Meditation and perception: some notes on the psychology of religious mysticism

Abstract

The study of mysticism must be carried on with more attention paid to the meditative techniques used by mystics and to the problems of perception. In this paper the author presents some remarks on the difference between Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross, and then mentions some recent studies of meditation and some problems of perception. If meditative techniques have become of great importance in psychotheraphy, the organismic approach of the "mindcurers" and their results will permit us to complete phenomenological descriptions of mystic conscious states with more exact information of their physiological conditions. In this way "mystical experiences" in general can be seen as results of meditative techniques and we need not regard "an hysterical predisposition" of the subject as their necessary condition.