S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 8 - 2 Fa l l 2 0 2 2 1 EDITORIAL Editorial In our times of an unexpected resurgence of vital interest in non-institutionalized spirituality at the expense of institutionalized religion among the European and American public, in-depth studies into the core of spirituality find their sociocultural justification more than ever. The very core of spirituality can be described by two notions – human wholeness and self-transcendence. These two are to be understood as defining features of both Christian mysticism – in its various forms as appeared in the West – and Yoga – in its multiple traditions that emerged in the East. One and the other bunch of traditions provides their followers with sets of tools, which include numerous teachings, methods, and techniques wisely crafted teaching them a proper way of inverting a constant flow of our human attention to objects (sensory as well as mental), so that the self-transcendence might happen and the body-mind-spirit unity (wholeness) is realized as an actual experience in the ontological sense as opposed to our ordinary ontic experience of dualistic (subject-object) nature. It’s thus the inversion of consciousness or internalization of consciousness that needs to be considered the keystone of both mysticism and yoga. The 2022 Fall edition of Spirituality Studies contributes to this demand for in-depth studies into the core of spirituality with a series of articles from the area of non-institutionalized as well as institutionalized spirituality. All of them in some way reflect either mysticism or yoga, either human wholeness or self-transcendence, doing so, obviously, in relation to the sociocultural context of particular a topic of individual papers. I believe, dear readers, that papers of the current edition of the Spirituality Studies journal are going to inspire you looking deeper into the processes of internalization of consciousness and eventually practicing and realizing them experimentally. Cordially Martin Dojčár
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