--- 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: ~ commentary: ~ commref: ~ 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 department: ~ dir: disk0/00/00/45/56 edit_lock_since: ~ edit_lock_until: ~ edit_lock_user: ~ editors_id: [] editors_name: [] eprint_status: archive eprintid: 4556 fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png;/4556/1/ev.pdf full_text_status: public importid: ~ institution: ~ isbn: ~ ispublished: unpub issn: ~ item_issues_comment: [] item_issues_count: 0 item_issues_description: [] item_issues_id: [] item_issues_reported_by: [] item_issues_resolved_by: [] item_issues_status: [] item_issues_timestamp: [] item_issues_type: [] keywords: 'religion, literature, interpretation, cognitive linguistics, blending theory' lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:56:11 latitude: ~ longitude: ~ metadata_visibility: show note: ~ number: ~ pagerange: ~ pubdom: FALSE publication: ~ publisher: ~ refereed: TRUE referencetext: |+ Zaehner Parrinder Boyer, 2001 D’Aquili and Newberg, 1999 Damasio, 1994 relation_type: [] relation_uri: [] reportno: ~ rev_number: 12 series: ~ source: ~ status_changed: 2007-09-12 17:00:46 subjects: - ling-compara succeeds: 4505 suggestions: ~ sword_depositor: ~ sword_slug: ~ thesistype: ~ title: A Hermeneutic Model of Sacred Literature and Everyday Revelation type: confpaper userid: 2646 volume: ~