This book is a continuation of the major work by E. A. Torchinov (1956–2003) “Religions of the World: Experience of the Beyond. Psychotechnics and transpersonal states”, which aroused great interest both in scientific circles and among the general reading public. The book continues the study of transpersonal experience as the basis of the phenomenon of religion, focusing on the study of the ontological status of consciousness, on the metaphysics and epistemology of transpersonal experience. The main material for studying both the transpersonal experience itself and the practices leading to its acquisition is provided by the religions of the East, which are discussed in the first section of the book. The second section explores the philosophical aspects of altered states of consciousness, as well as the neurophysiological aspect of deep religious experiences. It is in the field of transpersonal that the conjugation of various ways of searching for renewal for Western thought occurs - in an appeal to non-European thought and in interest in consciousness and its altered states, for it was non-European teachings that attached particular importance not only to psychopractices, as methods of achieving specific, strictly defined states of consciousness, but first of all to their theoretical and even conceptual understanding.