The neuroscience of religion, also known as neurotheology and as spiritual neuroscience, attempts to explain religious experience and behaviour in neuroscientific terms. It is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena. This contrasts with the psychology of religion which studies mental, rather than neural, states.
"Neurotheology" is a neologism
that describes the scientific study of the neural correlates of
religious or spiritual beliefs, experiences and practices. Other
researchers prefer to use terms like "spiritual neuroscience" or
"neuroscience of religion". Researchers in the field attempt to explain
the neurological basis for religious experiences, such as:
Aldous Huxley used the term neurotheology for the first time in the utopian novel Island. The discipline studies the cognitive neuroscience of religious experience and spirituality. The term is also sometimes used in a less scientific context or a philosophical context. Some of these uses, according to the mainstream scientific community, qualify as pseudoscience. Huxley used it mainly in a philosophical context.
The use of the term neurotheology in published scientific work is
already common. A search on the citation indexing service provided by Institute for Scientific Information returns 68 articles (December/2020). A search in Google Scholar, also in 2020 December, gives several pages of references, both of books and scientific articles.
Theoretical work
In
an attempt to focus and clarify what was a growing interest in this
field, in 1994 educator and businessman Laurence O. McKinney published
the first book on the subject, titled "Neurotheology: Virtual Religion
in the 21st Century", written for a popular audience but also promoted
in the theological journal Zygon.
According to McKinney, neurotheology sources the basis of religious
inquiry in relatively recent developmental neurophysiology. According to
McKinney's theory, pre-frontal development, in humans, creates an
illusion of chronological time as a fundamental part of normal adult
cognition past the age of three. The inability of the adult brain to
retrieve earlier images experienced by an infantile brain creates
questions such as "where did I come from" and "where does it all go",
which McKinney suggests led to the creation of various religious
explanations. The experience of death as a peaceful regression into
timelessness as the brain dies won praise from readers as varied as
author Arthur C. Clarke, eminent theologian Harvey Cox, and the Dalai Lama and sparked a new interest in the field.
What Andrew B. Newberg and others "discovered is that intensely focused spiritual contemplation
triggers an alteration in the activity of the brain that leads one to
perceive transcendent religious experiences as solid, tangible reality.
In other words, the sensation that Buddhists call oneness with the universe." The orientation
area requires sensory input to do its calculus. "If you block sensory
inputs to this region, as you do during the intense concentration of
meditation, you prevent the brain from forming the distinction between self
and not-self," says Newberg. With no information from the senses
arriving, the left orientation area cannot find any boundary between the
self and the world. As a result, the brain seems to have no choice but
"to perceive the self as endless and intimately interwoven with everyone
and everything." "The right orientation area, equally bereft of sensory
data, defaults to a feeling of infinite space. The meditators feel that
they have touched infinity."
The radical Catholic theologian Eugen Drewermann developed a two-volume critique of traditional conceptions of God and the soul and a reinterpretation of religion (Modern Neurology and the Question of God) based on current neuroscientific research.
However, it has also been argued "that neurotheology should be conceived and practiced within a theological framework."
Furthermore, it has been suggested that creating a separate category
for this kind of research is moot since conventional Behavioural and
Social Neurosciences disciplines can handle any empirical investigation
of this nature.
In 1969, British biologist Alister Hardy founded a Religious Experience Research Centre at Oxford after retiring from his post as Linacre Professor of Zoology. Citing William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), he set out to collect first-hand accounts of numinous experiences. He was awarded the Templeton Prize before his death in 1985. His successor David Hay suggested in God’s Biologist: A life of Alister Hardy (2011) that the RERC later dispersed as investigators turned to newer techniques of scientific investigation.
Magnetic stimulation studies
During the 1980s Michael Persinger stimulated the temporal lobes of human subjects with a weak magnetic field using an apparatus that popularly became known as the "God helmet" and reported that many of his subjects claimed to experience a "sensed presence" during stimulation. This work has been criticised, though some researchers have published a replication of one God Helmet experiment.
Granqvist et al. claimed that Persinger's work was not "double-blind." Participants were often graduate students who knew what sort of results to expect, and there was the risk that the experimenters' expectations
would be transmitted to subjects by unconscious cues. The participants
were frequently given an idea of the purpose of the study by being asked
to fill in questionnaires designed to test their suggestibility to paranormal experiences before the trials were conducted. Granqvist et al. failed to replicate
Persinger's experiments double-blinded, and concluded that the presence
or absence of the magnetic field had no relationship with any religious or spiritual experience
reported by the participants, but was predicted entirely by their
suggestibility and personality traits. Following the publication of this
study, Persinger et al. dispute this.
One published attempt to create a "haunted room" using environmental
"complex" electromagnetic fields based on Persinger's theoretical and
experimental work did not produce the sensation of a "sensed presence"
and found that reports of unusual experiences were uncorrelated with the
presence or absence of these fields. As in the study by Granqvist et al., reports of unusual experiences were instead predicted by the personality characteristics and suggestibility of participants.
One experiment with a commercial version of the God helmet found no
difference in response to graphic images whether the device was on or
off.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran explored the neural basis of the hyperreligiosity seen in TLE using the galvanic skin response
(GSR), which correlates with emotional arousal, to determine whether
the hyperreligiosity seen in TLE was due to an overall heightened
emotional state or was specific to religious stimuli. Ramachandran
presented two subjects with neutral, sexually arousing and religious
words while measuring GSR. Ramachandran was able to show that patients
with TLE showed enhanced emotional responses to the religious words,
diminished responses to the sexually charged words, and normal responses
to the neutral words. This study was presented as an abstract at a
neuroscience conference and referenced in Ramachandran's book, Phantoms in the Brain, but it has never been published in the peer-reviewed scientific press.
Research by Mario Beauregard at the University of Montreal, using fMRI on Carmelite
nuns, has purported to show that religious and spiritual experiences
include several brain regions and not a single 'God spot'. As Beauregard
has said, "There is no God spot in the brain. Spiritual experiences are
complex, like intense experiences with other human beings." The neuroimaging was conducted when the nuns were asked to recall
past mystical states, not while actually undergoing them; "subjects
were asked to remember and relive (eyes closed) the most intense
mystical experience ever felt in their lives as a member of the
Carmelite Order."
A 2011 study by researchers at the Duke University Medical Center found hippocampal atrophy is associated with older adults who report life-changing religious experiences, as well as those who are "born-again Protestants, Catholics, and those with no religious affiliation".
A 2016 study using fMRI found "a recognizable feeling central to ... (Mormon)... devotional practice was reproducibly associated with activation in nucleus accumbens, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and frontal attentional regions. Nucleus accumbens
activation preceded peak spiritual feelings by 1–3 s and was replicated
in four separate tasks. ... The association of abstract ideas and brain
reward circuitry may interact with frontal attentional and emotive
salience processing, suggesting a mechanism whereby doctrinal concepts
may come to be intrinsically rewarding and motivate behavior in
religious individuals."
Psychopharmacology
Some scientists working in the field hypothesize that the basis of spiritual experience arises in neurological physiology. Speculative suggestions have been made that an increase of N,N-dimethyltryptamine levels in the pineal gland contribute to spiritual experiences.
Scientific studies confirming this have yet to be published. It has
also been suggested that stimulation of the temporal lobe by
psychoactive ingredients of 'Magic Mushrooms' mimics religious experiences. This hypothesis has found laboratory validation with respect to psilocybin.
Scholarly approaches to mysticism include typologies
of mysticism and the explanation of mystical states. Since the 19th
century, mystical experience has evolved as a distinctive concept. It is
closely related to "mysticism"
but lays sole emphasis on the experiential aspect, be it spontaneous or
induced by human behavior, whereas mysticism encompasses a broad range
of practices aiming at a transformation of the person, not just inducing
mystical experiences.
There is a longstanding discussion on the nature of so-called "introvertive mysticism." Perennialists
regard this kind of mysticism to be universal. A popular variant of
perennialism sees various mystical traditions as pointing to one
universal transcendental reality, for which those experiences offer the
proof. The perennial position is "largely dismissed by scholars" but "has lost none of its popularity".
Instead, a constructionist approach became dominant during the 1970s,
which states that mystical experiences are mediated by pre-existing
frames of reference, while the attribution approach focuses on the
(religious) meaning that is attributed to specific events.
Some neurological research has attempted to identify which areas in the brain are involved in so-called "mystical experience" and the temporal lobe is often claimed to play a significant role, likely attributable to claims made in Vilayanur Ramachandran's 1998 book, Phantoms in the Brain, However, these claims have not stood up to scrutiny.
In mystical and contemplative traditions, mystical experiences
are not a goal in themselves, but part of a larger path of
self-transformation.
R. C. Zaehner
distinguishes between three fundamental types of mysticism, namely
theistic, monistic, and panenhenic ("all-in-one") or natural mysticism.
The theistic category includes most forms of Jewish, Christian and
Islamic mysticism and occasional Hindu examples such as Ramanuja and the
Bhagavad Gita.
The monistic type, which according to Zaehner is based upon the
experience of the unity of one's soul in isolation from the material and
psychic world, includes early Buddhism and Hindu schools such as Samkhya and Advaita vedanta. Nature mysticism refers to "an experience of Nature in all things or of all things as being one," and includes, for instance, Zen Buddhism, Taoism, much Upanishadic
thought, as well as American Transcendentalism. Within the second
'monistic' camp, Zaehner draws a clear distinction between the dualist
'isolationist' ideal of Samkhya, the historical Buddha, and various
gnostic sects, and the non-dualist position of Advaita vedanta.
According to the former, the union of an individual spiritual monad
(soul) and body is "an unnatural state of affairs, and salvation
consists in returning to one's own natural 'splendid isolation' in which
one contemplates oneself forever in timeless bliss." The latter approach, by contrast, identifies the 'individual' soul with the All, thus emphasizing non-dualism: thou art that."
Zaehner considers theistic mysticism to be superior to the other
two categories, because of its appreciation of God, but also because of
its strong moral imperative. Zaehner is directly opposing the views of Aldous Huxley.
Natural mystical experiences are in Zaehner's view of less value
because they do not lead as directly to the virtues of charity and
compassion. Zaehner is generally critical of what he sees as
narcissistic tendencies in nature mysticism.
Zaehner has been criticised by Paden for the "theological violence"
which his approach does to non-theistic traditions, "forcing them into a
framework which privileges Zaehner's own liberal Catholicism." That said, it is clear from many of Zaehner's other writings (e.g., Our Savage God, Zen, Drugs and Mysticism, At Sundry Times, Hinduism) that such a criticism is rather unfair.
Walter T. Stace – extrovertive and introvertive mysticism
Zaehner has also been criticised by Walter Terence Stace in his book Mysticism and philosophy (1960) on similar grounds.
Stace argues that doctrinal differences between religious traditions
are inappropriate criteria when making cross-cultural comparisons of
mystical experiences.
Stace argues that mysticism is part of the process of perception, not
interpretation, that is to say that the unity of mystical experiences is
perceived, and only afterwards interpreted according to the perceiver’s
background. This may result in different accounts of the same
phenomenon. While an atheist describes the unity as “freed from
empirical filling”, a religious person might describe it as “God” or
“the Divine”.
In “Mysticism and Philosophy”, one of Stace’s key questions is whether
there are a set of common characteristics to all mystical experiences.
Based on the study of religious texts, which he took as
phenomenological descriptions of personal experiences, and excluding
occult phenomena, visions, and voices, Stace distinguished two types of
mystical experience, namely extrovertive and introvertive mysticism.
He describes extrovertive mysticism as an experience of unity within
the world, whereas introvertive mysticism is "an experience of unity
devoid of perceptual objects; it is literally an experience of
'no-thing-ness'".
The unity in extrovertive mysticism is with the totality of objects of
perception. While perception stays continuous, “unity shines through the
same world”; the unity in introvertive mysticism is with a pure
consciousness, devoid of objects of perception, “pure unitary consciousness, wherein awareness of the world and of multiplicity is completely obliterated.”
According to Stace such experiences are nonsensical and
nonintellectual, under a total “suppression of the whole empirical
content.”
Table 1: Common Characteristics of Extrovertive and Introvertive Mystical Experiences as in Stace (1960)
Common Characteristics of Extrovertive Mystical Experiences
Common Characteristics of Introvertive Mystical Experiences
1. The Unifying Vision - all things are One
1. The Unitary Consciousness; the One, the Void; pure consciousness
2. The more concrete apprehension of the One as an inner subjectivity, or life, in all things
2. Nonspatial, nontemporal
3. Sense of objectivity or reality
3. Sense of objectivity or reality
4. Blessedness, peace, etc.
4. Blessedness, peace, etc.
5. Feeling of the holy, sacred, or divine
5. Feeling of the holy, sacred, or divine
6. Paradoxicality
6. Paradoxicality
7. Alleged by mystics to be ineffable
7. Alleged by mystics to be ineffable
Stace finally argues that there is a set of seven common
characteristics for each type of mystical experience, with many of them
overlapping between the two types. Stace furthermore argues that
extrovertive mystical experiences are on a lower level than introvertive
mystical experiences.
Stace's categories of "introvertive mysticism" and "extrovertive mysticism" are derived from Rudolf Otto's "mysticism of introspection" and "unifying vision".
William Wainwright distinguishes four different kinds of
extrovert mystical experience, and two kinds of introvert mystical
experience:
Extrovert: experiencing the unity of nature; experiencing nature
as a living presence; experiencing all nature-phenomena as part of an
eternal now; the "unconstructed experience" of Buddhism.
Introvert: pure empty consciousness; the "mutual love" of theistic experiences.
Richard Jones, following William Wainwright, elaborated on the
distinction, showing different types of experiences in each category:
Extrovertive experiences: the sense of connectedness
(“unity”) of oneself with nature, with a loss of a sense of boundaries
within nature; the luminous glow to nature of “nature mysticism”; the
presence of God immanent in nature outside of time shining through
nature of “cosmic consciousness”; the lack of separate, self-existing
entities of mindfulness states.
Introvertive experiences: theistic experiences of
connectedness or identity with God in mutual love; nonpersonal
differentiated experiences; the depth-mystical experience empty of all
differentiable content.
Following Stace's lead, Ralph Hood developed the "Mysticism scale."
According to Hood, the introvertive mystical experience may be a common
core to mysticism independent of both culture and person, forming the
basis of a "perennial psychology".
According to Hood, "the perennialist view has strong empirical
support," since his scale yielded positive results across various
cultures, stating that mystical experience as operationalized from Stace's criteria is identical across various samples.
Although Stace's work on mysticism received a positive response,
it has also been strongly criticised in the 1970s and 1980s, for its
lack of methodological rigueur and its perennialist pre-assumptions. Major criticisms came from Steven T. Katz in his influential series of publications on mysticism and philosophy, and from Wayne Proudfoot in his Religious experience (1985).
Masson and Masson criticised Stace for using a "buried premise,"
namely that mysticism can provide valid knowledge of the world, equal to
science and logic.
A similar criticism has been voiced by Jacob van Belzen toward Hood,
noting that Hood validated the existence of a common core in mystical
experiences, but based on a test which presupposes the existence of such
a common core, noting that "the instrument used to verify Stace's
conceptualization of Stace is not independent of Stace, but based on
him."
Belzen also notes that religion does not stand on its own, but is
embedded in a cultural context, which should be taken into account.
To this criticism Hood et al. answer that universalistic tendencies in
religious research "are rooted first in inductive generalizations from
cross-cultural consideration of either faith or mysticism,"
stating that Stace sought out texts which he recognized as an
expression of mystical expression, from which he created his universal
core. Hood therefore concludes that Belzen "is incorrect when he claims
that items were presupposed."
Mystical experience
The term "mystical experience" has become synonymous with the terms "religious experience", spiritual experience and sacred experience. A "religious experience" is a subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. The concept originated in the 19th century, as a defense against the growing rationalism of western society. Wayne Proudfoot traces the roots of the notion of "religious experience" to the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher
(1768–1834), who argued that religion is based on a feeling of the
infinite. The notion of "religious experience" was used by
Schleiermacher to defend religion against the growing scientific and
secular critique. It was adopted by many scholars of religion, of which
William James was the most influential.
A broad range of western and eastern movements have incorporated and
influenced the emergence of the modern notion of "mystical experience",
such as the Perennial philosophy, Transcendentalism, Universalism, the Theosophical Society, New Thought, Neo-Vedanta and Buddhist modernism.
In mystic states we both become one
with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the
everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by
differences of clime or creed. In Hinduism, in Neoplatonism, in Sufism,
in Christian mysticism, in Whitmanism, we find the same recurring note,
so that there is about mystical utterances an eternal unanimity which
ought to make a critic stop and think, and which bring it about that the
mystical classics have, as has been said, neither birthday nor native
land.
This book is the classic study on religious or mystical experience,
which influenced deeply both the academic and popular understanding of
"religious experience". James popularized the use of the term "religious experience" in his Varieties, and influenced the understanding of mysticism as a distinctive experience which supplies knowledge of the transcendental:
Under the influence of William
James' The Varieties of Religious Experience, heavily centered on
people's conversion experiences, most philosophers' interest in
mysticism has been in distinctive, allegedly knowledge-granting
"mystical experiences.""
James emphasized the personal experience of individuals, and describes a broad variety of such experiences in The Varieties of Religious Experience. He considered the "personal religion" to be "more fundamental than either theology or ecclesiasticism", and defines religion as
...the feelings, acts, and
experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they
apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider
the divine.
According to James, mystical experiences have four defining qualities:
Ineffability. According to James the mystical experience "defies expression, that no adequate report of its content can be given in words".
Noetic quality. Mystics stress that their experiences give them
"insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect." James referred to this as the "noetic" (or intellectual) "quality" of the mystical.
Transiency. James notes that most mystical experiences have a short occurrence, but their effect persists.
Passivity. According to James, mystics come to their peak experience not as active seekers, but as passive recipients.
James recognised the broad variety of mystical schools and conflicting doctrines both within and between religions. Nevertheless,
...he shared with thinkers of his
era the conviction that beneath the variety could be carved out a
certain mystical unanimity, that mystics shared certain common
perceptions of the divine, however different their religion or
historical epoch.
According to Jesuit scholar William Harmless, "for James there was
nothing inherently theological in or about mystical experience", and felt it legitimate to separate the mystic's experience from theological claims. Harmless notes that James "denies the most central fact of religion", namely that religion is practiced by people in groups, and often in public. He also ignores ritual, the historicity of religious traditions, and theology, instead emphasizing "feeling" as central to religion.
Inducement of mystical experience
Dan Merkur makes a distinction between trance states and reverie states.
According to Merkur, in trance states the normal functions of
consciousness are temporarily inhibited, and trance experiences are not
filtered by ordinary judgements, and seem to be real and true. In reverie states, numinous experiences
are also not inhibited by the normal functions of consciousness, but
visions and insights are still perceived as being in need of
interpretation, while trance states may lead to a denial of physical
reality.
Most mystical traditions warn against an attachment to mystical
experiences, and offer a "protective and hermeneutic framework" to
accommodate these experiences. These same traditions offer the means to induce mystical experiences, which may have several origins:
Spontaneous; either apparently without any cause, or by persistent existential concerns, or by neurophysiological origins;
Neurophysiological origins, such as temporal lobe epilepsy.
Influence
The
concept of "mystical experience" has influenced the understanding of
mysticism as a distinctive experience which supplies knowledge of a
transcendental reality, cosmic unity, or ultimate truths.
Scholars, like Stace and Forman, have tended to exclude visions, near
death experiences and parapsychological phenomena from such "special
mental states," and focus on sudden experiences of oneness, though
neurologically they all seem to be related.
Criticism of the concept of "mystical experience"
The notion of "experience", however, has been criticized in religious studies today.
Robert Sharf points out that "experience" is a typical Western term,
which has found its way into Asian religiosity via western influences.
The notion of "experience" introduces a false notion of duality between
"experiencer" and "experienced", whereas the essence of kensho is the
realisation of the "non-duality" of observer and observed. "Pure experience" does not exist; all experience is mediated by intellectual and cognitive activity.
The specific teachings and practices of a specific tradition may even
determine what "experience" someone has, which means that this
"experience" is not the proof of the teaching, but a result of the teaching. A pure consciousness without concepts, reached by "cleaning the doors of perception", would be an overwhelming chaos of sensory input without coherence.
Constructivists such as Steven Katz reject any typology of experiences since each mystical experience is deemed unique.
Other critics point out that the stress on "experience" is
accompanied with favoring the atomic individual, instead of the shared
life of the community. It also fails to distinguish between episodic
experience, and mysticism as a process, that is embedded in a total
religious matrix of liturgy, scripture, worship, virtues, theology,
rituals and practices.
Richard King also points to disjunction between "mystical experience" and social justice:
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.
Perennialism, constructionism and contextualism
Scholarly research on mystical experiences in the 19th and 20th
century was dominated by a discourse on "mystical experience," laying
sole emphasis on the experiential aspect, be it spontaneous or induced
by human behavior. Perennialists regard those various experiences
traditions as pointing to one universal transcendental reality, for
which those experiences offer the prove. In this approach, mystical experiences are privatised, separated from the context in which they emerge. William James, in his The Varieties of Religious Experience,
was highly influential in further popularising this perennial approach
and the notion of personal experience as a validation of religious
truths.
The essentialist model argues that mystical experience is
independent of the sociocultural, historical and religious context in
which it occurs, and regards all mystical experience in its essence to
be the same. According to this "common core-thesis", different descriptions can mask quite similar if not identical experiences:
[P]eople can differentiate
experience from interpretation, such that different interpretations may
be applied to otherwise identical experiences".
Principal exponents of the perennialist position were William James, Walter Terence Stace, who distinguishes extroverted and introverted mysticism, in response to R. C. Zaehner's distinction between theistic and monistic mysticism; Huston Smith; and Ralph W. Hood, who conducted empirical research using the "Mysticism Scale", which is based on Stace's model.
Since the 1960s, social constructionism
argued that mystical experiences are "a family of similar experiences
that includes many different kinds, as represented by the many kinds of
religious and secular mystical reports".
The constructionist states that mystical experiences are fully
constructed by the ideas, symbols and practices that mystics are
familiar with, shaped by the concepts "which the mystic brings to, and which shape, his experience". What is being experienced is being determined by the expectations and the conceptual background of the mystic. Critics of the "common-core thesis" argue that
[N]o unmediated experience is
possible, and that in the extreme, language is not simply used to
interpret experience but in fact constitutes experience.
The principal exponent of the constructionist position is Steven T. Katz, who, in a series of publications, has made a highly influential and compelling case for the constructionist approach.
The perennial position is "largely dismissed by scholars", but "has lost none of its popularity". The contextual approach has become the common approach, and takes into account the historical and cultural context of mystical experiences.
Steven Katz – constructionism
After Walter Stace's seminal book in 1960, the general philosophy of mysticism received little attention.
But in the 1970s the issue of a universal "perennialism" versus each
mystical experience being was reignited by Steven Katz. In an
often-cited quote he states:
There are NO pure (i.e. unmediated) experiences.
Neither mystical experience nor more ordinary forms of experience give
any indication, or any ground for believing, that they are unmediated
[...] The notion of unmediated experience seems, if not
self-contradictory, at best empty. This epistemological fact seems to me
to be true, because of the sort of beings we are, even with regard to
the experiences of those ultimate objects of concern with which mystics
have had intercourse, e.g., God, Being, Nirvana, etc.
According to Katz
(1978), Stace typology is "too reductive and inflexible," reducing the
complexities and varieties of mystical experience into "improper
categories."
According to Katz, Stace does not notice the difference between
experience and interpretation, but fails to notice the epistemological
issues involved in recognizing such experiences as "mystical," and the even more fundamental issue of which conceptual framework precedes and shapes these experiences.
Katz further notes that Stace supposes that similarities in descriptive
language also implies a similarity in experience, an assumption which
Katz rejects. According to Katz, close examination of the descriptions and their contexts reveals that those experiences are not identical. Katz further notes that Stace held one specific mystical tradition to be superior and normative, whereas Katz rejects reductionist notions and leaves God as God, and Nirvana as Nirvana.
According to Paden, Katz rejects the discrimination between experiences and their interpretations.
Katz argues that it is not the description, but the experience itself
which is conditioned by the cultural and religious background of the
mystic. According to Katz, it is not possible to have pure or unmediated experience.
Yet, according to Laibelman, Katz did not say that the experience
can't be unmediated; he said that the conceptual understanding of the
experience can't be unmediated, and is based on culturally mediated
preconceptions.
According to Laibelman, misunderstanding Katz's argument has led some
to defend the authenticity of "pure consciousness events," while this is
not the issue.
Laibelman further notes that a mystic's interpretation is not
necessarily more true or correct than the interpretation of an
uninvolved observer.
Robert Forman – pure consciousness event
Robert Forman
has criticised Katz' approach, arguing that lay-people who describe
mystical experiences often notice that this experience involves a
totally new form of awareness, which can't be described in their
existing frame of reference.
Newberg argued that there is neurological evidence for the existence of
a "pure consciousness event" empty of any constructionist structuring.
Richard Jones – constructivism, anticonstructivism, and perennialism
Richard
H. Jones believes that the dispute between "constructionism" and
"perennialism" is ill-formed. He draws a distinction between
"anticonstructivism" and "perennialism": constructivism can rejected
with respect to a certain class of mystical experiences without
ascribing to a perennialist philosophy on the relation of mystical
doctrines. Constructivism versus anticonstructivism is a matter of the nature of mystical experiences themselves while perennialism is a matter of mystical traditions and the doctrines they espouse.
One can reject constructivism about the nature of mystical experiences
without claiming that all mystical experiences reveal a cross-cultural
"perennial truth". Anticonstructivists can advocate contextualism as
much as constructivists do, while perennialists reject the need to study
mystical experiences in the context of a mystic's culture since all
mystics state the same universal truth.
Contextualism and attribution theory
The theoretical study of mystical experience has shifted from an
experiential, privatised and perennialist approach to a contextual and
empirical approach.
The contextual approach, which also includes constructionism and
attribution theory, takes into account the historical and cultural
context. Neurological research takes an empirical approach, relating mystical experiences to neurological processes.
Wayne Proudfoot proposes an approach that also negates any
alleged cognitive content of mystical experiences: mystics unconsciously
merely attribute a doctrinal content to ordinary experiences. That is,
mystics project cognitive content onto otherwise ordinary experiences
having a strong emotional impact. Objections have been raised concerning Proudfoot’s use of the psychological data. This approach, however, has been further elaborated by Ann Taves. She incorporates both neurological and cultural approaches in the study of mystical experience.
Many religious and mystical traditions see religious experiences (particularly that knowledge that comes with them) as revelations caused by divine agency rather than ordinary natural processes. They are considered real encounters with God or gods, or real contact with higher-order realities of which humans are not ordinarily aware.
Lobes of the human brain (temporal lobe is shown in green)
The scientific study of mysticism today focuses on two topics:
identifying the neurological bases and triggers of mystical experiences,
and demonstrating the purported benefits of meditation.
Correlates between mystical experiences and neurological activity have
been established, pointing to the temporal lobe as the main locus for
these experiences, while Andrew B. Newberg and Eugene G. d'Aquili have
also pointed to the parietal lobe. Recent research points to the
relevance of the default mode network.
Temporal lobe
The temporal lobe generates the feeling of "I", and gives a feeling
of familiarity or strangeness to the perceptions of the senses. It seems to be involved in mystical experiences, and in the change in personality that may result from such experiences. There is a long-standing notion that epilepsy and religion are linked, and some religious figures may have had temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Raymond Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness (1901) contains several case-studies of persons who have realized "cosmic consciousness"; several of these cases are also being mentioned in J.E. Bryant's 1953 book, Genius and Epilepsy, which has a list of more than 20 people that combines the great and the mystical. James Leuba's The psychology of religious mysticism
noted that "among the dread diseases that afflict humanity there is
only one that interests us quite particularly; that disease is
epilepsy."
Slater and Beard renewed the interest in TLE and religious experience in the 1960s.
Dewhurst and Beard (1970) described six cases of TLE-patients who
underwent sudden religious conversions. They placed these cases in the
context of several western saints with a sudden conversion, who were or
may have been epileptic. Dewhurst and Beard described several aspects of
conversion experiences, and did not favor one specific mechanism.
Norman Geschwind described behavioral changes related to temporal lobe epilepsy in the 1970s and 1980s. Geschwind described cases which included extreme religiosity, now called Geschwind syndrome, and aspects of the syndrome have been identified in some religious figures, in particular extreme religiosity and hypergraphia (excessive writing).
Geschwind introduced this "interictal personality disorder" to
neurology, describing a cluster of specific personality characteristics
which he found characteristic of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.
Critics note that these characteristics can be the result of any
illness, and are not sufficiently descriptive for patients with temporal
lobe epilepsy.
Neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick,
in the 1980s and 1990s, also found a relationship between the right
temporal lobe and mystical experience, but also found that pathology or
brain damage is only one of many possible causal mechanisms for these
experiences. He questioned the earlier accounts of religious figures
with temporal lobe epilepsy, noticing that "very few true examples of
the ecstatic aura and the temporal lobe seizure had been reported in the
world scientific literature prior to 1980". According to Fenwick, "It
is likely that the earlier accounts of temporal lobe epilepsy and
temporal lobe pathology and the relation to mystic and religious states
owes more to the enthusiasm of their authors than to a true scientific
understanding of the nature of temporal lobe functioning."
The occurrence of intense religious feelings in epileptic patients in general is rare,
with an incident rate of ca. 2-3%. Sudden religious conversion,
together with visions, has been documented in only a small number of
individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy. The occurrence of religious experiences in TLE-patients may as well be explained by religious attribution, due to the background of these patients. Nevertheless, the Neuroscience of religion
is a growing field of research, searching for specific neurological
explanations of mystical experiences. Those rare epileptic patients with
ecstatic seizures may provide clues for the neurological mechanisms
involved in mystical experiences, such as the anterior insular cortex, which is involved in self-awareness and subjective certainty.
Anterior insula
The insula of the right side, exposed by removing the opercula.
A common quality in mystical experiences is ineffability,
a strong feeling of certainty which cannot be expressed in words. This
ineffability has been threatened with scepticism. According to Arthur Schopenhauer the inner experience of mysticism is philosophically unconvincing. In The Emotion Machine, Marvin Minsky argues that mystical experiences only seem profound and persuasive because the mind's critical faculties are relatively inactive during them.
Geschwind and Picard propose a neurological explanation for this subjective certainty, based on clinical research of epilepsy. According to Picard, this feeling of certainty may be caused by a dysfunction of the anterior insula, a part of the brain which is involved in interoception,
self-reflection, and in avoiding uncertainty about the internal
representations of the world by "anticipation of resolution of
uncertainty or risk". This avoidance of uncertainty functions through
the comparison between predicted states and actual states, that is,
"signaling that we do not understand, i.e., that there is ambiguity." Picard notes that "the concept of insight is very close to that of certainty," and refers to Archimedes "Eureka!"
Picard hypothesizes that in ecstatic seizures the comparison between
predicted states and actual states no longer functions, and that
mismatches between predicted state and actual state are no longer
processed, blocking "negative emotions and negative arousal arising from
predictive unceertainty," which will be experienced as emotional
confidence. Picard concludes that "[t]his could lead to a spiritual interpretation in some individuals."
Parietal lobe
Andrew B. Newberg and Eugene G. d'Aquili, in their book Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief, take a perennial stance, describing their insights into the relationship between religious experience and brain function.
d'Aquili describes his own meditative experiences as "allowing a
deeper, simpler part of him to emerge", which he believes to be "the
truest part of who he is, the part that never changes."
Not content with personal and subjective descriptions like these,
Newberg and d'Aquili have studied the brain-correlates to such
experiences. They scanned the brain blood flow patterns during such
moments of mystical transcendence, using SPECT-scans, to detect which
brain areas show heightened activity. Their scans showed unusual activity in the top rear section of the brain, the "posterior superior parietal lobe", or the "orientation association area (OAA)" in their own words. This area creates a consistent cognition of the physical limits of the self.
This OAA shows a sharply reduced activity during meditative states,
reflecting a block in the incoming flow of sensory information,
resulting in a perceived lack of physical boundaries. According to Newberg and d'Aquili,
This is exactly how Robert and generations of Eastern mystics before him have described their peak meditative, spiritual and mystical moments.
Newberg and d'Aquili conclude that mystical experience correlates to
observable neurological events, which are not outside the range of
normal brain function. They also believe that
...our research has left us no
choice but to conclude that the mystics may be on to something, that the
mind’s machinery of transcendence may in fact be a window through which
we can glimpse the ultimate realness of something that is truly divine.
Why God Won't Go Away "received very little attention from professional scholars of religion".
According to Bulkeley, "Newberg and D'Aquili seem blissfully unaware of
the past half century of critical scholarship questioning
universalistic claims about human nature and experience". Matthew Day also notes that the discovery of a neurological substrate
of a "religious experience" is an isolated finding which "doesn't even
come close to a robust theory of religion".
Default mode network
Recent studies evidenced the relevance of the default mode network in spiritual and self-transcending experiences. Its functions are related, among others, to self-reference and self-awareness,
and new imaging experiments during meditation and the use of
hallucinogens indicate a decrease in the activity of this network
mediated by them, leading some studies to base on it a probable
neurocognitive mechanism of the dissolution of the self, which occurs in
some mystical phenomena.
Spiritual development and self-transformation
In mystical and contemplative traditions, mystical experiences are
not a goal in themselves, but part of a larger path of
self-transformation. For example, the Zen Buddhist training does not end with kenshō, but practice is to be continued to deepen the insight and to express it in daily life.
To deepen the initial insight of kensho, shikantaza and kōan-study are
necessary. This trajectory of initial insight followed by a gradual
deepening and ripening is expressed by Linji Yixuan in his Three mysterious Gates, the Five Ranks, the Four Ways of Knowing of Hakuin, and the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures[130] which detail the steps on the Path.
In Hinduism, Kundalini is a form of divine feminine energy (or Shakti) believed to be located at the base of the spine, in the muladhara. It is an important concept in Śhaiva Tantra, where it is believed to be a force or power associated with the divine feminine or the formless aspect of the Goddess. This energy in the body, when cultivated and awakened through tantric practice, is believed to lead to spiritual liberation. Kuṇḍalinī is associated with Parvati or Adi Parashakti, the supreme being in Shaktism; and with the goddesses Bhairavi and Kubjika. The term, along with practices associated with it, was adopted into Hatha yoga in the 9th century. It has since then been adopted into other forms of Hinduism as well as modern spirituality and New age thought.
Kuṇḍalinī awakenings are said to occur by a variety of methods. Many systems of yoga focus on awakening Kuṇḍalinī through: meditation; pranayama breathing; the practice of asana and chanting of mantras. Kundalini Yoga is influenced by Shaktism and Tantra schools of Hinduism. It derives its name from its focus upon the awakening of kundalini energy through regular practice of Mantra, Tantra, Yantra, Asanas or Meditation. The Kuṇḍalinī experience is frequently reported to be a distinct feeling of electric current running along the spine.
Etymology
The concept of Kuṇḍalinī is mentioned in the Upanishads (9th – 7th centuries BCE). The Sanskrit adjective kuṇḍalin means "circular, annular". It is mentioned as a noun for "snake" (in the sense of "coiled") in the 12th-century Rajatarangini chronicle (I.2). Kuṇḍa (a noun meaning "bowl, water-pot" is found as the name of a Nāga (serpent deity) in Mahabharata 1.4828). The 8th-century Tantrasadbhava Tantra uses the term kundalī, glossed by David Gordon White as "she who is ring-shaped".
The use of kuṇḍalī as a name for Goddess Durga (a form of Shakti) appears often in Tantrism and Shaktism from as early as the 11th century in the Śaradatilaka. It was adopted as a technical term in Hatha yoga during the 15th century, and became widely used in the Yoga Upanishads by the 16th century. Eknath Easwaran
has paraphrased the term as "the coiled power", a force which
ordinarily rests at the base of the spine, described as being "coiled
there like a serpent".
Kuṇḍalinī arose as a central concept in Shaiva Tantra, especially among the Śākta cults like the Kaula. In these Tantric traditions, Kuṇḍalinī is "the innate intelligence of embodied Consciousness". The first possible mention of the term is in the Tantrasadbhāva-tantra (eighth century), though other earlier tantras mention the visualization of Shakti in the central channel and the upward movement of prana or vital force (which is often associated with Kuṇḍalinī in later works). According to David Gordon White, this feminine spiritual force is also termed bhogavati,
which has a double meaning of "enjoyment" and "coiled" and signifies
her strong connection to bliss and pleasure, both mundane physical
pleasure and the bliss of spiritual liberation (moksha), which is the enjoyment of Shiva's creative activity and ultimate union with the Goddess.
In the influential Shakta tradition called Kaula, Kuṇḍalinī is seen as a "latent innate spiritual power", associated with the Goddess Kubjika (lit. "the crooked one"), who is the supreme Goddess (Paradevi). She is also pure bliss and power (Shakti),
the source of all mantras, and resides in the six chakras along the
central channel. In Shaiva Tantra, various practices like pranayama, bandhas, mantra
recitation and tantric ritual were used in order to awaken this
spiritual power and create a state of bliss and spiritual liberation.
According to Abhinavagupta, the great tantric scholar and master of the Kaula and Trika lineages, there are two main forms of Kuṇḍalinī, an upward moving Kuṇḍalinī (urdhva) associated with expansion, and a downward moving Kuṇḍalinī (adha) associated with contraction. According to the scholar of comparative religion Gavin Flood, Abhinavagupta
links Kuṇḍalinī with "the power that brings into manifestation the
body, breath, and experiences of pleasure and pain", with "the power of
sexuality as the source of reproduction" and with:
"the force of the syllable ha in the mantra and the concept of aham, the supreme subjectivity as the source of all, with a as the initial movement of consciousness and m
its final withdrawal. Thus we have an elaborate series of associations,
all conveying the central conception of the cosmos as a manifestation
of consciousness, of pure subjectivity, with Kuṇḍalinī understood as the
force inseparable from consciousness, who animates creation and who, in
her particularised form in the body, causes liberation through her
upward, illusion-shattering movement."
According to William F. Williams, Kundalini is a type of religious experience within the Hindu tradition, within which it is held to be a kind of "cosmic energy" that accumulates at the base of the spine.
When awakened, Kundalini is described as rising up from the muladharachakra, through the central nadi (called sushumna) inside or alongside the spine reaching the top of the head. The progress of Kundalini through the different chakras is believed to achieve different levels of awakening and a mystical experience, until Kundalini finally reaches the top of the head, Sahasrara or crown chakra, producing an extremely profound transformation of consciousness.
Swami Sivananda Saraswati of the Divine Life Society stated in his book Kundalini Yoga
that "Supersensual visions appear before the mental eye of the
aspirant, new worlds with indescribable wonders and charms unfold
themselves before the Yogi, planes after planes reveal their existence
and grandeur to the practitioner and the Yogi gets divine knowledge,
power and bliss, in increasing degrees, when Kundalini passes through
Chakra after Chakra, making them to bloom in all their glory..."
Reports about the Sahaja Yoga technique of Kundalini awakening state that the practice can result in a cool breeze felt on the fingertips as well as the fontanel bone area.
Kundalini experiences
Invoking Kundalini experiences
Yogis such as Muktananda consider that Kundalini can be awakened by shaktipat (spiritual transmission by a Guru or teacher), or by spiritual practices such as yoga or meditation.
The passive approach is instead a path of surrender where
one lets go of all the impediments to the awakening rather than trying
to actively awaken Kundalini. A chief part of the passive approach is shaktipat
where one individual's Kundalini is awakened by another who already has
the experience. Shaktipat only raises Kundalini temporarily but gives
the student an experience to use as a basis.
He subsequently came to believe "As the ancient writers have said, it is the vital force or prana
which is spread over both the macrocosm, the entire Universe, and the
microcosm, the human body... The atom is contained in both of these.
Prana is life-energy responsible for the phenomena of terrestrial life
and for life on other planets in the universe. Prana in its universal
aspect is immaterial. But in the human body, Prana creates a fine
biochemical substance which works in the whole organism and is the main
agent of activity in the nervous system and in the brain. The brain is
alive only because of Prana...
...The
most important psychological changes in the character of an enlightened
person would be that he or she would be compassionate and more
detached. There would be less ego, without any tendency toward violence
or aggression or falsehood. The awakened life energy is the mother of
morality, because all morality springs from this awakened energy. Since
the very beginning, it has been this evolutionary energy that has
created the concept of morals in human beings.
The American comparative religions scholar Joseph Campbell
describes the concept of Kundalini as "the figure of a coiled female
serpent—a serpent goddess not of "gross" but "subtle" substance—which is
to be thought of as residing in a torpid, slumbering state in a subtle
center, the first of the seven, near the base of the spine: the aim of
the yoga then being to rouse this serpent, lift her head, and bring her
up a subtle nerve or channel of the spine to the so-called
"thousand-petaled lotus" (Sahasrara)
at the crown of the head...She, rising from the lowest to the highest
lotus center will pass through and wake the five between, and with each
waking, the psychology and personality of the practitioner will be
altogether and fundamentally transformed."
Hatha yoga
Late Kundalini model of Hatha Yoga, as described in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. This model contradicts the earlier Bindu model in the same text.
The spiritual teacher Meher Baba emphasized the need for a master when actively trying to awaken Kundalini:
Kundalini is a latent power in the higher body. When
awakened, it pierces through six chakras or functional centers and
activates them. Without a master, the awakening of the kundalini cannot
take anyone very far on the Path; and such indiscriminate or premature
awakening is fraught with dangers of self-deception as well as the
misuse of powers. The kundalini enables man to consciously cross the
lower planes and it ultimately merges into the universal cosmic power of
which it is a part, and which also is at times described as
kundalini ... The important point is that the awakened kundalini is
helpful only up to a certain degree, after which it cannot ensure
further progress. It cannot dispense with the need for the grace of a
Perfect Master.
Kundalini awakening
The experience of Kundalini awakening can happen when one is either prepared or unprepared.
According to Hindu tradition, in order to be able to integrate
this spiritual energy, a period of careful purification and
strengthening of the body and nervous system is usually required
beforehand. Yoga and Tantra propose that Kundalini can be awakened by a guru (teacher), but body and spirit must be prepared by yogic austerities, such as pranayama,
or breath control, physical exercises, visualization, and chanting. The
student is advised to follow the path in an open-hearted manner.
Traditionally, people visited ashrams
in India to awaken their dormant kundalini energy with regular
meditation, mantra chanting, spiritual studies and physical asana
practice such as kundalini yoga.
Religious interpretations
Indian interpretations
Kundalini is considered to occur in the chakra and nadis of the subtle body. Each chakra is said to contain special characteristics and with proper training, moving Kundalini through these chakras can help express or open these characteristics.
Kundalini is described as a sleeping, dormant potential force in the human organism. It is one of the components of an esoteric description of the "subtle body", which consists of nadis (energy channels), chakras (psychic centres), prana (subtle energy), and bindu (drops of essence).
Kundalini is described as being coiled up at the base of the
spine. The description of the location can vary slightly, from the
rectum to the navel. Kundalini is said to reside in the triangular sacrum bone in three and a half coils.
Swami Vivekananda describes Kundalini briefly in his book Raja Yoga as follows:
According to the Yogis, there are two nerve currents in the spinal column, called Pingalâ and Idâ, and a hollow canal called Sushumnâ
running through the spinal cord. At the lower end of the hollow canal
is what the Yogis call the "Lotus of the Kundalini". They describe it as
triangular in a form in which, in the symbolical language of the Yogis,
there is a power called the Kundalini, coiled up. When that Kundalini
awakens, it tries to force a passage through this hollow canal, and as
it rises step by step, as it were, layer after layer of the mind becomes
open and all the different visions and wonderful powers come to the
Yogi. When it reaches the brain, the Yogi is perfectly detached from the
body and mind; the soul finds itself free. We know that the spinal cord
is composed in a peculiar manner. If we take the figure eight
horizontally (∞), there are two parts which are connected in the middle.
Suppose you add eight after eight, piled one on top of the other, that
will represent the spinal cord. The left is the Ida, the right Pingala,
and that hollow canal which runs through the center of the spinal cord
is the Sushumna. Where the spinal cord ends in some of the lumbar vertebrae,
a fine fiber issues downwards, and the canal runs up even within that
fiber, only much finer. The canal is closed at the lower end, which is
situated near what is called the sacral plexus, which, according to
modern physiology, is triangular in form. The different plexuses that
have their centers in the spinal canal can very well stand for the
different "lotuses" of the Yogi.
At the command of the yogi in deep
meditation, this creative force turns inward and flows back to its
source in the thousand-petaled lotus, revealing the resplendent inner
world of the divine forces and consciousness of the soul and spirit.
Yoga refers to this power flowing from the coccyx to spirit as the
awakened kundalini.
Paramahansa Yogananda also states:
The yogi reverses the searchlights
of intelligence, mind and life force inward through a secret astral
passage, the coiled way of the kundalini in the coccygeal plexus, and
upward through the sacral, the lumbar, and the higher dorsal, cervical,
and medullary plexuses, and the spiritual eye at the point between the
eyebrows, to reveal finally the soul's presence in the highest center
(Sahasrara) in the brain.
Western significance
Sir John Woodroffe
(1865–1936) – also known by his pseudonym Arthur Avalon – was a British
Orientalist whose published works stimulated a far-reaching interest in
Hindu philosophy and Yogic practices. While serving as a High Court Judge in Calcutta, he studied Sanskrit and Hindu Philosophy, particularly as it related to Hindu Tantra. He translated numerous original Sanskrit texts and lectured on Indian philosophy, Yoga and Tantra. His book, The Serpent Power: The Secrets of Tantric and Shaktic Yoga became a major source for many modern Western adaptations of Kundalini yoga
practice. It presents an academically and philosophically sophisticated
translation of, and commentary on, two key Eastern texts: Shatchakranirūpana (Description and Investigation into the Six Bodily Centers) written by Tantrik Pūrnānanda Svāmī (1526) and the Paduka-Pancakā
from the Sanskrit of a commentary by Kālīcharana (Five-fold Footstool
of the Guru). The Sanskrit term "Kundali Shakti" translates as "Serpent
Power". Kundalini is thought to be an energy released within an
individual using specific meditation techniques. It is represented
symbolically as a serpent coiled at the base of the spine.
In his book Artistic Form and Yoga in the Sacred Images of India, Heinrich Zimmer wrote in praise of the writings of Sir John Woodroffe:
The values of the Hindu tradition
were disclosed to me through the enormous life-work of Sir John
Woodroffe, alias Arthur Avalon, a pioneer and a classic author in Indic
studies, second to none, who, for the first time, by many publications
and books made available the extensive and complex treasure of late Hindu tradition: the Tantras, a period as grand and rich as the Vedas, the Epic, Puranas,
etc.; the latest crystallization of Indian wisdom, the indispensable
closing link of a chain, affording keys to countless problems in the
history of Buddhism and Hinduism, in mythology and symbolism.
When Woodroffe later commented upon the reception of his work he
clarified his objective, "All the world (I speak of course of those
interested in such subjects) is beginning to speak of Kundalinî Shakti."
He described his intention as follows: "We, who are foreigners, must
place ourselves in the skin of the Hindu, and must look at their doctrine and ritual through their eyes and not our own."
Western awareness of kundalini was strengthened by the interest of Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Dr. Carl Jung
(1875–1961). Jung's seminar on Kundalini yoga presented to the
Psychological Club in Zurich in 1932 was widely regarded as a milestone
in the psychological understanding of Eastern thought and of the symbolic transformations of inner experience. Kundalini yoga presented Jung with a model for the developmental phases of higher consciousness,
and he interpreted its symbols in terms of the process of
individuation, with sensitivity towards a new generation's interest in
alternative religions and psychological exploration.
In the introduction to Jung's book The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga, Sonu Shamdasani
puts forth "The emergence of depth psychology was historically
paralleled by the translation and widespread dissemination of the texts
of yoga... for the depth psychologies sought to liberate themselves from
the stultifying limitations of Western thought to develop maps of inner
experience grounded in the transformative potential of therapeutic
practices. A similar alignment of "theory" and "practice" seemed to be
embodied in the yogic texts that moreover had developed independently of
the bindings of Western thought. Further, the initiatory structure
adopted by institutions of psychotherapy brought its social organization
into proximity with that of yoga. Hence, an opportunity for a new form
of comparative psychology opened up."
The American writer William Buhlman, began to conduct an
international survey of out-of-body experiences in 1969 in order to
gather information about symptoms: sounds, vibrations and other
phenomena, that commonly occur at the time of the OBE event. His
primary interest was to compare the findings with reports made by yogis,
such as Gopi Krishna (yogi) who have made reference to similar phenomenon, such as the 'vibrational state' as components of their kundalini-related spiritual experience. He explains:
There are numerous reports of full
Kundalini experiences culminating with a transcendental out-of-body
state of consciousness. In fact, many people consider this experience to
be the ultimate path to enlightenment. The basic premise is to
encourage the flow of Kundalini energy up the spine and toward the top
of the head—the crown chakra—thus
projecting your awareness into the higher heavenly dimensions of the
universe. The result is an indescribable expansion of consciousness into
spiritual realms beyond form and thought.
Sri Aurobindo
was the other great scholarly authority on Kundalini, with a viewpoint
parallel to that of Woodroffe but of a somewhat different slant - this
according to Mary Scott, herself a latter-day scholar on Kundalini and
its physical basis, and a former member of the Theosophical Society.
New Age
Kundalini references may be found in a number of New Age presentations, and is a word that has been adopted by many new religious movements.
Psychology
According to Carl Jung "... the concept of Kundalini has for us only one use, that is, to describe our own experiences with the unconscious ..."
Jung used the Kundalini system symbolically as a means of understanding
the dynamic movement between conscious and unconscious processes.
According to Shamdasani, Jung claimed that the symbolism of
Kundalini yoga suggested that the bizarre symptomatology that patients
at times presented, actually resulted from the awakening of the
Kundalini. He argued that knowledge of such symbolism enabled much that
would otherwise be seen as the meaningless by-products of a disease
process to be understood as meaningful symbolic processes, and
explicated the often peculiar physical localizations of symptoms.
The popularization of eastern spiritual practices has been
associated with psychological problems in the west. Psychiatric
literature notes that "since the influx of eastern spiritual practices
and the rising popularity of meditation starting in the 1960s, many
people have experienced a variety of psychological difficulties, either
while engaged in intensive spiritual practice or spontaneously".
Among the psychological difficulties associated with intensive
spiritual practice we find "Kundalini awakening", "a complex
physio-psychospiritual transformative process described in the yogic
tradition". Researchers in the fields of Transpersonal psychology, and Near-death studies
have described a complex pattern of sensory, motor, mental and
affective symptoms associated with the concept of Kundalini, sometimes
called the Kundalini syndrome.
The differentiation between spiritual emergency associated with Kundalini awakening may be viewed as an acute psychotic episode by psychiatrists who are not conversant with the culture. The biological changes of increased P300
amplitudes that occurs with certain yogic practices may lead to acute
psychosis. Biological alterations by Yogic techniques may be used to
warn people against such reactions.
Some modern experimental research seeks to establish links between Kundalini practice and the ideas of Wilhelm Reich and his followers.
