Transcendent Experiences: Phenomena, Ideas, and Judgements

Transcendent experiences can have a strong impact on the lives and thoughts of those experiencing them. They are understood as experiences that transcend ordinary reality or familiar categories of explanation, like, e.g., so-called otherworld experiences, or experiences of a seemingly extraordinary influence of the mental upon the physical. Until now, the phenomenology of transcendent experiences, their impact on the history of ideas, and the ways of judging them are under-researched. The project’s objective is to study these aspects of transcendent experiences and to develop elements of an “art of judgment” concerning them. So far, the project has dealt with, inter alia, the significance of otherworld experiences for the idea of bodily resurrection, the reincarnation interpretation of past-life experiences, Kant’s critique of Swedenborg, and the reflections of Gottlob B. Jäsche, a follower of Kant, on his alleged encounter with his deceased wife. Currently a book on the significance of transcendent experiences for the study of human nature is under preparation.