Spirituality and Health

Transcultural Perspectives

Introduction

Over the past few decades, a wealth of psycho-spiritual teachings and transformative practices from a wide variety of time periods and ideological and cultural contexts have become easily accessible to the general public. Such systems of interpretation and practices have now found their way into our post-modern Western societies in many different forms and influence our daily lives.

The focus “Transcultural Perspectives” deals with the actors, processes and motives that have significantly shaped the transfer of spiritual interpretation systems and practices into modern Western societies. The corresponding adaptation processes in a new contextual environment are often associated with both potential and challenges.

The research focus “Transcultural Perspectives” is dedicated to the following questions:

How do spiritual concepts and practices change when transferred to new cultures?

Can traditional teachings be helpful in understanding spiritual phenomena?

How can energy sensations in meditators be scientifically investigated? (Kundalini, subtle energies)

Publication Project: Transcultural Flows of Yoga

The so-called “Kundalini awakening” is a spiritual-transformative process that is described in the Indian yoga tradition. In the traditional understanding of such processes, the concept of a subtle life energy is of central importance. The term “kundalini awakening” or “kundalini syndrome” is now also used to describe specific manifestations of spiritual crises that are increasingly occurring in Western societies. The publication project carried out for this purpose deals with the question of how representatives of psychology have examined and reflected on the concept of Kundalini throughout history and what influence this has had on the current understanding and diagnosis of spiritual crises. This example will be used to illustrate the influence of culturally bound concepts and practices on psychology and in particular on its practical applications in psychotherapy and psychodiagnostics.

The example of Kunḍalini awakening illustrates very well the specific challenges and adaptation processes associated with the transcultural dissemination of spiritual knowledge and practices. It also highlights some of the most important developments in psychology, psychotherapy and psychodiagnostics that have recently emerged in response to the need to take greater account of worldviews and culturally specific patterns of interpretation in the psychotherapeutic context and as a result of the cross-cultural encounter of health and development-related concepts and methods.

This publication project is based on the meeting of an interdisciplinary group of experts on the specific forms of contemporary yoga in a globalized world at the Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies at Heidelberg University. The resulting anthology on the transcultural spread of yoga in the twentieth century was published in the series “Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context”.

Cooperation

Beatrix Hauser, Alpine University Klagenfurth, Klagenfurth, Austria
Karl Jaspers Center for Advanced Transcultural Studies, University of Heidelberg

Publications

Hofmann, L. (2013). The Impact of Kundalini Yoga on Concepts and Diagnostic Practice in Psychology and Psychotherapy. In: B. Hauser (Ed.), Yoga Traveling: Bodily Practice in Transcultural Perspective. Transcultural Research: Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. (S. 81–106). Springer.

Hofmann, L. (2017). Das Kundalini-Phänomen und andere vegetativ-energetische Störungen. In: L. Hofmann & P. Heise (Hrsg.), Spiritualität und spirituelle Krisen. Handbuch zu Theorie, Forschung und Praxis (S. 215–232). Schattauer.

Hofmann, L. (2013). Kundalini-Erfahrungen (Experteninterview). In: U. Ott, Yoga für Skeptiker. Ein Neurowissenschaftler erklärt die uralte Weisheitslehre (S. 232–245). O. W. Barth.