Tasfiyah Jurnal Pemikiran Islam
April 30, 2026
Moh. Sholeh Baharis, Abdul Kadir Riyadi
Al-Hallaj's mystical knowledge (ma‘rifat) involves a transformation of consciousness through stages of purification, self-annihilation, subsistence, and divine manifestation, shifting awareness from the empirical ego toward the Divine. His phrase "Anā al-Ḥaqq" ("I am the Truth") is not a claim of ontological identity between humanity and God but a linguistic testimony of a consciousness that has transcended subject–object duality. The "Ana" refers not to al-Hallaj's biographical self but to a subject that has undergone ego dissolution and appears as a trace of al-Haqq. This Sufi paradigm offers relevance for addressing modern crises of meaning, religious formalization, and existential alienation.
İlahiyat Tetkikleri Dergisi
April 30, 2026
Fatih Aydın
Şehbenderzâde Filibeli Ahmed Hilmi conceives the soul not as a function emerging from the body's complex workings but as an independent 'simple substance' (cevher-i basît) that governs the body like an instrument. His approach reconciles matter and spirit, reason and intuition, and unity and multiplicity within a holistic metaphysical framework. Drawing on Platonic, Spinozist, and Ghazalian references, he reestablishes the soul's immortality and survival not only through traditional assumptions but also with rational and intuitive foundations. This position offers a philosophical alternative to the dominant materialist and positivist currents of his period, contributing significantly to rethinking the soul's transcendence and questioning the metaphysical bases of modern consciousness.
Medical Journal Awatara
April 30, 2026
Pardomuan Robinson Sihombing
Possession Trance Disorder (PTD) and visual hallucinations in Indonesia often go untreated due to a split between medical and spiritual approaches. A systematic review of 15 primary studies (2019–2025) found that PTD consistently co-occurs with undiagnosed dysthymia and trauma. EEG evidence confirms trance as a biological hyperarousal state, not mere hysteria. Therapies rooted in Indigenous Psychology (Kawruh Jiwa) and cultural distraction techniques (drawing, Murottal) proved effective in clinical settings. The most effective model integrates medical biological stabilization with meaning restructuring through local psychology.
Cult Med Psychiatry
April 29, 2026
Aidan Seale-Feldman
The mainstreaming of psychedelic medicine, a billion-dollar industry, blends psychiatry with spiritual experience, creating new forms of secular mysticism in an age of disenchantment. Drawing on public discourse analysis, ethnographic research in a psychedelic church, a therapy training program, and science conferences, the article argues that this entanglement reveals contemporary social anxieties and yearnings. It shows how attempts to distinguish drugs, medicine, and sacraments in clinical and non-clinical spaces are not only shifting mental health care paradigms but also generating secular mystical practices.
Philosophical Psychology
April 27, 2026
Michiel van Elk
Mystical experiences are characterized by ineffability, noetic quality, transiency, and passivity, as outlined by William James. The abstract discusses the long-standing scholarly interest in these experiences within religious studies, noting that they have been a focus of research since James's foundational work. The text describes the key features of such experiences but does not present new empirical findings or a specific argument beyond acknowledging the historical and ongoing academic attention to the topic.
Journal of the Council for Research on Religion
April 24, 2026
Mohammad Meerzaei
Henry Corbin transformed Western scholarship on Iran and Islam by constructing a counternarrative to classical Orientalism, portraying Iran as a uniquely continuous tradition that preserved mystical and philosophical practices from pre-Islamic times, assimilated foreign influences, and resisted modern nihilism. This image of Iran as exceptionally spiritual and intellectual was embraced by Iranian nationalists. However, the author argues that Corbin's narrative is ultimately another Eurocentric account: rather than disparaging the Orient to elevate the West, Corbin recast it as a repository of an alternative future—a projection of the West's own lost past to which it might return.
International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research
April 19, 2026
Krushnakant Nagargoje, Arvind Rawat, Kirti Maurya
Human spirituality originated not from organized religions or formal philosophy but from early experiential practices within indigenous cultures. These practices, involving trance, ritual, and direct experiential learning, formed the foundational basis for spiritual and mystical experiences. The work argues that such indigenous traditions provided the epistemological and aesthetic roots for later religious and philosophical systems, emphasizing experiential knowledge over doctrinal belief.
Sophia
April 16, 2026
Milad Milani, Zolt Salontai
Al-Ghazālī and Gregory Palamas both resisted the overintellectualization of theology through Greek philosophical categories, critiquing Aristotelian and Platonic conceptions of knowledge for abstracting the divine and reducing metaphysical inquiry to rational demonstration. Al-Ghazālī turned to Sufism and the epistemology of kashf ("unveiling"), grounding knowledge of God in direct, transformative spiritual experience. Palamas defended the Eastern Christian tradition of hesychia, asserting that divine energies can be encountered in contemplative prayer (theōria) as a step towards union or divinisation (theosis). The article explores parallels between al-Ghazālī's distinction between speculative knowledge and spiritual certainty and Palamas' essence-energies distinction, both affirming non-conceptual participation in the divine. Drawing on Heidegger's later thought, the article considers both figures as pointing toward truth as "unconcealment" (aletheia) rather than propositional mastery, though without asserting identical conclusions.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 11, 2026
Tenzin Trepp
A state of consciousness beyond the ordinary subject–object framework can be understood as a self-organizing cognitive event driven by specific introspective parameters, not as an ontological revelation. The authors propose a model (I × F × D ≥ T) where Intensity of attentional engagement, Cycle Frequency of introspective process, and total Duration of practice must reach a threshold for stable reduction of the subject–object structure (groundless awareness) to become likely. Drawing on phenomenology, analytic philosophy, contemplative science, and cognitive neuroscience, the paper reviews empirical meditation research on default-mode network suppression and EEG complexity. It contrasts this process-based, functional approach with traditional mystical metaphysics and explores implications for theories of selfhood and meditation pedagogy.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 7, 2026
Qin Han
Six intellectual traditions—Buddhism, philosophical Daoism (Zhuangzi), Christianity (Pauline epistles and mystical tradition), Freud's structural psychoanalysis, Jung's analytical psychology, and SAE psychoanalysis—independently converge on a structurally similar judgment: the self (the reflexive, boundary-maintaining layer that discriminates 'mine' from 'not mine') is not the highest or final layer of personhood. This paper presents the convergence, analyzes its 3×3 network structure (three religious traditions × three psychoanalytic frameworks), and argues that the convergence constitutes evidence worth taking seriously, while distinguishing this claim from perennial philosophy, ontological identity claims, and reductionism. SAE psychoanalysis provides a coordinate system explaining why this convergence occurs: the self-as-filter has a logically necessary jurisdictional limit, and any sufficiently deep inquiry into personhood will encounter it.
Religions
April 2, 2026
Qiongke Geng
Daoist cultivation traditions incorporate psychoactive substances, derived from botanicals or artificial synthesis, within ritual consumption practices to induce mystical experiences and facilitate union with the Dao. These substances are part of the broader category of Daoist ingestive culture (fushi). Analysis of Daoist scriptures shows that the use of psychoactive substances goes beyond physiological stimulation, representing a distinctive integration of material practices with transcendental pursuits aimed at achieving perfection in both body and spirit.
Suomen Antropologi Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society
April 1, 2026
Olof Ohlson
A new theory of shamanism combines four existing ideas: that mystical experiences are shaped by culture, that shamans take on roles in their communities, that mental imagery is a learned cultural practice, and that the universe is fundamentally mental (panpsychism). This framework allows for recognizing genuine experiences in shamanic altered states while respecting cultural differences. The author argues that spirit is another word for mind, and shamanism is an exploration of consciousness by means of consciousness.