A lot of studies have been undertaken on the effects of Buddhist meditation, especially in collaboration with Matthieu Ricard.
Now neurologist Shahar Arzy and professor of Jewish thought Moshe Idel have collaborated to write Kabbalah: A neurocognitive approach to mystical experiences. The book focuses on ecstatic Kabbalah, an apophatic school of mysticism that emphasises attaining ecstatic experience, much like some schools of hesychasm in the Orthodox traditions.
The authors speak of such phenomena as seeing a 'second' physical body near one's own physical body, having a sense of self that alternates between the perceived physical body and one's double, or feeling that your self has left the body and is observing from above.
Personally I don't know of any such experiences recorded in the Christian mystical traditions east or west, so I am assuming these are experiences 'shaped' in accordance with Kabbalistic understanding.
Neuroscience has already identified certain neurological conditions such as autoscopy (seeing a double), heautoscopy (seeing a double while being unable to localise the self) and the more widely known and discussed out-of-body (OOB) experience. All of these conditions have been noted in people with epilepsy, for example, or some form of neurological damage.
Similar experiences have been induced by stimulating the brain under medical supervision. The same sort of process was stimulating the 'God-spot' which triggered the impression of someone standing close by, of being watched, etc.
There is some evidence to suggest that the prophet Ezekiel may have suffered from a neurological disorder. Some Christians mystics seem to have suffered epileptic seizures.
And, of course, there are those who employ psychodynamic techniques, or psychotropic drugs, to 'force the gates' as it were, and artificially induce what they assume to be a mystical state.
Arzy and Idel write of Abraham Abulafia, a 13th-century mystic who devised a technique to achieve ecstatic states – a process of chanting, while paying close attention his respiration and head position and, at the same time, he would imagine himself with and without a body, while picturing and rotating the letters in his mind’s eye. The result would often be the appearance of a doppelgänger. This seems quite a complex exercise to me!
Two things:
One is that 'mysticism' as it is understood today is radically different to the ideas evoked by the term in its traditional sense. Today 'mysticism' denotes an outlook and an order of experience – it's become a subjective term rather than the traditional understanding which refers to an objective reality – the Mysteries. (The same applies to the contemporary 'religion v spirituality' debate, this is another case of western bifurcation. In the traditional sense the two are synonymous, and in the Orthodox East that is still the case.)
There is much to suggest, and my belief is such that, authentic mystical speculation in the Christian Tradition is non-experiential. Something endorsed by other traditions, including Buddhism. Meister Eckhart for example, never claimed to any experiential mystical state. The famous case of Thomas Aquinas' 'vision' is presented according to the understanding of his biographer, and not directly in his own words. Knowing, yes. Experience? Not necessarily.
St Francis, who was observed to levitate whilst in prayer, makes no claim to 'mystical experience' as is understood today.
The subjective focus and desire for such experience came to the fore with the various 'spiritisms' of the 18th/19th century.
It's worth bearing in mind that 'mystical experience' is not the goal of religious practice, nor can it be 'done' by the application of some sort of 'technique'. In the Christian Tradition subjective experiences are not a private matter, nor do they transmit some new 'revelation'.
The contemporary position on 'mystical experience' is the product of the pseudo-spiritual movements that popped up as part of the Romance Movement, and, as ever, the fruit of a consumer- and ego-oriented culture:
"The privatisation of mysticism – that is, the increasing tendency to locate the mystical in the psychological realm of personal experiences – serves to exclude it from political issues as social justice. Mysticism thus becomes seen as a personal matter of cultivating inner states of tranquility and equanimity, which, rather than seeking to transform the world, serve to accommodate the individual to the status quo through the alleviation of anxiety and stress." (Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Post-Colonial Theory, India and 'The Mystic East', Routledge, 2002)
Now neurologist Shahar Arzy and professor of Jewish thought Moshe Idel have collaborated to write Kabbalah: A neurocognitive approach to mystical experiences. The book focuses on ecstatic Kabbalah, an apophatic school of mysticism that emphasises attaining ecstatic experience, much like some schools of hesychasm in the Orthodox traditions.
The authors speak of such phenomena as seeing a 'second' physical body near one's own physical body, having a sense of self that alternates between the perceived physical body and one's double, or feeling that your self has left the body and is observing from above.
Personally I don't know of any such experiences recorded in the Christian mystical traditions east or west, so I am assuming these are experiences 'shaped' in accordance with Kabbalistic understanding.
Neuroscience has already identified certain neurological conditions such as autoscopy (seeing a double), heautoscopy (seeing a double while being unable to localise the self) and the more widely known and discussed out-of-body (OOB) experience. All of these conditions have been noted in people with epilepsy, for example, or some form of neurological damage.
Similar experiences have been induced by stimulating the brain under medical supervision. The same sort of process was stimulating the 'God-spot' which triggered the impression of someone standing close by, of being watched, etc.
There is some evidence to suggest that the prophet Ezekiel may have suffered from a neurological disorder. Some Christians mystics seem to have suffered epileptic seizures.
And, of course, there are those who employ psychodynamic techniques, or psychotropic drugs, to 'force the gates' as it were, and artificially induce what they assume to be a mystical state.
Arzy and Idel write of Abraham Abulafia, a 13th-century mystic who devised a technique to achieve ecstatic states – a process of chanting, while paying close attention his respiration and head position and, at the same time, he would imagine himself with and without a body, while picturing and rotating the letters in his mind’s eye. The result would often be the appearance of a doppelgänger. This seems quite a complex exercise to me!
Two things:
One is that 'mysticism' as it is understood today is radically different to the ideas evoked by the term in its traditional sense. Today 'mysticism' denotes an outlook and an order of experience – it's become a subjective term rather than the traditional understanding which refers to an objective reality – the Mysteries. (The same applies to the contemporary 'religion v spirituality' debate, this is another case of western bifurcation. In the traditional sense the two are synonymous, and in the Orthodox East that is still the case.)
There is much to suggest, and my belief is such that, authentic mystical speculation in the Christian Tradition is non-experiential. Something endorsed by other traditions, including Buddhism. Meister Eckhart for example, never claimed to any experiential mystical state. The famous case of Thomas Aquinas' 'vision' is presented according to the understanding of his biographer, and not directly in his own words. Knowing, yes. Experience? Not necessarily.
St Francis, who was observed to levitate whilst in prayer, makes no claim to 'mystical experience' as is understood today.
The subjective focus and desire for such experience came to the fore with the various 'spiritisms' of the 18th/19th century.
It's worth bearing in mind that 'mystical experience' is not the goal of religious practice, nor can it be 'done' by the application of some sort of 'technique'. In the Christian Tradition subjective experiences are not a private matter, nor do they transmit some new 'revelation'.
The contemporary position on 'mystical experience' is the product of the pseudo-spiritual movements that popped up as part of the Romance Movement, and, as ever, the fruit of a consumer- and ego-oriented culture:
"The privatisation of mysticism – that is, the increasing tendency to locate the mystical in the psychological realm of personal experiences – serves to exclude it from political issues as social justice. Mysticism thus becomes seen as a personal matter of cultivating inner states of tranquility and equanimity, which, rather than seeking to transform the world, serve to accommodate the individual to the status quo through the alleviation of anxiety and stress." (Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Post-Colonial Theory, India and 'The Mystic East', Routledge, 2002)
