All of what I say comes with the caveat of an outsider. That may well hinder my ability to see the commonalities in what appear to be quite different mystic practices or beliefs. On the other hand, being an insider can have a similar effect. As a simple example, the early Christians saw in Jewish scriptures what they believed to be references to Jesus (and, as this is reflected in the NT, Christians still believe). As insiders, believing that God had sent Jesus as part of his grand design, they saw in early scriptures indications that this was so.
Thank you for your response. I appreciate the insights you bring to the discussion. What you say here is true in some regards about how people may easily project their vision into interpreting what others say as reflecting their own experiences. In regard to the Christians seizing upon Jewish scriptures and finding verses here and there as prophecies of their Messiah I see that functioning somewhat on a different order. I see that as an effort of validation to their movement, trying it into the Jewish tradition which was recognized as exempt from needing to make offering to the Emperor. In other words, the motivations were probably less about mystical realization, as much political. I don't want to belabor this section of our discussion too far into this as there is something more important to focus on which you said.
Outsiders, whether modern historians or medieval rabbis, disagree. Because is one doesn't believe that Jesus was part of God's grand design, then it's difficult to imagine why texts written before he was born would talk about him.
Just one quick thought to this however, that the theology one develops around mystical apprehension, is not the substance of the experience itself. I will always say that the mystical experience transcends any boundaries of theologies or metaphysics, but then they, after the fact, are translated back into such frameworks of understandings, such worldviews and their signs. To speak of an encounter with Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, is a way to put a face on an experience which transcends forms. Another may describe that as meeting Krishna. To get hung up on the symbols is to mistake the fingers on the hand for what they point to, arguing by saying how that clearly the index finger is not the ring finger and making a case to point out the differences, ignoring that they are all pointing to the moon. More on this in a minute.
I would say experiences, not experience. For example, Amazonian shaman might use ayahuasca as a tool to perceive the future or to enter into an altered state of mind to better understand the emotions, problems, feelings, etc., of the tribe. However, they may also use it to bewitch, curse, or battle their enemies. I have not experienced any of this, so I cannot say for sure, but I would imagine that even though the same tool is part of these and other shamanic experiences, they are not "the shamanic experience".
First, because they said so in the "The Yurayaco Declaration of the Union de Medicos Indigenas Yageceros de la Amazonia Colombiana", the result of a "Gathering of Shamans from different peoples: "As Taitas or Shamans, we know that all of us have unique ways of working."
Of course, they also acknowledge that these differences share a some basic core or cores, but what is more important is that the gathering and the document exist because these peoples felt that their "sacred vine: the yagé" was used by neo-shamans and "charlatans" in ways that had little if anything to do with traditional uses. In other words, however much the shamans saw unique practices among them to be basically similar, they very clearly distinguished any other practices outside of the Amazonian regions they live in.
What they are arguing is that it is not a legitimate practice of Shamanism. It is really an abuse of the practices, distorting it into something counter to basic traditions.
Let's put this in terms of a Shaman using DMT for the purpose of vision and insight, versus some college kid getting ripped on it for recreational purposes. Is little Bobbie college-dude going on his mystical journey a different order of experience? Yes, and no. Yes, in that he lacks the intention and sophistication of training and preparation to have his mind expanded in such ways, and subsequently the depth of such a voyage in his personal experience as part of some path is largely lost on him. It's not just hitting the altered state that makes it a legitimate practice, but what supports it "on the ground", so to speak. All he is doing is blasting off from his chair with his mind full of video games and silly distractions about his social life at the dorm. That's his so-called footing he brings the experience back into. "What a rush, dude!"
Now this is not to say that he did not have a genuine mystical experience. He did. And in many cases, such an experience may expand him in such a way as that his life will forever be changed for the good. He has seen beyond the veil, and is now compelled to seek out its truths in some actual spiritual path. That's not uncommon.
But to be sure, someone may have genuine experiences, but illegitimate practices. You can have those who have genuine experience, and are charlatans in their lives. It's not just the one thing, the mystical experience that magically transforms you. It the dedication, devotion, and path of spiritual life along with the mystical experience that goes into transformation. To abuse mystical experience is damaging to the practitioners and those around him. It's focus is becomes about ego power, not compassion within towards others. Those are illegitimate uses of mystical power. That's what I hear being decried and rejected. Rightly so.
Second, because I do not think that these shamans or Taitas would see all of their experiences in terms of even some singular "experience", but as multiple different types, from mystic healing to mystic battles.
Certainly. That is what I am saying. When I say "the mystical experience", I am speaking of a category or type of experience, not a single experience.
I understand (I think) that a different tool (e.g., ritual vs. meditaion) can be used for the same purpose or to attain the same goal. I don't understand how the descriptions in your link (which I thank you for) describe any level or experience which has much in common with a number of mystics for whom nature, animism, and the web of life are central. That is, nature is used as a definition for cosmos: "sense of identity begins to expand and embrace the cosmos, or all of nature."
Ritual and meditation are very much tied together, and meditation is actually embedded within ritual and prayer. Prayer is a type of guided meditation, for instance. It focuses the mind inwardly on the intention of the will towards some mental object or feeling or impression. Prayer to God focus on God, which effect moves the mind outside the distractions of the inner world of thoughts and mental objects of the mundane world, into the transcendent. Ritual does the same thing, focusing intention away from the distraction of the world to move into that space, that clearing where the world can emerge that lays "beyond" that daily space of concerns and affairs that capture and hold ones attention on those objects.
There are many tools, many vehicles one can use to move them away from the distractions - all distractions including ones we aren't even consciously aware of such as the constant buzzing of our chattering minds ever processing data bits, into the space of a simpler, purer, cleaner awareness without the debris. The results of such things create such an experience as you describe.
The "web of life" as you mentioned, is not just such academic model of the world you can cognitively acknowledge as true as you dig into the complexity sciences. It is experienced in the body and the mind and the soul as a condition of being. That is much different than a mental model. It is lived experience. And so, all of what I linked to within meditation as a tool, has the net sum gain of moving deeper and deeper beyond the illusions of the mind, into an awareness which that then translates into lived experience.
Now I can go a lot deeper into this and will be happy to, laying out how nature mysticsm of Wicca is very much part of the whole. But from another perspective, it sees it as part of the whole, not the whole itself. Hard to describe this really, but put it in simple terms, if Infinity is Infinity is Infinity, then any one object in Infinity, has Infinity within itself. To experience God in nature, is to experience God. But to say nature defines and is the only true God, is a mistake of human judgement. God, or Ground, is in all. Science, in a sense too mistakes nature as God, in saying they are examining reality itself. More on this later.
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