Intriguing "scientific" study on Mystical Experiences

There's also a Closer To Truth YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/CloserToTruthTV/videos

This is one of my favorite episodes - https://youtu.be/VxLyAOxJriY?list=PL...ywQvhBzzdrQ A - where Gino Yu talks about the challenges relating subjective experience.

Robert Lawrence Kuhn does a great job interviewing an eclectic and well-known selection of scientists, philosophers and theologians. He's right up there with Rick Archer and Buddha at the Gas Pump!

[Still_Waters]

QUOTE 41 EXCERPT:

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

This is one of my favorite episodes - https://youtu.be/VxLyAOxJriY?list=PL...ywQvhBzzdrQ A - where Gino Yu talks about the challenges relating subjective experience.

I just listened to this video and what caught my attention was "To talk about something, one needs a common experience".

If there is no common experience, then one must revert to analogies to describe the phenomenon as best as possible. That is precisely why I often use the dream-analogy to explain the nature of consciousness since, in a dream, the one becomes many and one can easily get entangled in the dream ... unless one is a lucid dreamer.

In the study that I presented, I can understand how many would not relate to the inadequate words that one must necessarily use in describing the "mystical experience" to those who have not had the experience. Yet, for one who has had the experience, one understands immediately what the other is trying to communicate albeit in inadequate words.

Interesting video.

Originally Posted by Still_Waters

I just listened to this video and what caught my attention was "To talk about something, one needs a common experience".

Basically what Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" says, and that is only a bat "knows". It's the qualia thingy. David Chalmers uses the analogy of Mary, the colorblind nueroscientist. No matter how much she knows about the physics of light and color and the architecture, organization and firing of the brain and especially the networks associated with vision, she can never know what it's like to see color.

And yes, it's why it's impossible to discuss without using analogy and analogies are imperfect. LOL!

[Still_Waters]

QUote 43 EXCERPT:

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

And yes, it's why it's impossible to discuss without using analogy and analogies are imperfect. LOL!

Sometimes, however, without the shared direct common experiences, analogies are the best
that one can offer in attempt to express the inexpressible with inadequate words.

[Still_Waters]

There was an interesting point raised on page 19 of the study regarding the "Path of Freedom" versus the "Path of Humanity" on which people with mystical experiences seem to embark after reaching a certain "location" of spiritual awareness.


"Up to Location 4, the continuum appeared to be a single path. Things got more complicated at Location 5, and two different routes seemed to open up. The first, which will be referred to as the Path of Freedom (PoF), looks very much like a continuation and progression of Location 4. It involved continued lack of agency, emotion, divinity or an all-pervasive consciousness, and so on. The second, referred to here as the Path of Humanity (PoH), bears some resemblance to earlier locations. Generally speaking, the Path of Freedom was more common in Eastern research participants, especially monastics, and the Path of Humanity in Western ones."

This raises the obvious intriguing question. When one reaches a certain level of understanding the Reality, what does one do at that point?

Many many years ago, as I have related previously on this site, I had a mysterious 9-year connection with a "homeless" black man who was one of the most extraordinary beings I've ever met and who remains one of my ideals even today. I once asked him how he could live that way ... a "homeless" person. His stunning response was that he was more secure than I was. Without repeating the background information, his key point was that he had thousands of places that he could go at any time where people would host him, build ashrams for him, and provide for every perceived earthly "need". He said that he could have had ashrams all over the world but his only "problem" was staying away from those people. Like the Elijah in Jewish folklore, he would mysteriously appear and disappear (literally into thin air) when he was inspired to interact (for whatever reason).

According to the report, this would appear to be the "Path of Freedom" whereas many others follow the "Path of Humanity" which SEEMS to be more involved continuously in the activities of the world (I'm not totally sure if that is what is meant).

I was once offered $2 million outright plus a steady income for an ashram if I relocated to Houston, Texas, where the patron lived. However, that had no appeal to me though I continued to FREELY interact with this patron and those close to him who were interested in meditation. He was older and progressed from an atheist with no belief in an afterlife to a highly advanced meditator by the time he transitioned.

In any case, the key question here is what does one do once one has certain realizations. Does one pursue the "Path of Freedom" or the "Path of Humanity" in whatever way one interprets those terms?

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by Still_Waters

QUote 43 EXCERPT:Sometimes, however, without the shared direct common experiences, analogies are the best that one can offer in attempt to express the inexpressible with inadequate words.

in the past it has been fundamental that people who haven't had certain experiences would go so far as to demonize those who express things about such experiences... one of the major reasons spirituality hasn't been opening up to people at large until recently.

And it is still somewhat common in some circles to think that one CAN'T have experiences that a majority of others don't have.

In my view the idea is still prevalent as well, that certain experiences I have found invaluable, are derided and avoided, sometimes at all costs... this comes even from the spiritually adept. In my view this is just more of the same as the first couple of points, people haven't had certain experiences so they don't want anything to do with them.

There is a reason for all this of course... sometimes what people do when they know the 'truth' about how things work is quite wicked... look at the situation in america right now as an example... I would be quite scared about some of the shenanigans going on, if I hadn't decided to trust in God.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

...And it is still somewhat common in some circles to think that one CAN'T have experiences that a majority of others don't have.

i know. I can't blame them...they were just ingrained not to believe so many things...
then think you're nuts if you do experience somethimg Divine or supernatural or paranormal, or whatever.
All in good time they will have their own experiences, imo.
Always a great day when that happens! :)

[Still_Waters]

QUOTE 46 EXCERPT:

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

in the past it has been fundamental that people who haven't had certain experiences would go so far as to demonize those who express things about such experiences... one of the major reasons spirituality hasn't been opening up to people at large until recently.

And it is still somewhat common in some circles to think that one CAN'T have experiences that a majority of others don't have.

QUOTE 47 EXCERPT:

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

i know. I can't blame them...they were just ingrained not to believe so many things...
then think you're nuts if you do experience somethimg Divine or supernatural or paranormal, or whatever.

I agree completely with BOTH of you. There is indeed an ingrained belief in many "religious" people that such experiences happen only in the times when their founders walked the earth ... or are downright impossible.

That is precisely one of the points raised in the study presented in the first post - that people who have had such experiences are generally very quiet and reticent to talk about them to people who can't relate to them.

As Miss Hepburn mentioned, they will experience such things for themselves .... some day.

[inavalan]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

i know. I can't blame them...they were just ingrained not to believe so many things...
then think you're nuts if you do experience somethimg Divine or supernatural or paranormal, or whatever.
...

We have to be conciliatory with those who hold beliefs different from ours, because ultimately there is no external reference for truth.

Once a belief installed, it filters out everything that contradicts it. We see this playing out around us all the time. What can make us so sure we don't do the same?

Doubt is healthy.

[inavalan]

I finished reading the paper about "Persistent Non-Symbolic Experiences" (PNSE).

The paper is overall informative. The "Stress and PNSE" section made me wonder about delusion vs. reality.

The author mentions there, and elsewhere in his article, significant discrepancies between some subjects' self-assessments vs. the way they were perceived by others.

Are these discrepant self-assessments delusional? If what the subject perceives to be is different from others' perceptions, is that a delusion?

Are such situations desirable or at least acceptable, or they signal psychological problems? I believe they are detrimental to one's overall personality development.

Basically, where do you draw the line when one's strong beliefs (truths, as they are unconscious beliefs) become delusions?

2 sentences quote:

While the participant reported no stress, his partner had been observing many telltale signs: he was not sleeping well, his appetite was off, his mood was noticeably different, his muscles were much tenser than normal, his sex drive was reduced, his health was suffering, and so forth. None of these were being noted by the participant, even though he was professionally trained to identify them, and the same was observed in the other two participants.