 Various psychological explanations of mystical experiences, both their nature and their causes, have been offered. These include pathological conditions such as hyper-suggestibility, severe deprivation, severe sexual frustration, intense fear of death, infantile regression, pronounced maladjustment, and mental illness, as well as non-pathological conditions, including the inordinate influence of a religious mental “set” (see Wulff 2000). In addition, some have advanced a sociological explanation for some mysticism in terms of the socio-political power available to an accomplished mystic (Fales 1996a and 1996b).