I agree, "being" is the starting point, the point of interest. But for me, "being" leads straight to temporality. It's a temporal concept, and there's no avoiding this. Sure you might prefer your type of mystic approach, go to the guide and say lead me, but the guide will inevitably lead you down that winding path toward temporality, because there is nowhere else to go with this interest in "being".

You say being is the starting point and is of interest and then limit it in your view of it as a concept and therefore subject to time. This seems to not see the baby in the bath water.

In English we have a term, "happening", which means occurring, as events. And "being" in modern, western lingo, is sometimes replaced by "happening". Notice that "being" might signify a static unchanging existence, while "happening" signifies activity. Happening is similar to the ancient concept of "becoming", which is often contrasted with "being". "Being" signifies something staying the same as time passes (the suffix "ing" indicates that time is passing), while "becoming" signifies something which is changing while time is passing. Time is the underlying theme. So I approach "being" from a western background, seeing the world as happening, and wondering what is happening. From this empirical, scientific background, there is no "being" for me, being is some sort of mystical ideal, what you've called a platitude.

You do acknowledge here that there is at least the notion of being as something beyond the temporality of concepts. You then reduce it to a meaningless aspect of the physical world.

So there is this mystical concept, "being", which doesn't really relate to anything real in the world, in the way that I understand the world, as consisting of events, happenings. But let's say you and I have both had an interest in this mystical concept, "being", so we've delved into it. You appear to have opted to enroll in some sort of formal mystical training, with a guide, while I have taken the philosophical approach, which is to look into as many different philosophies as possible, approaching the subject from many different directions, and in a sense to be self-guided because I can choose my directions of approach.

Likewise, I am a veritable magpie for collecting philosophical, religious and mystical concepts and traditions. It has though become distilled into a very simple philosophy and view.

What I have been doing here is suggesting some ground rules from which to explore the issue. Just like the philosophical foundations, or ground rules which are required for a discussion of metaphysics for example. These ground rules are necessary so as to be discussing genuine mysticism as practiced down the ages by people who take the discipline seriously. Rather than skirting around the edges which people tend to do who have not studied the discipline, just like with metaphysics.

I haven't really been discussing my personal view, or practice, but rather the equivalent of an academic approach, but for mysticism. Which unfortunately doesn't have much in the way of a formal academic structure in western learning.

I think you express the wrong attitude toward the philosophical approach here. The opposite of what you say about the rigidity of the philosophical approach, is actually closer to the truth. In the philosophical tradition there is a vast array of different approaches to the same issue, being. As you know, philosophers do not agree. The problem with the philosophical approach though, is that there is far too much variance, so unless you go to an organized school, a university or something, and have professors, as guides, who point toward the appropriate material, you might get lost, overwhelmed by the vast material, perhaps wasting a lifetime getting nowhere. So you have chosen a guide instead, but the guide gives you that rigidity of a singular approach, the way that the guide knows. Unless you recognize when you have gotten as far as that guide can take you, and you move along to another guide, in the same way that we switch professors and courses in university, you will not get as far as you might want to get.

Yes some varied background reading and approaching from more than one established path of entry into the discipline. Along with talking with a diverse group of adherents does help one to get a rounded take on the discipline. I suppose what I was getting at in my first post that you reference is that often the philosopher one engages with will require you to use established terminology, follow the ground rules and will be critical, or dismissive of anything which does not fit therein.

Notice how you describe your progression as a type of growth, which is a becoming, rather than a being. This is an odd tendency. We want to refer to ourselves as beings, human beings, such that the self has a temporal extension as the unchanging "I", yet when we describe ourselves we describe a changing, growing creature.

This falls into what I described a minute ago as skirting around the edges of the issue while not adhering to the ground rules. I hadn't gotten around to any ground rules regarding being, or self, or "I"

The natural inclination appears to be to relate to ourselves as beings, something which is, like Descartes said, "I am". However scientific endeavors demonstrate that what we are is changing, growing, evolving things. By what means would I say that I am the same "being" that I was twenty years ago? So science provides no place for the "I", the self. The perception is that expressed by ancient Greece as "becoming". Plato and Aristotle demonstrated and incompatibility between being and becoming, so the concept of "matter" was proposed to reconcile them, to bridge the gap.

Mysticism delves beyond the intellectual, or mind derived understanding of being, self and "I".

I think that the concept of matter provided the basis for a revolution in western mysticism. In pre-Socratic times mysticism consisted of ancient myths concerning the relationship between the gods and the world, as well as the relationship between souls and bodies. These relationships were not well understood, and the myths were very sketchy. After Aristotle the main focus of western mysticism became the nature of matter, whether it's real, whether its inherently evil, etc.. Matter is a central concept in the western world, but there are two very distinct ways of looking at matter. The scientific approach takes matter for granted. The mystical approach does not attribute any necessity to matter.

I don't really perceive a problem, or crisis within mysticism from the modern views and discoveries about matter, physical material.

I see this as the key point, and the reason why time becomes so important. We apprehend ourselves immediately as "a being" because we have memories which provide the base for an "I" or "self", extended in time. However, we also have to relate to what you call here "the animation of events". And this is a very practical issue, which opens up all the questions of freedom, constraint, and agency. We simply cannot deal adequately with any practical issues without having the required understanding of the role of time in the animation of events. The extent of the requirement varies by degree, depending on the subject. But to ourselves, as beings, time only appears as a particular extension, or dimension, of existence. The temporal extension of the self provides the testimony for this. So there are two seemingly incompatible notions of time at play here. One plays a role in my static identity as "I", and the other plays a role in the animation of events.

Yes you point to a potential conflict between temporality and permanence/perfection. Like I have said physical material, as far as I am concerned in this endeavour, is a tool of expression of being. Time and space, spacetime is an aspect of physical extension and material.

I know that this last point could become a point of contention here and I do accept that mysticism does become concerned with matter and time. But only really at a more advanced level and we would need to have established the ground rules of discussion before reaching a point where this can be adequately expressed.

I'm not, as I said it's globalisation what did it. Google globalisation.

It's globalisation what did it. Wages went down in other countries outside the EU too.

OK, but I'm having difficulty grasping what you mean by "pure and divine", "perfect". I've been told before, that if I want to better myself, I need to apprehend this (let's call it an ideal), because I won't be able to truly judge better from worse, without some sort of scale which would be based in the ideal, the notion of perfection. But I don't completely apprehend that need. Can't I just judge one thing as better than another thing, in relation to a third thing? So the one thing is closer to the third thing than the other thing, and therefore better. This would make the third thing the best, of all those three things, without the necessity of being perfect. Now I need to question what makes this third thing the best, and I can't just relate it to a fourth thing, and a fifth thing ad infinitum, so maybe I really do need an ideal to ground the notion of "better".

I will try to address your concerns here. But first I want to put in context what I have been talking about in this thread. What I am referring to is a set of mystical practices, practices which are precisely targeted at a process developed to help a natural growth within a person, rather like practicing Yoga for your health. In this the concern is relationships between aspects of the self of the practitioners so entirely internal. It is the case that the practitioner is living in our world simultaneously to this, but the practice is the focus and in this time is of little importance other than its role in the animation of events. I do accept that time does on occasion become the focus of such practice.

So going back to your concerns. People may tell you to look to perfection of some kind to better ones self, but it is nothing more than a platitude I think, like if you eat more carrots you will have better eye sight. As for judging better from worse, this depends on the perspective when the judgement is made. In mystical practice this is contemplated, but no judgement is made other than what is perceived to be appropriate for the practice. Of course one is free to come the judgements for personal consideration, opinion etc, but this is separate from the practice. I should point out that I don't think the human mind is equipped to understand reality, this is not to say that it is not equipped to behold it, but rather to work it out unaided.

I think that attempting to position the soul in your time theory might be useful, but I don't think we can find the truth of the situation, but what makes sense to us. I am familiar with your thoughts on the metaphysics on time, which I broadly agree with, but haven't enquired into much myself as I am not so concerned with the metaphysics of physical reality. Rather that physical material is a tool for the expression and development of being and that being is of more interest.

I perceive a problem for the human mind in coming to a definitive metaphysics, due to not having any idea where reality begins, or ends, or how deep it goes. Rather like trying to peddle without peddles. I am open to being corrected on this, but don't hold my breath.

An asshole is going to be an asshole after ‘enlightenment’. They might even be an asshole with a more inflated ego, because they’ve experienced selflessness, oddly enough.

Somehow I don't think an asshole would fit through the eye of the needle.

I don’t think we can begin to imagine what is beyond our little fishbowl of experience.

Nicely put.
This would suggest to me that we are not going to figure it out with our little minds, but rather it is revealed to us, or not, as the case may be.

RIP Little Richard.

I accept that time is involved in these processes to quite a fundamental degree. I want to draw you back the what I am aiming for which is a relation between, in a sense different apparatus in a person's psyche, or being. The easiest way to explain this is if one considers that we have a soul, this soul is (for arguments sake) pure and divine. It does though have life, a past, a present and future and it is myself, but ordinarily I am somehow not aware of it, or at least can't distinguish it from the limited self. The orientation is to achieve an alignment of the person of the limited self and the person of the soul, such that the goals, desires, understanding and motivations of both is one and the same. The soul though being perfect cannot change, so the limited self being imperfect will change to become perfect.

I agree, I see the overcoming the self, negating, or losing the self, narrative as one of a number of practices developed in a school which has become over emphasised in its, perhaps, being taken out of context. I am sure that it has some merit as a practice in a Tibetan monastery for example, but I have only ever found it to be something unattainable and pointless, or what is it that is to be achieved through doing it?

I am cool with stream of consciousness expression. What I write will also be like that, although some formulation has already been composed. I find it hard to reference scholastic material in this because there immediately becomes an issue of terminology and interpretation of the source, or criticism of the source, or of me, in which what I am trying to say becomes sidelined.*

I want to stress that what I have to say about this alignment in the self is a subject for a whole book and that I don't feel I have expressed it sufficiency as yet.

I want to stress the word orientation, because as I use these ideas in contemplation, I find the concept of changing myself through the fine tuning of my orientation easier to countenance. Firstly because I am not changing myself, but turning something in me, fine tuning a relation. Secondly because I realise that the goal is not a change in myself, but either a freeing, a realisation, an opening. Third I like the concept of an ironing out of the wrinkles in myself, or stilling the ripples on a pond. Fourthly that I am confident in the sentiment that that which I strive for, reach out towards want to free myself for, or to achieve is already here, I am already it, I am already there, if only I were to realise that fact, to re orientate inside myself that it shine through.


*I can reference my principle source, but on the condition that it is only a source in that it provides a skeleton of structure from which to work and that I dont endorse any other aspect of it. Or following it word for word, or agree with the premises of the work necessarily. That if someone then criticises the work, or my use of it that I would ask them to return to the discussion without derailing in these ways.

Curiously my wife has this even stronger than I have and she is not spiritual, mystical, or anything like that, but an atheist. Well she says so but I don't believe her and I doubt she does either on that point. I mean how could she with a gift like that.

My preferred - idiosyncratic - notion is 'ecstasy' rather than 'mysticism'; ecstatic practices - what Iris Murdoch calls "unselfings" - rather than mystical, or spiritual, exercises (i.e. union with (some) 'transcendent' (something)); ego-suspending via everyday living (i.e. encounters (à la Buber) - prayer, meditation, or contemplation via e.g. making / performing / experiencing art; free play; intimate sex; compassion-care; etc - and/or hallucinogens) rather than ego-killing via ritualized ascetics (e.g. monasticism, militarism, etc). Not religious, not spiritual, not mystical - but I am (an) ecstatic.

I hear you loud and clear, it doesn't need to be either/or though, it can be both, or a creative synthesis. Tailored to the nature of the individual.

Yes, nature mysticism.

I think a lot of young sensitive souls hit on this entree to mystical experience. It was my first taste. Especially the deserts of the southwest US; more especially, Monument Valley and Joshua Tree. A perfect mirror-metaphor for the emptiness of the soul.

Nice, I'm envious. I mentioned animals in particular, they have a special significance to me as they are in a sense me without the ego. Or at least there is a glimpse of this in a communion with them. Ref' St francis of Assisi.

Yes what you bring up is an important aspect of the mystical/spiritual quest (I realise that the use of the word spiritual has baggage here). The fight of, with, or subjugation of the limited self, resulting in the true self emerging like the pheonix from the ashes. Or the Hindu deity standing erect with his foot on the back, or head of his limited self. Such practices rituals like the initiation from the boy to the man speak volumes about the pitfalls and distractions of this limited, inherited self. Also they beckon to the aspirant the desire, need, requirement to cross this rubicon. In the certain knowledge that no (real) progress can be made until crossed.

This is not the subjugation I was referring to initially. What I was referring to is the process of the alignment between the self and the guide, to use another analogy. The self and God, the self and soul, the self with nature, with spirit. This is another important aspect/process on the path and likewise not much progress can be made until it is tackled. This process presupposes the breaking free of the limited self that you refer to.

This process of alignment, orientation has various aspects including some sense of giving up ones freedom. This is something which is offered freely in the knowledge and surety that nothing is lost because what is gained thereafter is that which was feared to be lost along with the added component of being guided by some ineffable power (I am using this phrase only because it follows on from the phraseology I was using earlier). Which is known to be oneself already, but just an area of the self not realised. So as I suggested earlier, it is not a subjugation to a power over, but rather a power with and power over simultaneously, synthesised into a unity.

An illustration of this is spoken by Jesus in John 12:44-46
"If you trust me, you are trusting not only me, but also God who sent me. For when you see me, you are seeing the one who sent me. I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark"

Just a quick thought, I will give a longer response later. The aspirant when surviving the ordeal of the destruction of his/her conditioned self realises that the ineffable power who is the object of their effort to transcend the ego, or self, is in fact him/her self already. So again we have power over and power with integrated and the distinction desolving in a synthesis of self with creator. So power is both over and with in one unity.

LOL. How much has the UK government spent on covid-19 so far? What will a no deal Brexit cost the UK? What does the word negligible mean in nobby English?

Yes, England is going to hell in a handcart and people who have been conned like Chester want to bring it on asap. Note he doesn't agree with the UK lockdown, that it's an over reaction. No lockdown followed by a no trade deal Brexit is hell in a hand cart for the English. Just as we fall off the economic cliff, Scotland and Northern Ireland will leave the UK, tempting the Welsh to follow. Fortunately I will be getting my Scottish passport. The nobs will be happy whatever happens, they have their offshore accounts and will turn the wreckage into the 51st of the US.

Well we will know soon as Pakistan is going to unlock tomorrow and their death rate is still increasing. Also India will be an interesting example, the numbers are starting to surge there now. I heard that there were 75,000 cases confirmed as of today which is rising rapidly. India is densely populated and most are poor, so they won't be able to social distance effectively.

Certain kinds of mystical experience are as natural as the sky or the sun.

Yes, like a communion with animals and plants. One might remember that one is an animal too.

Commenting in the hope of maybe augmenting the given expression of “subjugation”. In my current understanding, there’s often a critical difference to be found between typical mysticism and typical religion: whereas the latter often concerns an experienced relation of power-over, the former is typically concerned with an experienced relation of power-with.

I agree with the distinction you make, however as I see it there are many subtleties and nuance here. Perhaps in the case of religion "power over" is dictated for purposes of controlling the members, or population, over whom the high priests rule. Whereas an individual adherent might foster a more "power with relationship" in private.

When it comes to the mystical aspirant, or master the "power with is" stressed outwardly, while the individual might have developed more of a "power over" relationship, or aspiration in private.

Also for the mystic there is a more nuanced distinction in which the mystic is in many ways free to do, or think what he/she wants without fear or favour. While having a trust that an ineffable power is in some way directing their bahaviour and thinking, for some greater purpose, in which the aspirant is essentially offering service. This relation can take the form of the aspirant identifying an aspect of themselves which is of the ineffable realm in an imminent sense and there is a communion, or dialogue between the two. In which the distinction of power over/power with is lost, because the relation is within one's self. Also there may be the consideration of a hierarchy of ineffable connections/activities which the aspirant can't expect to, or be expected to have personal agency in, or understanding of. Such a scenario can only really be described as power over, although the aspirant is cooperating, or giving permission for the ineffable agency to operate through him/her self.

This is an interesting introduction I think into the role of agency and purpose in mystical practice. I would be interested in exploring this further.

Have you done your reading yet?

Quite and the body which decides which drugs are procured for the NHS and which are to expensive, meaning many people don't get the treatment they could have is called NICE.

Nice.

In the UK, the hawks and the rightwing media are gunning for lifting the lockdown.



With over 600 deaths yesterday, the curve has not come down much. The five tests which the government has identified as necessary for the lockdown to be relaxed are nowhere near being met. With more and more calls for a relaxation and worries about the economy being aired. It's beginning to sound like some people are beginning to think that a few hundred or thousand extra deaths are worth the cost to reduce the economic damage. The government messages are vague and keep changing. Johnson is apparently going to announce the way forward on Sunday the day before the current end of the lockdown period. With an excuse that not all the information is in yet. There is speculation that there is no plan and the government is in chaos.

I also did not see my own body (like derealization describes), but I lost awareness of it. I always saw some blue visual, which I can only describe as 'cosmic', like a star. The visuals only played a minor role, though. The sensations of inner peace and omniscience were much more profound and made a bigger impression on me.

This correlates to my experience. There was what seemed like an extremely bright( but not bright in the sense that it lit up the room), but when you looked into it it was to bright to make anything out. Also there was the sense that it was spatially concentrated, like the tardis in Dr Who. There could have been whole worlds of beings in there. There was the feeling of peace and omniscience and I could sense someone talking inside it, that I was aware of. They were discussing whether I was ready to be taken, or it wasn't my time. After giving it their careful consideration they concluded it wasn't my time and it moved and faded away. But the feeling of awe and wonderment, the deep feeling that everything was going to be alright (in the sense of after death), the deep sense of peace and benevolence and omniscience remained with me for quite while and the whole experience is still vivid to me now 30 years later.

Many boats to float. One sea.

One sea, many waves.

This is not to deny anything about religion, or God, but rather they are not of importance within the practice. Others may disagree.

— Punshhh

As I understand it most recorded mystical experiences are given within a religious or cultural framework. Absent any framework there is nothing to say about an experience except via poetry or allusive language. But then poetry has its inevitable cultural moorings, even in the absence of an explicit frame.

I need to tease out what I am saying, during my practice I am not adhering to a religion, or seeking a contact, or communion with God. As opposed to other practices in which one carefully follows a prescribed religious practice, or is praying, seeking a communion with God, as an integral part of their practice.

For me the integral parts of the practice are between myself and some aspect of nature (including aspects of myself) there is no prescribed practice and there is no effort to interact with a God, or God like being (although I have done these things in the past).

An important thing to realise, which is often not grasped by people enquiring into mysticism is that there is a subjugation of the ego and in a sense the personality to some other power which then directs one's development. As such an enquiry into the other power, or ones relation to it is, or its purposes, are not important. What is important is in allowing the channel between yourself and the power to flow freely.

I realise that this might sound weird, but when one looks into prayer, or religious based mystical practice this is also going on between the self and God. Such interaction is an important aspect of mysticism. This is not to say that it is necessary.

A structured mystical practice changes the person and has an effect on the people around them. This is real and documented. Religion which is a kind of mysticism and changes the adherents and has an effect on the people around them, indeed on the course of human history.

For a chap who is not bothered about all those Mystics, you are banging your drum quite hard there.
Stick around and listen to what some of them say and you might find there is a bit more to it than people staring at their navels.

Quite, I saw a steam engine made out of an old door knob the other day, on the antiques roadshow. The maker had spent hundreds of hours engineering all the miniature parts required. It ran on a spoonful of water and a thimble full of meths. It was treated with reverence and was quite valuable.

Welcome back and I hope you're ok.

I doubt this. This is not an ideal world for stragglers. Unless you're Switzerland.

This was on the assumption that the UK would leave with no trade deal in place on 31st December and all the attendant chaos which would come from that. If that happens they will leave trust me, and becoming small states in the EU would be better than the alternative (staying in the UK)

I just thought I would mention that if we are subjected to a no trade deal scenario on the back of the Covid economic hit. Our economy will be a basket case because there will be no way to sustain the inflated house prices upon which most of our wealth depends. If house prices crash then millions of just about managing mortgage holders will find themselves in serious negative equity. That will just be one of the dominoes which will fall and those folk in negative equity will find it increasingly impossible to service those mortgages. There will be no way to hold interest rates down. So the repayments will sky rocket. Within a couple of years we will be as broken as Greece was at the height of the Grexit crisis. But we won't have the EU to bail us out. England will be finished, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will leave the UK and rejoin the EU.

We're back to Boris Isles.

You really should educate yourself about these prejudices you hold against the EU. Passporting has enabled easy low regulation services access across Europe for UK service providers.
We will of course lose it entirely when we leave and will find it almost impossible to trade in services as a third country across the EU. We will also lose all the agreements we benefitted from around the world via the EU trade deals. So will have to start from scratch with every country in the world in trying to come to some accommodation for services access. All of which will take many years as it's far more complex to agree than trade in goods. In the meantime UK financial services will disappear abroad, or die out.

Are you aware what will happen every time our negotiators go to a country to start negotiating? The first thing they will say is show me the agreements and trade deals you have with the EU and then we can talk. So no deal means no deals anywhere until we crawl back to the EU and accept whatever they decide to offer us.

Double whammy, the EU won't agree to a quick simplified trade deal which Johnson is hoping for and the best that's possible by 31st December. Because the UK intends to move further away in terms of agreements, alignments etc over time and won't agree to anything which prevents this moving away to happen, making a no deal more or less inevitable.

Also these other countries will turn to the negotiators and say look at the divisive and untrustworthy way you have gone about leaving the EU. Do you think we are going to trust you with a favourable deal and trust you to stand by your word when you insult the EU from day to day regarding things you signed up to in the withdrawal agreement, which you are now ripping up? You guys want to have your cake and eat it, you can have a basic trade access until we can trust you again.

Do some reading up on what you denigrate for once.
https://www.bba.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/webversion-BQB-3-1.pdf

I'm done now. You are impossible.

It's that old chestnut fake news. Anything said by the other side, in this case lefty's, remoaners, establishment figures, their rags, or reports. It's all fake news. Fact has become fake.

We, the wealthy (and well fed) poor, unite! Against those charlatans, betrayers of our country, who want to give it all away to those faceless European bureaucrats. The're all fake the lot of them, fake news.

The secret for me is I always maintain a hypothetical or experimental attitude. I'm not looking for any kind of particular confirmation (which is where I think the search degenerates into something contrived). I am just....continuously gathering information.

Quite, confirmation, or reaching a perceived goal is a side issue. But rather a growth, or progression along a path is what is important, rather like the growing of an oak tree. The acorn cannot jump from acorn to mature tree in one step without growing through all the millions of smal steps in between.

When I was younger I was intrigued by Zen, but was never in a position to give it ago. However I have been in retreat in the Himalayas, where I exercised techniques equivalent, also Hatha and raja yoga.

An interesting report into the way that care homes were required to shield hospitals while there were fears that the hospital ICU wards would be overrun. This included shipping out older people from hospitals into carehomes to create more bed space in hospitals. Sending out instructions to carehomes not to send suspected cases of Covid to hospitals, alongside this there was no provision of testing and little PPE provided to these ill equipped institutions populated by the most vulnerable.

This story is damning because these issues have still not be rectified and the carehome deaths are still rising.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-elderly-sp/special-report-in-shielding-its-hospitals-from-covid-19-britain-left-many-of-the-weakest-exposed-idUKKBN22H2EI?il=0

Yes I know, we do need to see this through a Vote Leave prism ( Vote Leave is now in government, Cummings, Johnson, Gove and their entourage). They are saying we rely on the experts, but what the experts tell them then goes through the prism of a spin group headed by Cummings. It must be in their interest to portray themselves as following closely the advice. Yesterday Patrick Vallance, one of the experts said that they, the experts, give the government a range of scenarios and strategies, for them to consider. Also he said interestingly that he thought that the pull back from testing at the point of lockdown around 23rd of March was a mistake. The reason given at the time was that it was now pointless to test as the virus was spreading more widely in the community and the focus now was to flatten the curve by social distancing. They still had the herd immunity strategy ringing in their ears as well at that time.

So Cummings and Co are spinning the advice for their own purposes, whatever those are.

Chester probably works on the roofs of those massive distribution warehouses where people work on minimum wages, on zero hour contracts.

Nice posts, I'm not surprised Chester has reacted this way. The populists have to distance their supporters from any real data because it can contradict their message. In order to do this they foster a them and us rift between them and the establishment. Thus any specialist analysis of data is establishment propaganda, all experts are in on it. The only true and reliable source of information is through the populist channels of right wing rags and social media. They perceive a threat from nearly everyone, except people like them who think like them. The well off poor unite!

Interestingly before Corona the government rejected experts because it suited their agenda to win an election, which required aligning with the populists. Now we have Corona they rely on the specialists again, indeed they follow the advice from the experts. Presumably it is advantageous to have the capability to put the blame on the specialists later on when it all goes wrong.

It was a quier state of affairs where privelidged establishment Tory toffs where in alignment with working class anti establishment anti truth populists. The Tory's played them for fools for their own agendas.

I like your thesis, but personally I don't take all that much interest in the processes of physical material, because to come to a comprehensive, or theory of everything, understanding, certainly one amenable to science, is an onerous task. When physical material is little more than a tool, a substrate.

What is of more interest is the ideal(mind), and more fundamental (let's say spiritual for example) levels of reality. But trying to rendering those in a way acceptable in academia is even more of a quagmire.
Along with a susceptibility to the accusation of pseudoscience, woo, or plain idealism.

I find there is more likely to be a meshing with academia via personal spiritual development.

Mysticism to some extent involves the concept of freeing oneself from the constraints of the mundane (viz the whole monastic tradition is a separation from the worldly).

Comparably, scientific theories or worldviews can sometimes become trapped in dead ends, which require a radical rethinking of core beliefs (paradigm shifts). Likewise individuals can become trapped in self-reinforcing frameworks of prejudiced beliefs.

So if mysticism aims explicitly at deconstructing mundane reality in order to work towards actualizing a more idealized version (as in the example of a monastic community) then I would say it absolutely does offer the possibility of something new, and potentially meaningful. Certainly at the very least as an exercise in self-discipline or introspective awareness.

Nice summary, do you study, or practice?

An intuition or experience can give us a starting point from which to investigate further, but it should always hold up to the scrutiny of logic and reason, or we risk ending up with delusion.

In the context of my personal experiences, I can use logic and reason to discern the genuineness of my experiences. If I conclude that my experiences were likely genuine, I can use logic and reason to try and filter understanding out of these experiences.

Yes I agree with this approach, for me treading the path of mystical enquiry is rather like how we deal with ordinary life, a process of having experiences, living mentally and emotionally with them, analysing them where they are of interest, or problematic, seeking more where of interest, less where problematic issues are identified. But differing from normal life where more disciplined, or structured practices are undertaken, for example meditation, or contemplation of an esoteric text. Such alternative processes can give a different take on experience, so that one can cross reference in the spirit of, or part of a structured attempt to break out of previous conditioning.

Along side such practices there are processes of introspection, in which one analyses yourself, this can be structured, or intuitive. So as to identify conditioning, trauma, weaknesses, strengths etc within your person. This then becomes like a kind of preening (to use analogy).

Alongside such practices are those in which one attempts to reach out, to commune with the wider world, or a divinity of some kind. The aim being at a later stage, re orientation with the divine, or nature, so as to deconstruct and rebuild the self as a transfigured individual, rather like zzoneiroCosm's Maslow practices, of self actualisation. The main difference as I see it between my reading of the process and his is that for me the transfigured self is seeking communion and deeper, or underlying, alignment with formative process in nature, or the divine nature, particularly in which one becomes a divine agent within a greater purpose. For me this agency is not conscious, for many reasons, but rather like a grace, or fortuitous happenstance.

I am aware of those points. My point was that in the UK it might require to much tracing (for our tracing teams) to be able to work effectively when we come out of lockdown, due to the amount of infected people at the point of unlocking. If the infection had not spread so widely before the lockdown, there would be less infected people at this critical point.

In the UK there is a lot of virus circulating continually due to what is only a partial lockdown. Unless there are sufficient resources put into dampening down each local spike around the country R will go above 1 and the lockdown will have to be resumed. This is not really about whether the hospitals will be overwhelmed, but whether R can be controlled during a partial unlocking.

I meant more in lines of trying to appreciate/consider individual perspectives and the general narrative function embedded in communication.

Yes, unique perspectives I expect. Perhaps this is why it is best to spend time in person with the person in question. For me the best understanding of the mystical experience of someone else was achieved by spending a few weeks together with another aspirant.

I am not familiar with literary theory.