[MD] new blog

[MarshaV]

Krimel,

It is my impression that the mystical experience is without self and 
objects, in the land before language.  How does science deal with that?


Marsha


At 04:34 PM 2/2/2009, you wrote:
>[Marsha]
>An excellent post, Dave!
>
>[Krimel]
>I keep looking for the excellent parts. Maybe you can help me out. He says
>that people are capable of having a particular kind of experience which he
>calls mystical. The question I have asked over and over again is, "So what?"
>we have all kinds of experiences what makes this kind special? Does it
>produce greater certainty or meaning? Certainty about what?
>
>Christians have a boat load of mystical experiences that they serve up in
>church every Sunday. Particularly in the more fundamentalist congregations
>every service ends with an invitation to have the mystical experience of
>being born again. That is to cast aside an old way of thinking and adopt a
>new one, to become a new person in personal communication with the divine
>presence. There are often outbursts of babbling from the congregation called
>speaking in tongues. Often someone in the house will answer outbursts of
>speaking in tongue with a translation into the common tongue. This ability
>to translate is also a mystical experience. Believers claim that healing is
>possible through a mystical experience with the divine. And yet
>Christianity, almost steeped in mystical experience is ridiculed and
>declared anathema to the MoQ.
>
>WTF?
>
>"Mystical" experiences can be produced with some reliability by altering the
>chemical composition of the brain and yet talk about brain chemistry is off
>limits because somehow it is SOM. Profound mystical experiences can result
>from frontal lobe epileptic seizures. What conclusions can we derive from
>experiences like this? Why should they be regarded as special. Sure they
>feel good. They seem life changing. Have you ever talked to a recently
>converted Christian? But are they really to be taken at face value? I must
>doubt every other kind of experience but this special kind is infallible?
>
>If you really see excellence here, help me out cause I just read it and say
>WTF?
>
>By the way the conflict between priests and prophets is well documented in
>the Old Testament. The priestly class formed an orthodoxy around the Temple
>and the Temple rituals, while the prophets or Nabbi held sway in the
>Northern part of the Kingdom around Galilee. The tension between them is
>pretty obvious when you know what to look for. Much of the Old Testament was
>pieced together by an editor when wove them together to provide an illusion
>of harmony where there was clearly discord.
>
>
>
>
>At 03:29 PM 2/2/2009, you wrote:
>
> >"The whole stance of science is hostile to
> >mysticism." (letter from Robert Pirsig to Anthony McWatt, March 29th, 1997)
> >
> >Marsha said to Michael:
> >I like the quote very much, but I do not think
> >it is relevant to theism because mysticism is not dependent on theism.
> >
> >Paco said to all:
> >Can/will there be a metaphysics or ethics that
> >can handle handle mystical experience and the transpersonal world?
> >
> >
> >dmb says:
> >Yes, the MOQ is meant to handle mystical
> >experience and that's one of the reasons it
> >rejects traditional empiricism for radical
> >empiricism. And DQ (the primary empirical
> >reality) refers to mystical experience. That's
> >why I find assertions of theism so objectionable
> >in this forum. Chapter 30 of Lila is especially
> >rich. There Pirsig writes, "Phaedrus thought
> >sectarian religion was a static social fallout
> >from DQ and that while some sects had fallen
> >less than others, none of them told the whole
> >truth. ...From what Phaedrus had been able to
> >observe, mystics and priests tend to have a
> >cat-and-dog-like coexistence within almost every
> >religious organization. ...In all religions
> >bishops tend to gild DQ with all sorts of static
> >interpretations because their cultures require
> >it. But these interpretations become like golden
> >vines that cling to a tree, shut out its sunlight and eventually strangle
>it."
> >
> >William James puts the same idea this way; "A
> >survey of history shows us that, as a rule,
> >religious geniuses attract disciples, and
> >produce groups of sympathizers. When these
> >groups get strong enough to 'organize'
> >themselves, they become ecclesiastical
> >institutions with corporate ambitions of her
> >own. The spirit of politics and the lust of
> >dogmatic rule are then apt to enter and to
> >contaminate the originally innocent thing; so
> >that when we hear the word 'religion' nowadays,
> >we think inevitably of some 'church' or other;
> >and to some persons the word 'church' suggests
> >so much hypocrisy and tyranny and meanness and
> >tenacity of superstition that in a wholesale
> >undiscerning way they glory in saying that they
> >are 'down' on religion altogether."  He also
> >says, "when a religion has become an orthodoxy,
> >its days of inwardness are over; the spring is
> >dry; the faithful live at second hand
> >exclusively and stone the prophets in their
> >turn. [They] can be henceforth counted as a
> >staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the
> >spontaneous religious spirit, and to stop all
> >the later bubblings of the fountains from which
> >in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration."
> >
> >I think this idea goes a long way toward
> >explaining how the MOQ can be anti-theistic and,
> >at the same time, a form of mysticism. I think
> >it's worth pointing out that when James says
> >"religious geniuses" he's not necessary talking
> >about people with extremely high I.Q.s, although
> >that's certainly the case with Pirsig. He's
> >talking about those who have a fresh and
> >original vision, who've actually had a mystical
> >experience or otherwise seen it for themselves.
> >This is what Arlo is getting at, I think, in
> >following Campbell and saying we don't need
> >faith if we have experience. Here, faith refers
> >to those static interpretations or, as James
> >refers to them, orthodoxies. Not only do the
> >exoteric religious forms "stifle the spontaneous
> >religious spirit", they even sometimes kill
> >people for saying the sorts of things that
> >Pirsig, James and even Jesus said. (I and the
> >father are one.) Socrates was killed for not
> >believing in the state sanctioned gods too. How
> >many other geniuses have we lost this way?
> >
> >And so what is the mystical experience, exactly?
> >Well, you can't say in advance what it will be
> >like. That's what makes it fresh and original.
> >That's what makes it Dynamic as opposed to
> >static. That's what makes it ineffable and, like
> >mel was saying in connection with Taoism and
> >Judaism, why the divine cannot be named.
> >Enlightenment is different for every person.
> >They are, so to speak, tailor made for each
> >person and so it totally depends on who you are,
> >where you are and when you are. It'll present
> >itself in such a way as to be meaningful for
> >you. So it's not a singular or specific
> >event.  It's more like a category of experience.
> >
> >Sadly, the golden vines that strangle and darken
> >the original vision are very lethal in our own
> >time. For the most part this pollution take the
> >form of concretizaton. So much of the bloodshed
> >we've all seen in the middle east comes from
> >taking a symbolic idea literally, namely "the
> >promised land". It has been taken to mean that
> >an actual supernatural being likes to make a
> >gift of actual real estate. What is supposed to
> >be a symbolic reference to a transformation of
> >consciousness is confused with dirt. Same thing
> >happens in India with the Ganges river, which is
> >taken as a literal source of the divine so that
> >now it's littered with corpses in an attempt to
> >make the trip to heaven shorter, or some such
> >nonsense. And in our own culture we have a
> >situation where almost every Christian believes
> >that Jesus literally rose from the dead but this
> >again is a symbol of that transformation of
> >consciousness. Even "transformation of
> >consciousness" is a static idea and can be taken the wrong way.
> >
> >"In every country and in every age, the priest
> >has been hostile to Liberty." Thomas Jefferson
> >
> >
> >
> >_________________________________________________________________
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