July 12, 2026 • Nina Bilokopytova
Contemporary science and philosophy increasingly recognize that classical linear, deterministic models cannot account for the complexity of reality, prompting interest in processuality, uncertainty, and self-organization. Sufism, often seen as purely mystical, contains sophisticated concepts of consciousness, self-knowledge, and the unity of being that parallel ideas in cognitive science and complexity theory. This monograph reconstructs the cognitive geometry of Sufism—its spatial and dynamic structures of consciousness—and proposes syntopotentialism, a philosophical paradigm grounded in potentiality as a fundamental ontological principle. Reality is viewed as a multidimensional field of potentialities, consciousness as navigation within this space, and sociality as a dynamic field of interacting potentials, integrating Sufi insights with contemporary science.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs • July 3, 2026 • Miguel Joaquim Soares Teles Couceiro, Victor José da Conceição Teixeira Amorim Rodrigues, Nuno Manuel Correia Torres
In a patient with generalized anxiety disorder and migraines, mystical-type experiences during ketamine-assisted psychotherapy appeared to contribute to therapeutic improvements. After four intramuscular sessions (0.5-0.9 mg/kg), greater gains followed sessions with higher scores on the Hood Mysticism Scale. The patient attributed progress to the psychological and spiritual impact of the experiences, highlighting the importance of the therapeutic relationship and integration process. This case suggests that subjective mystical experiences may play a meaningful role in therapeutic change during ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.
Transactions on Social Science Education and Humanities Research • July 2, 2026 • Daniel Zhu
Mystical experiences, long considered ineffable by scholars like William James, are frequently and richly articulated on social media. Analyzing posts from five religion-focused subreddits using computational and qualitative methods, the work shows that users share detailed narratives through metaphor and emotion. The framing of these experiences varies by community: Buddhist subreddits emphasize meditative mechanics, Christian subreddits rely on scriptural language, and atheist subreddits focus on epistemology. The findings suggest that ineffability may stem from social constraints rather than an inherent quality of the experience, as digital anonymity and community-specific scripts enable detailed, socially negotiated expression.
June 30, 2026 • Woojang Sim
A folk tale about a magical ruler that heals and revives the dead is analyzed through a shamanic lens. The ruler acts as an axis mundi, a spiritual bridge connecting heaven and earth, guiding the soul back to the body. The tale's narrative follows shamanic initiation: a mysterious dream (supernatural calling), imprisonment and symbolic death, learning healing from animals (shamanic education), and reviving a princess to gain communal recognition. Similar shamanic elements appear in related tales, where powers like healing and understanding animals reflect traditional shamanic abilities. The study argues that shamanism, as a primordial system of thought, forms a foundational cultural framework underlying many folk narratives.
Kanz Philosophia A Journal for Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism • June 25, 2026 • Taufik Hidayatulloh, Khairil Ikhsan Siregar, Hery Purwosusanto
The crisis of religious authority, identity polarization, and informational disruption in the public sphere creates tension between religious truth claims and the demands of rational deliberation in plural societies. Abdolkarim Soroush's thought distinguishes religion as a transcendent reality from religious knowledge as a historical construction, allowing a reinterpretation of mysticism and political rationality. His ontology of mysticism fosters epistemic humility, which grounds dialogical ethics and deliberative rationality by rejecting absolutized interpretations and affirming intersubjective argumentative validation. This normative foundation supports inclusive political ethics that uphold interpretative pluralism and equality of arguments, integrating spirituality with public rationality and strengthening deliberative democracy through metaphysical awareness and argumentative responsibility.
Topoi • June 25, 2026 • Drew Chastain
In The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus criticizes mysticism as a form of 'philosophical suicide' that escapes absurdity through faith. Brook Ziporyn's Experiments in Mystical Atheism proposes an 'Emulative Atheism' that embraces reality's purposelessness rather than compensating for it, as Camus and Sartre do. This essay argues that Emulative Atheism better supports meaning in life than Compensatory Atheism and is not philosophical suicide. However, a minor critique notes Ziporyn's abstract metaphysics conflicts with everyday lucidity. David Cooper's Daoist 'sense of mystery' within ordinary experience enhances the meaningfulness derived from Ziporyn's mystical atheism.
Psychedelics • June 24, 2026 • Oliver Davis
Psychedelics are interruptive, deautomating political technologies that can foster radical democracy rather than reinforce liberal-democratic systems. The article argues that understanding the political implications of psychedelics requires reconceiving psychedelic mysticism and phenomenology to recognize their embodied, agential, and politically potentiating dimensions, correcting neuro-centric views and incomplete phenomenologies. It also links the deautomating aspects of psychedelic experience to an analysis of anti-democratic forces like automation, administrative reason, and computationalist abstraction.
Religions • June 24, 2026 • Leor Roseman
Prophetic or messianic states of consciousness can be charged with moral urgency and become active, historical, and political. The paper examines psychedelic micro-messianic phenomenology and revolutionary dynamics through three historical figures: Allen Ginsberg (LSD), Master Irineu (Daime/ayahuasca), and John Wilson/Moonhead (peyote). In moments of tension and uncertainty, psychedelics can catalyze micro-messianic movements that diffuse these substances into new situations. A revelatory event motivates the subject to spread the substance and practice, creating a movement that eventually becomes routinized or inverted, then stabilizes into a new status quo from which another revelatory event may arise. The analysis draws on Weber, Wallace, Kuhn, Taves, Whitehouse, Rogers, Badiou, and others to show how psychedelic insights and actions intertwine, with revelations seeking to ripple outward into movements.
Yazıt Kültür Bilimleri Dergisi • June 22, 2026 • Ünsal Çimen
Shahmaran, a half-human, half-serpent mythological figure in Iranian and Turkish traditions, represents transformation and wisdom. The narrative of the hero Hasib encountering Shahmaran is an allegory of spiritual initiation, depicting his descent into the goddess's domain and acquisition of esoteric knowledge, a widespread archetypal pattern. The article argues that Shahmaran can be interpreted as a bee-goddess, making her a manifestation of the sacred feminine principle symbolically linked to the Moon, honey, and menstrual blood.
June 21, 2026 • Jonathan David, Aviva Berkovich‐ohana, Yair Dor‐ziderman et al.
preprint
Ayahuasca use among ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jews is adapted to Jewish contexts, with ceremonies modified to fit religious norms. Motivations for use are primarily therapeutic. Acute experiences include Jewish and Jewish mystical visionary content. Longer-term effects include strengthened belief, connection to Judaism, and changes in religious practice. Religious tensions arise from ayahuasca's perceived foreignness, concerns about idolatry, mixed-gender participation, and competing authority structures. Strategies to address these tensions include medicalization, making the set, setting, and experience religiously permissible ("koshering"), and framing ceremonies as liminal spaces. The findings highlight psychedelics' contextual flexibility and diffusion into understudied populations.
ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science • May 4, 2021 • James W. Sanders, Josjan Zijlmans • 94 citations
The mysticism framework, often used to characterize psychedelic experiences and explain therapeutic outcomes, carries risks because it is tied to supernatural or nonempirical belief systems. The authors encourage researchers to adopt a demystified model of the psychedelic state to mitigate these risks.
Journal of Humanistic Psychology • October 24, 2016 • David B. Yaden, Khoa D. Le Nguyen, Margaret L. Kern et al. • 125 citations
Religious, spiritual, or mystical experiences triggered by psychedelic substances are rated as more intensely mystical and produce a reduced fear of death, a greater sense of purpose, and increased spirituality compared to similar experiences arising through other means. These findings held even after controlling for gender, education, socioeconomic status, and religious affiliation. The results support the view that psychedelic-induced experiences are genuinely mystical and generally positive in outcome.
Psychopharmacology • October 7, 2016 • Matthias E. Liechti, Patrick C. Dolder, Yasmin Schmid • 203 citations
Mystical-type experiences were uncommon after LSD, likely due to the set and setting of the study. LSD at 200 μg, a dose used in psychotherapy in Switzerland, may cause greater or different alterations of consciousness compared with 100 μg, a dose used in imaging studies. Ego dissolution may correspond to plasma levels of LSD, whereas more strongly induced effects of the drug may not show such relationships.
Consciousness and cognition • July 1, 2016 • Josef Parnas, Mads Gram Henriksen • 128 citations
Mysticism and schizophrenia, though distinct categories, share important phenomenological similarities that have been largely overlooked. This paper explores structural analogies between key features of mysticism and major clinical-phenomenological aspects of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, including attitudes, the nature of experience, and the experience of an 'other' reality. These features revolve around basic dimensions of consciousness and appear to involve a specific alteration of the structure of consciousness itself. This finding has implications for understanding consciousness and its psychopathological distortions.
Neuropsychologia • November 26, 2015 • Irène Cristofori, Joseph Bulbulia, John H. Shaver et al. • 104 citations
People who suffer damage to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) report markedly more mystical experiences—subjectively believed encounters with a supernatural world—than healthy controls. In a study of 116 Vietnam veterans with penetrating traumatic brain injury and 32 matched controls, lesions to frontal and temporal brain regions, especially the dlPFC and middle/superior temporal cortex, were linked with greater mysticism. Pre-injury data on general intelligence and executive performance rule out individual differences as an explanation. The findings indicate that executive functioning in the dlPFC causally helps down-regulate mystical experiences, supporting earlier speculation that executive brain functions underpin such experiences.
Journal of Psychopharmacology • October 6, 2015 • Frederick S. Barrett, Matthew W. Johnson, Roland R. Griffiths • 634 citations
The 30-item revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30) is validated using data from five controlled laboratory experiments with psilocybin. Participants (n=184) received a moderate to high oral dose of psilocybin (at least 20 mg/70 kg). Confirmatory factor analysis shows the MEQ30 is reliable and internally valid. Structural equation models demonstrate external and convergent validity: latent variable scores on the MEQ30 positively predict persisting changes in attitudes, behavior, and well-being attributed to psilocybin experiences, beyond the participant-rated intensity of drug effects. The findings support the MEQ30 as an efficient measure of individual mystical experiences. A method to score a "complete mystical experience" from previous versions is validated, and a stand-alone MEQ30 is provided.
Current Drug Abuse Reviews • January 9, 2015 • Albert Garcia‐romeu, Roland R. Griffiths, Matthew W. Johnson • 480 citations
In an open-label pilot study, 15 smokers received 2 or 3 doses of psilocybin alongside cognitive behavioral therapy for smoking cessation. Twelve of 15 participants (80%) had biologically verified smoking abstinence at 6-month follow-up. Those who quit scored significantly higher on a measure of psilocybin-occasioned mystical experience than those who relapsed, while general drug intensity did not differ between groups. Nine of 15 participants (60%) met criteria for a complete mystical experience. Smoking cessation outcomes correlated with measures of mystical experience on session days and with retrospective ratings of personal meaning and spiritual significance. The results suggest mystical experience may mediate psychedelic-facilitated addiction treatment.
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion • December 1, 2012 • Katherine A. Maclean, Jeannie‐marie Leoutsakos, Matthew W. Johnson et al. • 412 citations
A 30-item version of the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ) reliably measures four core dimensions of mystical experiences brought on by psilocybin: unity, noetic quality, and sacredness; positive mood; transcendence of time and space; and ineffability. Over 1,600 participants who had taken psilocybin completed the original 43-item MEQ, and factor analysis retained 30 items with a clear four-factor structure. Those who reported having a mystical experience scored significantly higher on all factors, confirming the scale's construct validity. The factor structure held in a second sample of 440 people and fit better than alternative models, supporting the MEQ's use in scientific studies of hallucinogen-occasioned mysticism.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs • November 1, 2012 • Michael Lyvers, Molly Meester • 97 citations
Even in today's recreational context, higher doses of LSD and psilocybin are linked to mystical experiences, while MDMA, cannabis, cocaine, opiates, and alcohol are not. A survey of 337 adults, mostly recruited through MAPS, found that use of LSD and psilocybin was positively related to scores on mystical experience indices in a dose-dependent manner, despite only a quarter reporting spiritual motives. MDMA use showed no such relationship. The findings suggest that full psychedelics at higher doses can still induce mystical states in many users.
Journal of Psychopharmacology • May 30, 2008 • R. R. Griffiths, Wa Richards, Mw Johnson et al. • 883 citations
A double-blind study of 36 hallucinogen-naïve adults who regularly participated in religious or spiritual activities found that a single high dose of psilocybin (30 mg/70 kg) produced experiences that, at a 14-month follow-up, were rated among the five most personally meaningful (58%) and spiritually significant (67%) experiences of their lives. 64% reported increased well-being or life satisfaction, and 58% met criteria for a complete mystical experience. The mystical experience assessed on the session day was central to the high ratings of personal meaning and spiritual significance at follow-up. Only a scale measuring mystical experience showed a difference from screening among measures of personality, affect, quality of life, and spirituality.
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs • June 1, 2006 • Michael Lerner, Michael Lyvers • 99 citations
People who use psychedelic drugs like LSD and psilocybin report stronger mystical beliefs (such as oneness with God and the universe), higher spirituality, and greater concern for others, along with lower value on financial prosperity, compared to users of other illegal drugs or social drinkers. These differences held across Israeli and Australian samples. Users of nonpsychedelic illegal drugs showed lower coping ability than both psychedelic users and non-drug users. Both illegal drug groups scored higher on empathy than non-users. The findings may reflect transformative effects of psychedelic experiences, but could also stem from pre-existing traits of those who choose to take psychedelics.
Choice Reviews Online • June 1, 2000 • 401 citations
This book by two medical researchers examines how the brain enables mystical and religious experiences. It explains basic brain structures relevant to emotion and cognition, then maps how these regions are involved in phenomena such as mystical states, mythmaking, ritual, meditation, near-death experiences, and theology. The authors argue that religious and spiritual experiences have a neurological basis and discuss implications for philosophy, science, and the future of religion. The work synthesizes findings from neuroscience and comparative religion to propose an evolutionary function for religious behavior, grounding patterns in comparative religions in brain activity.
Philosophy East and West • October 1, 1993 • Daniel Barbiero, Robert K. C. Forman • 188 citations
A collection of essays challenges the dominant view that mystical experiences are entirely shaped by a person's prior beliefs and cultural context. Instead, the volume argues for the existence of a universal type of mystical experience called 'pure consciousness'—a state where a person remains aware but without thoughts, sensations, feelings, or any object of awareness. Part I presents evidence of such experiences reported across diverse traditions including Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Part II examines the philosophical implications, concluding that no logical objections rule out the possibility of pure consciousness events.
Perceptual and Motor Skills • June 1, 1993 • M. A. Persinger • 86 citations
Multiple variants of the sensed presence often precede mystical and religious experiences, which are frequently followed by sudden, permanent changes in self-concept. The model of vectorial hemisphericity proposes that the relative metabolic activity of synaptic patterns between the cerebral hemispheres during transient interhemispheric intercalation determines the affect, content, and type of experience. Depending on the relative activity of the two hemispheres, intrusions of the right hemispheric equivalent of the left hemispheric sense of self generate experimental phenomena including "evil entities," gods, out-of-body experiences, and alterations in space-time. Conditions that facilitate interhemispheric intercalation and the generation of these experiences are discussed.