Herbert Von Karajan

Herbert, when you stumbled, do you believe you were waking yourself up hrom a hypnotic state or did you stumble to prevent the preacher from putting a dent in your forehead?

I am pretty much, not Christian. As I do not want to make a lot of fuss, I submitted to my cousin's demands due to respect (and he's a total fundie Christian). I didn't prayed, I was hoping this nut ritual will go away, and suddenly I felt a light tap and I stumbled. Yep, I do not want him to give further dent to my forehead.

Nevertheless, I went to my cousin and said "Next time, follow me to a Muslim mosque" and went out of there (church).

thetoastman

Meditation is known to reduce activity in a part of the brain involved in distinguishing self from nonself (right temporal lobe?); this is where the one-with-the-universe feeling comes from

Also (to quote from the presentation):

It turns out that damage to or stimulation of the left frontal lobes (left) often triggers the sensation of being in the presence of a supernatural entity and of gaining a special insight on the nature of the world. On the other hand, interference with the limbic system (right), which is tightly connected with human’s ability to feel emotions, can yield the feeling of a profound experience, which is so genuinely felt as to leave the subject with the conviction that it most definitely was “real.” [/B][/QUOTE]

Not to be picky, but the co-incidence of two events (one phyiscal and the other non-physical) does not mean that they are the same event. A causes B is not A = B.
There are two events, I say (and tell me if you disagree): one is the experience of "transcendence", the other is a brain event.
If something (say God) causes an experience "directly" (to the not entirely physical mind) which in turn causes a brain event in the right limbic system. This is different from something else (say an eager scientist with electrodes) causing a brain event which in turn causes a trasnscendant experience for the brain-owner.
Does that make sense? Tell me if not. (and if so, for that matter!)

Of course, this presupposes some kind of distinction between "brain" and "mind", so if that's your discomfort, point it out. That is a distinction I am at this point decided on, in favor of a other than physical Self... but heck, I'm open bigger and better reasons for believing what's true.

a youngin'
thetoastman

Jackalope

Jamais vu? Can you describe what you mean by this? On first reading, I thought you meant "never happened," but then the last vestiges of the french I learned popped up and suggested you might mean "always there" or "always happened."

--Lee

ps418

It means the sensation that you are doing or experiencing something for the first time which you have really done or experienced before- the opposite of deja vu. For instance, when I ended meditation and opened my eyes, my surroundings would always 'feel' somehow unfamiliar, like I was seeing them for the first time. If I went to the kitchen and cooked something, or walked around the city afterwards, it was as if I was cooking or walking around the city for the first time. Like I said, it was usually quite pleasant. It was like the "anaesthetic of familiarity" (to borrow a phrase from Dawkins) would wear off.

Patrick

Jackalope

Huh. That sort of disorientation is fairly common among patients with autoimmune diseases. However, it tends to produce a sense of panic, because the subject hasn't been meditating beforehand. It just comes on suddenly. Certain types of absence seizures can cause similar sensations.

From past experience, having the "I've never been here in my life" sensation come on while out driving can be extremely frightening. I know a number of people who simply don't drive anymore because of this problem. Mine's vanished since I went on a anti-seizure drug called Neurontin, which is also used for the pain associated with nerve damage and for Charles Bonnet Syndrome, which was discussed in the context of NDE experiences here a while ago.

--Lee

ps418

John Horgan, former senior editor of Scientific American, has written a new book titled Rational Mysticism. I flipped though it at the bookstore today. The book consists of accounts of and interviews with various modern 'mystics,' including Huston Smith, Ken Wilbur, and Susan Blackmore (does she count?). I'm not sure what is particularly 'rational' about any of the flavors of mysticism described in the book. [What is the sound of one neuron firing?, Maharashi Horgan] I used to be a big fan of Ken Wilbur, BTW.

Although in general the book looks pretty boring, one chapter looks interesting, in a humorous sort of way. It is about Horgan meeting Alexander Shulgin -- a famous psychedelics chemist, author of Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story, and taking an ayahuasca trip. From the the description Horgan gives of the experience, he must have taken quite a bit of Ayahuasca.

Horgan also wrote a small article for Edge about how he thinks the resurgence of interest in psychedelics is one of the most important unreported stories. He mentions that he even went Switzerland to attend a conference on psychedelics, which is apparently where he met Shulgin. article



Patrick

Jesse

John Horgan was also the guy who wrote "The End of Science"--I remember at the end of that book he wrote about a mystical experience he had himself which apparently shaped a lot of his later views. I wonder if his profile of mystics will be similar to his profiles of scientists in that book, or if he'll treat them more sympathetically.

I used to read a lot of Ken Wilber too, and I still think there's a fair amount of interesting stuff there if you take it all with a large grain of salt--it's a little like reading a modern, eastern-philosophy-influenced version of Hegel or one of those other big systemetizing philosophers. His idea of mysticism as a sort of higher developmental stage is too neat and it doesn't seem to make evolutionary sense in the way he describes it, but I wouldn't entirely dismiss the idea of understanding certain aspects of mysticism as an extension of trends in psychological development that you see in non-mystics.

philechat

Mystical experiences can be pleasurable, but I relegate them to the world of phenomenal experience, and nothing more. The more important would be how we interpret them--if they could be written down (or otherwise created) with a clear, beautiful style, then they become poetry and artworks...else it could also be enjoyed passively like reading a piece of good fiction.

I think to limit mystical experiences to only one religious view to be a waste. Since they are, like other experiences, variable and changable, I think we need not resist them but savour them to the fullest.

"It's not Nature itself but the mysterious affinities of Nature and human imagination that art describes." ~Claude Debussy (classical composer who is definitely NOT religious)