Volume 6 / Issue 1 SPRING 2020

2 0 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 6 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 2 0 We can also be confronted with visualization of human energy biofield in theChinese books of life (Jung and Wilhelm 2004, 71), this time with emphasis on levels of biographical and non-biographical memory. We would argue that the most detailed drawings of subtle energies can be found in Hōun Jiyu-Kennett’s interpretation (1997, 107), who described and drew her experience of the spiritual journey – from the beginning to the liberation, i.e. the greatKenshō . Paintings that depict aura of St. Teresa of Ávila and drawing of developed subtle energies in theChinese books of life and Hōun Jiyu-Kennett are, despite possible content differences, similar, as they considerably outgrow human body. These drawings are more potent regarding comparison and explanation than word-based descriptions. Fig. 2. Awakened subtle energies in Taoist spiritual practice 4 Scientific Approaches to Mysticism Scientific research has been conducted for quite a while now in the Eastern spiritual traditions such as Yoga or Buddhism. This is chiefly the result of the fact that the eastern tradi - tions aim more at methods, for example various breathing exercises or meditation, while Christian spiritual tradition concentrates on the need of God’s mercy and methods are unimportant. Scientific research includes measuring the brain activity in Zen monks carried out by Tomio Hirai (1997, 81–100). He revealed that throughout meditation, their brain activity regularly shows transition from normal alert consciousness, i.e. beta brainwave frequency to the state of relaxation, or alpha brainwave frequency, while in experienced monks we can see transition to theta brainwave frequency, typical in sleep. However, consciousness of a monk still re - mains alert. In his research, Hirai demonstrates that even though traditional neuroscience would consider meditating monks as sleeping, they are fully awake. Peter Fenwick (Darling 1997, 139–140) went even further when he used computer to analyze the data measured by EEC. The results of his experiment showed that in every participant’s, there was an unusually bright area behind the right side of the frontal bone. Some of the team members noted that “ if we saw that degree of asymmetry in someone from off the street, we would be worried that something extremely abnormal was going on. ” What is more, during another experiment one of Zen Masters

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