SHOCKING! The Truth Exposed! The Manner in Which Mystics Know 'God'!

Remarkable advances in the neurosciences -- especially in brain scan technology -- over the past 30 or so years have left little doubt that humans are capable of attaining a mystical state of awareness that cannot properly be called an hallucination. However, there are yet many questions waiting for answers, and one of the hottest and most lively of those questions is...

The question has profound implications for certain further questions, such as why mystics sometimes vary in their interpretations of the oneness, whether the knowledge imparted during a mystical episode can be communicated to other people (and if so, how), and especially to non-mystics, whether symbolic definitions of god are meaningful (and if so, how), and what influence, if any, the knowledge has on the mystic's life?

To be sure, I am not talking about 'knowledge' on the level of data or fact. It would not interest me in the least to discover that god wore Nike shoes, voted Social Democrat, and harbored a fondness for feminist politics. Instead, I am strictly concerned with finding out the kind of knowledge a mystical episode is likely to impart.

Specifically, are we dealing here with 'intellectual knowledge' or with 'know-how'.

Those are the options, and if the answer is 'neither' or 'both', those are fine, too. Of course, calling the two kinds of knowledge 'intellectual knowledge' and 'know-how' is a bit clumsy, so I am going to borrow two Greek words and call them, 'logos' and 'gnosis'. Broadly speaking, logos is your knowledge of a tree that you have seen photos of, read about, or studied textbooks written about it. It is knowledge communicated through symbolic means. Symbols -- such as the symbols you are now reading.

Gnosis, on the other hand, is your knowledge of a tree that you ran full-tilt into by accident while trying to reach your wine cellar in time to save it from @Jayhawker Soule's 'amorous' advances. Gnosis is imparted or communicated through directly experiencing something, and is anything but symbolic. Of extreme relevance and importance here, we need NOT be consciously aware of our gnostic knowledge. We can know in a gnostic manner without at all being consciously aware that we know.

It is my contention that the most significant and influential knowledge imparted by mystical episodes is gnosis, and that logos -- if they impart any at all -- is of generally little or no consequence. Indeed, I would argue that anyone claiming to have had important or meaningful logos imparted to them during a mystical experience is most likely confusing what their experience has taught them with their interpretation of what their experience has taught them.

Hopefully that's enough background to kick off a discussion now. I leave you with the inspiring words of Confucius:“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”






*Other names might (or might not, depending on how you interpret them) be the 'Dao' of Daoism, the nirvana of Buddhism, 'The Endless One" or 'Ein Sof' of Jewish mysticism, the "Great Mystery" or 'Wakan Tanka' of the Lakota, the 'Gitche Manitou' of many Algonquian nations, and so forth.

Sunstone said:

PLEASE NOTE: The term 'god' in the thread title is in this context being used as little more than a convenient shorthand for what might more properly be called 'the oneness of all things' or 'the One'. The oneness of all things goes by many names, and 'god' is but one of its more common names.* That's to say, the oneness is not invariably interpreted as deity. There is inconclusive evidence that as much as a fifth (20%) of those who experience the oneness are atheists both before and after their experience. The oneness, whatever else it might be, appears to be safely in compliance with US Federal Law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of one's religious beliefs. Go oneness!
​

Remarkable advances in the neurosciences -- especially in brain scan technology -- over the past 30 or so years have left little doubt that humans are capable of attaining a mystical state of awareness that cannot properly be called an hallucination. However, there are yet many questions waiting for answers, and one of the hottest and most lively of those questions is...

Assuming mystical episodes impart some kind or species of knowledge, what is the precise kind or species of knowledge that they impart? And can it be monetized?
​

The question has profound implications for certain further questions, such as why mystics sometimes vary in their interpretations of the oneness, whether the knowledge imparted during a mystical episode can be communicated to other people (and if so, how), and especially to non-mystics, and what influence, if any, the knowledge has on the mystic's life?

To be sure, I am not talking about 'knowledge' on the level of data or fact. It would not interest me in the least to discover that god wore Nike shoes, voted Social Democrat, and harbored a fondness for feminist politics. Instead, I am strictly concerned with finding out the kind of knowledge a mystical episode is likely to impart.

Specifically, are we dealing here with 'intellectual knowledge' or with 'know-how'.

Those are the options, and if the answer is 'neither' or 'both', those are fine, too. Of course, calling the two kinds of knowledge 'intellectual knowledge' and 'know-how' is a bit clumsy, so I am going to borrow two Greek words and call them, 'logos' and 'gnosis'. Broadly speaking, logos is your knowledge of a tree that you have seen photos of, read about, or studied textbooks written about it. It is knowledge communicated through symbolic means. Symbols -- such as the symbols you are now reading.

Gnosis, on the other hand, is your knowledge of a tree that you ran full-tilt into by accident while trying to reach your wine cellar in time to save it from @Jayhawker Soule's 'amorous' advances. Gnosis is imparted or communicated through directly experiencing something, and is anything but symbolic. Of extreme relevance and importance here, we need NOT be consciously aware of our gnostic knowledge. We can know in a gnostic manner without at all being consciously aware that we know.

It is my contention that the most significant and influential knowledge imparted by mystical episodes is gnosis, and that logos -- if they impart any at all -- is of generally little or no consequence. Indeed, I would argue that anyone claiming to have had important or meaningful logos imparted to them during a mystical experience is most likely confusing what their experience has taught them with their interpretation of what their experience has taught them.

Hopefully that's enough background to kick off a discussion now. I leave you with the inspiring words of Confucius:“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”

*Other names might (or might not, depending on how you interpret them) be the 'Dao' of Daoism, the nirvana of Buddhism, 'The Endless One" or 'Ein Sof of Jewish mysticism, the "Great Mystery" or 'Wakan Tanka' of the Lakota, the 'Gitche Manitou' of many Algonquian nations, and so forth. Hereafter, I will simply call it 'the oneness'.

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Thank you for sharing this to read that science can give a beginning of an answer to those who yet have experience from within the mystical paths of spirituality, maybe this will open up some new doors to discussion and agreement that life is more then what the physical eyes see

Sunstone said:

*Other names might (or might not, depending on how you interpret them) be the 'Dao' of Daoism, the nirvana of Buddhism, 'The Endless One" or 'Ein Sof' of Jewish mysticism, the "Great Mystery" or 'Wakan Tanka' of the Lakota, the 'Gitche Manitou' of many Algonquian nations, and so forth.

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Or the Nirguna Brahman of Vedanta...

Awesome post, by the way.

I do agree with you that the feeling of Oneness is real--not a hallucination. However, I don't call it god (unless your idea of god is "sentience.")
I wouldn't call it nirvana, either--perhaps the flip side of nirvana.
You already know my take on it.

SalixIncendium said:

Awesome post, by the way.

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Thanks for the encouragement!

Being half dizzy with lack of sleep seems to improve my writing. But I'm not counting on that to hold true for long.



Leprechauns! Get off me! Damn Leprechauns! Where's my 9mm?

crossfire said:

I do agree with you that the feeling of Oneness is real--not a hallucination. However, I don't call it god (unless your idea of god is "sentience.")
I wouldn't call it nirvana, either--perhaps the flip side of nirvana.
You already know my take on it.

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If nirvana is "blowing out" (the flame,) then this Oneness might be more aptly regarded as the "sacred fire" of Zoroastrianism.
(edit to add: gee, now I'm the one peeing on the camp fire?)

Your mileage may vary.

What a corker of a post @Sunstone

Man, I ought to try some "sleep deprivation" from time-to-time if it can result in a stray outpouring of insightful posting genius like that

I was tickled pink to see you relying upon the early Christian loan-words logos and gnosis in your exposition of the differing tiers of knowledge relative to a mystical state, i.e. intellectual, interpretative and discursive versus direct, experiential and possibly unconsciously intuited.

And you even touched on the neuroscience!

As to your point about, "whether the knowledge imparted during a mystical episode can be communicated to other people". Those who experience the most profound 'perceptual' shifts in consciousness, also happen to be the ones that will likely go on to disseminate information about the benefits of others experiencing the same. This is, actually I think, how many (perhaps most) religious movements emerged historically. Certainly, this is what we can say transpired in the case of Gautama Buddha and someone like St. Paul.

The experience itself is not typically a fabrication (i.e. they are not making it up, there likely is a neurobiological basis to what they interpreted as a "religious" experience) but obviously the 'mythic' narrative an individual employs to help themselves come to terms with it, in a manner conformable with their particular sociocultural environment, obviously differs hugely.

In his letters, for example, Paul is insistent that his transcendental experience of enlightenment in Christ was entirely unpremeditated and unsolicited in nature: "...for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation." (Galatians 1:11). He informs us (referring to himself in the third person) that the experience induced such a profound loss of ordinary sense-perception that he could not say whether he was 'in the body' or out of the 'body' during it: "fourteen years ago (I) was caught away to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows...(I) heard inexpressible things." (2 Corinthians 12:2–4). This coheres with your point that "We can know in a gnostic manner without at all being consciously aware that we know".

In another place he wrote that "eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has it entered into the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9) (i.e. a nonsensuous experience that cannot be articulated by reference to anything seen, heard or conceived of through normal discursive thought).

This inability to convey the quality of the mystical experience in language ("ineffability, inexpressibility") is one of the characteristic attributes identified by scholars:


Mysticism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)




Paul experienced what researchers today term 'OBN' (Ocean Boundlessness i.e. insightfulness, blissful state, experience of an undifferentiated unity): "There is one God who is father of all, over all, through all and within all" (Ephesians 4:6); "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17.28) and DED (ego dissolution): "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20) and the perception that his old way of thinking, as a dutiful and zealous Pharisaic Jew, had been entirely surpassed and subsumed by a new conscious identity, a 'reborn' and 'renewed' state of mind: "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

According to another letter that may have either been written by him or about his conversion experience by a disciple: "in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self.” (Ephesians 4:17-24); elsewhere: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2).

Incidentally, St. Paul was the "favourite" apostle of the Gnostic churches - because he prioritized direct experiential, saving knowledge (gnosis):




You'd have made a good Gnostic Christian circa. 150 CE when that branch of the religion was in its ascendancy and had a wide following. The discussions you could've had with the likes of Valentinus and Basilides!

Also see the following, in relation to Valentinian Gnostic Christianity in the second century CE, which bears many similarities to your use of gnosis in the OP:


Valentinian Monism - Valentinus and the Valentinian Tradition

Here's a question for y'all. Given that the evidence from the neurosciences is that mystical episodes are consistently rooted in the same brain functions and pathways regardless of who has one (i.e. your mystical episode is fundamentally the same as my mystical episode), then it would seem to follow that -- if the knowledge they impart is gnostic -- that we now know, or are close to knowing, why there are some variations between different mystics in their reports or accounts of their episodes.

That is, we might easily speculate at this point that the differences between, say, St. John of the Cross's and Rumi's 'accounts' of their mystical episodes lies nearly entirely or entirely in their interpretations of their episodes, and not in any differences in the episodes themselves.


At any rate, here is the question of the moment: Are some mystics notably more accurate in their interpretation of their episode than others?

Consider the implications of which way that question is answered! Anyone want to take a shot at it?

Vouthon said:

What a corker of a post @Sunstone

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Scottish slang is so weird.

Left Coast said:

Scottish slang is so weird.

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I hear it's not just the slang.

Sunstone said:

Here's a question for y'all. Given that the evidence from the neurosciences is that mystical episodes are consistently rooted in the same brain functions and pathways regardless of who has one (i.e. your mystical episode is fundamentally the same as my mystical episode), then it would seem to follow that -- if the knowledge they impart is gnostic -- that we now know, or are close to knowing, why there are some variations between different mystics in their reports or accounts of their episodes.

That is, we might easily speculate at this point that the differences between, say, St. John of the Cross's and Rumi's 'accounts' of their mystical episodes lies nearly entirely or entirely in their interpretations of their episodes, and not in any differences in the episodes themselves.

Incidentally, this solves an ages old debate between scholars of mysticism over whether mystical episodes are everywhere the same episode, so to speak, or whether they differ on from another at least to the extent there are differences in their reporting. i.e. the evidence is they are the same.​

At any rate, here is the question of the moment: Are some mystics notably more accurate in their interpretation of their episode than others?

Consider the implications of which way that question is answered! Anyone want to take a shot at it?

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Even a given mystic's interpretation will change over a given time--it's a transformational process.

Analogy: most of us have gone through puberty. Puberty is observable from a scientific standpoint. However, each individual will have different reactions to going through puberty--some may be frightened or alarmed at first, some may not. I'm sure everyone will have some sort of story/description surrounding their going through puberty and their interpretation of it thereof. Will some people's stories be more accurate than others'? From which standpoint? From a scientific standpoint? From a personal interpretive standpoint? From an anecdotal standpoint? Which perspective is most correct?

Left Coast said:

Scottish slang is so weird.

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Every language has a few phrases that don't always translate well — and Scots English has some absolute "corkers"

A case in point:


Cyclone Friedhelm - Wikipedia


I've been called a "bawbag" myself quite a few times down the years


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.th...awbag-added-to-oxford-english-dictionary/amp/

Sunstone said:

Here's a question for y'all. Given that the evidence from the neurosciences is that mystical episodes are consistently rooted in the same brain functions and pathways regardless of who has one (i.e. your mystical episode is fundamentally the same as my mystical episode), then it would seem to follow that -- if the knowledge they impart is gnostic -- that we now know, or are close to knowing, why there are some variations between different mystics in their reports or accounts of their episodes.

That is, we might easily speculate at this point that the differences between, say, St. John of the Cross's and Rumi's 'accounts' of their mystical episodes lies nearly entirely or entirely in their interpretations of their episodes, and not in any differences in the episodes themselves.

Incidentally, this solves an ages old debate between scholars of mysticism over whether mystical episodes are everywhere the same episode, so to speak, or whether they differ on from another at least to the extent there are differences in their reporting. i.e. the evidence is they are the same.​

At any rate, here is the question of the moment: Are some mystics notably more accurate in their interpretation of their episode than others?

Consider the implications of which way that question is answered! Anyone want to take a shot at it?

Click to expand...

From the perspective of someone who has never had one of these experiences myself:

I'd say it's possible that some mystics report their experience more accurately than others. However, I would hesitate to conclude that just because the same area of the brain is involved that the experience of all mystics is identical. You and I have both been angry before, and the same regions of our brain likely were involved, but that doesn't necessarily mean our experience of anger has been identical. Similar enough to give both experiences one label, but not necessarily exact replicas.

Mystical experiences seem to be experienced through the cultural and religious lens of the person having it. So it makes sense to me that reports of the experience would vary.

If mystical episodes impart gnosis, but to no significant degree logos, where does that leave Pat Robinson's claim that "God told him Orlando Florida will suffer an earthquake because Disney World extended benefits to the partners of its gay employees"?

Vouthon said:

Every language has a few phrases that don't always translate well — and Scots English has some absolute "corkers"

A case in point:


Cyclone Friedhelm - Wikipedia

Cyclone Friedhelm,[1] also referred to unofficially as Hurricane Bawbag,[nb 1] was an intense extratropical cyclone which brought hurricane-force winds to Scotland at the beginning of December 2011.

Overall, the storm was the worst to affect Scotland in 10 years,[2] though a stronger storm occurred less than a month afterwards, on 3 January 2012.[3] Although the follow-up storm was more intense, the winter of 2011–12 is usually remembered for Bawbag (an insult meaning "scrotum") among Scots.

The Free University of Berlin names low-pressure systems affecting Europe and gave the name Friedhelm to this storm.[1] In Scotland, the storm was dubbed Hurricane Bawbag, the term bawbag being a Scots slang word for "scrotum", which is also used as an insult or as a jocular term of endearment.[4][5][6]

The name sparked a trending topic on Twitter, which became one of the top trending hashtags worldwide.[7][8] Stirling Council also used the Twitter tag.[9]

​

I've been called a "bawbag" myself quite a few times down the years


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.th...awbag-added-to-oxford-english-dictionary/amp/

Rude Scots word Bawbag has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary


Editors have included more than 40 Scottish words including the slang term for the scrotum which is defined as a 'foolish or annoying' person​

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LOLOL. That is...amazing.

I've known quite a few bawbags in my time.

Left Coast said:

From the perspective of someone who has never had one of these experiences myself:

I'd say it's possible that some mystics report their experience more accurately than others. However, I would hesitate to conclude that just because the same area of the brain is involved that the experience of all mystics is identical. You and I have both been angry before, and the same regions of our brain likely were involved, but that doesn't necessarily mean our experience of anger has been identical. Similar enough to give both experiences one label, but not necessarily exact replicas.

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That's an excellent point! Thanks for making it!

Mystical experiences seem to be experienced through the cultural and religious lens of the person having it. So it makes sense to me that reports of the experience would vary.

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Experienced through the cultural and religious lens, etc? I prefer to say 'interpreted'. Less ambiguous.

Sunstone said:

If mystical episodes impart gnosis, but to no significant degree logos, where does that leave Pat Robinson's claim that "God told him Orlando Florida will suffer an earthquake because Disney World extended benefits to the partners of its gay employees"?

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Robertson*

Leave poor Mr. Robinson out of this! (No idea who he is, but sounds like a lovely person.)

Sunstone said:

If mystical episodes impart gnosis, but to no significant degree logos, where does that leave Pat Robinson's claim that "God told him Orlando Florida will suffer an earthquake because Disney World extended benefits to the partners of its gay employees"?

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Put differently, what becomes the status of all the world's revelatory literature?


Are you beginning to see the implications?

Left Coast said:

Robertson*

Leave poor Mr. Robinson out of this! (No idea who he is, but sounds like a lovely person.)

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Do you honestly expect me to remember how to spell that charlatan's name?