The Enigma of Pure Conciousness Incorporating the Neurophysiology of Mysticism

Date of Award

2008

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Langston, Douglas

Keywords

Mysticism, Consciousness, Mystical Experience

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

The religious and philosophical literature on mysticism is rife with speculations about the phenomenology of mystical experience, but it does not address these issues vis-�-vis neurophysiology. Scholarship on comparative mysticism has centered on unsophisticated notions of the mind, which limits the discussion in favor of a priori assumptions rather than critical assessment of what is empirically known about the brain. Couching the argument in more scientific and contemporary terminology, I attempt to bring clarity to a debate that ended thanks to the ascendancy of constructivist epistemologies and agendas of religious pluralism. Experiments conducted on mystics and meditators suggest that the structure of the brain does not preclude there being a particular type of mystical experience, the Pure Consciousness Event (PCE), that can be accessible to anyone who instantiates certain neurophysiological processes. The PCE is not mediated by biographical and contextual schemas but by noncognitive properties of consciousness that all humans share; as such, one�s cognitive religious beliefs neither inform nor interfere with the phenomenon as it occurs. I defend a soft version of decontextualism, which claims that while there is no essence of all mystical experience, the PCE is not flavored by the conceptual systems of particular religions and is therefore available to mystics of any tradition.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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