From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Nov 03 2002 - 20:09:07 GMT
Sam and all mystery lovers:
I'm glad you asked me to comment on this one. Its one of my favorite topics.
Unfortunately, I deleted those two big paragraphs in the middle, the ones
about Christian forms of mysticism. There's enough material to post a fat
one. I have a zillion objections and hardly know where to begin. I moved a
little piece of it to the end of this reply and will make some comments so
you at least have a clue or two about those objections. The bulk of this
post focuses on your broader comments about mysticism and the mystical
experience itself.
Sam said:
............... see Evelyn Underhill as someone who teaches great
distortions, descending from the 17th Century via William James, and
concentrating on the mystical as being about an experience, rather than the
generator of higher quality understandings.
dmb says:
One of the most striking and essential features of the mystical experience
is the sense that you've realized something profound. It has a noetic
quality. This is what generates "higher quality understandings". The trick
is making is last, making it latch, such as Pirsig did in writing Lila. He
eventually made a different choice, but the author considered making the
peyote ceremony the very center of the book because the MOQ was born there,
so to speak.
"...because at one time it looked as though the book would center around
this long night's metting of the NAC. The ceremony would be a kind of spine
to hold it all together. From it he would branch out and show in tangent
after tangent the analysis of complex realities and transcendental questions
that first emerged in his mind there." page 36
"The other side, the "good" analytic side, just watched, and before long it
slowly began to spin an enormous symmertical intellectual web, larger and
more perfect than any it had ever spun before." page 39
My point is only that there is no contradiction between mystical experience
and mystical understanding. They're not mutually exclusive. Quite the
opposite. One is a feature of the other.
Sam said:
My criticism of much contemporary writing about mysticism is broadly that it
mistakes the finger for the moon - the intense and dynamic experience of
growing from one stage to another becomes a search for intense and dynamic
experiences. To my way of thinking, it is only when the growth is embedded
in a tradition of understanding that it is possible to discriminate between
experiences which are exciting and experiences which actually foster
spiritual growth (ie growth in Quality).
dmb says:
The false dilemma appears here too, but beyond that there is the issue of
"tradition". I'd ask you to be more specific. Mainstream Western religion
frowns upon mysticism, to say the least. Some churches even associate it
with the devil. The experience bears far more fruit if it can be made to
last, to have a real effect on one's life and mind. On that I think we
agree. But I'm skeptical of your phrase, "embedded in a tradition of
understanding". Such traditions seem more likely to thwart and distort, than
to be of any help. That's why the bishops get so damn nervous when a Saint
walks in.
Sam said:
Pirsig suggests that Zen is about seeking 'spontaneous' enlightenment (as
well as having some structured paths analagous to the Christian one), so you
don't have to have the guidance of a tradition. I don't fully understand
this, but I wouldn't want to limit God's freedom. I'm sure it's possible,
just unlikely.
dmb says:
I think the whole point of a mystical experience is to transcend tradition,
to enlarge your view to see your true self and your true place within that
tradition and maybe even to improve upon tradition. Its the obstacle to be
overcome., the thing to be mastered and put to sleep. What you see as
unlikely and barely possible, I see as a necessary step. Moving beyond
tradition is precisely what the hero does. He ventures out of the ordinary
world, across the threshold and into a world of supernatural wonder. There,
he wins the great treasure, the boon, the secret that will save us all and
returns with it to the ordinary world. In the middle part of the journey,
the mystical part, the hero often has to go where there is no path, a
dangerous and forbidden road and generally has to go where no body has ever
been and thru which no one is qualified to quide. The hero is totally on his
own. This is the perfect dipiction of an encounter with DQ, the great
mystery.
Sam said:
Similarly, the transcendence above the social level, to develop what I call
the
'eudaimonic' individual, that was a DQ experience. ... This new 'fourth
level'
individual - 'free' from the law, justified by faith, living by grace - is
still called to journey deeper into God, ...
dmb says:
This is a snippet of the deleted paragraphs. I pick it out because it seems
to be the main source of a number of disagreements. OK, maybe its only a
half a zillion. I agree with whoever it was that pointed out that your
"eudaimonic" individual actually describes the social level excellence, even
if it is expressed in rational Aristotelean terms. I should add that the
thespians of ancient Greece, like Sophocles?, are also prime examples of the
very height of the social level. Eudaimonic individuals are those who
approximate heros, no? In any case, I think "free from the law, justified by
faith, living by grace" is very far away from an accurate description of the
fourth level or mysticism.
Thanks for your time,
DMB
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