Excellent points, Tony. Actually, what you say clarifies and extends what I wrote. Better than I could meself. Perhaps the original analogy or metaphor is faulty. Because, yes, the experience itself is varied across cultures, regions and religions. I should have said as much. It’s tricky, because I want to say that the core experience is the same across all lines, but that the context alters that experience, directs it, shapes it. Which is what I mean by the names getting in the way. Etc.

Perhaps it’s more about what the experience isn’t, as opposed to what it actually is. As in, the variety of religious experience doesn’t really suggest that any one experience is valid while all others are invalid–even though they can be quite different. What this really tells me, has always told me, is that the variety and sameness proves the validity of multiple forms of that experience. The sameness meaning that the experience of the numinous, the mystical, the mysterious, across so many cultures and so many millennia, proves that no one region, culture or religion was ever necessary for that experience to happen. Humans did not have to wait until a certain religion appeared on the scene before they had these experiences. As far as we know, they’ve always had them.

People once thought that Athena spoke to them. They actually believed that with all their heart and soul. People once thought (some still do) that they could become certain animals, or that some animals were parallel souls for them. Again, they believed this with all of their heart and soul. Some now believe that Allah or Jesus talks to them or that they can meet them mystically. It’s not all peanut butter, of course. There are differences in form and kind. But there is a sameness in the appearance of those differing forms.

Paradoxes can sometimes be a pain in the neck.

;>)

As I reread your original post I come to the propositions “The universal appearance of X proves that X is not uniquely the province of any one region, culture, or religion…” and “No one religion can logically claim they hold the only key to the peanut butter cabinet, when members of dozens of religions have access…” This raises an important question for me, which I guess relates to a fundamental uneasiness I have about the issue of synchronic analysis of mystical experience across traditions, and that is, simply, is the appearance of X actually universal or, to abuse your analogy, is it really the same peanut butter in everyone’s cabinet. In other words, can we assume that the core of all mystical experience is the same?

I don’t pretend to have a definitive answer — I have had mystical experiences but have certainly not practiced within all the traditions mentioned. From my own experiences within (at different times) Pentecostal, Catholic, and Shamanic contexts, it seems that they all had quite different flavors, although there were commonalities, perhaps the subject for another post. And while you mention that names and long histories get in the way — which point I appreciate — I wonder if those narratives as context for mystical experience are not also determinative of the content to some extent as well. Could it not also be a case of apples, and oranges, not to mention pomegranates and plaintains…so that it’s not the case that there is a single unitive mystical experience encased in various shells of different traditions, but that the core mystical experiences of each tradition are also unalienably distinct, and that’s just the way it should be, for, as Morgan Freeman’s character mentions in the otherwise execrable film “Robin Hood,” “Allah likes variety.”

All of which I mention to make the point that I think it’s possibly that the contextual “shell” does not necessarily detract from the content, and perhaps it is an indissoluble part of it. This is not to deny in any way the problems of religious authoritarianism mentioned before, that is certainly an occupational hazard of attempting to routinize charisma — in Mary Douglas’ phrase — but again — and I’m starting to bore myself with repetition so please pardon me if you’re getting bored too– perhaps every mystical experience has it’s own flavor, and there is not a “meta”-experience.

just thoughts…

Well said. I like the analogy of gold and mastery. On a somewhat indirect line, it reminds me of Goethe’s call to know all of philosophy, but keep it out of your writing.

(Of course he means to let it slip in through the subconscious, or something like that.)

Perhaps much of this goes back to Taoist and Zenish “non-contrivance” as well.

Basically, we bottle things up when we need to liberate them and ourselves.

A cliche, a truism … but still the way of the world.

Did not know that about Kierkegaard. There is a superb biography (at least the reviews say so) by Joakim Garff. Have not gotten around to it yet, but have always found his life and thought fascinating. A towering figure, despite his worldly form.

just fyi, but Kierkegaard is another writer who it is theorized had temporal lobe epilepsy.

Couldn’t have said this better myself…

I think the problem is not the fact of using words to describe things — such is inevitable given the way our brains are wired — but it’s the sense of exclusion. Reminds me of the passage in Genesis where Adam names the animals — as though Adam somehow bestows on each animal its essential nature to the exclusion of other possibilities. It seems to me the poet is trying to use words without being enslaved to them (at least that’s what I try to do in my poetry…) To display but to distort or turn it around in some way to expose the relativity of all things.

Aristotle doesn’t help us here — his sense of “a is not non a” when jacked into a political or magisterial authority structure is part of the problem with organized religion. I don’t think that means organized religion has no value, but that historically the toxicities have at least approached the benefits in degree.

There’s a line in Tolkien to the effect of “to possess gold but not to be mastered by it.” To me, figuratively speaking, this is the case with words. To be able to use them but not to buy into their pretense to delimit and undergird what is.

Good point. Sort of, “naming is killing.”

Or, “Defining is killing.”

Sounds like you are promoting a holistic approach, which I agree with. Tangentially, there is an enormous potential for peace once the world accepts that there is no one religion that has all of the answers, and looks at things holistically.

Without that acceptance, I fear organized religions will always be one of the major catalysts for war and strife in general. That just seems to come with the territory. Inherent in the logic. Believing that “we’re right and your wrong” passionately … often leads to ferocity of feeling … and blindness regarding the views of others. Mix that with the call to convert others, and you get a witch’s brew of trouble.

We would all be better off, IMO, if we remained humble and lovingly curious in the face of mystery.

Thanks, Tony. I will have to take a look at those books. I’ve always found the subject fascinating. Three of my (as yet) unfinished novels attempt to tackle it in some form. Though, not with the kind of success I had hoped. Perhaps your book recs will get me closer.

Ultimately, I believe names and long histories get in our way. Psychologically, what something is called, and the long organization behind it, get between us and the religious experience, as Kierkegaard said in fewer words. How different is the experience when someone uses a different vehicle? Music, for instance. For most people, it doesn’t have the connotations or the baggage that comes with organized religion, but it can produce similar results. I’m guessing our minds predetermine part of the outcome, however, because of the various degrees of baggage, doctrine, history, etc. etc. I wonder if experiments have been done to try to control for the vehicle …

???

Thanks again for your excellent comments.

I’ve been investigating techniques and theory of spiritual ecstasis for many years, although I can’t claim much insight. However, one thing I have become attuned to is how much of what has been traditionally linked to mystical experience seems rooted in neurochemistry, specifically the play of endorphins. I wouldn’t see this in a reductionist/materialist sense necessarily — ascribing ecstasy a chemical linkage doesn’t have to mean that that’s ALL there is to it, but that there is an (inevitable?) chemical concomitant.

An excellent book related to the subject I’d like to suggest is Peter O’Leary’s _A Gnostic Contagion: Robert Duncan and the Poetry of Illness_. Rather than try to summarize it, here’s a link to the book itself: http://www.upne.com/0–8195-6563–6.html .

Specifically what I enjoy about it is O’Leary’s linkage between mystical experience as well as the creative process and temporal lobe epilepsy, and not just in Duncan’s case, but with several other poets as well. In terms of your blog post, it doesn’t attempt to define mystical experience per se, but is a rather mind-blowing point of departure in terms of thinking about the relationship between creativity, mysticism, and the processes of the brain.

Another related book is Donald Pinchbeck’s _Breaking Open the Head_. It concerns the use of tryptamine-based hallucinogens in various shamanic, spiritual, and creative contexts. Wherever one stands on the subject of the value and efficacy of hallucinogens, it is a fascinating look at the subject, and one that helped me to understand the cultural phenomena around hallucinogen-based shamanism much better. Again, I see the value not so much in a reductionist approach to the substance of ecstasy, but in a deeper and perhaps more empirically-grounded understanding of the brain chemistry around mystical/ecstatic experience.

I’ve rambled on much longer than I intended to. Apologies. Hope to continue the dialogue as time and circumstance allows…

Tony