Spiritual Experiences

[sealchan]

That's quite interesting. Could you please elaborate on the nature of the conflict(s)?

One was due to a depression I was in after my first time being in love. I couldn't be with "her" and I couldn't be without her. Another was about whether I was a believer or not. Then in my non-fiction writing it has always been about bridging two different perspectives that contrast but both seem true.

One very liberating dream I had involved me being so angry and fearful that I struck someone from behind and then I was rescued from retaliation by one of the friends of those I struck...indicating an inner moral conflict.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Spiritual experiences are more emotional or aesthetic in nature. Mystical experiences are associated with "Eureka" type of insightful knowing and meaningful synthesis on a global scale.

I see... and how does one determine if this global scale insightful knowing and meaningful synthesis is accurate?

 

[sayak83]

I see... and how does one determine if this global scale insightful knowing and meaningful synthesis is accurate?

By applying it and evaluating its success in one's life.

 

[GoodbyeDave]

A) Have you had one or more spiritual experience(s)?
B) what was/were the experience(s)?
C) how was/were the experience(s) induced?

Yes, quite a few but only since I converted from Christianity.
Some experiences are ones that are a matter of interpretation: omens, but where the odds against their having been chance events are very high.
Other experiences, like direct contact with a god or the immediate granting of a prayer, do not allow for an alternative explanation. Well, I dare say out atheists will offer one, just as evolution deniers can come up with "explanations" of the evidence!
I don't think "inducing" applies: I do or say something, a god replies.

D) Are particular people more apt to such experiences?

They seem to be quite common, although many people would describe as "religious" what I'd classify as emotional. A US survey showed around half of those questioned had had a religious experience, while a UK survey showed about two thirds. In the US, the respondents were given psychological tests and the proportion registering as suggestible was no more than average. In the UK, their eductional level was ascertained, and religious experiences were more common among those with higher education.

All spiritual experiences are the result of having a certain part of the brain stimulated.

As the neurologists Eugene Aquili and Andrew Newberg observed, maintaining that people's religious experiences are caused by brain events is "equivalent to maintaining that their experience of the sun, the earth, and the air they breathe is reducable to neurochemical flux."

 

[QuestioningMind]

Yes, quite a few but only since I converted from Christianity.
Some experiences are ones that are a matter of interpretation: omens, but where the odds against their having been chance events are very high.
Other experiences, like direct contact with a god or the immediate granting of a prayer, do not allow for an alternative explanation. Well, I dare say out atheists will offer one, just as evolution deniers can come up with "explanations" of the evidence!
I don't think "inducing" applies: I do or say something, a god replies.


They seem to be quite common, although many people would describe as "religious" what I'd classify as emotional. A US survey showed around half of those questioned had had a religious experience, while a UK survey showed about two thirds. In the US, the respondents were given psychological tests and the proportion registering as suggestible was no more than average. In the UK, their eductional level was ascertained, and religious experiences were more common among those with higher education.


As the neurologists Eugene Aquili and Andrew Newberg observed, maintaining that people's religious experiences are caused by brain events is "equivalent to maintaining that their experience of the sun, the earth, and the air they breathe is reducable to neurochemical flux."

Uh, our EXPERIENCE of the sun, the earth, and the air we breath CAN be reduced to neuro-chemical flux.

 

[GoodbyeDave]

Uh, our EXPERIENCE of the sun, the earth, and the air we breath CAN be reduced to neuro-chemical flux.

Being associated with something is not the same as being reducible to it. Feeling happy is associated with smiling or laughing, but hardly reducible to it.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Being associated with something is not the same as being reducible to it. Feeling happy is associated with smiling or laughing, but hardly reducible to it.

In what ways do I experience the sun, earth, and air that are NOT a matter of neuro-chemical flux?

 

[GoodbyeDave]

A brain state is not the same as a mental event. If you can't see that, I can do nothing but sympathise. Philosophers like Popper have written extensively on the subject and I can hardly summarise in a board post of reasonable length, even if it were not off-topic for this thread.