The Fulcrum of Experience in Indian Yoga and Possession Trance

Bibliographic Data

ID3501835
AuthorsFiona M Smith (0000-0002-4789-6751, University of Iowa, corresponding author), Frederick M Smith
Year2019
Volume10
Issue5
Pages332
Publication date2019-05-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel10050332
OpenAlexW2946757444
LanguageEN
References cited25

The "inner organ" (antaḥkaraṇa) in the Indian philosophical school called Sāṃkhya is applied in two different experiential contexts: in the act of transcendence according to the path of yoga explored in the Yogasūtras of Patañjali (ca. 350 CE) and in the process of identity shift that occurs in possession by a deity in a broader range of Indian cultural practices. The act of transcendence will be better understood if we look at the antaḥkaraṇa through an emic lens, which is to say as an actual organ that is activated by experiential shifts, rather than as a concept or explanation that is indicative of a collocation of characteristics of the individuating consciousness or merely by reducing it to nonepistemic objective or subjective factors

Aesthetics · Consciousness · Covert · Emic and etic · Epistemology · Experiential learning · Pedagogy · Psychoanalysis · Religious experience · Sociology · Trance · Anthropology · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices · Social Psychology

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