Why mystic experiences are hard to discuss?

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


I'll take all that as a "no I haven't had an anomalous dream experience, and I don't understand that you are talking about veridical psychic experiences during dream state so I'll just toss in the word unicorn to make it all seem ridiculous and thus easier to hand-wave away."

Argument is fun sometimes but unless it is backed up by a desire to learn, as opposed to being backed by a pathological level of motivated "skepticism", then its worthless.

I've seen it time and time again. Skeptics just want to go round and round with words...when what they need to do is stfu and go read some books that are outside of their comfort zone and practice some mysticism. Heck why don't you try to take a leaf out of Sam Harris's book. Even he knows that there is something to mysticism and that you can't just sit there like an arm-chair quaterback flapping your gums if you want to know what that something is. Even he knows that you can't just hide behind the apron strings of science, you have to take action.

But the problem with a contemplative claim of this sort is that you can't borrow someone else's contemplative tools to test it. The problem is that to test such a claim—indeed, to even appreciate how distracted we tend to be in the first place, we have to build our own contemplative tools. Imagine where astronomy would be if everyone had to build his own telescope before he could even begin to see if astronomy was a legitimate enterprise. It wouldn't make the sky any less worthy of investigation, but it would make it immensely more difficult for us to establish astronomy as a science.

To judge the empirical claims of contemplatives, you have to build your own telescope.

[...]

One problem with atheism as a category of thought, is that it seems more or less synonymous with not being interested in what someone like the Buddha or Jesus may have actually experienced. In fact, many atheists reject such experiences out of hand, as either impossible, or if possible, not worth wanting. Another common mistake is to imagine that such experiences are necessarily equivalent to states of mind with which many of us are already familiar—the feeling of scientific awe, or ordinary states of aesthetic appreciation, artistic inspiration, etc.

As someone who has made his own modest efforts in this area, let me assure you, that when a person goes into solitude and trains himself in meditation for 15 or 18 hours a day, for months or years at a time, in silence, doing nothing else—not talking, not reading, not writing—just making a sustained moment to moment effort to merely observe the contents of consciousness and to not get lost in thought, he experiences things that most scientists and artists are not likely to have experienced, unless they have made precisely the same efforts at introspection. And these experiences have a lot to say about the plasticity of the human mind and about the possibilities of human happiness.

So, apart from just commending these phenomena to your attention, I'd like to point out that, as atheists, our neglect of this area of human experience puts us at a rhetorical disadvantage. Because millions of people have had these experiences, and many millions more have had glimmers of them, and we, as atheists, ignore such phenomena, almost in principle, because of their religious associations—and yet these experiences often constitute the most important and transformative moments in a person's life. Not recognizing that such experiences are possible or important can make us appear less wise even than our craziest religious opponents.

Source: old.richarddawkins.net...

But, I doubt you have the wisdom to take these words to heart. And I don't want to just play argument games. So, this will probably be my last post to you.

reply to post by BlueMule


The thing about getting everyone together "there" is perhaps the same as searching
the missing keys in the streets only where the streetlamps are available.

Mystics go into the dark using their will (can be represented by a candle) and looking
from the funny mirror of beliefs they make trying to understand the things only the
observers can relate to.

I consider myself mystic, but healthy skeptcism makes everyone in check
to avoid delusional trhoughts.

Scientism is bad thought, like the dark ages from a left perspective.

-RP

reply to post by BlueMule

I've been there kid. You can't give me that 'you haven't tried so you can't you know' malarky.

What you do in your dreams or self-induced intoxication is your business. And until you can have something to show for your methods besides vague stories of star beings and astral planes, no one needs to hear it. No matter how condescending you try to make yourself, it doesn't justify your dogmas. If all you want is a choir to preach to, here's not the place to do it.

I believe everything you say. I have no choice but to give you the benefit of the doubt when you say you see stars falling from people's armpits. But achieve this in the waking world, where people are awake and alive and exist, where this phenomena can be seen by everyone, and you can finally get the recognition you deserve.

Until then. Have fun!

@les

Have you tryied the psiwheel? Pendulum? That opened a flood of questions for me and a new
view in life.... thing is, "psi" is reactive to belief, because of its mental nature.

Can you give a try? Just contemplate the wheel and wish every 10 seconds to spin. Look at it
as you are a master of mental pet and expect it to obey. DONT THINK. This method works but
takes its time... 20 mins or so for first timers.

TK is the only way people can understand ESP and therefore the whole dimensions namaste
talk.

(the mental comand should be extra brief or the psi construct will be overwhelmed)

-RP

Originally posted by RobertPaulsim
@les

Have you tryied the psiwheel? Pendulum? That opened a flood of questions for me and a new
view in life.... thing is, "psi" is reactive to belief, because of its mental nature.

Can you give a try? Just contemplate the wheel and wish every 10 seconds to spin. Look at it
as you are a master of mental pet and expect it to obey. DONT THINK. This method works but
takes its time... 20 mins or so for first timers.

TK is the only way people can understand ESP and therefore the whole dimensions namaste
talk.

(the mental comand should be extra brief or the psi construct will be overwhelmed)

-RP

edit on 21-12-2012 by RobertPaulsim because: (no reason given)

I have believe it or not. But it seemed a parlour trick to me. In my opinion, there's many more reasons why the wheel would spin. I would not immediately chalk it up to something so unfounded as telekinesis.

What are your thoughts? Have you reduced all possibilites that you are left with only telekinesis as your conclusion?

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


This is been my subject of thinking for the past years... what absolutely sold me is when you
add up more wheels... like 4 ... and you spin like just one.... no convection process excludes
3 wheels from a mini cluster of 4... I mean, the physics are way off.

The absent of movement for me is most important... because when I close my eyes and film
the thing with my camera, everything stop. While I issue comands, the wheels turn!

Thing is, evolve from a psiwheel is hard. Put in a plastic case is a nightmarish mental
problem.

There is this book from Kaltem Gibson im trying to read. Is hardcore mistic, even I have
problems 'translating' it to my own equations.... but he knows what he is talking about.

I suggest you get on you tube "Daryl Sloan". Here is a skeptic that does TK. He has good
experiments and performed a full rotation inside a bowl.

-RP