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+--- Thread: Religion has no monopoly on transcendent experience (/thread-3867.html)
Religion has no monopoly on transcendent experience - C C - Jul 3, 2017
https://aeon.co/essays/religion-has-no-monopoly-on-transcendent-experience
EXCERPT: [...] What does one call such an experience? Pullman refers to it as ‘transcendent’. The philosopher and psychologist William James called them ‘religious experiences’ – although Pullman, who wrote a fictionalised biography of Jesus, would insist that God was not involved. Other psychologists call such moments spiritual, mystical, anomalous or out-of-the-ordinary. My preferred term is ‘ecstatic’. Today, we think of ecstasy as meaning the drug MDMA or the state of being ‘very happy’, but originally it meant ekstasis – a moment when you stand outside your ordinary self, and feel a connection to something bigger than you. Such moments can be euphoric, but also terrifying.
Over the past five centuries, Western culture has gradually marginalised and pathologised ecstasy. That’s partly a result of our shift from a supernatural or animist worldview to a disenchanted and materialist one. In most cultures, ecstasy is a connection to the spirit world. In our culture, since the 17th century, if you suggest you’re connected to the spirit world, you’re likely to be considered ignorant, eccentric or unwell. Ecstasy has been labelled as various mental disorders: enthusiasm, hysteria, psychosis. It’s been condemned as a threat to secular government. We’ve become a more controlled, regulated and disciplinarian society, in which one’s standing as a good citizen relies on one’s ability to control one’s emotions, be polite, and do one’s job. The autonomous self has become our highest ideal, and the idea of surrendering the self is seen as dangerous.
Yet ecstatic experiences are surprisingly common, we just don’t talk about them. The polling company Gallup has, since the 1960s, measured the frequency of mystical experiences in the United States. In 1960, only 20 per cent of the population said they’d had one or more. Now, it’s around 50 per cent. In a survey I did in 2016, 84 per cent of respondents said they’d had an experience where they went beyond their ordinary self, and felt connected to something greater than them. But 75 per cent agreed there was a taboo around such experiences.
[...] For most people, contemplation is a way to take a break from the chattering ego-mind. But occasionally people have more powerful experiences of ego-dissolution, especially on retreats. [...] Psychologists and psychiatrists are moving from their traditional hostility to ecstasy to an understanding that it’s often good for us. [...] Yet there are risks to ego-dissolution too....
MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/religion-has-no-monopoly-on-transcendent-experience
RE: Religion has no monopoly on transcendent experience - Magical Realist - Jul 3, 2017
Good article. Welcome back CC!
"The journey beyond the self is not safe or predictable. On the other hand, staying in the self also has its risks – boredom, staleness, sterility, despair. Ultimately, there’s something in us that calls to us, that pulls us out the door. Let’s find out where it leads."
RE: Religion has no monopoly on transcendent experience - Magical Realist - Jul 4, 2017
I've had a couple of those panontic mystical moments in my own life. My encounter with the Grand Canyon was one. Being on the cusp of a summer thunderstorm. Looking out over the Atlantic from my ship at the gigantic mountain of the Azores looming over the horizon. One is humbled and dazed by such vastness. A sense of presence to some force or reality hugely beyond your own life going on indifferently to you. A universe that could smash you like a bug if it had a mind to but that somehow enters your flickering microscopic experience.
RE: Religion has no monopoly on transcendent experience - Syne - Jul 4, 2017
(Jul 4, 2017 07:30 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I've had a couple of those panontic mystical moments in my own life. My encounter with the Grand Canyon was one. Being on the cusp of a summer thunderstorm. Looking out over the Atlantic from my ship at the gigantic mountain of the Azores looming over the horizon. One is humbled and dazed by such vastness. A sense of presence to some force or reality hugely beyond your own life going on indifferently to you. A universe that could smash you like a bug if it had a mind to but that somehow enters your flickering microscopic experience.
None of that sound anything like a transcendent religious experience.
Transcendent experiences are life-affirming, not life-negating.
RE: Religion has no monopoly on transcendent experience - Magical Realist - Jul 4, 2017
(Jul 4, 2017 08:42 PM)Syne Wrote: [quote='Magical Realist' pid='12366' dateline='1499193032']
I've had a couple of those panontic mystical moments in my own life. My encounter with the Grand Canyon was one. Being on the cusp of a summer thunderstorm. Looking out over the Atlantic from my ship at the gigantic mountain of the Azores looming over the horizon. One is humbled and dazed by such vastness. A sense of presence to some force or reality hugely beyond your own life going on indifferently to you. A universe that could smash you like a bug if it had a mind to but that somehow enters your flickering microscopic experience.
None of that sound anything like a transcendent religious experience.
Transcendent experiences are life-affirming, not life-negating.
Transcendent experiences are reality affirming, not self affirming. Otherwise getting promoted in your career would be considered a transcendent experience.
RE: Religion has no monopoly on transcendent experience - Syne - Jul 4, 2017
(Jul 4, 2017 08:55 PM)Magical Realist Wrote:No, you silly bugger, transcendent literally means "surpassing the ordinary; exceptional". Reality is, by definition, ordinary. Experiencing something beyond ordinary is life-affirming.(Jul 4, 2017 08:42 PM)Syne Wrote:(Jul 4, 2017 07:30 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I've had a couple of those panontic mystical moments in my own life. My encounter with the Grand Canyon was one. Being on the cusp of a summer thunderstorm. Looking out over the Atlantic from my ship at the gigantic mountain of the Azores looming over the horizon. One is humbled and dazed by such vastness. A sense of presence to some force or reality hugely beyond your own life going on indifferently to you. A universe that could smash you like a bug if it had a mind to but that somehow enters your flickering microscopic experience.
None of that sound anything like a transcendent religious experience.
Transcendent experiences are life-affirming, not life-negating.
Transcendent experiences are reality affirming, not self affirming. Otherwise getting promoted in your career would be considered a transcendent experience.
But I don't expect you to have any basis to compare the religiously transcendent.
RE: Religion has no monopoly on transcendent experience - Magical Realist - Jul 4, 2017
(Jul 4, 2017 09:14 PM)Syne Wrote:(Jul 4, 2017 08:55 PM)Magical Realist Wrote:No, you silly bugger, transcendent literally means "surpassing the ordinary; exceptional". Reality is, by definition, ordinary. Experiencing something beyond ordinary is life-affirming.(Jul 4, 2017 08:42 PM)Syne Wrote:(Jul 4, 2017 07:30 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I've had a couple of those panontic mystical moments in my own life. My encounter with the Grand Canyon was one. Being on the cusp of a summer thunderstorm. Looking out over the Atlantic from my ship at the gigantic mountain of the Azores looming over the horizon. One is humbled and dazed by such vastness. A sense of presence to some force or reality hugely beyond your own life going on indifferently to you. A universe that could smash you like a bug if it had a mind to but that somehow enters your flickering microscopic experience.
None of that sound anything like a transcendent religious experience.
Transcendent experiences are life-affirming, not life-negating.
Transcendent experiences are reality affirming, not self affirming. Otherwise getting promoted in your career would be considered a transcendent experience.
But I don't expect you to have any basis to compare the religiously transcendent.
LOL! You're the last person I'm going to accept any advice on spirituality from. You wouldn't know transcendent if it slapped you in the face.
RE: Religion has no monopoly on transcendent experience - Syne - Jul 4, 2017
(Jul 4, 2017 09:31 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: LOL! You're the last person I'm going to accept any advice on spirituality from. You wouldn't know transcendent if it slapped you in the face.
Says the atheist.
RE: Religion has no monopoly on transcendent experience - Magical Realist - Jul 4, 2017
(Jul 4, 2017 09:35 PM)Syne Wrote:(Jul 4, 2017 09:31 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: LOL! You're the last person I'm going to accept any advice on spirituality from. You wouldn't know transcendent if it slapped you in the face.
Says the atheist.
See? You have no concept of how spirituality can exist separately from theism. That's how stunted you are.
RE: Religion has no monopoly on transcendent experience - Syne - Jul 4, 2017
(Jul 4, 2017 09:39 PM)Magical Realist Wrote:(Jul 4, 2017 09:35 PM)Syne Wrote:(Jul 4, 2017 09:31 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: LOL! You're the last person I'm going to accept any advice on spirituality from. You wouldn't know transcendent if it slapped you in the face.
Says the atheist.
See? You have no concept of how spirituality can exist separately from theism. That's how stunted you are.
I'm not sure you even understand the word, considering your "spiritually transcendent" experience....that makes you feel insignificant. Sounds more like nihilism.