Bridging the Void: New Interpretations of Christian Mysticism and Mystical Theology

There is currently a welcome intensification of interest in the contemporary theological significance of both historical traditions of mystical theology and twentieth‐century theories of mysticism. This review article surveys and evaluates the stimulating range of approaches to these two issues contained in the essays in these volumes. It suggests that the volumes make evident the difficulty of attempting to uncover an underlying conceptual unity in these two historically entangled but deeply different forms of thought. The historical and philosophical sophistication with which many of these essays reflect on these tensions, however, points towards fruitful lines of future enquiry.     

Ontological Epistemology: William James and the Chinese Traditional Philosophy of Experience

William James’s understanding of the concept of experience has much in common with ideas in Chinese traditional philosophy. This connection, however, has remained unexplored. Here we introduce the idea of ontological epistemology as a way to bring these important commonalities into view. By highlighting two features of the concept of experience in Chinese philosophy, we suggest that the perspectives of holism and relationism are common to both James and the Chinese tradition. With regard to the personal and impersonal characteristics of radical experience and its commensurability with Chinese philosophy, we will pay attention to the self-dissolving aspect of both. However, there are still some theoretical complexities that remain unresolved, which clearly show the possibility of further research in the comparative study of contemporary pragmatism and Chinese philosophy.     

Constructing an Aesthetic Weltanschauung: Freud,James, and Ricoeur

I will investigate in this paper what kind of Weltanschauung Freud suggests. Although Freud argues in the lecture XXXV, The Question of a Weltanschauung (1933), that psychoanalysis is incapable of creating a Weltanschauung of its own, I think that he has a certain Weltanschauung, i.e., the aesthetic worldview, which involves his scientific, psychoanalytic, and artistic principles. Furthermore, I will explicate that Freud's aesthetic worldview is ultimately related to the Weltanschauungen of William James and Paul Ricoeur. I will focus particularly on their terms, sympathetic and poetic, which are the crucial elements that constitute the aesthetic Weltanschauung. Finally, I will briefly present my intention in drawing this aesthetic Weltanschauung. I will conclude that throughout the aesthetic Weltanschauung we may accept that everything is precious, pertinent, and worthy to be viewed as a part and a whole, and as home (Heim).     

The Construction,Preliminary Validation,and Correlates of a Dream‐Specific Scale for Mystical Experience

This study aimed to create and test a dream‐specific version of Hood's Mysticism (M) Scale for the purpose of studying dreaming mystical experience. Factor analysis of the Spiritual Dreams Scale (SDS), based on data collected from 289 adults affiliated with an American evangelical Christian school, clearly resulted in three factors in accordance with prior studies of the M Scale. However, the factor composition of the SDS did not identically resemble the findings of previous studies of the M Scale. Instead, the three‐factor solution suggested a Jamesian interpretation according to which the factors were labeled mystical psychology (passivity), perceived alternate reality (ineffability), and noesis. Scores on the SDS shared significant positive correlations with scores for absorption, dream beliefs, dream recall, and kataphatic prayer. A scale for apophatic prayer failed to share a significant correlation with the SDS.     

Putting the Mystical Mind Together

This article reviews and responds to various issues that have been raised in critical analysis of our work studying the relationship between religion and the brain. An adequate response necessitates a discussion about the origins of this research, the potential pitfalls of doing empirical research in this field, and the complex requirements of interpreting the implications of such an approach. Through inquiry such as this, the study of the brain and its relation to religion and religious experience will continue to advance and uncover the many fascinating questions that await.     

The Economy of the Gift: Paul Ricoeur's Significance for Theological Ethics

Paul Ricoeur's understanding of the relations of faith, love, and hope suggests a unique approach to theological ethics, one that holds fresh promise for bringing together considerations of the good (teleology) and the right (deontology) around the notion of an "economy of the gift." The economy of the gift articulates Ricoeur's distinctively dialectical understanding of the relation of the human and the divine, and the resulting dialectical moral relation of the self and the other. Despite our fallen condition, Ricoeur suggests, we are called by the divine to embrace the radical possibility of the reconciliation of human goods under the requirement of accountability to human diversity and otherness.     

The Economy of the Gift: Paul Ricoeur's Significance for Theological Ethics

Paul Ricoeur's understanding of the relations of faith, love, and hope suggests a unique approach to theological ethics, one that holds fresh promise for bringing together considerations of the good (teleology) and the right (deontology) around the notion of an “economy of the gift.” The economy of the gift articulates Ricoeur's distinctively dialectical understanding of the relation of the human and the divine, and the resulting dialectical moral relation of the self and the other. Despite our fallen condition, Ricoeur suggests, we are called by the divine to embrace the radical possibility of the reconciliation of human goods under the requirement of accountability to human diversity and otherness.     

Guest Editorial: The Resistance to Belief

William James's essay The Will to Believe proposed that we are sometimes justified, even obligated, to believe from our strong emotional or passional nature that something is true, even though there may not be total logical, evidential proof—which he also wrote is not to be found in this world. This essay explores situations, using a recent dear-death experience (NDE) example, in which there are reasonable evidence and logic, and yet belief seems to be withheld. I postulate and discuss nonrational influences producing resistance to belief, including the fear of being in error, the fear of rejection from the scientific community, irrational requirements of logicality, avoidance of consequences, and paradigm fixation. I also discuss issues in philosophy of science and epistemology in regard to proof.     

The Neuropsychology of Aesthetic, Spiritual, and Mystical States

An analysis of the underlying neurophysiology of aesthetics and religiousexperience allows for the development of an Aesthetic-Religious Continuum. This continuumpertains to the variety of creative and spiritual experiences available to human beings. This mayalso lead to an understanding of the neurophysiological mechanism underlying both"positive" and "negative" aesthetics. An analysis of this continuumallows for the ability to understand the neurophenomenological aspects of a variety of humanexperiences ranging from relatively simple aesthetic experiences to profound spiritual and unitarystates such as those obtained during meditation. However, it may be possible through aneuropsychological analysis to determine the similarities that exist across such experiences.Thus, certain parts of the brain may be functioning in similar ways during different experiences.It may be the case that the specific neuropsychological components of a given experience maydepend on the strength of the affectual response of the person and the ability to mark suchexperiences as significant. Further, even though similar structures may be functioning duringdifferent experiences, their inhibitory and excitatory interactions may be different. Finally, byconsidering the Aesthetic-Religious Continuum, we may eventually arrive at a betterunderstanding of how we experience and define reality.     

William James, Mind-Cure, and the Religion of Healthy-Mindedness

At the turn of the twentieth century, the mind-cure movement emphasized the healing power of positive emotions and beliefs. William James defended mind-cure during the Massachusetts legislature's debates on licensing physicians in 1894 and 1898. In The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) he used the movement's therapeutic claims to illustrate the typically American, practical turn of the religion of healthy-mindedness. Varieties sympathetically surveys mind-cure literature, but also criticizes healthy-minded religion for its limited range and refusal to confront tragedy and radical evil. Many of today's mind/body therapies continue the mind-cure tradition and retain the limitations that James noted.     

Fruits of Health; Roots of Despair: William James, Medical Materialism and the Evaluation of Religious Experience

In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James introduces the term “medical materialism” to describe the fallacious attempt by some scientists to argue against the value of spiritual ideas. Two literary case studies will be considered for purposes of better understanding James’ idea. What’s more, it will be shown that, in addition to James’ three criteria for the appropriate evaluation of religious experience, there is another factor not made explicit, namely that of hopefulness. This factor serves to distinguish ordinary from pathological morbid-mindedness, the latter of which has no religious significance.Tadd Ruetenik teaches philosophy at Penn State Altoona. He received his Ph.D. from the English and Philosophy program at Purdue University. Correspondence to Tadd Ruetenik, tlr18@psu.edu.     

More than a feeling: Wittgenstein and William James on love and other emotions

One of the most significant features of Wittgenstein's Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (written after he had completed most of the Philosophical Investigations) is his reflections on emotions. Wittgenstein's treatment of this topic was developed in direct response to his reading of William James’s chapter on emotions in his 1890 masterpiece, The Principles of Psychology. This paper examines the competing views of emotions that emerge in these works, both of which attempt to overcome the Cartesian dualist conception in different ways. The main point of disagreement concerns the relation between emotions and their bodily expression (e.g. the relation between grief and weeping). My interpretation focuses on Wittgenstein's remarks on the emotion of love because, I argue, it is a particularly problematic case. To elucidate his largely unexplored view of love, I draw on his remarks on understanding and criteria in the Philosophical Investigations. I argue that by examining the examples of complex emotions like love, we can arrive at a more accurate characterization of Wittgenstein's general view of mental concepts and mental phenomena.     

Instituting heteronormative belief in the law: the case of California's Proposition 22

This paper is based on ethnography of the ‘worship time’ at ‘Breakfree’ Church, a Pentecostal congregation in suburban Perth. I begin by exploring the ritualistic ways in which music is used to catalyse an ecstatic experience. Making use of the metaphor of ‘break free’, borrowed from a popular worship song, I demonstrate that music is used in deliberate ways to assist people in leaving behind the profane and encountering the sacred. Drawing on the thought of theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher and philosopher Paul Ricoeur, I explore the ways music facilitates and symbolises this experience. I demonstrate that for church members, the ecstatic divine-human encounter is the centre of their church worship and the antidote to difficult experiences such as grief or illness.     

Peak Sexual and Spiritual Experience: Exploring the Mystical Relationship

Abstract

The nine-category phenomenological typology of mystical peak experiences proposed by Pahnke (1980) was used to construct a framework for understanding and relating peak potentials for sexuality and spirituality. Examples from mystics—St Catherine of Siena, St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila—demonstrate the erotic connectedness they experienced in spiritual peaks. It is proposed that integrating understanding of sexual and spiritual peak experience provides more knowledge of what it means to be ‘fully human’ and creates insight into the depths of intimacy with self, others, and the ultimate.     

Mystical union and spiritual desire in late-Reformation devotion: The case of Martin Moller's The Great Mystery (1595)

This article examines the complex relationship between early-modern Protestantism and medieval mysticism. It does so through a case study of a late-Reformation work of devotion, The Great Mystery (1595), which has received very little scholarly attention. The author of this treatise, Martin Moller, an experienced Lutheran pastor, was familiar with mystical literature and drew on it directly in his numerous works of devotion. Especially evident in The Great Mystery, which presents the relationship between Christ and the Christian as a spiritual marriage, is a theme which rarely appeared in the Lutheran devotional literature of the sixteenth century: spiritual desire for God. Moller developed an evangelical theology and spirituality of desire, which marked a crucial development in early-modern Lutheran devotion. The presence of this theme also provides a potential clue for the ‘mystical turn’ in the late Reformation and why this period may have experienced a ‘crisis of piety’.     

BY ITS FRUITS? MYSTICAL AND VISIONARY STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS OCCASIONED BY ENTHEOGENS

A new era has emerged in research on entheogens largely due to clinical trials conducted at Johns Hopkins University and similar studies sponsored by the Council for Spiritual Practices. In these notes and queries, I reflect on implications of these developments for psychological studies of religion and on what this research may mean for Christian churches in the United States. I conclude that the aims and methods of this research fit well within Jamesian efforts of contemporary psychology of religion to assess religious practices by their fruits for life. Furthermore, some communitarian religious concerns that religious experiences occasioned by entheogens pose risks to the integrity of religious community are shown to be largely unfounded. However, it is suggested that certain risks for religious life posed by all investigations/interventions by knowledge experts—in particular, the colonization of the religious life world and the commodification of its practices—also attend these developments for Christian churches. Additionally, risks of individual harm in the use of entheogens appear to be significant and, therefore, warrant earnest ethical study.     

Individuals and their environments

While affirming Craig Martin's analysis of how the language of spiritual freedom celebrates individual agency in a way that deflects attention from the institutional conditions that produce individuals, this essay wonders whether there are useful distinctions to be made among people who Martin reads as sharing uncritical appraisals of capitalist individualism. On the question of the relationship between individuals and social contexts, for example, William James's assessment of the role played by social and natural environments might distinguish him from contemporary subjects who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious" and who seek to transcend institutional constraints to gain personal freedom. Different responses to alienation suggest that there might be some role for individual creativity and criticism as resources for imagining institutional change.     

The Rasch Scaling of Mystical Experiences: Construct Validity and Correlates of the Mystical Experience Scale (MES)

This study evaluated the relationships that exist between the Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality (BMMRS) and the mental health of individuals with heterogeneous medical disorders. The participants were 168 individuals with heterogeneous medical disorders (i.e., 61 brain injury, 32 stroke, 25 spinal cord injury, 25 cancer, 25 primary care). The measures were BMMRS subscales (conceptualized as spiritual experiences, religious practices, and congregational support), Medical Outcomes Scale–Short Form 36 General Mental Health scale. Pearson correlations indicated that, in general, mental health is positively correlated with positive spiritual experiences and positive congregational support but negatively correlated with negative spiritual coping and negative congregational support. Mental health was not correlated with private religious practices (e.g., prayer). Hierarchical regressions indicated that congregational support was the only BMMRS scale to predict mental health, explaining 6% of the variance beyond the 14% explained by demographic factors. The mental health of individuals with significant medical conditions appears to be primarily related to positive spiritual beliefs and especially congregational support. Mental health does not appear to be related to religious practices such as prayer, which is likely related to the fact that many individuals with serious medical conditions increase prayer with declining mental health status. These results stress the need for active congregational support and spiritual interventions to improve the mental health of persons with serious medical conditions.     

论威廉·詹姆斯对胡塞尔现象学的影响

詹姆斯在描述宗教经验时所采用的现象学方法;对心理主义的的拒斥;在诸如意识流、意向性、实在、自我等具体内容上在现象学领域所做的虽是无意但却是开创性的探索都表明詹姆斯的哲学思想对胡塞尔现象学有启发和影响的意义。     

Christology as a Function of Epistemology: A Bibliographic Study in the Theology of Paul Tillich

ABSTRACT

Paul Tillich is widely regarded as one of the theological giants of twentieth-century theology, and yet, according to Russell Re Manning, remains perhaps the most neglected great theologian of recent times (Re Manning, 2009 Reijnen, Anne Marie, “Tillich's Christology.” In: The Cambridge Companion to Paul Tillich, Russell Re Manning (ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 56–73.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). This study, based on Tillich's three-volume Systematic Theology (1967) describes Tillich's epistemology and discusses its effect upon his Christology, specifically with a view towards the concept “the uniqueness of Christ.” The article concludes with bibliographic annotations on Tillich's life.