The Varieties of Mystical Experience
56 points by drdee 7 days ago | 36 comments
  • B1FF_PSUVM 3 days ago |
    Quote of the month, sin-non-e-vero-e-ben-trovato category:

    Critchley puts it nicely: “The mystics are constantly effing the ineffable, for as long as it effing takes.”

    P.S. It took me a bit to recognize the obvious riff on William James in the title: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Varieties_of_Religious_Exp...

  • siavosh 3 days ago |
    Are there any good broad multi-tradition books on mysticism?
    • mjrpes 3 days ago |
      Not a textbook in any way, but I've enjoyed Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy

      https://www.amazon.com/Perennial-Philosophy-Interpretation-G...

    • chris_acree 3 days ago |
      Concordant Discord by Robert Zaehner is a book compiling a lecture series he gave at St. Andrews in the 1960's. I found it quite deep and a good view into some of the theological implications of different variants of mysticism, though it can be a bit dry, definitely not an airport-level treatment.
    • hshshshshsh 3 days ago |
      For me the gateway was Sam Harris, Eckhart Tolle, Ramana Mahrishi and Ram Dass. Steve Jobs also kind of helped indirectly with his association with Neem Karoli Baba, Zen, India etc.

      Welcome to the pathless path.

      Maybe Schrodinger's What is Life might also help.

    • nprateem 3 days ago |
      Becoming Supernatural by Joe Dispenza has promise. The meditation in that (especially the focus on pushing the cerebrospinal fluid up the spine) is probably the clearest instruction you can find (and mirrors the primary meditations in Taoism and Indian yoga).
      • argentinian 3 days ago |
        The cerebrospinal fluid already surrounds the spine and brain. "Pushing it up" sounds a bit like pseudo-scientific new agey talk.
        • buildsjets 3 days ago |
          It is TOTALLY psuedo-scientific new agey talk. That doesn't necessarily negate it's validity. What determines it's it's validity is whether it is a testable and repeatable method to accomplish a result, and whether it can be learned, then communicated / taught to others.

          Aleister Crowley said in Magick in Theory and Practice:

          "In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them."

          So, have you studied and received training and tried your own personal practice in pushing up your cerebrospinal fluid / manipulating your kundalini energy / grounding your root chakra / whatever new-agey terms your chosen method uses? Or are you dismissing the validity of these methods without firsthand experimentation because of how other people in your society have trained you think and because you do not like the terminology that they use?

          • argentinian 3 days ago |
            I agree that that by itself, even when it's anatomically incorrect, that doesn't negate it's validity to produce effects and I like Crowley's quote.

            I don't consider Joe Dispenza a good and experienced meditation teacher, and I don't consider serious his use of pseudoscientific explanations. Still, what he says may be helpful for some people, but I believe that there are much better meditation teachers.

          • tnias23 3 days ago |
            Assuming that this suggestion of “pushing up” CSF is possible, if taken literally, it would increase intracranial pressure (ICP). The normal ICP range is around 7-15 mmHg, and pressures outside this range can reduce cerebral perfusion, with increases potentially causing cerebral ischemia and brain herniation. Therefore, maintaining normal ICP is crucial for brain health. Let’s assume this supposed technique alters ICP minimally enough to stay within the normal range. I am not aware of any evidence suggesting that ICP at the higher end of normal (or anywhere within normal) is associated with health benefits.
            • nprateem 2 days ago |
              There's a record of people reaching altered states of consciousness for millenia. However besides drugs the methods aren't widely known or recognised by the scientific community.

              So by definition anything that produces an effect not readily accepted by 'science' is pseudo-science. It doesn't make it wrong it just means consensus hasn't caught up with it.

              Maybe it's CSF that's pushed up the spine, maybe it's energy. But multiple traditions practice some form of moving awareness up the spine combined with gentle physical contraction as a primary means of creating the conditions for entering mystical states. Those same traditions describe how this method energises the endocrine system. Furthermore the effects of doing this are now documented in scientific papers (search pubmed for kundalini).

              None of this negates the validity of the methods. They require firsthand experience for any real benefit, and more study to understand the exact processes at work.

      • titanomachy 2 days ago |
        I just downloaded this and read some of it out of curiosity. It’s probably one of the dumbest, most blatantly pseudoscientific things I’ve ever read. He freely recycles scientific vocabulary to mean… whatever the hell he wants, apparently, painting his mystical nonsense with a thin veneer of empirical legitimacy. I can’t believe tens of thousands of people actually read this stuff and see it as the work of a genius rather than the most obvious quackery.

        It is possible to write scientifically about meditation and altered states of consciousness without liberally reinterpreting all of physics. See Sam Harris or John Yates for example (both neuroscientists). What the hell is this guy a doctor of, anyway…? Chiropractic. Why am I not surprised.

        • nprateem a day ago |
          It's whatever makes sense to you. The fact is there is strong consistency between traditions in this core meditation.

          Maybe you just prefer to take instructions on blind faith, but for me his claim that feelings cause the body to produce chemicals which influence the cells makes sense, removing my resistance to this meditation.

          His logical fallacies etc do not necessarily undermine the meditation.

          YMMV.

    • CuriouslyC 3 days ago |
    • argentinian 3 days ago |
      I found interesting this article about common ideas among mystics from different traditions: https://centerforsacredsciences.org/index.php/Articles/the-m...

      Then the site offers a recommended reading list, if you wish to go deeper into some of the traditions: https://centerforsacredsciences.org/index.php/Library/recomm...

    • dceddia 3 days ago |
      The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young has an interesting overview of multiple traditions and how they overlap in a lot of ways.
      • kranner 3 days ago |
        It's a great book and the material dealing with meditative practices and perspectives in Islam (Tasawwuf specifically), Jewish Mysticism and Orthodox Christianity is very interesting for sure, but the second half of the book wouldn't make sense to someone not familiar with Shinzen's style of discourse. For instance when he talks about "the source of self and world", one has to know he has switched to a phenomenological perspective, and it would help to have some experience of the 'selfing' processes with respect to craving, aversion etc and the entanglement of our senses. This isn't mentioned explicitly anywhere IIRC.

        The book is edited from Shinzen's talks and an earlier version does have some guided meditations that introduce these practices but a newer version narrated by Edoardo Ballerini doesn't. In any case I think one needs significant meditation experience to comprehend the second half of the book.

    • buildsjets 3 days ago |
      I'm about halfway though "Angel Tech: A Modern Shaman's Guide to Reality Selection" https://www.amazon.com/Angel-Tech-Shamans-Reality-Selection/... which is a very interesting book that attempts to de-mystify mysticism using more modern concepts and language. Don't worry, no actual angels are involved nor does it either require or prohibit any particular religious faith. But it does require you to LARP as a robot if want to try their techniques.

      It is loosely based on the Buddhist 8-fold Path as interpreted by Tim Leary's (yeah, him, sigh) 8-circuit model of consciousness, but also discusses tarot, cabala, alchemy, the Hindu Chakra System, western magickal esotericism, the usual boring stuff everybody gets taught in grade school.

      It's better than most, but unfortunately like a lot of other books on the topic, knowledge of all the background material really is required to get a full understanding and appreciation of the content. I've just never found the time to sit down and actually read "Ulysses."

    • raun1 2 days ago |
      William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Varieties_of_Religious_E...

  • yboris 3 days ago |
    Related: The Varieties of Spiritual Experience: 21st Century Research and Perspectives by David B. Yaden and Andrew Newberg

    https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-varieties-of-spi...

  • bzmrgonz 3 days ago |
    What I find most intetesying is the concept of rehashing, that mystics pickup where other mystics left off, sometimes after decades have past. I think in today's world, given our newly acquired technology of AI, we can finally stitch all the mysticism pieces which have been woven by past mystics with the aim of finally creating the big picture and hunt for naturally occurring patterns. I for one want to find what Jesus' method of meditation was. Funny how the jewish scribes went to lengths to record the our-father prayer, yet not a single sentence on how to meditate, yes meditation, something which according to written records, Jesus did on a nightly basis by ascending to hilltops!!
    • nprateem 3 days ago |
      Be still and know that I am God. Pretty sure that's in the bible. But I think they're missing quotes: Be still and know that "I am God" (i.e. know it for yourself). At least that's how I interpret it.
      • siavosh 3 days ago |
        This seems remarkably in line to some Buddhist/Hindu/Non-Dual meditation techniques.
        • hshshshshsh 3 days ago |
          Of course. All teachings point to same truth. The truth cannot be different.
      • hshshshshsh 3 days ago |
        Yeah. Also see reviving Jesus by Adyashanti.
    • argentinian 3 days ago |
      I believe that when you read different mystics the repeating patterns are explicit. Of course an AI could process and summarize a big amount of diverse texts, but I wouldn't expect to learn anything new from that, because I believe the patterns are easy to notice after some investigation.
  • dr_dshiv 3 days ago |
    One reason why psychologists like to operationalize concepts is to make them measurable. Take a look at the way mystical experiences are measured—it’s a great way to get clarity on what mystical experiences are.

    https://psychology-tools.com/test/meq-30

    Or see the factor analysis based on a study of over a thousand users of psilocybin. The dominant factor is feelings of unity— followed by feelings of positivity, transcendence of space/time, and ineffability (inability to put the experience into words).

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-5906...

    These feelings have been described across history and culture. These are not merely drug experiences — they are “perennial” mystical experiences.

    The notion of unity is central to the experiences— but what does that mean? One can look for understanding in many traditions—I’ve found a lot of value in the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition.

    (As a side note, I wonder how the concept of unity compares to the concept of “harmony.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240587262...)

    Check out the “Embassy of the Free Mind” in Amsterdam if you are interested in the historical texts associated with mystical experiences. It is a rare book library with roots in the renaissance. https://embassyofthefreemind.com/en/

    • xk_id 2 days ago |
      Drugs change brain neurochemistry, which means they change the very apparatus of conscious experience. There are probably just as many differences as similarities, between sober and intoxicated mysticism.

      Also there is nothing perennial about platonism. It has been and continues to be challenged. An overlap in a handful of psychological measurements doesn’t justify conflating intoxicated platonism with all possible varieties of mystical experiences.

      • mistrial9 2 days ago |
        > Drugs change brain neurochemistry, which means they change the very apparatus of conscious experience.

        this is an uninformed comment. Medical science literature starts out in Chapter 1 with "some kinds of drugs create chemical states that are not possible without the substance, while others change chemical states that are also naturally occurring" .. roughly paraphrased.

        A notable thing about this topic is so many people assume they have expert insights?

        • xk_id 2 days ago |
          Psychedelics are textbook examples in support of the functional selectivity model, because while they bind to the same receptors to which endogenous neurotransmitters do, they trigger very different signalling cascades inside the cell. Maybe read more than chapter 1 of medical science literature?

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_selectivity#Example...

      • dr_dshiv 2 days ago |
        Many historical mystical experiences are triggered by asceticism. Restricting food, water, social contact, sex, oxygen — engagement in extreme darkness, extreme cold, fatigue, meditation. In short, one could argue, there is no such thing as "sober mystical experiences." They are an altered state of consciousness.

        Importantly, the mysticism scale is not a “drug induced mysticism scale.”

        The Pythagorean-Platonic tradition is rich — and let me be careful to say that I'm not making the claim that all philosophy is the same everywhere. But mystical concepts of unity and harmony are precisely perennial because of the shared nature of mystical experiences. Mystical christianity, mystical judaism, mystical islam, mystical buddhism, mystical taoism, mystical shintoism... The experiences have a lot in common. There are a number of surprising alignments between the Dao De Jing and Presocratic philosophy. I’d be happy to share.

        • buildsjets 2 days ago |
          There are also accounts of mystical experiences being triggered by aesthetic rapture in completely untrained and unprepared individuals, for example by seeing a beautiful view in nature or hearing a beautiful song.

          As you note there are many routes to the altered state of consciousness and sometimes people unwittingly stumble across shortcuts that do not require chemicals or intentional manipulation of the mental state.

        • xk_id 2 days ago |
          You are playing with the semantics of sober/intoxicated. Intoxicated (in this context) refers to exogenous modulators of neurochemistry, which activate distinct signalling pathways compared to endogenous ligands:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_selectivity#Example...

          This accounts for the “alien” character of the psychedelic experience, which is not an attribute normally used for sober mystical experiences.

          > Importantly, the mysticism scale is not a “drug induced mysticism scale.”

          Yes, hence my argument: while this scale identifies similarities between sober/intoxicated experiences, it doesn’t give an exhaustive description and overlooks that there might be just as many differences.

          The same argument goes for the perennialist view of mysticism. Different doctrines might share the end goal, but the chosen path can be experienced very differently. I guess my point is to not stipulate one path as representative of all paths which arrive at the same destination. The end goal in fact lays outside doctrine.