What is the meaning of mystic experience?

[methylatedghosts]

Yes, due to what I come to see as psychological "qualifiers", one does tend to focus on aspects outside themselves in order to get a handle on said experiences. The ramifications of it being purely internal is a bit much for most to handle and so one will often look to the prominent religious figures to help make sense of it all. That, in itself, has its own pitfalls, but no one is ever promised a bed of roses.

Human animals have a tendency to minimize the role that imagination has in these experiences. When comprehension is dwarfed where else is there for a mind to go? The problem there is taking it all literally....

So to clarify... You're pretty much saying that a person who has such an experience, being outside the normal realms of comprehension, latches onto known symbols such as the Christ symbol, in an attempt to make sense of the experience within terms already known, because taking the experience at face value - as the experience of itself - is beyond the currently accepted framework?

Blech...what a terribly formed question that was!

 

[Rick O'Shez]

The trick would be to view it outside the established framework, rather than box it into one, no?

I think so, though this invariably seems to involve creating another framework, a more personal one. The problem is then one of communication, new jargon to invent.

 

[methylatedghosts]

Maybe this could be a new thread topic, but a question going off Ymir's response...

Would an atheist be better equipped to deal with a spontaneous mystical experience than a person familiar with one or more religious belief systems?

 

[psychoslice]

The mystic experience for me is experiencing that which we truly are, that which is beyond the mind, it cannot be conceptualized, but only experienced.

 

[Windwalker]

Would an atheist be better equipped to deal with a spontaneous mystical experience than a person familiar with one or more religious belief systems?

What does "better equipped to deal with it" mean? Deal with it in what way? You mean better interpret it? Better integrate it? Could you clarify this so I understand better?

 

[methylatedghosts]

What does "better equipped to deal with it" mean? Deal with it in what way? You mean better interpret it? Better integrate it? Could you clarify this so I understand better?

Both. That an atheist may be less likely to interpret the experience through religious-flavoured symbology, and so have a clearer picture to interpret and to integrate into their lives

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Both. That an atheist may be less likely to interpret the experience through religious-flavoured symbology, and so have a clearer picture to interpret and to integrate into their lives

Maybe. Though perhaps an atheist would be more likely to dismiss the experience or explain it away?

 

[methylatedghosts]

Maybe. Though perhaps an atheist would be more likely to dismiss the experience or explain it away?

Also true. However the experience itself wouldn't be coloured with religious flavourings. The dismissal and/or explanation would come after, just as a Christian might explain the experience as "God speaking to me" as that is how it would be experienced at the time

 

[Windwalker]

Both. That an atheist may be less likely to interpret the experience through religious-flavoured symbology, and so have a clearer picture to interpret and to integrate into their lives

There are some problems with this idea. Let's put it into these terms instead of atheist versus religious. Think of this in terms of rationalist frameworks versus mythic frameworks, particularly so speaking in terms of modern times as it seems clear we are based on the context of the discussion. Bear with a minute and see if this proves helpful.

Regarding rational frameworks, I mean thinking in terms of modern explanations of the world. How we translate the world is through looking to data and empirical evidences, logical deduction and whatnot. It's not that people who operate using mythic structures to translate the world are not rational, it's just that the interpretive filters they use to translate the world through, including their experiences, are based on mythic structures, such as deity symbols, the gods as higher forces working behinds the scenes, etc. The rational structures are science and reason and whatnot.

To put a point on this, you can have religious people who are clearly using rational structures as well as atheists. So it really isn't a case of atheists versus religious in how they interpret and integrate mystical experiences (assuming spontaneous peak experiences for this discussion, versus state training through meditation and whatnot). It is really about rational structures versus mythic structures.

So now with that explained, are people using rational structures better able to interpret and integrate mystical experiences? I'd argue no, and yes in one sense. No, in that people operating through life using mythic structures have been doing just fine through the ages. It's the ability to interpret itself that is at question. People can successfully interpret their own experience, whether those are mundane or transcendent, using all sorts of structures from magic, to mythic, to rational, to pluralistic, to transrational, and so forth. The interpretation of experience is being done in what was are appropriate to where people are at in how they translate the world. And they are also able to successfully integrate them into their lives at all these stages of development, unless there is something wrong at that stage, an illness, a pathology, and so forth.

Where I would say the integrate or interpret it "better" is only in the sense that these rational structures are more sophisticated than the mythic structures, or magic structures. However, there are structures that are higher or more sophisticated than the rational structures as well. The higher or more sophisticated structures are "better" in the sense that how the experiences are understood is generally a larger, more inclusive point of view than earlier less sophisticated structures. What that would mean is that rational structures can offer a more "fuller" understanding than mythic structures, and transrational can go beyond that, and so forth. The experiences are the same, but the understanding or interpretation of it can be broader and more fuller.

That doesn't make it any easier to integrate it into one's life necessarily, if they are in fact operating at the mythic level. A rational understanding of mystical experience would NOT work to integrate it for someone operating at a mythic structure. And, to the point you are really trying to make, I gather, is that for someone at a rational structure (the modern atheist/religionist), mythic interpretations will not work for them. I fully agree. So mythic interpretations don't work for those operating within rational worldspaces, and rational interpretations will not work for those operating in mythic worldspaces.

Also true. However the experience itself wouldn't be coloured with religious flavourings.

But it would be colored by rationalistic explanations. Every experience is colored by the interpretative lenses we are seeing through.

The dismissal and/or explanation would come after, just as a Christian might explain the experience as "God speaking to me" as that is how it would be experienced at the time

Or the atheist would conclude his dopamine levels went off the charts! In truth, there are many languages one could use to interpret these things, and they're all valid ways to talk about it, depending on what structures you're seeing everything through.

 

[mystic64]

You only begin to truly understand the mystic experience, at least on the higher levels, when you quit trying to understand it. You are it and it is you and everything just changes.

Religious frameworks? Humm? I still have a strong relationship with Lord Jesus and His Father (and His Mother ), and also Lord Shiva and Shakti, it is just that they are not actually a part of the higher mystic experience as individual entities. It is like entering into a group mind and the individual personalities that make up the group mind are on but quiet. We are all connected to all living things, it is just that in the higher mystic states you are not tuned into any individual mind address. Your mind's processing speed is so fast that time seems to stand still and you really have to slow things down to tune into individual mind adresses. You are in this would but not of it and if you are not careful you become disconnected and you are not even in this world anymore . Once your mind processing speed takes off there is a whole nether world out there that is a wonderment. And it is way more fun than this reality of things.But my goal is to bring it back to this reality as something that science can study, so that helps to anchor me in this world so that I don't become totally disconnected .