Neo-perennialists claim that a cross-cultural category of experiences can be defined as 'mystical.' The author clarifies this project and defends its feasibility, then criticizes the narrow focus on mystical experiences in neo-perennialist research—both in the dominant understanding of mystical states and the tendency to study them exclusively among altered states. The essay analyzes criteria external to the phenomenology of extraordinary experiences that might justify restricting a neo-perennialist account to certain mystical states. It closes by calling for a refined definition of 'mystical experience' and for expanding cross-cultural study of altered states beyond the mystical.
This essay reviews and critiques Sam Woolfe's Altered Perspectives: Critical Essays on Psychedelic Consciousness, focusing on how the book's naturalistic approach tends to 'explain away' unusual psychedelic experiences like encounters with entities. The essay argues that despite this limitation, the book is essential reading for those interested in the philosophy of altered states of consciousness.