The Doors of Perception

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Rune R
Rune Nov 13, 2005 23:10:58
Replying to PeterH

>>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?<<

I don't think anyone knows the true answer to that, Peter. For myself, all I can say is it certainly doesn't feel to be an illusion, but simultaneously, it's more real than "normality".

There are many esoteric writings which direct us to look within ourselves for all the answers and many religious doctrines pointing us to an external source. Who knows, do we need to look at this another way and stop thinking if one way is "right" the other way must be "wrong". Perhaps they are both right, maybe what we perceive at the ancient places is a change in ourselves <i>and</i> a change in something external which combines in that instant to create our experiences.

Rune

H Hob
Hob Nov 13, 2005 23:44:03
Replying to Rune

>maybe what we perceive at the ancient places is a change in ourselves and a change in something external which combines in that instant to create our experiences

Well said Rune. Set and setting and all that hoojar. There are a good few lab studies that raise intriguing possibilities, but we have to remember that they are studies done in fairly controlled conditions (they have to be, else they wouldn't be 'Proppah Science'. But the relationship twixt subjective and objective in thes einstances which we discuss, is experienced in comparitively uncontrolled conditions. The external factor is quite possibly a combination of external factors which interact with a similarly complex set of internal factors. Mebbe the thing to do is get a Shakti hat and go out and about, with lots of people, to lots of places, over a extended period of time.

>>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?<<
You know Peter, I bet there are a goodly few folk out there who may have done as I just have, and typed up a lengthy, convoluted, 'well-it-made-sense-at-the-time' response to that question, only to realise it would make no sense whatsoever when read by another person.