I was sucked into a kind of deathly vortex which seemed to be a state of paralysis between waking and sleep — Janus

I would get that too. I eventually learned that if you focus on breathing you can get back out of it.

I also spent 18 years participating in Gurdjieff groups and practiced meditation every day. — Janus

An aside - Did you ever get anywhere with, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson? I kicked around with people in Melbourne who were into Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. I spent a lot of time trying to follow the works. Got nowhere. Can't remember a thing 45 years later... Talk of degrees of reality. I got the feeling I needed more knowledge of the Greeks to fully appreciate Tertium Organum.

Thank you for your accounts of personal experiences. I will comment on each over the next day or so.

You are the closest to my mystical adventures. After reading the Art of D, which was brought to my attention by a young fellow rock climber who enjoyed a drug or two, I made the attempt to see my hands, as you did, but instantly I was shifted to an alternate reality - or so it seemed. Stunned, I lay there for a minute or so then got out of bed and walked across the bedroom floor to a closed door, feeling the carpet under my feet and stroking a chest of drawers on the way. I had heard of people walking through closed doors so I gave it a try and it was like going through a thin layer of fog. On the other side a stairwell led down to the living room, and as I started down I was pulled back to normal reality. Later I learned that moving down in that state can result in losing it.

Other adventures followed, and in each I was fully conscious but enabled to violate the laws of physics. How would I describe it in a few words? I was pure will.

That's interesting. I never found my hands again. Although I have to admit that I didn't apply myself to the preliminaries with any consistency, and I soon forgot about the whole enterprise. Perhaps I should try again. The idea certainly intrigues me. Did you have any success entering lucid dreaming states?

I also never got very far with Beelzebub's Tales to this Grandson. Gurdjieff's other books were more comprehensible to me, and Ouspensky's were that much clearer again. As I understood it the idea was that higher states of consciousness/ being consisted in higher or "finer" 'vibrations' of energy. As I remember it, according to Ouspensky (explicating Gurdjieff of course) everything has a material reality, even God and the human soul with the difference between "brute' or 'dead' matter and higher states consisting in fineness of vibration, like the gradation of musical tones. Man is in the natural state, asleep, a reactive machine.

The beginning of the path on the "fourth Way" was the establishing of a 'magnetic centre'. I stayed a fair time with the school and this was largely due to the fact that I had married one of the women who was pretty much totally committed. We were not only married but together ran a successful garden design and landscaping business.

I had been struggling with my skepticism for years (the organization seemed to be becoming progressively more cult-like and I was only interested in finding ways to alter my consciousness without continuing to resort to psychotropics) and when I finally could continue no longer my wife could not accept that I was going to leave and our marriage fell apart.

What you recount here is fascinating to me and makes me wish I had tried harder with or been more naturally talented in lucid dreaming. As I said I have always had very strange dreams, but I have never experienced exercising my will in dreaming. I did experiment with writing whatever i could remember of my dreams on waking, and I found the more I practiced this the more I could remember.

I always wondered though whether I was recording genuine memories of all the details (which became very elaborate) of these dreams or whether a good part what I wrote was not fabricated after the fact. The thought occurred to me that In way it doesn't matter because in either case I would be mining the unconscious.

Did you have any success entering lucid dreaming states? — Janus

I woke up in a dream once, but I changed something that went against the integrity of the dream reality and I immediately woke up. That never happened again.

When I got sucked into the limbo state was when I was doing that meditation where you ask "Who am I"? I never did that again, but sometimes I could feel the limbo coming. I discovered that if you focus on breathing, it goes away.

At that moment, I had a sudden and inexplicable realisation of the foundational nature of the 'I'. Not myself, as a particular individual, but THE self, the 'I AM' for whom the world exists, without which there is no existence. It suddenly became clear to me that this 'I am' is foundational to reality. — Wayfarer

The AofD experiences I had 40 or so years ago were astounding in several ways, the most pronounced being a wakening into a world more vivid and "real" than normal. As I mentioned I felt I was pure will, but the colors and definitions seemed stronger also. One experience was awakening in a bright desert staring at a large extremely colorful cactus. I moved around it and saw into it from several positions, astounded at the sharpness of definition and brilliancy.

A couple of years ago I suddenly awoke into a world where I was a different person, living in an Irish cottage, looking out a window at a countryside. For a brief few moments I had the sensations, memories and feelings of someone else. Another ineffable encounter with an alternate reality. It was quickly over.

I can't explain why these things happened to me so easily. I was a mathematician and an experienced rock climber - which are not so disjoint as you might suspect.

The "I AM" is the pure will behind the shadows of ourselves.

:pray: I found validation of sorts when I picked up a small pamphlet on the Teaching of Ramana Maharishi. He was a famous spiritual guru, passed away in 1960, who lived in an ashram in southern India, which is still a major attraction. I never really pursued his teachings beyond reading about them, but the basic meaning is that the 'I AM' is the Self of all beings. More about him here https://www.gururamana.org/.

Trouble with identity again. The argument against reincarnation seems applicable here - in what sense was the person in the Irish Cottage the same as @jgill? If all they shared was 'I AM', how do we conclude that they are the same? Or was Jgill experiencing being someone else, in which case experience is not essential to selfhood...? I don't know how to make sense of such experiences, but I don't think mystics do, either.



But also, and back to the topic, is the criteria for what is real to be that it feels real?

The argument against reincarnation seems applicable here - in what sense was the person in the Irish Cottage the same as jgill? If all they shared was 'I AM', how do we conclude that they are the same? — Banno

I don't know if that's an answerable queston.

is the criteria for what is real to be that it feels real? — Banno

I think that's rather simplistic. Consider as an analogy, a major life-event, either a positive or negative one. It might have an impact on your whole view of the meaning of your existence, for better or for worse. I think epiphanies are like that in some respects, although of course such things are difficult or impossible to convey to others. But it is interesting how many people will tell of such life-changing experiences if the opportunity arises.

Interesting. We are indeed strange beasts.

But it is interesting how many people will tell of such life-changing experiences if the opportunity arises. — Wayfarer

I agree. Humans are so diverse and interesting; their out of the ordinary stories never fail to fascinate. I have experienced a few life-changing experiences, and for me their capacity to change life consists in the feelings they evoke.

I don't know if that's an answerable queston. — Wayfarer

I'm pretty confident it isn't.

I think that's rather simplistic. — Wayfarer

As do I. offered a rational strategy, but was dismissed rather summarily. Feels seem to be what folk want, rather than thinks. That's fine, since the thinks will only lead to aporia, which feels unsettling.

Notice the connection between aporia and epochē. Something I've learned to feel comfortable with.

I'm pretty confident it isn't. — Banno

Imagine a diamond where each facet of the diamond is the whole diamond. This is Schopenhauer. Knowing that it's true, not wondering, but knowing, is part of an altered state. Think of it as a different brand of logic.

Although, the saying is: the difference between a mystic and a philosopher is that the philosopher tries to explain it. The mystic doesn't.

This is Schopenhauer. Knowing that it's true, not wondering, but knowing, is part of an altered state. — frank

Trouble is distinguishing what we know from what we just believe. The difference is truth.

Trouble is distinguishing what we know from what we just believe. The difference is truth. — Banno

To me, the trouble is distinguishing a mystical state from a possible tumor. I would have to pay out of pocket for an MRI, and I have no noxious symptoms. It does make me laugh to consider that Buddha may have an aneurysm. :grin:

Yeah. I wasn't gonna say that. Might be time for a check up for some.

Yeah. I wasn't gonna say that. Might be time for a check up for some. — Banno

I've found three reactions to mystical experience

1. There's the guy who clearly describes an out of body experience, but is certain it was his brain playing tricks in him.

2. There's the guy who is sure he has the keys to understanding the universe, and won't be dissuaded.

3. There's the person who has always had it, but just lives with it without making many judgements one way or the other.

Trouble with identity again. The argument against reincarnation seems applicable here - in what sense was the person in the Irish Cottage the same as jgill? If all they shared was 'I AM', how do we conclude that they are the same? — Banno

Taking up the transcendental lens:

We could conclude the 'I AM' is the same because they referred to the same 'I' who was 'AM'ing.

When I was still at school, I had the peculiar idea that if I suddenly swapped consciousness with the person walking towards me, AND I also instantly was connected to his or her memories at that moment, then there'd be no way of knowing what had happened. Rather peculiar thing to think, I grant, but at the time it seemed significant. Something about the universality of the experience of 'I'.

Although, the saying is: the difference between a mystic and a philosopher is that the philosopher tries to explain it. The mystic doesn't. — frank

Oh, I don't know about that. If you read up on Christian mysticism, the real blue-blood mystics such as Eckhardt and the other Rhineland mystics, they were both philosophically literate and rigorous. Eckhardt's sayings are dotted with 'an authority says' or 'according to a master' and each of those, you can have no doubt, would be a reference to a Boethius or a Dionysius or a Plotinus or some such. Mystical is, of course, the name for a whole bunch of fuzzy-sounding platitudes, but the real mystics may be both precise and rigorous.

Bernard McGinn wrote a good book on Meister Eckhart. I've never seen it spelled Eckhardt.

Oh, sorry, my bad. Yes I had McGinn's books in mind. Also Evelyn Underhill and Dean Inge, although they're a bit dated.

I think there's a fourth, which also finesses the knowledge problem:

4. There's the person who has a mystical experience, which is life-changing and whose effects persist over time. This person isn't sure WHAT happened, but tries to pick the most likely explanation, given what they know or can learn about such experiences, coupled with their own ongoing experience of the life changes. The result is a hypothesis: that the most likely explanation is that the experience was indeed an experience of God. The person doesn't claim knowledge of this, not at all. They can be shown to be wrong, conceivably, and they know it. But like so many important things in life, we have to make our best judgment.

When I was still at school, I had the peculiar idea that if I suddenly swapped consciousness with the person walking towards me, AND I also instantly was connected to his or her memories at that moment, then there'd be no way of knowing what had happened. Rather peculiar thing to think, I grant, but at the time it seemed significant. Something about the universality of the experience of 'I'. — Wayfarer

I think that'd count as a higher reality -- some kind of metaphysical structure which connects all the individual minds.

This isn't to say I endorse that, but it'd make sense of the idea: We could wrap the theory up as an explanation for connection between physically disparate minds.

Notice the connection between aporia and epochē. — Wayfarer

This is interesting. Can you say more about that?

I agree. And that fourth kind is likely to be drawn to philosophy.

Guilty as charged!

:cool: :up:

Right, and the justification will also depend on the experience(s). So, for instance, with a single experience set off by a drug or hypoxia, it is perhaps easier to write off than repetitive experiences with no obvious cause. Likewise, in some ways less utterly foreign experiences might be harder to reconcile, precisely because they fit into the model of all other justification. Recurrence and duration seem relevant.

Ezekiel's visions represent one of the more famous instances of mystical experience and, due to both linguistic evidence and his precise chronology, scholars seem to think they are relatively contemporaneous accounts. But the "hand of the Lord is upon" Ezekiel often and for long durations. At one point he is rendered immobile in episodes lasting 13 and 1 1/2 months respectively, in events scholars have supposed might be catatonic schizophrenic episodes. However, this would make Ezekiel very unique because, while many great artists have had schizophrenia, most people aren't able to carry out this sort of major literary project after the disease has manifested this extreme level of symptoms.

Anyhow, I find the Prophetic literature particularly interesting because it is so often not portrayed as a positive experience. Many of the prophets request that God kill them, with Jeremiah in particular launching into a long death wish narrative (Job also does this). Yet at the same time, none of the doubt, which does appear in the Bible, in apocryphal books, and in later Jewish, Christian, and Muslim mysticism seems to make it in either.

Notice the connection between aporia and epochē.
— Wayfarer

This is interesting. Can you say more about that? — J

It was really rather a stray thought. The question was raised about how you would know if you really did momentarily experience the existence of another person in a dream state. I said it was an unanswereable question - hence ‘aporetic’, the kind of question for which there is no answer. Which has something in common with epochē, ‘suspension of judgement about what is not evident’. But to me, the awareness of those kinds of questions, while not knowing whether or how they can be answered, signals a kind of openness to possibility. Neither ruling out the possibility nor believing it.