{"title":"Hesychasm and Psychedelics: Altered States, Purgation, and the Question of Authentic Mysticism","authors":"Thomas Cattoi","doi":"10.57010/xfhv8374","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57010/xfhv8374","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this essay is to introduce the reader to the tradition of Hesychasm—a form of monastic asceticism rooted in the tradition of the Desert Fathers and given a systematic articulation by the Byzantine author Gregory Palamas (1296–1359)—and to consider how the mystical experiences described in Palamas’s Triads compare to the altered states at the center of contemporary psychedelic research. After reviewing the chief claims of the hesychastic tradition about the nature and purpose of ascetic practice, the essay will consider the methodological challenges psychedelic researchers face when assessing experiences induced by psychedelic substances. The last section will turn to the discipline of Comparative Theology as a helpful framework to bring into dialogue the hesychastic understanding of deification as a trajectory grounded in the reception of the sacraments and the therapeutic impact of psychedelic experiences. The essay will uncover different points of contact between hesychastic and psychedelic experience but will also foreground a number of irreducible differences between the two, reflecting the specific anthropological and soteriological claims of the hesychastic tradition. The conclusion will advocate for greater epistemic modesty—warning from overhasty identification of mystical states and psychedelic experiences—but also invite theologians and psychedelic researchers to greater reciprocal openness to each other’s insights.","PeriodicalId":438818,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemplative Studies","volume":" 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140997332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Portrait of a Poison: Datura in Buddhist Magic","authors":"Samuel M. Grimes","doi":"10.57010/gdpt2568","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57010/gdpt2568","url":null,"abstract":"The psychoactive plant Datura metel appears across a range of traditions in premodern South Asia preserved in texts. Among those traditions is the form of tantric Buddhism (Vajrayāna) located in the yoginī tantras. In Vajrayāna works, the plant is most prominently used in instructions for bringing about one or more of the magical acts (ṣaṭkarman). This paper explores the possibility that datura was consumed for its hallucination-inducing potential by considering how the plant was viewed and used in premodern South Asia through an ethnobotanical approach to relevant texts. I argue that the material potency of the plant as a dangerous poison, well established in Sanskrit medical literature from an early period, gave it a magical potency that made it a favored ingredient in several hostile magic rites (abhicāra) found in the yoginī tantras. I suggest that the line between material and magical is an inappropriate distinction to draw when examining these tantras, and that the most responsible way to approach the use of psychotropic plants in a premodern culture is by examining what actors from that culture said about the plant rather than relying on our existing knowledge of the effect of that plant.","PeriodicalId":438818,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemplative Studies","volume":"30 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140412046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of The Oxford Handbook of Meditation","authors":"Stephen Dawson","doi":"10.57010/ixbe8666","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57010/ixbe8666","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":438818,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemplative Studies","volume":"49 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139174652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation","authors":"F. Medina","doi":"10.57010/amvs7484","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57010/amvs7484","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":438818,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemplative Studies","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128638070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
R. Palitsky, David J. C. Cooper, Jared R. Lindahl, Willoughby B. Britton
{"title":"Relationships between Religious and Scientific Worldviews in the Narratives of Western Buddhists Reporting Meditation-Related Challenges","authors":"R. Palitsky, David J. C. Cooper, Jared R. Lindahl, Willoughby B. Britton","doi":"10.57010/gdcw6138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.57010/gdcw6138","url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary Buddhist meditators in the West are likely to find themselves engaged in practices with rich associations with both religious and scientific worldviews. Meditation-related challenges can provoke existential concerns that make unexplored relationships between religious and scientific worldviews more important and explicit for Western Buddhist meditators, who may turn to both religion and science for making sense of these challenges. Interviews with 68 meditators and 33 meditation experts were analyzed to examine how meditators and meditation teachers understand the roles of, and relationships between, scientific and religious worldviews in the context of meditation-related challenges. Observed themes included: conflict between science and religion, compatibility between science and religion, nested relationships between science and religion, science and religion as discrete domains, and complementarity between science and religion. These themes suggest an expansion of existing understandings of the relationships between religion and science as they apply to Buddhist meditators, especially in the context of meditation-related challenges. The variety of relationships between religion and science, their existential relevance for meditators, and their interaction with responses to meditation-related challenges suggest that varied relationships between religious and scientific worldviews are important considerations in the scientific study of contemplative practices. Nuanced understandings of how religion and science relate may also benefit practitioners, experts, and their communities when addressing meditation-related challenges.","PeriodicalId":438818,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemplative Studies","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117242922","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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