Expansion Of Consciousness Research Articles

An Evaluation of Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha's Foreign Policy

Abstract Historiographical tradition has tended to view the Köprülü-era foreign policy as one of conscious expansion, fueled by religious fervor. The descriptions of the seventeenth-century Ottoman chroniclers to that effect influenced the researchers of the twenty-first-century, too. However, in the reports of European diplomatic representatives active in Istanbul at the time, we see that the expansionary policy in the Köprülü period was not actually a pre-planned phenomenon with religious motivations; it was more likely that the grand viziers responded to the urgent problems arising from the political conjuncture of the period. To be more precise, this study argues that events such as the Érsekújvár Expedition (1663), the Siege of Candia (1667-69), and the Campaign of Kamieniec (1672), which all took place during the reign of Köprülü Fazıl Ahmet Pasha (r. 1661-76), could not be explained by religious motivations alone. Instead, the present study argues that a better way to understand Fazıl Ahmed Pasha's foreign policy is interpreting it from an international relations perspective through the neoclassical realist parameters of the individual, state structure, and international system.

Sufism and Mysticism: Short Biography of Hazrat Abdul Qadir Jeelani (R.A)

Sufism is a mystic body of religious practice found in Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic purification, spirituality, ritualism, asceticism and esotericism. Sufism is a path of spiritual advancements cum expansion of consciousness leading to awareness of self in the universe. The practice of Sufism leads to the development of innate spiritual and initiative abilities. Ancient Kashmir has been a practical place of stay and meditation for the saints, Sufis, Rishis and other devoted worshipers of Allah. The philosophy spread along the valley after the arrival of Sufis from central Asia. As necessitated by love's jealousy, the Sufi is taken away from all except the Truth. One of the most important doctrines of Sufism is the concept of the "Perfect Man" al-Insan al- Kamil. This doctrine states that there will always exist upon the earth a "Qutb" - a man who is the perfect channel of grace from God to man and in a state of wilaya sanctity, being under the protection of God. This paper is an attempt to understand the Short Biography of Sufi saint, Hazrat Abdul Qadir Jeelani (R.A)

Integration of Sufism and Transpersonal Psychology

This research explores the valuable intersections and synergies between Sufism and transpersonal psychology, focusing on how these two disciplines can provide deep insights and solutions to social and individual challenges in the modern era. Facing an identity crisis, existential anxiety, and an increasingly urgent search for the meaning of life, this study shows that Sufism and transpersonal psychology offer rich alternative perspectives and practices for answering these existential questions. Through a phenomenological qualitative methodology, the research collected and analyzed data from in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with students and supervisors at the Al-Huda Islamic Boarding School in Central Lombok, an environment rich in spiritual and academic practices. The research results show that integrating Sufistic spiritual understanding and transpersonal psychological insight facilitates holistic self-development, providing guidance for achieving higher consciousness and a more meaningful life. In this context, Sufism, with its focus on the direct experience of the divine presence, and transpersonal psychology, emphasizing the expansion of consciousness beyond the ego, both serve as valuable guides in navigating the complexities of human existence. This research underlines that the dialogue between Islamic spiritual traditions and modern psychological science enriches our theoretical understanding and daily practice in dealing with contemporary issues, offering new views on the potential for self-integration and achieving spiritual depth in the current era.

Effects of an empathy enhancement program using patient stories on attitudes and stigma toward mental illness among nursing students.

This study aims to explore the impact of an empathy intervention through patients' stories and investigate its impact on attitudes and stigma toward mental illness among nursing students prone to hold prejudices against this condition. Using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design, this study focused on nursing students and examined the effects of an empathy enhancement program targeting individuals with mental illnesses on communication, social distance, and prejudice. Ninety third-year nursing students from S and C cities and H and C universities enrolled in psychiatric nursing courses participated in the study. The intervention lasted 4 weeks and used the patient's story to facilitate a participatory approach to understanding the patient's life and encouraging mutual growth and expansion of consciousness in the therapeutic relationship. Age was treated as a covariate and analyzed using a two-way repeated-measure analysis of covariance. The Empathy Enhancement Program Using Patient Stories (EEP-PS) group and the clinical practicum group showed no significant differences in communication, social distance, and empathy scores between the two groups or across different time points. However, variations were observed when examining specific subdomains within each group and across time points. Informative communication (F = 10.34, p = 0.002) and affiliative communication (F = 21.60, p < 0.001), which are subcategories of communication, increased significantly in the posttest compared to the pretest. Among social distances, interpersonal-physical distance decreased significantly in the posttest compared to the pretest (F = 31.02, p < 0.001). Prejudice of incompetence (F = 6.52, p = 0.012) and prejudice of risk (F = 14.37, p < 0.001) were significantly lower in the posttest than in the pretest. Both the EEP-PS and clinical practicum groups experienced improvements in communication, social distance, and prejudice toward individuals with mental illness. This study suggests that direct patient interactions and the use of patient narratives as indirect methods are effective approaches for enhancing attitudes and reducing stigma toward mental illness among nursing students.

ЯЗЫК, СМЫСЛ, ОСОЗНАННОСТЬ: АСПЕКТЫ ОБУСЛОВЛЕННОСТИ

The question of correlation between languages of science and art should be considered in the context of solving a more general problem of connection between language, meaning, and the cognitive status of the receptivity realization in the process of a human’s individuation. An analysis of the prerequisites for the linguistic competence formation at the stage being ontogenetically earlier than the stage of isolated cognitive agents’ functioning, reveals new aspects of the contiguity of expressive resources and the experience that determines them. Reconstruction of some methodologically significant points of perceptive prenatal development introduces into epistemological discourse some layers of meanings that are innovative in their structure, fundamentally different from the structure of the contents that the subject manipulates in the postnatal period. Based on a logical-and-methodological analysis of the non-dual format of the implementation of cognition, the paper substantiates the possibility of a special kind of perceptualcommunicative procedures (expansion of consciousness, leap of awareness, «coming into being as a consciousness») that are capable of generating fundamentally new meaning schemas than those that a person uses in his individuated being-in-the-world. The mode of awareness leap as a basis of the linguistic competence formation becomes distinguishable in the optics of logical-and-methodological analysis of the non-dual stage of the perception coming into being. Such peculiar resources are correlated with the state of the subject’s cognitive integrity, when dissociation into thought and feeling, knowledge and beauty is not just absent, but is impossible. This is a state of indivisible mix of impressions, manifesting itself as a prerequisite, condition, source of formation of simultaneously fused meanings. Modal affiliation of these is not determined since the phenomenon of modal attribution at the stage of formation and functioning of such contents is not actualized. The proposed perspective of a deeper interpretation of the origins of the emergence of figurative and symbolic means of representing experience allows us to transform the optics of perception of a person’s cognitive potential in the context of more basic conditioning resources.

Robert Silverberg on drug themes in SF: toward an expansion of consciousness?

Robert Silverberg on drug themes in SF: toward an expansion of consciousness?

Phenomenological characteristics of auto-induced cognitive trance and Mahorikatan® trance.

Trance states include various practices characterized by a modulation of consciousness, but with their own specific characteristics and induction techniques. They have been very seldom scientifically studied, and their phenomenological similarities and differences are poorly documented. This paper will focus on two types of Western trances developed after the leaders were trained in traditional shamanic communities: the auto-induced cognitive trance (AICT) and the Mahorikatan® trance (MT). Twenty-five AICT and 26 MT participants who were able to self-induce the trance state completed questionnaires about their trance practice (e.g. context of the first trance episode, frequency of practice, and consequences on personal life) and the phenomenological characteristics (i.e. emotional, physical, and cognitive) of the trance episodes they experienced. These characteristics were compared to explore similarities and differences between the two trance states. AICT and MT are characterized by the expression of different emotions, modification of various perceptions, a feeling of unicity (i.e. being completely oneself), and an expansion of consciousness. AICT participants commonly reported body movements, vocalizations, as well as increased creativity, visions of entities and/or places, and feeling of interaction with the environment. MT participants commonly reported a feeling of body dissolution. Most participants in both groups reported positive effects of their trance practice on their personal life. These results helped characterize AICT and MT, as well as their similarities and differences. Further studies should continue to explore the characteristics of such trance states, as well as their potential clinical applications.

Tronick's still face experiments: their relevance to couple therapy

The author describes the work of Tronick and associated mother–infant researchers, who have added to a deep understanding of analyst–patient dyadic interactions. As an analytically oriented couples therapist, the author is particularly interested in applying Tronick's dyadic system to the triadic one that is couples therapy. A clinical example is used to explore Tronick's concepts of interactive regulation, mismatch, rupture and repair, meaning making, dyadic expansion of consciousness, and the here and now, as they relate to couples therapy.

Finding “Sense” without Co-Presence: The Role of Aesthetic Sensibility in an Ontological Approach to Psychoanalysis

ABSTRACT Aesthetic sensibility is a feature of an ontological approach to psychoanalysis. The author writes about an analysis that switched to video work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Without co-presence, the analyst found sensorial substitutes for in-person contact with the patient through her aesthetic experiences of a film, a song, and a poem, which served as transitional spaces for analytic functioning. This was central in facilitating an affective, embodied contact – a felt-sense – with the experience of separation during the pandemic. The analyst’s aesthetic engagement can enable connectivity within the analytic field and mediate an expansion of consciousness in analytic work.

아유르베다 체험의 교육적 의미: “건강하게 사는 방법의 발견을 통한 의식의 확장”

We aimed to interpret the 10 Ayurveda experts’ experiences through Van Mannon's hermeneutic phenomenology. After interviewing the research participants and analyzing 162 meaningful statements in 9 themes, we organized the 9 themes into 3 categories: the contexts of Ayurvedic experiences, the contents of Ayurvedic experiences, and the educational meanings of Ayurvedic experiences. The 10 research participants participated in the Ayurveda program to heal their bodies and minds, which were the bottom of their lives, and to prepare for a second life as counselors. The participants of this study learned the theory of Ayurveda, changed their diet and lifestyle, and furthermore, awakened to a self-directed life. The educational meanings of the Ayurvedic experiences were found as following: 'discovery of ways to live healthy', 'improving the quality of life', and 'expansion of consciousness'. This study implied that Ayurveda will be helpful to educational growth of all people who pursue health as well as Ayurvedic experts in education and counseling.

Acid feminism: Gender, psychonautics and the politics of consciousness

Psychedelic substances have undergone a transformation in the public consciousness over the last 15 years. However, the most influential first-person narratives of psychonauts and ‘scientist-shamans’ navigating the frontiers of consciousness have tended to entirely exclude women’s experiences and voices. Psychedelic feminism, has emerged to signify the role consciousness expansion and experimentation might play in rejuvenating feminism’s collective imagination, and undoing the historical silencing of women’s voices in psychedelic culture and research. Drawing on Mark Fisher’s work on acid communism, the feminist psychedelic humanities, narcofeminism and autobiographical life-writing by women on experimental psychedelic substance use, this article investigates the promise of acid feminism for the wider narcofeminist movement, and its implications for undoing some key precepts endemic in psychedelic culture and research.

The Expansion of Consciousness during Mystical Experiences: The Example of Moses

What happens in the brain during meditation? Neuroscientists such as Andrew Newberg, who studies religious experiences on the neural level, may provide an answer. He calls the devolution, which is similar to all mystical experiences in different faiths, self-transcendent experience (STE); in a further instance, he also calls it the feeling of Absolute Unitary Being (AUB). A more detailed consideration of related issues is done by examining the human expansion of consciousness in Islamic mysticism based on an event depicted in the Qurʾān, namely Mosesʾ desire to talk to or see God, his subsequent unconsciousness due to the awe of God, and his subsequent attainment of a new consciousness. The following paper will have a brief look at the case of Moses and aims to investigate the states of consciousness during such experiences. Here, an attempt will be made to trace and prove a connection between neuroscience and the mystical state of the feeling of union with God. In doing so, particular attention will be paid to the state of the encounter between Moses and God. From a neuropsychological point of view, the question will be investigated whether the special spiritual experiences such as those of Moses can be measured, and within this framework, different consciousness models will be presented. Can Newberg’s STE or AUB theory be regarded equally with the fanāʾ state? Finally, which kind of psychological experience is applicable to Moses will be examined.

Is Burnout Related to Spiritual Intelligence? Correlation Between Burnout and Spiritual Intelligence Among Residents of an Iranian Dental School

Background: Burnout during stressful dental residency courses can adversely affect the personal abilities and competencies of residents. This study aimed to investigate burnout and its relationship with spiritual intelligence in Mashhad Dental School residents in 2019-2018. Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study, approximately all the dental residents of Mashhad Dental School participated in the survey. Demographic information questionnaire, Maslach burnout questionnaire, and David B. King’s (2008) Spiritual Intelligence Scale were used to collect data. Finally, SPSS software (version 20) was employed for data analysis. Results: Overall, 53 women (52%) and 49 men (48%) with a mean age of 27.83 years participated in this study (a response rate of 97%). The mean score of burnout was 58.75. Residents also had a low reduced personal accomplishment, moderate emotional fatigue, and moderate depersonalization. The mean scores of spiritual intelligence and its sub-scales, including critical existential thinking, production of personal meaning, awareness transcendence, and consciousness expansion were 51.91, 15.66, 13.19, and 14.67, respectively. Personal accomplishment was significantly correlated with overall spiritual intelligence (P&lt;0.001, r=0.404) and its sub-scales, including producing personal meaning (P=0.009, r=0.26), transcendental awareness (P&lt;0.001, r=0.382) critical thinking (P=0.04, r=0.2), and conscious state expansion (P&lt;0.001, r=0.356). Eventually, there was no significant difference between burnout and spiritual intelligence and their sub-scales regarding gender, marital status, and school year (P&lt;0.05). Conclusions: Mashhad Dental residents showed moderate levels of emotional fatigue and spiritual intelligence. Accordingly, there is a need for planning strategies to reduce burnout.

Toutes les expériences extraordinaires se ressemblent-elles ? Une approche qualitative des différents types d’expériences extraordinaires

An extraordinary experience (ExE), as the name suggests, is an experience that is out of the ordinary and which does not fit the model of known reality in terms of qualities and processes. The challenge for researchers in this field is to determine whether an ExE is a psychopathological symptom that must be treated or an expansion of consciousness that should be supported and encouraged. Several studies have focused on better defining one or the other of these phenomena or on creating scales of measurement to distinguish them. ObjectiveIn the present study, the objective is to establish a correlation between all the extraordinary experiences in order to investigate and identify the common aspects that characterize them. This first step will make it possible to improve our knowledge of this subject in order to create, in the medium term, a screening instrument that will help psychiatric practitioners to adapt the follow-up of those individuals who have had particular experiences. MethodTwenty-seven participants concerned by this theme shared their stories with three researchers who qualitatively analyzed their content in order to identify common characteristics. ResultsTwenty-three similar categories in terms of thematic content emerged. Five important steps were identified that help to understand ExE as a dynamic process with a beginning, a passage, a middle, a return, and an end phase that results in positive psychological and personal consequences. ConclusionThe qualitative analysis of all combined extraordinary experiences has made it possible to identify 23 common aspects that reveal themselves along a dynamic temporal process. The results tend to show that this type of experience leads to positive changes in those concerned rather than in psychopathological symptoms.

THE ROLE OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE IN LIMITING CULTURAL DEVIATION IN THE ERA OF CYBERBULLYING

Today, some directions of cultural processes in the Republic of Kazakhstan have deviated from their natural nature and become propagandists of Western culture, which are only imitators. This process weakens national taste and consciousness, and at the same time begins to gradually displace the nation from its traditional culture. Imitation makes its conscious expansion into the national culture, especially the consciousness of young people. From the point of view of taking advantage of this moment, some public organizations, using elements of mass culture, adapt it to the sources of a single commercial project. If we note the reasons for allowing such a negative attitude, we should note the decline in cultural tastes, the regression of the formation and differentiation of value systems in culture and art, the lack of control by management organizations over the penetration and spread of foreign cultural movements. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the influence of the cyberbullying process, which is formed on the basis of information flow. These processes ultimately lead to the decline of real art and the deviation of national culture. Key words: philosophy of culture, western and eastern dichotomy, cultural deviation, western civilization, eastern spirituality, national consciousness, era of cyberbullying.

Psychonauts and Seekers: West German Entanglements in the Spiritual Turn of the Global 1960s and 1970s

This essay focuses on West Germany as exemplary global-local intersection of the spiritual turn in the long 1960s. It shows how spirituality as practices and beliefs seeking a closer connection with the divine within or outside religious groups experienced a multifaceted renaissance in the countercultures of the long 1960s. In this spiritual quest contemporary explorations in the expansion of consciousness and the increasing interest in meditation were pivotal practices. The essay reflects the international exchange of knowledge about body-mind practices from Amazonia and Mexico to the United States, India and West Germany, showing how actors were influenced by international and national connections. Practitioners found the practices of spirituality neither in Christian contemplative traditions nor in Jewish versions, but in various forms of what seekers received and practised as Hinduism or Buddhism, etc., that gave contemporary followers and seekers a means of connecting to higher truths – to God – without God.

Proyecto Intersexual

I am a Mexican intersex artist and activist who has desecrated the secrecy around intersex through artistic practice here in Mexico and the world. I consider my work to be enraged and ambiguous, raw and powerful.I am interested in art as a process and matrix that generates new meanings, as a weapon for deconstruction and expansion of consciousness, as a mirror of the brutality and beauty of this world. Multidisciplinarity, critical thinking, and the anthropology of my own experience are the tools with which I investigate the social reality that I traverse.Proyecto Intersexual is a puzzle composed with the fragments of my own body and memory. It is the furious shout of a wounded and humiliated animal that bears testimony to the hypocrisy and cruelty of society and its structures.

A model for abolitionist narrative medicine pedagogy

To use narrative medicine as a means for action towards social justice in medical education, we need a renewal of our pedagogical methods that grapples not just with the worlds...

Decentralization Processes as Outstanding Feature of the Postmodern Information Society in the Context of a Post-Pandemic Development

The modern information society is characterized by such a phenomenon as decentralization processes. Such a tendency is connected with many factors of our time, but the interest and interest in the region, a separate territory, and a certain territorial unit are also factors and factors. Regionalism can be considered in two ways: firstly, how the organization of society is objectively determined by historical, economic and other factors, that is, in a theoretical context; secondly, as the evolution of certain territories, as an integral object, it analyzes the process of regional construction of space. Therefore, regionalism is a phenomenon characterized by the intensification of regional interactions, the strengthening of local cooperation institutions, the creation of associations on a regional basis. Most often, researchers define regionalism as a process of conscious expansion and intensification is limited to extraneous interactions between countries related to geographical proximity, the similarity of conditions and forms of life in order to positive effects of group cooperation in various spheres of life. On the one hand, regionalism is associated with integration processes, and on the other, regionalism, as a scientific discipline, was born in response to the inability of the existing theory of integration to explain the processes of cooperation outside Europe

Diversity and Inclusion in Integral Education: A Teaching Perspective of Integral Psychology

This article offers reflections and proposes practices that embody principles of diversity and inclusion while embracing spirituality in higher education. This approach to integral education is informed by the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and Haridas Chaudhuri, founders of the California Institute of Integral Studies. It blends Eastern philosophy with Western thought, towards holistic education and experiential learning. This integral frame values both spirituality and diversity in experiential learning, emphasizing the role of the teacher in the educational process. In this pedagogy, the professor facilitates learning and transformation through deep personal inquiry of multicultural identity, group dynamics, productive dialogue, inclusion of diverse perspectives in classroom lectures, and practices of yoga and meditation. Relational and embodied, the instructor explores cultural, social, and political positionalities that lead students to further learn from their cultural backgrounds and relational patterns, opening up the possibility for a spiritual experience in an educational setting. These classroom explorations lead to the improvement of interpersonal capacities, multicultural awareness, self-knowledge and authenticity, expansion of consciousness, and ultimately better citizenship. The self-actualized instructor embedded in a transpersonal worldview within a spiritual epistemology of teaching further develops the efficacy of their role by acknowledging the multicultural fabric of students’ lives. This pedagogy may contribute to the evolution of consciousness.