---
abstract: 'Why do some people have life-changing experiences when reading sacred texts, and what makes them so differently significant readings as opposed to reading the newspaper or any kind of book? Exploring a set of metaphors used in the literature of mysticism, and in particular in the canonical literature of world religions, I use the instruments provided by conceptual integration and empirical data of the neurosciences to offer a hermeneutic model of the higher level understanding construed during on-line reading by devotees of their respective sacred literature. Constructivists of the past two decades have considered the mystical experience as a form of "reconditioning of consciousness," (the concepts condition a priori the experience), arguing that there are no pure (i.e. unmediated) experiences. I believe cognitive science helps prove that the description of the experience is contingent and not necessary; the language used in devotional literature to describe mystical experience influences the way of living the experience, but it is also motivated by its representing reality. Ultimately I will look at the model of erotic relationship in mystical literature and how it serves as evidence of non-reductive physicalism, seeing the human being as a multilevel psychosomatic unity.'
altloc:
- http://cerebro.psych.cornell.edu/emcl/longabs/ev.pdf
chapter: ~
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confdates: 'May 2-4, 2003'
conference: Empirical Methods in Cognitive Linguistics
confloc: Cornell University
contact_email: ~
creators_id: []
creators_name:
- family: Evola
given: Vito
honourific: ''
lineage: ''
date: 2003
date_type: published
datestamp: 2005-10-20
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dir: disk0/00/00/45/56
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eprintid: 4556
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keywords: 'religion, literature, interpretation, cognitive linguistics, blending theory'
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:56:11
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referencetext: |+
Zaehner
Parrinder
Boyer, 2001
D’Aquili and Newberg, 1999
Damasio, 1994
relation_type: []
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reportno: ~
rev_number: 12
series: ~
source: ~
status_changed: 2007-09-12 17:00:46
subjects:
- ling-compara
succeeds: 4505
suggestions: ~
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thesistype: ~
title: A Hermeneutic Model of Sacred Literature and Everyday Revelation
type: confpaper
userid: 2646
volume: ~