Mysticism Psychology Today

[The Hammer]

Interesting article that doesn't actually state "how to have a mystical experience", but does give some insight into the ways that the brain appears to be behaving during these experiences, and the various activities that people were doing that instigated these events.

https/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/true-believers/201604/how-have-mystical-experience

 

[Windwalker]

To try to talk about mystical experience in terms of what's going on in the brain, is like trying to describe music with a screwdriver.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

To try to talk about mystical experience in terms of what's going on in the brain, is like trying to describe music with a screwdriver.

Or more like describing music with math.

 

[Sunstone]

Such an explanation does not capture the qualia of the experience -- but then it is not supposed to.

On a different note, I think we're still pretty far off from a comprehensive understanding of the physiological basis of mystical experiences -- but the neurosciences do seem to be making progress. As for the OP, it's interesting.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I like this:

A Buddhism Critic Goes on a Silent Buddhist Retreat

The Lama, during our private chat, said Buddhism isn’t true, but it works.

 

[Windwalker]

Such an explanation does not capture the qualia of the experience -- but then it is not supposed to.

On a different note, I think we're still pretty far off from a comprehensive understanding of the physiological basis of mystical experiences -- but the neurosciences do seem to be making progress. As for the OP, it's interesting.

But that's the rub. It assumes a "basis" in the brain, as if that is the source of it. I think that is the philosophical problem of reductionism, and how many assume from such a presumption that mystical experiences are "just the brain".

While it's valuable to look at what the corresponding physiological responses to mystical experiences are within the brain, to try to understand them as a product of the brain, is a distraction. It does not add value.

 

[Ponder This]

Interesting article that doesn't actually state "how to have a mystical experience", but does give some insight into the ways that the brain appears to be behaving during these experiences, and the various activities that people were doing that instigated these events.

https/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/true-believers/201604/how-have-mystical-experience

This article doesn't appear to describe mystical experiences.

 

[Windwalker]

Or more like describing music with math.

That is true. One can dissect music mathematically. But I suppose to those select few individuals who get mystical experiences through math, they might find it as beautiful and inspiring as those who hear with ears. But for the average soul, the numbers are just data and facts, not actual music. And to try to reduce music to just numbers, is like trying to reduce mystical experience as chemicals and neurons. If all you understand is that, you understand next to nothing at all.

 

[Windwalker]

This article doesn't appear to describe mystical experiences.

I caught that the author doesn't even know what they are, using language such as, "a weird combination of pronounced alertness without thinking content", sounding so foreign to their experiences. And also, a very limited understanding of things like meditation, for instance where they state, "Other than during still meditation, when a person focuses exclusively on a single action or series of actions so ingrained that they need no conscious attendance to the movements."

This also a misunderstanding of the topic. First, it reduces all mediation to single-pointed focus found in concentrative paths of meditation. It excludes all of Insight or awareness meditation which is defocal in nature. And in the case of "flow states", which the author appears to have little understanding, it is not due to single-pointed focus. Those happen when you don't focus on a single object at all. It occurs when awareness expands to include everything it perceives, without drawing attention to single objects.

I got about that far into the article when I saw where this was heading.