Ninth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

This paper presents interdisciplinary humanities research on Jewish and Christian mysticism in comparison with Daniel J. Siegel’s model of interpersonal neurobiology and Thomas Metzinger’s cognitive work on the phenomenal self as a process of becoming. On basis of a multi-year interdisciplinary collaboration on the study of Jewish and Christian mystical traditions, the presenters argue four propositions. Paralinguistic mystical practices on the threshold of the spoken, sung, and written word function as key interpersonal neurobiological tools to create community health and psychophysiological phenomenal selves-in-process and selves-in-community; Although both Judaism and Christianity are generally described as “religions of the book,” this literacy-biased descriptor is misleading if applied as an exclusivist definition. Letters, words, and sentences augmented or replaced by gestures and extra-verbal rituals have been communally understood to carry intrinsic creative and/or destructive power. The neurobiological shift in emphasis on the power of sound and spoken word collapses the traditional religious distinction between “low” magic and “high” religion, “folk” and “elite” spirituality. To become fully socialized as participants in a religious culture, all members of a religious community must develop a minimum of mystical comprehension of paralinguistic practices. We argue that defined in this way, mysticism as a spectrum of practices thus has never been marginal as many scholars have claimed, but indeed has been central to religious identity formation. Scientific insights from neurobiology and mindful awareness training rehabilitate the status of mystical traditions that have been practiced over the span of two and half millennia, but often understood to be marginal.