Muslimsk mystik. Ur psykologisk synvinkel

Författare

Antoon Geels

Summary, in English

The scientific study of mysticism includes at least the following dimensions: the mystical experience, its consequences in the life of the mystic, ritual behavior, and intellectual and traditional aspects. The author distinguishes between two types of mystical experience: the cataphatic type and the apophatic type, also know as via affirmativa and the via negativa. The study is psychological in the sense that the author focuses on Islamic mysticism’s experiential and behavioral aspects, the first and third dimensions mentioned above. Some fundamental questions in the study are: How is human personality described by Islamic mystics? Which techniques are used in order to reach beyond personality defined as such? What kind of experiences do these exercises lead to? To what end does the mystic pursue these activities?

Using scholarly translations of Sufi texts and modern research on Islamic mysticism (that is, Sufism), the author presents influential Sufis from Morocco in the West to Indonesia in the East. The thematic and chronological presentation of their ideas is then analyzed from en ego-psychological perspective. Mystical techniques, such as different types of meditation, repetitive prayer, isolation, and ascetic practices like fasting, staying awake, are described as aspects of social, sensory, sleep, and nutritive deprivation. The numerous examples of visionary (cataphatic) experiences are described as auto-symbolic representations of such intrapsychic needs as the need to feel the confirmation of being divinely chosen. The apophatic experience of mystical death, i.e. the annihilation of personality, is described in terms of an inhibition, not only of the functional dimensions of the complex ego-structure, but also of its inner representations, including the representation of the I as an active agent.

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