Religions
December 22, 2016
Manon Hedenborg White, Fredrik Gregorius
41 citations
Santa Muerte is gaining followers among contemporary occultists in Europe and North America, a milieu distinct from the Mexican folk cult due to its middle-class orientation and emphasis on secrecy and tradition. This article argues that the Skeleton Saint's appeal in occultism stems from needs and demands specific to that milieu, not from inherent qualities of the symbol itself. Understanding her spread outside her original sociocultural context requires analyzing the new context she enters. The analysis draws on three recent English-language books on Santa Muerte aimed at an occult audience.
Religions
May 28, 2021
Eleanor Harrison-Buck, D. Freidel
33 citations
Shamanism and animism, though useful cross-cultural tools in anthropology and religious studies, are rooted in reductionist social evolutionary theory and have been criticized for homogenizing nonwestern peoples and for an overly romanticized idealism. A secular view favoring rationalization and disenchantment has often been the alternative. These terms are informative only when explicitly defined in local contexts. Examining ethnographic and archaeological evidence from Mesoamerica, the authors trace the intellectual history of these concepts and reassess them from a relational or ontological perspective, concluding they are best understood as distinct ways of knowing the world. Specific examples include masked spirit impersonations and mirrors used in divination, highlighting both productive and dangerous aspects of enchanted materials.
Religions
June 29, 2023
M. Winkelman
22 citations
The term 'wu' (巫) is commonly translated into English as 'shaman,' but cross-cultural ethnological research shows that most types of Chinese wu ritualists resemble other ritualist types—priests, healers, mediums, and sorcerers—rather than shamans. Only prehistoric and commoner wu share key shamanic features such as altered states of consciousness and links to foraging societies. The paper argues that translating wu as 'ritualist' or 'religious ritualist' is more accurate, based on comparisons with biogenetic bases of ritual and cross-cultural patterns.
Religions
May 1, 2022
22 citations
Since the 1960s, psychedelic drugs have been linked to mystical experiences, but few scholars initially engaged with the implications. From 2006 onward, hundreds of studies have connected psychedelics not only to mystical states but also to potential treatments for mental health disorders, with regulatory approval for therapies approaching. These findings challenge the War on Drugs rationale, leading to decriminalization or authorized use in mental health contexts. Religious institutions are slowly adapting, with some viewing psychedelics as sacraments or pathways to deeper spirituality, and religious leaders training as psychedelic chaplains. Scholars in theology and religion are encouraged to explore the philosophical and theological issues and long-term cultural impact.
Religions
November 24, 2021
David J. Cooper, Jared R. Lindahl, Roman Palitsky et al.
20 citations
Energy-like somatic experiences (ELSEs), such as sensations of heat, tingling, or energy moving through the body, are frequently described in religious texts and have been documented in a few psychological studies, yet they remain understudied in meditation research. Based on narratives from a large qualitative sample of Western Buddhist meditators who reported meditation-related challenges, this paper describes how ELSEs manifest in practitioners' lives. It moves beyond a 'kundalini awakening' framework to catalog the metaphors practitioners used, the trajectories and impacts of ELSEs, factors influencing their nature, how they were interpreted by practitioners, teachers, doctors, and therapists, and the remedies employed. Interpreting and managing ELSEs often drew on frameworks from within or beyond the meditator's Buddhist tradition.
Religions
November 29, 2021
Ron Cole-Turner
16 citations
William James identified mystical experiences by their ineffability and noetic quality, a concept later modified by W. T. Stace. Today, psychedelic research uses scales based on James to show that drugs like psilocybin and LSD reliably induce intense mystical states. Whether these states are necessary for therapeutic benefits is debated. This review examines James's original account of the noetic quality, its measurement in current studies, and concerns that psychedelic science may be epistemologically biased against atheistic or physicalist views, or that it improperly injects religion into science.
Religions
June 24, 2022
Johannes Bronkhorst
15 citations
Mystical experience is best understood not as a special kind of consciousness but as the removal of the factors that construct ordinary, standard consciousness. Standard consciousness is built from the mutual connectedness of mental contents; when those connecting factors are suppressed, the resulting experience is largely negative—defined by what is absent rather than by positive content. This account explains why mystical experiences are often described as ineffable and provides a framework for assessing their epistemic status. It also suggests implications for how we think about mind, consciousness, and the self, by showing that ordinary consciousness is a constructed phenomenon that can be dismantled.
Religions
December 13, 2021
Sam Challis, Andrew S. Skinner
14 citations
The New Animisms and the ontological turn, active since the mid-2000s, offer valuable insights for interpreting rock art by showing that in animist societies, distinctions between nature and culture, religious belief and practicality, and the sacred and profane are minimal. A key problem is that the perspectives of such societies diverge more fundamentally from Western views than often acknowledged. Archaeologists of religion must become anthropologists of the wider world to recognize animistic and shamanistic ontologies and to question where Cartesian separations of nature/culture, religious/mundane, and human/animal obscure other ways of being. This work locates southern African shamanic rock art within broader animist shamanisms.
Religions
January 29, 2023
Federico Divino
13 citations
The Sutta Nipāta, an early collection in the Pāli canon, reveals how archaic Buddhist doctrine was shaped through dialogue with orthodox and established powers in 6th century BCE India. The text also sheds light on contemplative practices aimed at the 'absolute' (paramattha and brahmavihāra), an area often overlooked in meditation studies.
Religions
October 9, 2022
Nathan E. Fisher
13 citations
States of contemplative absorption in Islamic and Jewish traditions are cultivated through sensory deprivation and withdrawal, can be distressing and cause functional impairment that is considered normative in some contexts, and some are set apart as goals of specific meditative paths. These traditions assume, and recent research suggests it is plausible, that such states may be hyper-plastic and pivotal in both adaptive and maladaptive directions.
Religions
September 11, 2022
13 citations
Meditation research often highlights positive outcomes, but negative effects—termed challenging, unpleasant, adverse, or harmful—are more common than expected. Before unifying these concepts, the notion of meditation hindrances must be clarified. Traditional Buddhist texts and modern manuals define hindrances as reactions that impair spiritual progress and access to absorption states. While strategies exist to renounce or counteract hindrances, one influential idea treats a hindrance as the path to liberation, blurring or collapsing the distinction between positive and negative. This questions whether a unified conception of negative effect is possible. The article reviews the concept of meditation hindrances and discusses the problems and potential benefits of relativizing the negative-positive distinction, which could either harm practitioners or become their greatest asset.
Religions
June 26, 2020
T. Sparby
12 citations
Long-term practitioners of Anthroposophic meditation report experiences organized into seven main themes: self, cognition, perception, affect, sleep, embodiment, and environment, with 32 subthemes. This previously unstudied form of meditation, originating in the early 20th-century German-speaking world, emphasizes cognition, self-development, and pro-social action. The findings suggest both overlaps with current meditation research and new areas for inquiry, including personal development focused on strengthening the self, introspective inquiry, sensed presences, phenomenological atmospheres, consciousness during sleep, embodied meditation experiences, the connection between practice and daily life, and meditation challenges.
Religions
April 16, 2024
Henderikus Knegtering, Richard Bruggeman, S. K. Spoelstra
10 citations
Spirituality and religiosity can influence mental health treatment, and neuroimaging advances, particularly studies of the brain's default mode network (DMN), offer insight into this link. The DMN is involved in cognitive and emotional processes, and its alterations may help explain how spirituality affects mental disorders. The article discusses spiritual and non-spiritual meditation, as well as psychedelic-induced spiritual experiences in psychiatry and their associated brain networks, to highlight both the potential and the limitations of incorporating spirituality into psychiatric care.
Religions
December 6, 2020
Nicolae Turcan
10 citations
Distinguishing phenomenology from theology remains difficult. The article argues for a theo-phenomenology that accepts religious faith as a given. It then describes the essence of religious call in Eastern Orthodox spirituality, using concepts such as appeal, communion, divine grace, love, prayer, fidelity, apophatic intentionality, and a hyper-intelligible gaze before Revelation. Religious call and answer are existential and theandric experiences involving askesis, fidelity of thought, and mystical experience. In the Holy Spirit, call and answer are no longer distinct for one who becomes a son of God by grace, faith, and good works.
Religions
August 26, 2015
Kevin Healey
10 citations
Digital technologies raise psychological and socio-economic questions about consciousness, selfhood, and ethics. This article proposes a framework called contemplative media studies, which combines critical political-economic media scholarship focused on justice and structural reform, media and religious scholarship examining digital culture and religious identity, and contemplative studies applying contemplative principles to research. The framework analyzes the spiritual ideology behind commercial digital platforms and asks whether alternative platforms could better support human development. Grounded in a commitment to socio-economic justice, contemplative media studies aims to articulate an ethically responsive and economically sustainable architecture for human flourishing.
Religions
February 24, 2023
Fraser Watts, Marius Dorobantu
9 citations
The debate over whether spiritual intelligence exists as a distinct cognitive ability is clarified by distinguishing strong and weak versions. The strong version, which posits a separate spiritual intelligence meeting Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences criteria, lacks support from neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, individual differences, experimental tasks, and psychometrics. The weak version, where general intelligence is deployed distinctively in spiritual contexts, is supported by evidence. Six key marks of spiritual intelligence are identified: ineffability, embodiment, open-minded attention, pattern-seeking meaning-making, participation, and relationality. This approach uses the Interacting Cognitive Subsystems (ICS) framework, useful for modeling spiritual practices, and should be integrated with psychometric and experimental research.
Religions
December 4, 2018
Haiyan Xing, Gerald Murray
8 citations
Shamanism among the Tu ethnic group in Qinghai Province, Northwest China, has undergone two major changes: a decline in private healing rituals and a rise in shaman-led collective rainfall ceremonies that affect the entire community. These shifts are driven by techno-economic, sociopolitical, and ideational factors outside the religious system itself. The analysis adapts Historical Materialism (Marx and Engels) and Cultural Materialism (Marvin Harris) to contemporary Chinese reality, emphasizing that while technology and economics remain causally important, the Chinese experience—from national economic transformations to local Tu shamanism—forces attention on the causal impact of socio-political and ideological variables.
Religions
December 23, 2014
Sónia Silva
8 citations
No Summary
Religions
August 8, 2023
Ismail Lala, Reham Alwazzan
7 citations
The most influential philosopher in Islamic intellectual history, Ibn Sīnā, argued that only one being can be necessarily existent, and that all divine attributes in the Qur’an derive from this necessity. The mystic Ibn ‘Arabī reformulated this proof, proposing that God’s primary attribute is not existence but mercy—a necessary mercy that brings everything into existence, not mercy as forgiveness or favor. For Ibn ‘Arabī, all other divine attributes flow from this necessary mercy, mirroring how Ibn Sīnā derived attributes from necessary existence.
Religions
July 21, 2023
Federico Divino
7 citations
Personal crisis during deep meditation can be understood differently depending on the tradition. In contemporary mindfulness practices, such crisis appears as a 'crisis of presence,' whereas in traditional Buddhist meditation it involves the dissolution of the subject-object distinction. Drawing on Ernesto De Martino's concepts, the article argues that this phenomenon should be recognized as significant rather than negative. Modern mindfulness, detached from its Buddhist roots, has been criticized for reinforcing neoliberal and capitalist modes of cognition. Traditional Buddhist meditation aims for samādhi, a serene 'end of the world' where self-world boundaries dissolve. The article urges mindfulness researchers to explore this dimension for fuller contemplative benefits.
Religions
August 8, 2021
Wayne Glausser
7 citations
Popular inferences from surveys and clinical trials—that psychedelic experiences dissolve atheist convictions, replace them with traditional monotheist beliefs, and that atheism and depression are linked afflictions treatable by psychedelics—are substantially misleading. Analysis of the studies shows most psychedelic atheists do not cleanly abandon their convictions, nor do they adopt traditional monotheism. Personal testimony and microdose trial effectiveness complicate any claim that psychedelics alleviate depression by curing atheism. The broader field of neurotheology contributes to these misconceptions.
Religions
October 31, 2020
Gloria I-Ling Chien
7 citations
Integrating contemplative pedagogy with the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm creates a multidimensional learning environment for teaching Buddhism in higher education. The author argues that using Buddhist-inspired contemplative practices like Cognitively-Based Compassion Training® in a Jesuit university setting can avoid implied proselytizing. Specific multisensory contemplation activities expand students' ways of knowing about Buddhist practice and foster consideration for others. This combination addresses students' spiritual and inner growth while enhancing their understanding of course content, ultimately facilitating whole-person development and deepening students' understanding of Buddhism.
Religions
July 26, 2024
Dennis Ioffe
6 citations
Moscow Conceptualism, a Russian artistic and literary movement, has deep religious fungal foundations rooted in Slavic and European esoteric mythology. The fly agaric mushroom (amanita muscaria) and its associated flies are central to the movement's transgressive spiritual and erotic aesthetics. Figures such as Andrey Monastyrsky, Ilia Kabakov, Elagina and Makarevich, the Mukhomor collectives, and Sergey Kuriokhin are not only artists but literary innovators who blend art and religion into a novel form of symbiotic semiosis, blurring traditional boundaries between art forms in line with international avant-garde aesthetics.
Religions
May 24, 2024
Jaime Clark-Soles
6 citations
The current psychedelic renaissance presents two intersections with Christian practice: Christians in psychedelic-assisted therapy may need help integrating mystical experiences into their religious lives, and others may explore psychedelics spiritually outside medical contexts. This essay argues the Bible provides rich material for such integration because it contains accounts of mystical experiences involving altered states of consciousness. It summarizes the psychedelic renaissance's relevance to Christian spiritual formation, reviews biblical scholarship on embodied religious experiences, examines the Apostle Paul's mystical encounter in 2 Corinthians 12:1–10 as an example, and suggests directions for further research.
Religions
April 26, 2024
Ron Cole-Turner
6 citations
Psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin are claimed to reliably trigger mystical experiences, a claim justified using the Mystical Experiences Questionnaire (MEQ), which was developed from W.T. Stace's philosophy of mysticism. Scholars of Christian mysticism argue that Stace's framework inadequately represents Western theistic traditions. Stace, following William James, emphasizes intense, unusual moments of mystical union or fusion with the absolute, reflecting non-Western traditions. Christian mysticism, however, centers on a sense of loving presence and intimate closeness with the divine, not absorption or fusion. Love of God, central to Christianity, is absent from Stace and the MEQ30. For Christianity, mysticism involves lifelong interpretation and transformation, not momentary experience.