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The Annals of the Enlightened Ones

  
 
illmatic
12:43 / 12.02.04

Following recent discussions on “transcending reality” and the like in the “Deconditioning” thread and others, I thought it might be interesting to have a thread to discuss mystical experience. It’s something that has always fascinated me, and is worth talking about as perhaps it’s under-emphasised area round these parts with all the stuff on results magic, Chaos and suchlike. Chaos Magick in particular seems to have an aversion to mysticism.

However, what I don’t want is every man and his levitating dog chipping in accounts of their last acid trip/spaz out (we can do that on another thread), so I thought it might be a good start to get a list together of a few books detailing first person experiences, perhaps with a few comments on what these individuals have to say about their experiences. We can perhaps go on to discuss the issues raised below or in another thread – stuff like commonalites between these experiences, points of difference, even comparison with our own experiences. I wonder if I’ll be on my own here, as I don’t know how many other people here read stuff like this. Open to all denominations – Christian, Buddhist, what have you....


To kick off with I’d pick David Smith, an English Buddhist, whose little book A Record of Awakening details his experiences in the Thedavara (sp?) tradition. He undertook a hermitage in Sri Lanka and there, while meditating, he experienced his “awakening”. He describes it as ”cutting off of the “tap root” of ignorance”. In the Buddhist tradition, I suppose you could call this experiential knowledge of his own “emptiness” or his non self-existent nature. Bit of a mouthful, if you don’t get it go and read the book. All kinds of blissful insights followed as he realised “the emptiness of everything under heaven” to misquote him badly. (I don’t have the book here). Interesting points are that he couldn’t find much in the Buddhist tradition or literature that told him exactly what was going on, apart from one text. Also, this was the beginning, not the end of his journey – he relates the different stages to a traditional scheme called “Bhumis” and sees himself as still on this journey. Over the next few chapters, he details how the “enlightened mind” side of him spent weeks wrestling with his “small” mind, which did everything it could to keep his idea of self in limits. He graphically details his fear of going insane etc. He heard a voice frequently at these times that he called “the voice of the dharma” that spoke to him and guided him through these moments. Fascinating book, and has completely validated the truth of the Buddhist path for him.

So, anymore for anymore? Similar reviews or brief accounts of experiences? I’ll probably post some more details from the Agehanada Bharati book I mentioned elsewhere. Others that spring to mind – Gopi Krishna (for the negative side) Crowley (unless someone of a Thelemic persuasion wants to have a go. I’m looking at you LVX23).
 
 
trouser the trouserian
13:22 / 12.02.04
Illmatic
IMO, a good starting-point for anyone interested in understanding experiences of the numinous (or darkness for that matter) is the writings of the 16th century Christian mystic, St. John of the Cross. You can find his work on The Dark Night of the Soul here.

Here's a quote from him that may resonate with some of us:

Similarly, we should philosophize about this divine, loving fire of contemplation. Before transforming the soul, it purges it of all contrary qualities. It produces blackness and darkness and brings to the fore the soul's ugliness; thus one seems worse than before and unsightly and abominable. This divine purge stirs up all the foul and vicious humors of which the soul was never before aware; never did it realize there was so much evil in itself, since these humors were so deeply rooted. And now that they may be expelled and annihilated they are brought to light and seen clearly through the illumination of this dark light of divine contemplation. Although the soul is no worse than before, either in itself or in its relationship with God, it feels clearly that it is so bad as to be not only unworthy that God see it but deserving of his abhorrence. In fact, it feels that God now does abhor it. This comparison illustrates many of the things we have been saying and will say.

Thomas Merton described St. John as "the greatest of all mystical theologians."

His other great work The Ascent of Mount Carmel can be found here.

I used to have a wonderful book The Relevance of Bliss: A Contemporary Exploration of Mystical Experience by Nona Coxhead. (Amazon have a few copies, I understand). There were some good accounts (and analyses) of mystical experience in it. One that particularly sticks in my mind was that of a guy caught in an artillery barrage in WW2. He describes how everything just slowed down and he focused on a butterfly that had landed on his tunic. Definitely a book worth seeking out.
 
 
LVX23
15:44 / 12.02.04
what I don’t want is every man and his levitating dog chipping in accounts of their last acid trip/spaz out

Are you saying that psychedelic use and mysticism are mutually exclusive? If you feel you are having a mystical experience, does it matter whether you're sober or not? Or are you looking for serious devotional, life-work type stuff, years of training, etc...?

I'm not trying to be confrontational, just trying to get more definition about what is acceptable in this thread. Many of my most profound mystical experiences were in drug-induced shamanic states.
 
 
illmatic
16:13 / 12.02.04
No, not at all - totally with you on the validity of drug experiences myself. One of the fascinating things about this kind of experience is that it seemingly can happen anywhere to anyone, drug induced or sober, trained or untrained -many people have reported spontaneous satoris. I was just asking people not to get too personal yet - bascially, I thought that asking people to put any "mystical experiences" might be too broad a remit - where do you draw the line, after all.... Most texts are (I hope) going to be a bit more focused, having been subject to a bit of criticcal editing, a lot of 'em will be situated within traditons etc. Open to debate on this one - I just thought that "personal experiences" could be another thread. Thoughts?
 
 
---
17:44 / 12.02.04
I think for myself some of the best stuff relating to mystical experiences have been various works by Carl Jung relating to individuation, unconscious processes and alchemy. The explanations of what occured in these experiences are usually explained in detail.

Memories, Dreams and Reflections is a book that i read a few years ago and is more or less a history of his life that has accounts of mystical experiences :

MDR

His works on alchemy are also full of some amazing stuff and his work Seven Sermons to the Dead is something that apparently came into his head and some type of force or entity wouldn't let him rest until he put the work onto paper. It's online here:

Seven Sermons, Jung
 
 
Boy in a Suitcase
18:21 / 12.02.04
I haven't got around to reading them yet but I've been told that the works of Wei Wu Wei are excellent. Wei Wu Wei in this case being both a cipher name like Nemo and the specific pen name of an Irish author who wrote in the fifties, I think? His works are meant to represent reliable Ipsissimus accounts I think.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
09:30 / 13.02.04
Another interesting mystic is the 19th-century Bengali 'saint' Sri Ramakrishna - arguably one of the 'founders' of modern Hinduism.

What are you to do when you are placed in the world? Give up everything to Him, resign yourself to Him, and there will be no more trouble for you. Then you will come to know that everything is done by His will.

Ramakrishna was by turns, a devotee of Kali, a tantric practitioner, a renunciate, and an explorer of nondual Vedanta.

Ramakrishna still remains a contraversial figure. The book Kali's Child. The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna by Jeffrey Kripal, which argues that the saint's mystical experiences were related his 'conflicted homosexuality' has sparked outrage in India and fired an intense debate about the 'misrepresentation' of Indian religiousity by western writers.
 
 
gravitybitch
15:06 / 13.02.04
One of the best current accounts I've read of mystical experience through "drugs" is Breaking Open the Head by Daniel Pinchbeck. (There's a website to go along with the book, of course...)

Gotta run to work, but I'll be back later...
 
 
illmatic
09:38 / 18.02.04
Reviving this thread before it dies completely:

BiaS: Wu Wei Wu’s stuff is amazing, if veering towards the incomprehensible. Pseudonym of Sir Terence Gray, who was British Ambassador to Hong Kong or Sinagapore? Something like that. Kenneth Grant quotes frequently from his books To give you a sampler:

My objective self has only a conceptual existence
Non-objectively I am the apparent universe.
Identifying myself with my conceptual object is what constitutes bondage. Realising that my conceptual object exists only insofar as it and it’s subject are this phenomenal absence here and now – constitutes liberation
I am my phenomenal absence.

(“All Else is Bondage”

And that’s one of the easier bits. What he’s trying to do is explain/expand on Buddhist notions of the “self” in Western philosophical language. In “All Else is Bondage” he’s stripped this down to aphoristic phrases. Great stuff, makes me dizzy just thinking about it. I was having a chat about him with a mate sometime ago – said friend was familiar with a lot of Western Buddhist literature and had noted that although a lot of the authors quote each other, none of ‘em quote him – when I asked way, he said “Because he’s too bloody GOOD!”


(Just found a site here)
Anyway, I mentioned Agenhanda Bharati in another thread, so may as well give him a brief recap here. His book “Light at the Centre” details his mystical experiences, as well as a lot of commentary on “sociological” that surrounds mysticism in India and the West. He makes some quite acid comments about the seventies mystical connterculture which make for very amusing reading now. Interestingly, he characteristics all mystical experience as the same, or similar – he calls it the “zero experience” and states quite categorically having these experiences doesn’t not make own morally perfect, omnipotent etc though the experience in itself is breathtaking enough to cause people to orientate the who lives to having it again. He also states that the vast majority of monks he’d talked to India, haven’t had this and that monastic/religious meditative training is no guarantee of getting there. (I’ve done his arguments a huge disservice, but I’m writing this at work so forgive me).

I thought that contrast between him and Wu Wei Wu e might make a useful jump off point for talking about mysticism – both very different stances, one talks about complex philosophical issues, the other talks about an overpowering experience. Can anybody say what these different stances, and all the others above have in common? I might try and address this below. I realise asking people to comment on brief snippets of material is a bit of a non-starter. Is there anything specifically that defines a mystic? What do all the people listed thus far have in common? What would we say is the essence of “mystical experience”?
 
 
doctorbeck
11:22 / 18.02.04
illmatic asked 'What would we say is the essence of “mystical experience”?


at the risk of talking rubbish during a brief look onto here from my usual place on the comics forum...

but may i cautiously suggest that mysticism is more to do with the dissolution of the ego and a surrender to the divine whereas chaos magic seems to me to be more about the id unleashed and other types perhaps more about an ego becoming...i dunno i am searching for words here on a subject where i know only a modest amount, but what i've read seems to me to be about elevating ego based thinking rather than any kind of surrender. a sort of narcicistic mysticism perhaps?

have to say my favourite modern mystic is thomas merton, highly recommend the sign of jonas for it's worldliness and humour amd accessibility, sign of jonas if a good start,


andrew
 
 
---
14:53 / 18.02.04
but may i cautiously suggest that mysticism is more to do with the dissolution of the ego and a surrender to the divine whereas chaos magic seems to me to be more about the id unleashed and other types perhaps more about an ego becoming...

That could be true in some cases but if you take a good look into it, the intent of Chaos Magick is more of a liberation from dogmatic belief systems that gives it's users freedom to take what they want from whatever religions/magical traditions and assemble something that isn't restricted by any adherance to just one Archetype/God/Goddess form.

A good example of this (and there are many of them) would be LiberKKK by Pete Carroll. Despite the rantings you read from various sources there's a lot of good stuff out there on the subject that has a pure intent, and that follows and aspires to what you would consider a dissolution of the ego rather than a feeding of it. (thank Eris!)
 
 
trouser the trouserian
07:44 / 19.02.04
What would we say is the essence of "mystical experience"?

At the risk of opening up the old essentialist vs constructivist thing again (and after all, why not?), a constructivist position would be to argue that the mystic's experience of God, Brahman, the Tao, etc., is shaped, formed and constructed from his or her own culture, notions of that experience, etc. Expectations, culture, belief all influence the content of the experience. Or more simply - Christians hardly ever get visions of Kali and Neo-Confucians don't tend to get visions of Jesus. The opposing position - that of the essentialists is that 'mystical experience' is cross-cultural and reflects a fundamental human characteristic. W.T Stace has it thusly:

The most important, the central characteristic in which all fully developed mystical experiences agree, and which in the last analysis is definitive of them and serves to mark them off from other kinds of experiences, is that they involve the apprehension of an ultimate nonsensuous unity in all things, a oneness or a One to which neither the senses nor the reason can penetrate. In other words, it entirely transcends our sensory-intellectual consciousness. It should be carefully noted that only fully developed mystical experiences are necessarily apprehensive of the One. Many experiences have been recorded which lack this central feature but yet possess other mystical characteristics. These are borderline cases, which may be said to shade off from the central core of cases.

Both stances have their pros and cons. Essentialists argue that there is a pure 'unmediated' experience but have (historically at least) have a tendency to ignore cross-cultural differences. Constructionists can't easily account for those 'out-of-the-blue' mystical experiences and have (arguably) also built their case on some dodgy assuptions concerning the epistemological uniformity of experience. Of course, it is the constructionist argument that powers the popular idea of 'cultural relativism' which asserts that no one group's belief systems are inherently superior to another's - reaching its apetheosis in Chaos Magic with the idea that those beliefs are 'arbitary'.

What may be of interest, concerning mysticism, is that the Constructivist position is rather similar in many ways to some of the Buddhist doctrines. However, the key difference is that whilst teachings such as Yogacara do assert that our 'everyday' experience arises from constructions (language, habits, expectations, etc.) they do point to a 'pure' state of awareness wherein there is no consciousness of objects - nirodhasamaapatti wherein the 'constructive' functions of the mind are abolished. So, from the position of a Yogacarin - constructivist perspectives are quite valid until one experiences nirodhasamaapatti at which point, they are no longer relevant.
 
 
illmatic
10:41 / 19.02.04
AoG: Excellent post mate. Said it better than I could. Don’t think I’ve got much to add to that. Just something to sit and ponder on – I might post up some extracts of Bharati’s experience. He seems to lean toward the essentialalist position, and for him anyway is a pretty solid critical tool for cutting through bullshit.

Dcotorbeck: I think you might be right in saying that Chaos Magick represents an “ego becoming” rather than a surrender to the divine. A lot of the commentary surrounding Chaos Magick is quite hostile to mystical material. This distinction is sometimes expressed as the difference between the Right Hand Path and the Left Hand Path. I do find the contrast between the practical side of magick, “getting things done”, serving a community or whatever and mysticism, “absorption into the divine” etc. - very interesting. I wonder where do these two find common ground – anyone have any thoughts on this?

Following this, I wonder why the religions of Africa, shamanic traditions etc – don’t seem to have this transcendental focus, while the religions of Asia do (though on a folk level at least, they have very practical concerns). I’m really intrigued by this – I suppose what I’m looking for is a point of origin, or a reason behind “transcendence” and “mystical experience”. Why do these ideas occur with such strength in one set of cultures, yet not at all in others? Any ideas?
 
 
illmatic
10:48 / 19.02.04
I meant to add that you find the "ego becoming" idea - or rather "resistance to mysticism, holding onto selfhood - critqued a bit in Crowley's work as being the "path of the Black Brothers". Anyway this is all getting a bit theoritical. Found these few exercises through the links page on the Wu Wei Wu site above:

From: http://www.newnorth.net/~unenlite/

Rather than try to explain enlightenment, there is something I would like to show you. Below are two exercises that involve direct observation and hopefully insight. Eventually, these exercises can be practiced at any time or place. If you do not get immediate results, please do not give up. After all, the ego does not want its' true status to be known. You will know if you are being pointed in the proper "direction".

EXERCISE ONE

Find a quiet room where you can sit alone. Without controlling, observe your attention move from one object to another. Notice how your mind automatically labels everything it sees. You may also notice various thoughts which come to mind that are associated with specific objects; even feelings. Realize that your thoughts, concepts and labels are not the thing observed. Wait for silence. Experience your environment without the coloring of thought.

This is not as easy as it sounds, but if you can see that there is a difference between "what is" and "what you think there is", you have taken a great step towards transcending the ego.

EXERCISE TWO

Now turn your attention to the room of objects you call your body and mind. In the same way you observed the "external" room, observe your inner world. Let your attention move away from the body and move towards the mind, the thinker or the space behind the eyes. Watch your thoughts develop various ideas, concepts, philosophies etc. Realize that these thoughts and ideas are not you. Try listening to your thoughts as if you were listening to music; just something to be enjoyed.

With your attention focused, try to "target" the thinker or observer that is your self. Please do not give up until you discover that this cannot be done. This is because YOU ARE NOT THAT WHICH CAN BE AN OBJECT TO YOUR AWARENESS. Who or what are you then?

By releasing your hold on all that you are not, that which you are can begin to unfold. It may strike like lightening or it may approach like the dawn. Contemplate this...test this...discover this.

The most difficult spiritual leap is from identification with the ego(and all of its' thoughts, beliefs, memories, likes, dislikes etc.) to an awareness of that which observes the ego. What you are does not appear in the phenomenal world. Enjoy the silence and peacefulness that comes from watching your thoughts go by like a river. Observe your self pick up a stream of thought and then remember again who-you-are: the awareness in which all appears.

I have attempted to collect written accounts of this state of awareness. It is my hope that these words will spark a distant memory or inspire you to take the Great Leap.
 
 
trouser the trouserian
12:31 / 19.02.04
There's a useful review of different perspectives on mysticism here by Michael Daniels.
And a critique of Stephen Katz (probably the most 'rabid' of the Constructivists) here

Why do these ideas occur with such strength in one set of cultures, yet not at all in others? Any ideas?

Well, that's a poser, isn't it. Interesting as how a lot of authors (both popular and academic) talk about 'mysticism' when referring to Christianity, Buddhism, Vedanta, Islam, Taoism, etc., but when talking about 'primitive' cultures i.e. Oceania, Native American traditions etc., talk about 'shamanism'.
 
 
gravitybitch
14:41 / 19.02.04
I may be wrong, not having done a deep study of "mysticism" in Christianity, Buddhism, Vedanta, Islam, Taoism, etc., but maybe it's mysticism if you don't do anything while in that meditative state, and shamanism if you take action benefiting your community - get your hands dirty, so to speak, going and talking to the animals you want to be dinner, talking to the ancestors, or whatever?

If it's functional, it must be "primitive"...

It also seems to me that most of the "mystic" teachings seem to have a pretty monotheistic focus, while the "shamanistic" practices are pretty polytheistic.

[/rot]
 
 
The Fourth
12:15 / 28.02.04
Many moons ago I read 'Gold in the Crucible: Teresa of Avila and the Western Mystical Tradition' by Deidre Green. Not first person but a worthy book on mysticism. Embarrassingly I can't remember that much about it, but I remember I was really into it at the time! I borrowed the book, so can't check it out again just now. The author explores this 15th c. mystic and in addition to discussing Teresa's mystical revelations and states of ecstasy (it seemed as though this T. really had it going on) also discussed the socio- political climate in Spain - where T. was - at the time. For instance T. may well have been avoiding marriage when she took the habit, and may also have been avoiding persecution, because she may have been Jewish converting to Catholicism. Thus some of her mystical visions and experiences and her approaches to attaining states were Kabbalistically informed. She was also into alchemy. I must get a copy now that I've remembered about it. I was very impressed.

My first ever proper read when I 'got into magick' was The Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism by Lama -long name which escapes me just now - no disrespect intended. An easy light read to start off with! It is a detailed disection of the Om Mani Padme Hum mantra and an exegesis of the noble 5 fold path. It is very hard going indeed. I remember it made more sense to me when I was stoned than straight. And i remember thinking that if the gist of what the Lama was saying be true; then by adopting an appropriately meditative state of mind where I absolve myself into the goal so to speak, I should be able to do something I can't do usually. So I decided to try doing the splits by adopting said state of mind. And yes, it worked. I did the bloody splits, right there in my bedroom at the time OM. My first engineered mystical experience! Never being able to do them since either.

I went on to read other tibetan mysticism stuff but always felt that the transcendence thing was not really me, I wanted the Siddhi, oh yes. In my further explorations of Siddhi, I did find there was common ground, and this touches on some questions and points already raised here, which is that in pusuing magickal acts I have absorbed with the divine. I fail to see there's a difference in my abosorbed experiences with a deity for e.g. and those of a mystic or those of a shaman hunting tea. Unless it's about purpose rather than achieved state. One's about assuming the form of deity, another about transcendence and another about getting fed. Hmm. Sorry if this is a bit rambling, but it's a hard topic!
 
  
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