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Mystical Experiences Do Not Require a Belief in a God or Gods

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Mystical experiences are usually associated with deity. That is, they are often called "experiences of god". But apparently, nontheists are among those who have had mystical experiences.

'Nontheists' include atheists and many agnostics, ietists, apatheists, and so forth. Some nontheists adjust their views to embrace theism following their mystical experience. Others remain nontheists. Some nontheists came about their experiences via pyschoactive drugs. Others via other means including spontaneously.*

PLEASE NOTE WELL: RF RULES PROHIBIT ENDORSING THE USE OF ILLEGAL SUBSTANCES, INCLUDING ILLEGAL PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS. AND DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT CLAIMING TO HAVE DONE SUCH THINGS YOURSELF!

One conclusion that I believe can be safely drawn from this is that a belief in a god or gods is not a prerequisite for a mystical experience.

Comments?




*Andrew Newberg and Nancy Wintering have created what is possibly the world's largest database of firsthand accounts by individuals of RSMEs (Religious, Spiritual, or Mystical Experiences). The individuals whose stories are in the database are self-selecting, so they are not likely to be statistically proportional to the world's population as a whole. Nevertheless, a significant number of the individuals reporting mystical experiences are nontheists, including atheists. However, I don't know what proportion of those reporting religious or spiritual experiences are nontheists. Mystical experiences are RSMEs that, among other things, emphasize oneness, wholeness, or unity as a characteristic or trait of the experience.


____________________________________
 
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Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
I think the human brain is wired to have 'mystical experiences' under certain conditions. Many societies interpret these experiences as connection to a deity or to spiritual beings. Others interpret them as one of the things brains can do, like optical illusions.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
I think the human brain is wired to have 'mystical experiences' under certain conditions. Many societies interpret these experiences as connection to a deity or to spiritual beings. Others interpret them as one of the things brains can do, like optical illusions.

I think both groups are jumping to conclusions.

Rash people. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
Theism is not a prerequisite, I concur.

Mystical experiences are not mediated through discursive thought, or reason. So one's considered 'beliefs' seem rather by-the-by, so far as the actual phenomenology is concerned.

'Infused contemplation' (as Catholics call a spontaneous elevation of the mind, an autonomous mystical experience of the highest magnitude) can happen to anyone at any time in any context. Its a human phenomenon.

'Acquired contemplation' (as Catholics call purposeful attempts to prepare oneself for a contemplative experience, as practised by monks, as part of the ascetic life) can likewise be undertaken by anyone with the inclination to do so.

Thus even in my religious tradition, which is obviously a Trinitarian monotheist faith, a classic 'textbook' on acquired mystical contemplation (yeah, that's a 'thing') such as Dom Cuthbert Butler's ("Western Mysticism", 1922), referencing a nineteenth century French bishop, contends:


"...The preliminary condition for contemplation is that the mind has been through a process of spiritual training, whereby it is able to empty itself of images and sense perceptions..."

- Dom Cuthbert Butler, Benedictine Monk in "Western Mysticism: Augustine, Gregory, and Bernard on Contemplation and the Contemplative Life" (1922), p69

Well, that doesn't require a philosophical belief in God, does it?

To cite a much earlier mystical theologian of my tradition, in his Treatise "The Sparkling Stone", with an explanation concerning this 'natural contemplation':


“…All creatures are naturally inclined towards rest... Now notice that whenever a person is bare and imageless in his senses and devoid of activity in his higher powers, he enters a purely natural state of rest. All persons can find and possess this kind of rest in themselves by merely natural means, apart from God’s grace, provided only that they can become empty of images and all activity…

Consider now the way in which a person practices this natural rest. It consists in sitting quietly in a state of idleness, without any interior or exterior exercises, in order to find rest and have it remain undisturbed…

The rest which they possess consists in an emptying of their inmost being, something to which they are inclined by both nature and custom. One cannot find God in this state of natural rest, but it does bring a person into that state of emptiness which can be attained by all persons…The rest which one attains in this state of emptiness is both satisying and deep…it arises naturally in everyone whenever he empties himself of all activity
…”

- Blessed Jan Van Ruusbroec (1294-1381), Flemish mystic & Catholic priest
 
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amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
One conclusion that I believe can be safely drawn from this is that a belief in a god or gods is not a prerequisite for a mystical experience.

Comments?

I don't understand how that conclusion really does a lot of concluding. Nothing that is experienced seems to require a belief in it as a prerequisite. Rather, experience seems to be there to provide the content of what to believe after considering the experience.
 
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Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
I don't understand how that conclusion really does a lot of concluding. Nothing that is experienced on the face of the earth requires one's belief in it as a prerequisite. Rather, any experience on the face of the earth is there to inform you what to believe after considering the experience. So therefore, this renders your conclusion, to my mind, fairly unintelligible

Not necessarily.

Some religious traditions may regard 'supreme spiritual experience' as possible only for enlightened folk who have studied at the feet of sages learned in the meditative practices of their given creed.

I've heard people say this (incorrect as it is).

One also needs to be mindful that - in addition to spontaneous mystical experiences - most world religions have spiritual practices and sometimes entire institutions (such as monasticism or hermeticism) that are specifically geared towards the pursuit of mystical experience for its own end. And they may consider their "path" to be the best or only way of attaining this.
 

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
Not necessarily.

Some religious traditions may regard 'supreme spiritual experience' as possible only for enlightened folk who have studied at the feet of sages learned in the ascetic practices of their given creed.

I've heard people say this (incorrect as it is).

One also needs to be mindful that - in addition to spontaneous mystical experiences - most world religions have spiritual practices and sometimes entire institutions (such as monasticism) that are specifically geared towards the pursuit of mystical experience for its own end.

Well, I wonder if they might be defining 'mystical' in more of a manufactured sense, they may think it exists as the apotheosis point of their study or asceticism etc. That seems to be what their preparatory culmination anticipates, but is that really in harmony with the common definition/attributes of the word 'mystical?' I thought that the term had embedded within it a large factor for the possibility of the unexpected, for that which was not revealed, and which you might not prepare for. Well, perhaps 'mystical' itself is a strange term, with not much consensus on what it even constitutes
 
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Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Mystical experiences are not mediated through discursive thought, or reason. So one's considered 'beliefs' seem rather by-the-by, so far as the actual phenomenology is concerned.

Exactly so.

In fact, you do not need to even draw any intellectual or conscious conclusions about a mystical experience to learn from it, or for it to change your life. That is, you do not have to arrive at a "correct" or "true" or "accurate" intellectual or conscious understanding of the experience before the experience can change you -- can change how you see the world.

It's like you bumped your head on a tree trunk. You would not need to consciously conclude, "I have bumped by head" to know you had bumped your head. You would know it long before you could 'think' about it.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
One conclusion that I believe can be safely drawn from this is that a belief in a god or gods is not a prerequisite for a mystical experience.

I would agree with that assertion.

To me, that's only the first question. People can have all sorts of experiences. The nature and effect of experiences is to me an important question.

Part of this is the question of which they think are mystical and which are truly mystical. In simple terms, there's real gold and fools gold.

Meher Baba in "God In a Pill" put it this way:
The experiences derived through the drugs are experiences by one in the gross world of the shadows of the subtle planes and are not continuous...

An example of experiences that are shadows of the subtle plane encountered in the gross world is that of a yogi who taught his 150 students to go into trance. When the students came out of the trance they were asked by the yogi to describe their experiences. Their accounts would be amazing to a man in the street, for in their state of trance they saw lights and colours galore — dazzling lights in colours and in circles and in different designs. They felt all things around them pulsating with light and felt themselves separate from their own bodies and became witness to all things.

Even such experiences as these are but the shadows of the subtle plane experienced in the gross world, for they are not continuous.
..
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Comments?
I didn't need a belief in god, and Sam Harris dedicated an entore chapter of one 9f his books about the subject (he claims to bave had these experiences, obviously no god involved). When I had one, all it really did was confirm just how clueless and utterly limited we are, even within our own perceptions of reality.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
Well, I wonder if they might be defining 'mystical' in more of a manufactured sense, they may think it exists as the apotheosis point of their study or asceticism etc. That seems to be what their preparatory culmination anticipates, but is that really in harmony with the common definition/attributes of the word 'mystical?' I thought that the term had embedded within it, a large factor for the possibility of the unexpected, for that which was not revealed, and which you might not prepare for. Well, perhaps 'mystical' itself is a strange term, with not much consensus on what it even constitutes

A mystical experience, in and of itself, is defined typically as a conscious state that the subject perceives to be:

somehow ineffable (beyond the human facility for language to adequately explain or convey),

coming with a certain noetic quality (the person has immediate insight into something they feel to be a deep truth about themselves, life in general or ultimate reality),

transient in duration yet with a sense of timelessness for the experiencer (that "lost in the moment" kind of thing),

received in a passive state and sometimes involving such phenomena as subject - object transcendence or non-duality and other psychological benefits like peace, a feeling of fulfilment, intense joy and well-being etc. etc.

This kind of experience can be attained through a variety of means: spontaneously, for absolutely no apparent causal reason; through ingesting a potent psychedelic drug such as LSD or DMT and through the age-old, time honoured techniques of meditation and contemplation (i.e. spirituality).
 

Rational Agnostic

Well-Known Member
Mystical experiences are usually associated with deity. That is, they are often called "experiences of god". But apparently, nontheists are among those who have had mystical experiences.

'Nontheists' include atheists and many agnostics, ietists, apatheists, and so forth. Some nontheists adjust their views to embrace theism following their mystical experience. Others remain nontheists. Some nontheists came about their experiences via pyschoactive drugs. Others via other means including spontaneously.*

PLEASE NOTE WELL: RF RULES PROHIBIT ENDORSING THE USE OF ILLEGAL SUBSTANCES, INCLUDING ILLEGAL PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS. AND DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT CLAIMING TO HAVE DONE SUCH THINGS YOURSELF!

One conclusion that I believe can be safely drawn from this is that a belief in a god or gods is not a prerequisite for a mystical experience.

Comments?




*Andrew Newberg and Nancy Wintering have created what is possibly the world's largest database of firsthand accounts by individuals of RSMEs (Religious, Spiritual, or Mystical Experiences). The individuals whose stories are in the database are self-selecting, so they are not likely to be statistically proportional to the world's population as a whole. Nevertheless, a significant number of the individuals reporting mystical experiences are nontheists, including atheists. However, I don't know what proportion of those reporting religious or spiritual experiences are nontheists. Mystical experiences are RSMEs that, among other things, emphasize oneness, wholeness, or unity as a characteristic or trait of the experience.


____________________________________

What is a mystical experience?
 

dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
Mystical experiences are usually associated with deity. That is, they are often called "experiences of god". But apparently, nontheists are among those who have had mystical experiences.

One conclusion that I believe can be safely drawn from this is that a belief in a god or gods is not a prerequisite for a mystical experience.

Comments?

Question: Do you think that wanting to have a mystical experience is a prerequisite for having one? Are there examples of strict materialists having spontaneous mystical experiences without desiring it?
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
Question: Do you think that wanting to have a mystical experience is a prerequisite for having one? Are there examples of strict materialists having spontaneous mystical experiences without desiring it?

See:

Godless mystics : atheists and their mystical experiences : towards a grounded theory. - Surrey Research Insight Open Access

The assumption that atheists do not have mystical-type experience was further challenged by prominent atheist Sam Harris (2006) in an article on the “10 Myths and 10 Truths about Atheism” where he addresses Myth No 7: “Atheists are closed to spiritual experience”.

He argued that atheists do experience love, ecstasy, rapture and awe and that these experiences are valued and sought by atheists. He accepts that lives have been changed through prayer and reading of sacred texts, but suggests it is through the discipline of attention and the following of prescribed behaviours that lives are transformed.

Other prominent atheists, Richard Dawkins (2007) and Daniel Dennett (2006), have expressed similar views in on-line podcasts (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens, 2007).

If a broad definition of spiritual experience is used, one that includes experiences without explicitly religious features, then there is considerable evidence that atheists do at times have MTEs.

Several well-known atheists, in their biographical works, have written first-hand accounts of such experiences and described the effects they had on their lives. Writers include Bertrand Russell (1978/2000), Andre Comte-Sponville (2007) and psychologist Sam Harris (2015).


Yes, there are peer-reviewed neuroscience / psychiatric studies that have documented persons self-identifying as atheists, who have had autonomous or entirely unsought mystical experiences.

Indeed, I recall one last year from John Hopkins medical school. The results were published in a Science Daily article (although this one labelled the mystical experience a "God or Ultimate Reality" experience):

Experiences of 'ultimate reality' or 'God' confer lasting benefits to mental health: The encounter experiences, whether spontaneous or originated by a psychedelic, resulted in similar positive impact

In a survey of thousands of people who reported having experienced personal encounters with God, researchers report that more than two-thirds of self-identified atheists shed that label after their encounter, regardless of whether it was spontaneous or while taking a psychedelic.

Moreover, the researchers say, a majority of respondents attributed lasting positive changes in their psychological health ¾ e.g., life satisfaction, purpose and meaning ¾ even decades after their initial experience.

The findings, described in a paper published April 23 in PLOS ONE, add to evidence that such deeply meaningful experiences may have healing properties, the researchers say. And the study's design, they add, is the first to systematically and rigorously compare reports of spontaneous God encounter experiences with those occasioned, or catalyzed, by psychedelic substances.

Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Although modern Western medicine doesn't typically consider 'spiritual' or 'religious' experiences as one of the tools in the arsenal against sickness, our findings suggest that these encounters often lead to improvements in mental health."

For future studies, Griffiths said his team would like to explore what factors predispose someone to having such a memorable and life-altering perceived encounter, and they would like to see what happens in the brain during the experience.

"Continuing to explore these experiences may provide new insights into religious and spiritual beliefs that have been integral to shaping human culture since time immemorial," says Griffiths.z
 
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dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
entirely unsought mystical experiences.
I'm not seeing this in the study you cited... I'm not saying it's not there, but It's not obvious. Most useful, imo, would be a personal account of a strict materialist. Being an atheist doesn't mean that a person isn't interested in having a mystical experience.

For future studies, Griffiths said his team would like to explore what factors predispose someone to having such a memorable and life-altering perceived encounter, and they would like to see what happens in the brain during the experience.

I think what they'll find is that a desire to have a mystical experience is part of the predisposition. I don't think this devalues it in any way, please don't get me wrong. I just think it's part of the big picture.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
I'm not seeing this in the study you cited... I'm not saying it's not there, but It's not obvious. Most useful, imo, would be a personal account of a strict materialist. Being an atheist doesn't mean that a person isn't interested in having a mystical experience

I added another research paper in an edit before reading your post, which is pretty long in PDF but discusses both spontaneous and sought after mystical experiences by atheists. Might be worth a read through!

Edit: @dybmh this may also be a better one for your specific question, although I don't know of it's so much atheist (more just irreligious, outside a religious or spiritual context):

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjARegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw2jJISPhvb9fKhHs88GcghG


SPONTANEOUS AWAKENING EXPERIENCES: BEYOND
RELIGION AND SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

Steve Taylor, M. Sc., PGCE
Leeds, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT: ‘Awakening experiences’ have been misunderstood to some degree by their long association with religious and spiritual traditions and practices.

The research reported here – 161
reports of awakening experiences – suggests that most of them occurred outside the context of spiritual or religious traditions.

Neither were they induced by spiritual practices such as meditation or prayer. Most occurred ‘spontaneously.’ As a result, they are termed here ‘spontaneous awakening experiences.’

Many activities and situations can be seen as having a certain degree of ‘awakening potential,’ capable of inducing – or at least being the context for - awakening experiences.

Many are psychological in origin, although they may be interpreted in religious terms.
Perhaps the term ‘spiritual experience’ should be applied only to awakening experiences related to –or triggered by – spiritual practices.

I suggest a more neutral term (‘awakening experiences’) to describe them. A psychological/energetic view of awakening experiences is presented which provides a framework for understanding spontaneous awakening experiences.
 
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dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
I added another research paper in an edit before reading your post, which is pretty long in PDF but discusses both spontaneous and sought after mystical experiences by atheists. Might be worth a read through!
... juicy ... :)
 

crossfire

LHP Mercuræn Feminist Heretic ☿
Premium Member
One conclusion that I believe can be safely drawn from this is that a belief in a god or gods is not a prerequisite for a mystical experience.
Agreed. I would say that human beings are inherently mystical.

You can see all sorts of examples of communal experiences anywhere people gather--such as at sporting events--where people get caught up in their "team spirit." God belief or non-belief is not relevant here, as those caught up in the team spirit can have varying beliefs from hard-core atheist to devoted theist--it does not matter. "Wherever two or more are gathered together in my name, I am also there" is of this variety of mysticism.

One can also have mystical experiences born from isolation where a person starts paying attention to their inner workings of their mind--again, god belief or non-belief is not relevant to this. There may be an uptick in mystical experiences born from withdrawal during the social distancing measures now in place. We shall see.
 

night912

Well-Known Member
I would agree with that assertion.

To me, that's only the first question. People can have all sorts of experiences. The nature and effect of experiences is to me an important question.

Part of this is the question of which they think are mystical and which are truly mystical. In simple terms, there's real gold and fools gold.

Meher Baba in "God In a Pill" put it this way:
The experiences derived through the drugs are experiences by one in the gross world of the shadows of the subtle planes and are not continuous...

An example of experiences that are shadows of the subtle plane encountered in the gross world is that of a yogi who taught his 150 students to go into trance. When the students came out of the trance they were asked by the yogi to describe their experiences. Their accounts would be amazing to a man in the street, for in their state of trance they saw lights and colours galore — dazzling lights in colours and in circles and in different designs. They felt all things around them pulsating with light and felt themselves separate from their own bodies and became witness to all things.

Even such experiences as these are but the shadows of the subtle plane experienced in the gross world, for they are not continuous.
..
How do you differentiate between a mystical experience and a "true" mystical experience? And does it matter if one has a mystical experience through "natural" means and "artificial"(drug induced) means? If there is a difference, then would it be safe to say that the actual mystical experience is is meaningless, or at least not as important? So what is (more) important is the way in which you achieved the mystical experience. Or is it the way in how you achieve a "mystical experience," is really the actual mystical experience.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
What is a mystical experience?

Technically, there are at least a dozen or so kinds of mystical experiences, depending on who is doing the slicing and dicing. But the OP is only referring to one kind -- the Big One, so to speak. The one that people quite often talk about as "an experience of god". @Vouthon in post #11 gives an excellent description of it that is pretty mainstream among scholars of mysticism. I myself would describe it pretty close to how he does, albeit I seem to have my peculiar eccentricities when it comes to some of the details.
 
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