Solo

“Pseudophotesthesia” is a neurological term describing false sensation of light, i.e. an illusory experience of light by the subject which does not have an external source, and whose origins, in the lingo of the profession, are “occultic”. The shorter term for the phenomenon is “photism”.
People experience photism in a variety of ways. In some subjects, a sudden burst of photic illumination happens in response to shrill sounds or some other sudden startling event. Some have to do with brain lesions and tumours and occur spontaneously. Photic auras are quite common among migraine sufferers who report localized or generalized light structures obscuring the field of vision. But not all photic experiences originate in pathogenic conditions. In fact, one of the commonest form of patterned, and usually brightly colored, photism occurs as a feature of sexual orgasms.

“Seeing the light” of course describes also the peaks of religious and mystical experiences world over, in practically all cultures. Mircea Eliade reported it as far as the Inuit as a mark of shamanic fitness, and all the founders of great religions have been reported to have received some form of prominent luminosity as part of their transport.
You may recall the transfixed Robert J. Oppenheimer at Alamogordo, N.M. 1945, uttering a line from Bhagavad-Gita at the sight of a flash of the first atomic bomb exploding. “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”. It was entirely appropriate, since not only do all the world religions see the light, but they all see the same way: as a sudden overpowering burst which obliterates the senses and transfixes the subject.

The focus of my research are the contexts, psychological and physiological, in which peak experiences occur. Generally, they seem to be present in situations of abnormal or “maximum” stress on the nervous system, in which the microelectric patterned activity of the brain (,and there are some specific regions, which are more directly implicated in the phenomena) becomes severely disrupted. Such ab- or para-normality of the central nervous system announces itself by what is know as synaesthesic phenomena, i.e. the experience of convergence of the senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste, and a degree of the brain’s loss in the subject’s “body map” with the resulting levitational and out-of-body sensations. The sudden appearance of the light may or may not occur, in a highly synaesthesic subject, but when it does occur, it is usually preceded by a sense of a profound fear and morphing into a contrasting dominant feeling of peace and fulfillment. The events associate with a complex partial seizure in the temporal lobe preceded by an aura. Because of the profound shock of this type of event (in its first occurrence), and the cognitive challenges surrounding it, it has been intuitively associated with the experience of death, or ushering into a new life – in almost all belief systems.

People with complex partial seizures in the temporal lobe were until recently commonly diagnosed with TLE, or temporal lobe epilepsy. In the late diagnostic developments, the term Teporal Lobe Disorder (TLD) has been deployed and a TLD personality defined . However, isolated (or frequent) complex partial seizures sometimes occur in subjects who do not show epileptoid patterns on EEG. A new focus of research in the last dozen or so years has been on the mysterious non-epileptic attack disorder, which is quite commonly misdiagnosed as epilepsy.


The nature of speculation about the meaning of the episodes of acute synaesthesia and photism, or their imaginative rendering, helps us to gauge the psycho-physiological context in which they occur. In the past, the experience of photism associated exclusively with epilepsy. In Ireland epilepsy was known for ages as St.Paul’s
disease, and the epileptic grand mal in a Christian missionary or priest became something of a stereotype among the Nordic pagans (btw, faithfully reproduced in the recent movie saga Beowulf & Grendel)

There are however number of reasons to suspect that Paul’s profile falls into a different category. His own articulation of ecstasy and his “sober” assessment of the interdependence of his highs and lows in 2 Cor 12, as well as other logia seems to point in a direction of bipolarity producing non-epileptic TLD-like symptoms. Paul himself seems quite ambivalent to the claims of possession of the divine “light” (2 Cor 11:14), alluding to Isaiah 14:2, and the common Judaic association of Satan with the “shining planet” Venus. (cf. Lucifer, from Latin “lux”=light & “fer”=bringing). It could very well be that the contention around Paul’s status of apostle had also to do with Paul’s innocence of the classical “burst” of photism in his ecstatic pleroma.

Other prominent bi-polar characteristics are present in the New Testament as a whole. Briefly, they are: 1) fugue (compulsion to travel), 2) glossolalia (speaking in tongues), 3) insomnia (miraculous and religious events in the synoptics occur at night or in lieu of sleep), 4)pronounced external appearance of intoxication in those who have the “Spirit” (serotonin flux), 5) highly agitated, contentious style of discourse, 6) depersonalization-derealization 7) psychotic annihilation (apocalypse) 8) moody arbitrariness and reckless abandon (“let the dead bury their dead”).

From the traditional symbolic structures around the mystical peak experiences with photism, it is apparent they were occurring spontaneously in their recipients, i.e. that they were not induced through some controlled process of meditation and ascetic practice. This is best attested by the presence of the antagonist forces of “evil” as the immediate after-effect of the mystical summit. In the medical and psychological profile, this metaphoric imagery corresponds to the ensuing (,in epilepsy referred to as “postictal”) psychosis which is very common, and prevalent in late onsets of medical issues with temporal lobe.

In the cognitive structures of the NT texts, the articulation of the complex partial seizures appears to play a central theme, around which the beliefs about Jesus “resurrection” consolidated. These likely originated with a historical figure of the Nazarene Yeshu, who may have adapted creatively some beliefs and practices of the Judaic apocalyptic sects of his time which sought techniques for a mystical union with God. After his death, the original experiential “peak” material among mystical adepts probably was first captured in a stylized but discursive “teachings” of Jesus’ spirit, then later re-organized as mythical travelogue of Jesus’ earthly ministry. While most of the gospel material has symbolic functions, some of it betrays manipulation of earlier oral or written traditions, with the transparent purpose of excising/transforming material hostile to a later theological stance of the church. In the re-write, the original metempsychosis of Jesus’ spirit in a community of equals, was processed into a symbolic complex metaphor of Jesus Christ rising bodily from the grave and appearing to a selected list of his disciples. This image, asserted as historical occurence, appears to have fulfilled primarily the function of assuring the dominance of the church dogma over individual experiences of martyrs and apostles and their sectarian challenges to the emerging episcopal authority.


Recommended Reading in Psychology and Neurophysiology for a student of origins of religious-mystical Ideas:

Eugene d’Aquili and Andrew B. Newberg, The Mystical Mind, Fortress Press,
Minneapolis, 1999
Aaron T. Beck MD, Cognitive Therapy and The Emotional Disorders,
Meridian, N.Y., 1976
Leopold Bellak, Manic Depressive Psychosis and Allied Conditions,
Grune & Stratton, N.Y., 1952
R.M.Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness, Citadel Press, Secaucus, N.J., 1961

William H Calvin: The Throwing Madonna: Essays on the Brain, Doubleday,
N.Y., 1991
William H. Calvin, George J. Ojemann, Conversations with Neil’s Brain,
http://www.williamcalvin.com/bk7/bk7.htm
Jean-Pierre Changeux, Neuronal Man, Oxfor U.P., 1985
Andrew Crowcroft, The Psychotic, Penguin, 1968
Victor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, Simon & Schuster, N.Y., 1984
Sigmund Freud, Civilization, Society and Religion, etc. (Vol 12. of Pelican Freud
Library), Penguin, London, 1985
-------------------,The Origins of Religion (Vol 13. of Pelican Freud Library),
Penguin, London, 1985
Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness., Fawcett, N.Y., 1973
----------------, Psychoanalysis and Religion, Yale U.P., 1950
Frederick K. Goodwin – Kay Redfield Jamison, Manic-Depressive Illness, Oxford
U.P., 1990
Stanislav Grof, The Cosmic Game, State U. of N.Y., 1998
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Mentor, N.Y., 1957
R. Joseph, ed., Neurotheology, Univ.Press, San Jose, 2003
C.G.Jung, Psyche and Symbol, Anchor, N.Y., 1958
-----------, Psychology and Religion, Yale U.P., 1966
Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation, Hutchinson, London, 1964
-------------------, The Roots of Coincidence, N.Y., 1972
Emil Kraepelin, Manic-Depressive Insanity and Paranoia, Edinburgh, 1921
A.R.Luria, Cognitive Development (Its Cultural and Social Foundations),
Harvard U.P, 1976
Abraham H. Maslow, Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences, Penguin, 1984
Abraham H. Maslow & Bela Mittellmann, Principles Of Abnormal Psychology,
Harper&Row, N.Y, 1966
Karl A. Menninger, The Human Mind, Alfred A.Knopf, N.Y., 1948
John Weir Perry, Trials of the Visionary Mind, State U. of N.Y., 1999
Michael A. Persinger, Religious and Mystical Experiences As Artifacts Of
Temporal Lobe Function, Perceptual and Motor Skills,
1983, 57, 1255-1262.
http://people.uncw.edu/bergh/par325/L09Rpersinger.htm
Jean Piaget, Psychology and Epistemology, Penguin, 1977
-------------, The Psychology of Intelligence, New Jersey, 1976
Roy Porter, A Social History of Madness, E.P.Dutton, N.Y., 1987
-------------, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, New York, 1997
Kay Redfield Jamison, Touched With Fire, Free Press, N.Y., 1993
Richard M.Restak MD, The Brain, Warner Books, N.Y., 1979
---------------------------, The Mind, Bantam, N.Y. 1988
Russell Shorto, Saints & Madmen, H.Holt & Co., N.Y., 1999
Robert Thomson, The Psychology of Thinking, Penguin, London , 1972
Ken Wilber, ed., The Holographic Paradigm, Boston, 1985



Peak Experience Allusions in NT :

Mark:

1:10 ..and when he came out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened

3:13 …he went up to on the mountain, and called to him those whom he desired. And he appointed twelve to be with him…

4:21 Is a lamp brought in to be put under a bushel, or under a bed, and not on a stand ?

9:2-9 …the transfiguration

13:35 … watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house will come

16:5-8 and entering the tomb….he has risen

Matthew

2:2 Where is he who has been born the king of the Jews ? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him

3:16 …he went up from the water…the heavens were opened

4:16 the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light…

5:8 (Sermon on the Mount) Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

5:14-16 (Sermon on the Mount) you are the light…let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works

6:22 (Sermon on the Mount)…if your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light

7:21 (Sermon on the Mount) Not every one who says ‘Lord, Lord’, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father…

8:11 …many will come from east and west and sit at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.


17:1-8 the transfiguration

19:28 …in the new world, when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne , you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones

24:42 …watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming

25:1-13 the parable of the ten maidens

26:64 …hereafter you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven

28:1-5 the empty tomb

Luke

1:79 …..to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death

2:8-9 …shepherds out in the field…and the glory of the Lord shone around them

3:21 when Jesus had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened…

8:16 Noone after lighting a lamp covers it with a vessel, or puts it under bed, but puts it on a stand, that those who enter may see the light. (see also 11:33)

11:34-36 Your eye is the lamp of your body…

9:28-36 …the transfiguration

12:37-40 ..blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes…

16:8 …for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light

16:22-24 …as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will it be in the days of the Son of man.

24 the empty tomb…

John

1:4-10 (Prologue) In him was life and the life was the light of men….

1:14 we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father

1:16 and from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace…

2:1-10 …the marriage at Cana

(the cipher of “marriage” is for the unio mystica)

3:3 …unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God

3:13 …No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man..

3:19-21 And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light……

5:35 (John) was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light

8:12 …I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness…

9:5 As long as I am in the world I am the light of the world

11:10 If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world… [discussion is around the status of the ritually entombed Lazarus]

12:35-36 The light is with you for a little longer….

12:46 I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness

14:9 … He who has seen me has seen the Father….

20:11-18 Mary Magdalene’s vision – empty tomb


The Acts

1:21-22 So, one of the men who have accompanied us…one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.

7:56 (Stephen: ) ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man, standing at the right hand of God.’

8:39-40 And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught up Philip; and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus, and passing on he preached the gospel…

9:3-4 Now as he journeyed from Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul why do you persecute me ?’ (see also Acts 22:6-16, 26:13-18)

12:6-11 Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains…and behold an angel of the Lord appeared, and a light shone in the cell; and he struck Peter on the side and woke him saying, ‘Get up quickly’. And the chains fell off his hands….

13:11 …and now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind and unable to see the sun for a while…

13:30 …but God raised him from the dead and for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem

13:33 …’Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee.’

13:47 ‘I have sent you to be a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth’

26:23 …that the Christ must suffer, and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to the people and the Gentiles

Romans:

2:19 …a light to those who are in darkness

6:5 For if we have been united with him in a death like this, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

8:16-19 it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of
God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided that we suffer with him in order that
we may also be glorified with him. I consider that the sufferings of the present
time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us…

13:12 the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of
darkness and put on the armour of light


1 Corinthians

4:5 do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart…….

15:51 –58 Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet……


2 Corinthians

4:4-6 …the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,. who is in the likeness of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, But Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake. For it is the God who said: “Let light shine out of the darkness”, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

6:14 …what communion has light with darkness ?

11:13 – 14 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as
apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as angel
of light.

[It was the view of Paul that the experience itself means nothing. Characteristically, the ultra-photic dimension of the unio mystica is absent in Paul’s witness. The reference to Satan is to the “shining one” (Lucifer) of Isa 14:2 ]

12:2 – 5 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third
heaven – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God
knows. And I know that this man was caught up to Paradise – whether in
the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows – and he heard
things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.

Galatians

1:15 he who set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace,
was pleased to reveal his Son in me….


Ephesians

1:9-10 For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

5:8 for once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light.

5:13-14 but when anything is exposed by the light it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light…..Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.


Collosians

1:12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the
saints in light.


1 Thessalonians

4:16-17 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

5:4-5 But you are not in darkness, brethren, for that day to surprise you like a thief, for you are all sons of light, and of the day…
(Paul appeals to the experience to disapprove to the nocturnal life style, and the “jargon” of the Son of Man’s coming “like a thief in the night”)

1 Timothy

6:16 …who alone has immortality and dwells in inapproachable light


Hebrews

5:5 So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, ‘Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee’

6:4-5 For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit.

12:2 Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith…is seated at the right hand of the throne of God

12:22-23 But you have to come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, and to
innumerable angels in festival gathering and to the assembly of the first-born
who are enrolled in heaven ….

1 Peter

2:9 you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

4:13 …rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed



2 Peter

1:16-19 We did not follow cleverly devised fables when we made known to you the
power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses to his
majesty…..lamp shining in a dark place



1 John

1:5 this is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is
light and in him is no darkness at all.

1.7 but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have a fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin

2:8 …because the darkness is past and the true light now shines

2:9-10 He who says he is in the light and hates his brother, is in the darkness still …

Revelation

4:1 Lo, in heaven an open door !

18:23 and the light of a lamp shall shine in thee no more, and the voice of the bridegroom and the bride shall be heard in thee no more….

21:11 …having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel

21:23-24 and the city has no need of the sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb…by its light shall the nations walk….
22:5 And night shall be no more; they need no lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign forever

Doug Shaver

Your hypothesis seems to assume that all or most of the events recorded in the New Testament actually occurred, and the only problem is finding a naturalisitic explanation for them. I think it's more parsimonious to suppose that the gospels are works of fiction. Events that didn't really happen don't need explanations.

Solo

No, I do not assume that most of the events in gospels actually happened.
I have already explained here the likely origin of the two Markan stories of Jesus feeding the multitudes , showing a remarkable cognitive pattern to which the learned exegesis of the text has been mysteriously blind. It is purely metaphoric happening which originally was - there is very little doubt in my mind - esoteric, cultic handshake, and would be told to the outsiders originally to tease them.

But there are a handful of incidents that are certainly very interesting, and more likely than not originated in actual, historical events, around the obscure figure of Jesus. Jesus being rejected in Galilee, The Gadarene demoniac, the incident with Peter at Caesarea Philippi, the Transfiguration, Jesus looking for figs out of season, Lazarus, the Temple "cleansing", and the crucifixion look to me best explained as originating from narratives of actual events. Their cognitive structures simply defy "mythic origin". I wrote once to someone that if Vivian, Lady of the Lake, at the moment she conjures up her tower around Merlin, were intercepted by her kinfolk screaming:

excuse us, ....sorry, to interrupt, but there is no tower, no way Vivian can do that sort of thing, we know her, believe us,...yes, of course, your suspicion is right...., she is out of her bloody mind

we would have a very different view of the Arthurian legends. But that is exactly what happens in the New Testament. Myths are not written that way. Nor is history. So, let's see what else is there that hasn't been looked at.

Jiri

Ellis

It's the Illuminati!

No, seriously...I have heard Jesus referred to as a sun god because he rises again (there are many other symbolic similarites)--maybe there's a connection to the light?

Solo

And that opinion, I suppose, comes after you availed yourself of the link in the biblio above to Persinger's article on temporal lobe 'artifacts'.

Jiri

mountainman

Would not that same parsimoniuosness suggest that said work of fiction
must have had an author (or possibly a number of authors and one editor),
and a date of actual writing. Such events, which according to
parsimoniousness must exist, do require explanation, and are obviously
supported from the information Cyril left (c.500) in Julian (c.362 CE).




Pete Brown