Re: The Doors of Perception | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

The Doors of Perception

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Rune Nov 13, 2005 18:46:06

Replying to Littlestone

>Can a non-believer have a mystical or spiritual experience?<

I don't see why not. I think we all have similar experiences, it's just our explanations of them that are different, depending on our frames of reference.

If, for example, at one place, a female "otherworldly presence" was experienced by a lot of people, a Pagan may well say they'd encountered the Goddess, a Christian may say they'd encountered the Virgin Mary, a Buddhist could well consider they'd connected with Kwan Yin and an atheist could have concluded that they'd felt something that seemed very feminine.

All of them had a very similar experience, but for each one, the interpretation differs according to their own self-imposed beliefs/comfort zone.

This is why describing and talking about subjective experiences is so difficult, we don't have any common reference points or adequate language to communicate what's happened outside our own frames of reference and we tend to either generalise or use flowery or vague language. Maybe these things don't translate into words.

This is very interesting, I linked to it on another thread, but feel it deserves a place here, too.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8123-1509923_1,00.html

As for my own experiences, I don't know where they're generated, whether they are my brain reacting to outside stimuli at sites although they do happen in other places too, or whether it's something else, a force or "the universe" or whatever. One thing's for sure, whatever it is, whatever label anyone wants to put on it, it's more than incredibly pleasant and often profound, I'm up for it anytime.

Rune

PeterH Nov 13, 2005 19:46:59

Replying to Rune

"One thing's for sure, whatever it is, whatever label anyone wants to put on it, it's more than incredibly pleasant and often profound, I'm up for it anytime."

Yes - that is so. To function effectively in my everday world I have had to be rational, material and sceptical. Other perceptions have "happened" when I have been stressed, sick, exhausted, elated, emotional, distressed or moved by great art, music and megaliths.

So that is why I ask myself is it an illusion produced by chemical and neurological changes within me - or is it an external phenomenon that I can only perceive when I am in an altered state of consciousness? ie the old cliche about a radio tuning in to a station - the radio waves are constantly there, but you can only perceive them if you tune your radio to the appropriate wavelength.

Littlestone Nov 13, 2005 21:20:18

Replying to Rune

>This is why describing and talking about subjective experiences is so difficult, we don't have any common reference points or adequate language to communicate what's happened outside our own frames of reference...<

You've put your finger on a very important point there Rune. We <i>are</i> restricted in how we perceive the world by the culture we've been born into and the language that culture has developed to describe what it perceives. I have knowledge of only two cultures and two languages but they are <i>so</i> different that it's frankly impossible to combine them; it's almost like being able to see someone's face, either frontal or in profile, but unable to connect them. The frontal and profile images are both equally true but never combine to give a full and 'rounded' picture.

The mystical/spiritual experience seems to bypass the restricted view we generally have of the world and for a moment the circle appears complete (needed to get the mention of a circle in somewhere before I get my wrists slapped for being way off TMA topic :-)