality or religion.

KNOWLEDGE, REALITY, TRANSCENDENCE. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST (RKS II)), 2018

The mystic sphere is a field as complex as it is simplified in the order of man's situation in this experience. Complex, on the one hand because the current debates have not exhausted the meanings of such experience, with a series of arguments and counter-arguments regarding what defines mysticism, and on the other hand because various mystical experiences can be identified in the world's religions. Simplified because the mystical experience is based on a common foundation: the experience of the sacred, thought, conceptualized differently depending on the religious architectures. This study aims to explore the analysis of various mystical experiences.

Ars Disputandi, 2002

Ashgate Philosophy of Religion Series), Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001; 158 pp.; hb. ¿ 45.00, pb. ¿ 16.99; ISBN: 0-7546-1443-3 / 0-7546-1443-x.

1996

Meta-Philosophy Research Centre Names and links to other texts can be found in this research by myself - (apparently the first video link in that text no longer works) - https://www.academia.edu/30704161/NON-PHILOSOPHY_OF_THE_ONE_Turning_away_from_Philosophy_of_Being This work consists of short summaries of the mystical ideas and visions of a number of well known mystics. The theme of the work concerns the so-called ‘unity experience’ of these mystics. The unity or oneness or the realization of ‘being oned’ with, can be referred to the beatific vision. In the case of Christian mystics it is unity experience of The Gottheit (or Godhead) of Meister Eckhart, in Sufism it is being united with The Beloved, in Buddhism it could be said to realize The Buddha mind or Cosmic Buddha’s consciousness and in Vedanta, the realization of The One Real Self, non-dualism, non-religious non-duality and to be more and only in the ‘present now’ moment with a type of depth psychology and introspection and a kind of ‘the brain watching the brain’, physicalist, neuro-scientific approach. What is absent from mystical studies and required is a multi-disciplinary neurosciences approach, as well as detailed, micro research by different disciplines.

Mystical Theology and Contemporary Spiritual Practice, 2017

I suggest that several different flavors of mysticism, and the possibility for communicating such experiences, can be better understood by taking into account the intentional structure of consciousness and the emergent nature of being. The extreme nature of mystical experience suggests that there is a radical change in the perceiver, the perceived, or the means of perception. Similarly, there are changes in our concepts, the conceived, and perhaps even our tools for conceptualization. I use Michael Polanyi’s notions of tacit knowing and emergent being as a general framework, since it provides a plausible general structure for understanding the development and functioning of conceptual schemes, and also relays the moral depth and totality that such perceptual and conceptual changes can accomplish. It also distinguishes a third category between the ineffable and the explicit: the tacit. Building on Polanyi’s understanding of how experience is structured and develops, my extrapolations of his theory into the areas of ethics and spirituality, and Polanyi’s own writings on aesthetics and mystical experience, I will present three general possibilities for what the experience of mysticism might be: (1) One can understand mystical experience as an emergent development, i.e., a breaking in to a new way of being that answers fundamental and embodied human questions; (2) one can understand it as a breaking out entirely from humanly constructed conceptual schemes; or (3) one can understand it as a breaking upward, that is, an integration of all our personal experience into a totalizing focal meaning. Each possibility will give more plausibility to a particular flavor of mysticism as the canonical experience. Also, each possibility will indicate a different prospect for meaningfully speaking about such an experience. In conclusion, I will suggest that these three ways of understanding mysticism might all be modes of a unified mystical experience that I will call (4) a breaking through. Looking at the viewer’s experience of beauty in art and the mystic’s relation to his life as one of detached engagement will strengthen the idea that breaking through is a sideways solution to the problem of human suffering that combines breaking in, out, and up.

God is No-thing: The Apophatic Assertion, 2020

Over the centuries and throughout many cultures, ordinary people as well as monks and mystics, have reported a personal experience that transformed their lives and perspective on life and existence. While interpretations of this experience have differed, researcher Walter Stace outlined important common characteristics that distinguish them from any other kind of experience.