Definitions Įgo death and the related term 'ego loss' have been defined in the context of mysticism by the religious studies scholar Daniel Merkur as 'an imageless experience in which there is no sense of personal identity. This conception is an influential part of Eckhart Tolle's teachings, where Ego is presented as an accumulation of thoughts and emotions, continuously identified with, which creates the idea and feeling of being a separate entity from one's self, and only by disidentifying one's consciousness from it can one truly be free from suffering. The concept is also used in contemporary New Age spirituality and in the modern understanding of Eastern religions to describe a permanent loss of 'attachment to a separate sense of self' and self-centeredness. to describe the death of the ego in the first phase of an LSD trip, in which a 'complete transcendence' of the self occurs. The term was used as such by Timothy Leary et al.

In descriptions of drugs, the term is used synonymously with ego-loss to refer to (temporary) loss of one's sense of self due to the use of drugs. It is a recurrent theme in world mythology and is also used as a metaphor in some strands of contemporary western thinking. In death and rebirth mythology, ego death is a phase of self-surrender and transition, as described by Joseph Campbell in his research on the mythology of the Hero's Journey.

Jungian psychology uses the synonymous term psychic death, referring to a fundamental transformation of the psyche.

The term is used in various intertwined contexts, with related meanings. Ego death is a 'complete loss of subjective self-identity'.

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