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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / Historically, mystical experiences have been interpreted variously within psychology and theology. This dissertation explores theological and psychological interpretations of these experiences among professionals in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), putting their interpretations in conversation with the theologies of John Calvin, North American Calvinist traditions, and a range of psychological theories. The purpose is to draw theoretical and practical constructs from this research to guide pastors and counselors in responding to persons who report intense religious experiences, such as hearing the voice of God and seeing a vision of Christ. Some psychologists interpret such experiences as pathological, some as psychologically beneficial. Calvinists, focusing on the intellectual dimension of religion, have traditionally been wary of mystical experience. A more thorough reading of Calvin's theology shows his affirmation of mystica unio . In 18th century colonial America, Jonathan Edwards also accepted mystical experiences, but subjected their authenticity and meaning to rational, religious scrutiny. To explore understandings of mystical religious experience in the current Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), twenty structured interviews were conducted with pastors and pastoral counselors in the Boston Presbytery. Results show that sources common to theologically trained professionals can be useful in distinguishing mystical religious experience from psychotic episodes. Using Scripture, Presbyterian beliefs, personal experience, and awareness of cultural religious differences, 70% of participants distinguished experiences such as hearing God's voice and seeing visions of Christ from mental illness, and 90% distinguished experiences such as sensing God's inner presence during prayer from mental illness. Using the same sources, participants identified some experiences with religious language and symbols as symptoms of mental illness rather than mystical religious experience. Presbyterian pastors and counselors concurred that many religious experiences can be interpreted within Reformed theology. The study revealed the need for more thorough education of pastors and counselors in the psychology of religious experience and theological interpretations of such experiences. / 2042-07-17

<p>The use of codified sacred utterances, formulas or hymns called “mantras” is widespread in India. By and large, scholarship over the last few decades studies and explains mantras by resorting to Indian sources from over a millennium ago, and by applying such frameworks especially related to language as speech-act theory, semiotics, structuralism, etc. This research aims to understand mantra, and the visionary experience of mantra, from the perspectives of practitioners engaged in “mantra-sadhana (personal mantra practice).” </p><p>The main fieldwork for this project was conducted at three communities established around “gurus (spiritual teachers)” regarded by their followers as seers, i.e., authoritative sources with visionary experience, especially of deities. The Goddess, in the forms of Kali and Lalita Tripurasundari, is the primary deity at all three locations, and these practitioners may be called tantric or Hindu. Vedic sources (practitioners and texts) have also informed this research as they are a part of the history and context of the informants. Adopting an immersive anthropology and becoming a co-practitioner helped erase boundaries to get under the skin of mantra-practice. Fieldwork shows how the experience of mantras unravels around phenomena, seers, deities, intentionality and results. Practitioners find themselves seers mediating new mantras and practices, shaping tradition. Thus, practitioners are the primary sources of this research. </p><p>This dissertation is structured in three phases: preparation (Chapters One and Two), fieldwork (Chapters Three, Four and Five) and conclusions (Chapter Six). Chapter One discusses the groundwork including a literature review and methodological plan— a step as crucial as the research itself. Chapter Two reviews two seers in recent times who have become role-models for contemporary mantra practitioners in Andhra-Telangana. Ethnographic chapters Three, Four and Five delve into the visionary experience and poetics of mantra-practice at three locations. Chapter Six analyses the fieldwork findings across all three locations to arrive at a number of conclusions.</p><p>Chapter Three takes place in Devipuram, Anakapalle, where a temple in the shape of a three-dimensional “Sriyantra (aniconic Goddess form)” was established by the seer AmritanandaNatha Sarasvati. Chapter Four connects with the community surrounding the seer Swami Siddheswarananda Bharati whose primary location is the Svayam Siddha Kali Pitham in Guntur where the (image of the) deity manifested in front of a group of people. Chapter Five enters the experience of mantras at Nachiketa Tapovan ashram near Kodgal with Paramahamsa Swami Sivananda Puri and her guru, Swami Nachiketananda. </p><p>Across these three locations, which I find akin to “mandalas (groups, circles of influence, chapters),” practitioners describe their experiences including visions of deities and mantras, and how mantras transformed them and brought desired and unexpected results. More significantly, practitioners share their processes of practice, doubts, interpretations and insights into the nature of mantras and deities. Practitioners who begin “mantra-sadhana (mantra-practice)” motivated by some goal are encouraged by phenomena and results, but they develop attachment to deities, and continue absorbed in sadhana. Practitioners care to discriminate between what is imagined and what actually occurred, but they also consider imagination crucial to progress. Deities are sound-forms and powerful other-worldly friends existing both outside and within the practitioner’s (not only material) body. We learn about mantras received from deities, seen and heard mantras, hidden mantras, lost mantras, dormant mantras, mantras given silently, mantras done unconsciously, and even the “no”-mantra. </p><p>Chapter 6, Understanding Mantras Again is an exploration of the fundamental themes of this research and a conceptual analysis of the fieldwork, keeping the mantra-methodologies and insights of practitioners in mind—what are mantras and how do they work in practice, what is visionary experience in mantra-practice, what are deities and how do they relate to mantras, and other questions. I conclude with a list of the primary sources of this research— practitioners.</p> / Dissertation

Este trabalho analisa as proposições educacionais e o conceito de experiência religiosa elaborados por William James (1842-1910), um dos fundadores da corrente filosófica denominada Pragmatismo e responsável por inaugurar o campo da ciência psicológica nos Estados Unidos da América. Considerando que as pesquisas educacionais brasileiras pouco têm se dedicado às ideias jamesianas, o trabalho busca explicitar as teses de James sobre educação por intermédio da análise de suas concepções acerca da religiosidade. São examinados os conteúdos de Talks to teachers on psychology, obra de 1899 em que o autor discute a prática docente e a formação de estudantes, e também os conteúdos de As variedades da experiência religiosa, livro de 1902 em que o autor analisa o fenômeno da religiosidade. O propósito dessas análises é explicitar a noção jamesiana de ensino como arte por intermédio de suas ideias acerca da experiência religiosa. Ao realizar essa meta, este trabalho visa oferecer contribuições para discutir as tendências dominantes da educação na atualidade, caracterizadas como voltadas à mercantilização do ensino. / This work analyzes the educational propositions and the concept of religious experience elaborated by William James (1842-1910), one of the founders of the philosophical current denominated Pragmatism and responsible for inaugurating the field of psychological science in the United States of America. Considering that the Brazilian educational researches are little dedicated to the ideas of James, the work seeks to make explicit the theses of James on education through the analysis of his conceptions about religiosity. It examines the contents of Talks to teachers on psychology, 1899, in which the author discusses the teaching practice and the formation of students, as well as the contents of The varieties of religious experience, 1902, book in which the author analyzes the phenomenon of Religiosity. The purpose of these analyzes is to make explicit the Jameson notion of teaching as art through his ideas about religious experience. In accomplishing this goal, the work aims to offer contributions to discuss the dominant tendencies of education in the present time, characterized as directed to the commodification of education.

Este trabalho analisa as proposições educacionais e o conceito de experiência religiosa elaborados por William James (1842-1910), um dos fundadores da corrente filosófica denominada Pragmatismo e responsável por inaugurar o campo da ciência psicológica nos Estados Unidos da América. Considerando que as pesquisas educacionais brasileiras pouco têm se dedicado às ideias jamesianas, o trabalho busca explicitar as teses de James sobre educação por intermédio da análise de suas concepções acerca da religiosidade. São examinados os conteúdos de Talks to teachers on psychology, obra de 1899 em que o autor discute a prática docente e a formação de estudantes, e também os conteúdos de As variedades da experiência religiosa, livro de 1902 em que o autor analisa o fenômeno da religiosidade. O propósito dessas análises é explicitar a noção jamesiana de ensino como arte por intermédio de suas ideias acerca da experiência religiosa. Ao realizar essa meta, este trabalho visa oferecer contribuições para discutir as tendências dominantes da educação na atualidade, caracterizadas como voltadas à mercantilização do ensino. / This work analyzes the educational propositions and the concept of religious experience elaborated by William James (1842-1910), one of the founders of the philosophical current denominated Pragmatism and responsible for inaugurating the field of psychological science in the United States of America. Considering that the Brazilian educational researches are little dedicated to the ideas of James, the work seeks to make explicit the theses of James on education through the analysis of his conceptions about religiosity. It examines the contents of Talks to teachers on psychology, 1899, in which the author discusses the teaching practice and the formation of students, as well as the contents of The varieties of religious experience, 1902, book in which the author analyzes the phenomenon of Religiosity. The purpose of these analyzes is to make explicit the Jameson notion of teaching as art through his ideas about religious experience. In accomplishing this goal, the work aims to offer contributions to discuss the dominant tendencies of education in the present time, characterized as directed to the commodification of education.

Submitted by Geyciane Santos (geyciane_thamires@hotmail.com) on 2015-05-20T15:39:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Orlando Gonçalves Barbosa.pdf: 3485435 bytes, checksum: f999ffbbbb167e91874c989cf5564815 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-20T15:39:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Orlando Gonçalves Barbosa.pdf: 3485435 bytes, checksum: f999ffbbbb167e91874c989cf5564815 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-05-21 / FAPEAM - Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Amazonas / Religious experience is presented by several researchers as a process of overcoming suffering, disease, disuse drug and other hardships factor. This research had as its central objective to understand the relationship of religious experience with overcoming drug withdrawal, according to users graduates from an institution of care (care) to drug addicts in the city of Manaus. From this, we constructed two articles, the first aimed at understanding how people who used drugs began to conceive of their relationship with the substance in focus and what were the effects of that use on their systems of belonging. The second article was to understand how religious experience is located in the path of a group of people who have overcome drug use after the passage of these for a therapeutic community and the repercussions of this disuse in their systems of belonging. Survey participants were inmates of a therapeutic community (Fazenda da Esperança, Manaus-AM) that were in disrepair for at least one year at the time of the survey. Method was used as a qualitative exploratory approach, adopting categories of systems theory to the analysis of the data, these collected through semi-structured interviews. The results point to the fact that the use and disuse of drugs and suffering related to them are tied to the user, systems and subsystems of belonging, especially to family, work, relationship with peers and religious experience ; Addiction and a ratio of responsibility that positively or negatively feeds back the ratio of use over time. Religious experience is identified as psychosocial process of organizing an identity which integrates sense of transcendence, and shall support new modes of relatedness between individuals and their social networks, in particular the family, community and religious institutions belonging. Recursion and the unpredictability present in the trajectories of use and disuse were also identified as factors that pushed the system to search for homeostasis and thus to overcome. / A experiência religiosa é apresentada por vários pesquisadores como fator de superação de processos de sofrimento, de adoecimento, de desuso de droga e outras adversidades. Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo central compreender a relação da experiência religiosa com a superação do uso de droga, segundo usuários egressos de uma instituição de atendimento (atenção) a dependentes químicos na cidade de Manaus. A partir deste, construiu-se dois artigos, sendo o primeiro voltado à compreensão de como as pessoas que fizeram uso de droga passaram a conceber a relação deles com a substância em foco e quais foram as repercussões desse uso em seus sistemas de pertença. O segundo artigo buscou compreender como a experiência religiosa é situada na trajetória de um grupo de pessoas que superaram o uso de drogas após a passagem destas por uma comunidade terapêutica e as repercussões desse desuso em seus sistemas de pertença. Os participantes da pesquisa foram internos de uma comunidade terapêutica (Fazenda da Esperança, Manaus-AM) que se encontravam em desuso há pelo menos um ano, na ocasião da pesquisa. Utilizou-se como método a abordagem exploratória qualitativa, adotando categorias da teoria sistêmica para a análise dos dados, estes coletados por meio da entrevista semiestruturada. Os resultados encontrados apontam para o fato deque o uso e o desuso das drogas, bem como o sofrimento a elas relacionado estão vinculados ao usuário, seus sistemas e subsistemas de pertença, em especial àfamília, trabalho, relação com os pares e vivência religiosa;numa relação de codependência e corresponsabilidade que retroalimenta positiva ou negativamente a relação de uso, ao longo do tempo. A experiência religiosa é apontada como processo psicossocial organizador de uma identidade a qual integra sentidos de transcendência, e passa a sustentar novos modos de vinculação entre os sujeitos e suas redes sociais, em especial a família, a comunidade e as instituições religiosas de pertença. A recursividade e a imprevisibilidade presentes nas trajetórias de uso e desuso foram identificadas também como fatores que impulsionaram o sistema à busca de homeostasee, portanto, de superação.

The first half of this thesis argues that scepticism about the evidential force of religious experiences is driven by concerns about the traditional practices used to discern between 'illusory' and 'genuine' experiences. As these practices require commitment to a particular tradition, we have no way of deciding which practice to trust. Furthermore, the tests the practices employ do not bear on whether the experiences are veridical; and they are too coarse-grained for theologians to use them to regulate religious beliefs or seek theological truth. The thesis argues that we should seek new ways of evaluating religious experiences, and beliefs based on them, which address the concerns. The fourth chapter develops a procedure in which parties to religious disagreements understand God to be a perfect being, and use shared moral beliefs from outside their religious tradition to assign probabilities to putative divine actions, including religious experiences. The likelihood the divine action occurred given those moral beliefs is the likelihood the religious experience was veridical, addressing the second concern. The procedure attends closely to different sources of doubt, so avoiding the coarse granularity traditional practices are charged with. The thesis thereby argues against a sceptical response to difficulties faced by religious experiential evidence by offering a non-sceptical alternative which is articulated in enough detail to show how these difficulties can be surmounted. The fifth chapter completes the description of the procedure and shows how it can be used to formalize disputes in philosophical theology concerning the evidential import of divine hiddenness and religious diversity. The sixth chapter defends the procedure's presumption that God is a perfect being by evaluating an Anselmian account of the reference of "God".

In this paper, we explore mystical experiences and knowledge through the application of Miranda Fricker's framework of epistemic injustice. Focusing on experiences in which the usual division between Self and Other temporarily dissolves (brought about spontaneously, through contemplative or religious practice, or through the ingestion of psychedelics), we examine the knowledge gained from these experiences in its multiple forms and discuss how the mystic, when attempting to share the knowledge she has gained, may face challenges to effective testimonial exchange which constitute testimonial injustices. Similarly, due to a cultural privileging of the rational and objective, we imagine how the mystic’s interlocutor in an exchange may lack the necessary epistemic resources to understand an account of the mystic’s experience and its epistemic fruits as knowledge, thus subjecting the mystic to a hermeneutical injustice. Exploring the possibility of an anti-mystical bias, we present a new realm for the application of Miranda Fricker’s concepts.

The purpose of the research reported in this thesis is to investigate the occurrence and recognition of “limit experience” among some Catholic High School students in their final year at selected secondary colleges in Brisbane. “Limit” experience was defined as an experience that reveals a reality of life beyond the self, beyond the here and now. It may be recognition of our own fragility and vulnerability as much as a joyous awareness of a reality beyond our normal encounter with life.” The research work of the Alistair Hardy Research Centre and of Hay (1987) in particular has centred on the question, asked in various ways: Have you ever been aware of, or influenced by, a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday life? The survey instrument for this research was designed to divorce questions on such experiences from the direct reference to the term “religious”, although individuals might indeed interpret them as “religious”. To approach the issue, an extensive open-ended survey was administered to senior high school students. It was designed first to determine the extent of recognition of such experiences among the students and second to examine whether factors such as home background, regular religious practice, type of school, subject choice or co-curricula activities may make a difference in enhancing the awareness of such experience. This research has also been designed to enable comparison with similar studies. Major research in Australia by Flynn (1975, 1985, 1993) highlighted the factors above as influencing student achievement. Flynn also made connections to religious practice and attitudes to church but not to religious experience as such. Robinson and Jackson (1987) had undertaken extensive research on religious experience in Great Britain that also has important parallels to this research. Some of the techniques of both studies and in some cases actual questions have formed part of this research instrument. This research has gone further than both studies by incorporating the Hay (1987) categorisation of types of religious experience to form the basis for direct questions on student experience. The data gathering, treatment and analysis focused on four catholic secondary schools in the Brisbane Archdiocese. While the research focus was by definition limited, and while the results have of necessity to be treated with some caution before wider generalisation, the outcomes of the research do illuminate some of the important issues identified in the literature. The results of the survey showed that over 90% of the respondents could affirm some association with a “limit” experience along the lines of the Hay (1987) framework. With significant strengthening of criteria to allow for meaningful statistical analysis, this reduced to 76% of respondents. Results for this smaller group were shown to be essentially independent of home background, type of school attended, co-curricula programs and level of religious practice. With the significant exception of religious education, their recognition of “limit” experience was also independent of subject choice. This last is in contrast to the earlier work of Robinson and Jackson (1987). Exploratory analyses of the data enabled comparisons to be made with a suggested framework for “spiritual sensitivity” and the context of “relational consciousness”, both of which were first proposed by Hay and Nye (1998). This suggests some possible directions for further research into adolescent spirituality. The exploratory analyses also highlight some of the conflict between the reality of these experiences for students and their experience of dissonance with institutional religion.

<p>This dissertation examines the modern transformation of orthodoxy within the Otani denomination of Japanese Shin Buddhism. This history was set in motion by scholar-priest Kiyozawa Manshi (1863-1903), whose calls for free inquiry, introspection, and attainment of awakening in the present life represented major challenges to the prevailing orthodoxy. Judging him a principal player in forging a distinctively modern Buddhism, many scholars have examined Kiyozawa's life and writings. However, it is critical to recognize that during his life Kiyozawa remained a marginal figure within his sect, his various reform initiatives ending in failure. It was not until 1956 that Otani leaders officially endorsed and disseminated Kiyozawa's views. Taking my cue from Talal Asad's critique of Clifford Geertz's definition of religion, I move beyond interpretation of the "meaning" of Kiyozawa's life and writings to the historical study of how they came to be invested with authority, impacting the lives of millions of sect members and influencing the perception of him among scholars. </p><p> I approach this history on three levels. On an individual level, I examine the lives and writings of Kiyozawa, his followers, and his critics, as revealed in their books, journal articles, newspaper articles, diaries, and letters. On an institutional level, I examine the transformation of the Otani organization's educational, administrative, and judicial systems, as documented in institutional histories, denominational by-laws, official statements, and administrators' writings. Finally, on a national level, I examine the effect of major political events and social trends on Kiyozawa's followers and the Otani organization. </p><p> This study reveals that one critical factor in the transformation of Otani orthodoxy was the strategic use of a discourse of "empiricism" by Kiyozawa's followers. As the Otani organization's modern university gradually came to supercede its traditional seminary, Kiyozawa's followers positioned themselves as authoritative modern scholars. At the same time, this study shows that the transformation of Otani orthodoxy was contingent upon broader historical developments far outside the control of Kiyozawa's followers or Otani leaders. Specifically, the state's persecution of Communists, war mobilization policies, and the post-war context of democracy building all shaped the views and fortunes of Kiyozawa's followers. I argue that by better acknowledging and examining the contingent nature of religious history, scholars can approach a more realistic view of how religions are formed and reformed. Specifically in regard to modern Buddhist studies, I also argue that more attention should be paid to how sectarian institutions continue to grow and evolve, shaping all aspects of Buddhist thought and practice.</p> / Dissertation