Religious experience,religious orientation and schizotypy

The present study examined the relationship between religious orientation and schizotypy, with the prediction that intrinsic religiosity would be negatively associated with schizotypy, and religious experience and extrinsic religiosity would be positively associated with schizotypy. A total of 308 UK adults (132 men; 176 women) completed measures of religious experience, intrinsic orientation towards religion, extrinsic orientation towards religion, schizotypal personality traits and borderline personality. Though the present findings also suggest that the significant relationships between religiosity and schizotypy traits are fragmented, particularly by sex, the findings are consistent with theory that an intrinsic orientation towards religion is associated with lower levels of schizotypy, and religious experience and an extrinsic orientation towards religion is associated with higher levels of schizotypy.     

The temporality of illness: Four levels of experience

This essay argues that, while much has been gained by medicine's focus on the spatial aspects of disease in light of developments in modern pathology, too little attention has been given to the temporal experience of illness at the subjective level of the patient. In particular, it is noted that there is a radical distinction between subjective and objective time. Whereas the patient experiences his immediate illness in terms of the ongoing flux of subjective time, the physician conceptualizes the illness as a disease state according to the measurements of objective time. A greater understanding of this disparity in temporal experiencing provides insights into the lived experience of illness and can preclude difficulties in communication between physician and patient.     

中国上古中古史研究的宗教维度--评钟国发《神圣的突破--从世界文明视野看儒佛道三元一体格局的由来》

魏晋以后中国人精神世界中儒释道并存的格局早已为治学者所熟知,然而对常识的习焉不察往往阻碍了我们对该问题的进一步探询与反思.钟国发先生的新作<神圣的突破--从世界文明视野看儒佛道三元一体格局的由来>(四川人民出版社2003年10月版)不囿于成见,提出儒佛道三元一体的命题,并且对这一命题从宗教内部及其与社会历史之间关系进行了阐释.尤为可贵的是,这种阐释是在世界文明视野下,在对中华文明的起源、发展历程作出整体性的把握之后展开的,因此,这种阐释本身就是对中国上古中古史的一种气势恢宏而又不失严谨缜密的书写,体现了作者对中国历史追本溯源、富有洞察力而又自成体系的理解.故而,该书的关怀已远远超出了宗教领域,而深入到中国历史的思想、知识、信仰、社会组织、政治形态等诸多层面的研究,对上古史、中古史多有贯通之解.下面就该书的若干观点作一简单评介.     

Religious experience and the facts of religious pluralism

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

The discomfiture of religious experience

We live in an age where major and minor structured and unstructured cults are mushrooming, most of them aiming at achieving an ecstatic or religious experience. Rather than objective inquiry, reaction to them is often passionate, unreasoning, even vituperous to an extent that seems out of proportion to their relative size of clientele. On the basis of anthropological fieldwork with Apostolic congregations in the U.S.A., Mexico and Yucatán, and as a teacher of a specific technique for achieving religious ecstatic experiences in workshops, I propose to examine some of the cultural and psychological reasons for this abrogation of objectivity.