Document Type : Original Research
Authors
1
PhD-level Seminary Student in Philosophy (Ḥikmah), Rafi‘a al-Mustafa Seminary,Tehran,
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Imam Sadiq University, Tehran, Iran.
10.30497/prr.2026.249445.2074
Abstract
The phenomenon of the separation of consciousness from the physical body has been one of the most mysterious and, at the same time, most enduring human experiences throughout history. This paper compares two important approaches in this regard. On the one hand, “mystical disembodiment” (also called voluntary death) in the illuminationist, as a spiritual habitus, is considered the culmination of a willful, philosophical wayfaring and is predominantly active and agentive. On the other hand, “out-of-body experience” (OBE) in contemporary empirical approaches is often described as a “natural occurrence”, passive and accidental. The main issue of the research is to analyze these two approaches and explain the essential differences between them, despite their apparent similarities. This analysis, which was carried out with a descriptive-analytical approach and in a comparative manner, showed that “mystical disembodiment” in Suhrawardi’s thought is an active, voluntary, teleological act and is completely included in a coherent metaphysical system that can also lead to epistemic “certainty”. In contrast, the “out-of-body experience”, according to the analysis of contemporary empirical approaches, is a largely passive phenomenon, devoid of teleology, and suspended in an “interpretive vacuum” between neurological data (requiring neurophenomenology) and realist approaches. The results of the research show that the main difference between these two analyses can be proposed in four key axes: 1. agency (voluntary versus passive), 2. teleology (epistemically oriented versus purposeless), 3. ontology (vertical journey to the Mundus Imaginalis versus horizontal journey in the physical world), and 4. explanatory power (the capacity of Suhrawardi’s model to resolve the deadlocks of the realist approach).
Keywords
Subjects
Philosophy of Religion Research