Table of Contents
Foreword Steven C. Schachter ix
Introduction 1
1 Justification of a Neurocognitive Approach to Mystical Experiences 5
1 Four Main Approaches to Mystical Experiences 5
2 A "Bottom-Up" Approach to Mystical Experiences 9
3 Experiences, Radiations, and Cognitive Techniques 10
4 Technical Constructivism from Within the Brain: Limitations 13
2 Approaching Ecstatic Experiences 18
1 Ecstasy and the Subjective Experiences 18
2 Ecstasy in Judaism 22
3 Four Basic Level of Ecstasy in Jewish Mysticism 29
4 Four Types of Ecstatic Experience in Jewish Mysticism 30
5 Ecstasy and the Cognitive Neuroscience of the Self 32
3 The One out Three: Autoscopic Phenomena in Jewish Mysticism 35
1 Ex-Stasis: Out of the Body 35
2 Autoscopic Phenomena 36
3 Autoscopic Phenomena in Ecstatic Kabbalah 41
4 Personal Reports of Mystical Experiences 52
5 Analyzing Mystical Experiences 69
6 Autoscopic, Ascension, and Unitive Ecstasies: Different Kabbalistic Trends, Different Brain Mechanisms 77
7 Conclusion 83
4 The Spirit in the Brain: Trance and Possession in Jewish Mysticism 85
1 Dissociative Trance Disorders 85
2 Maggid and Dibbuq 89
3 The Maggid and Its Induction 91
4 Personal Reports of Mystical Dissociative Experiences 93
5 Maggid, Dibbuq, and the Brain 101
6 Maggid and Dibbug: Two Selves in One Person 111
Conclusions 113
1 Some Final Methodological Remarks 113
2 Ecstatic Kabbalah as a Seminal Investigation of the Human Self 116
Appendix A The External and Internal World: Functional Networks in the Human Brain 119
1 Large-Scale Networks in the Human Brain: Function and Anatomy 119
2 The External and Internal Worlds 131
3 Integration of Information in the Brain 135
4 Embodiment, Subjectivity, and Integration 138
5 Conclusion 140
Appendix B Abraham Abulafia the Mystic and His Theory and Technique 141
Notes 147
Bibliography 163
Acknowledgments 189
Index 192
