Mystical experience and the self: evidence
This question is one that already has been tackled throughout the history of philosophy, but it’s the kind of prolegomena that I need to do for my own studies. It’s the topic for my paper in philosophy of religion, so expect future posts on it. What kind of evidence would support the claim that a mystical experience has occurred because of an external transcendental source? Edit: "transcendental" assumes too much.
Obviously, "mystical experience" is a nice catch-all phrase that Western philosophers use because they’re focused on the subjective sense of union, love, awe, etc. There’s a certain amount of assumption involved in using that phrase, which I’ll have to justify. What I’m interested in, primarily, are experiences where the participant’s sense of self (physical and psychological boundaries, temporal situatedness) is dissolved or merged to some extent with a transcendent being or impersonal reality. Again, I am not going to assume much about the nature of the cause. Perhaps personal and impersonal aren’t conflicting categories, properly understood.
The reason this is important to me is that if I am too rigorous in my quest for evidence, I can lop off the sorts of evidence I use in every day life. But if I’m too lax, then we’re letting anything in. Further, the experience where the self merges/dissolves is particularly difficult because we’re used to knowing, believing, experiencing, etc. being intentional states with a division between subject and object (however you want to construe it, and there are various ways). If, however, "self" is dissolved or merged with something larger, then what kind of state is the individual in to gather evidence?
Many mystics talk about an indubitible sense after the fact that they were visited / influenced by a benevolent, transcendent being. But is recollection the sort of evidence we can use?
At first thought, there seem to be a few kinds of evidence we could gather:
1. Outside observers - someone watching the experiencer. But if the state is primarily subjective, they are only seeing behavior.
2. Brain states - a subset of 1, on some understandings. We have to assume that the hard problem isn’t hard in order for 2 to give us conclusive evidence.
3. Narrative - first person recall is the traditional evidence we’ve relied upon, but introspection and memory are notoriously tricky.
4. Ethical - John Hick is (in)famous for this suggestion, that we judge the veracity of our contact with the Real by the sort of life the experiencer leads. This assumes something about the nature of the cause, though, which is problematic.
5. Theological test - this would work within a tradition, but again, assumes something about the nature of the cause.
6. Some combination of the above - but what combination? Or is there another kind of evidence being excluded?
Finally (and I realize this is a huge topic which I’ll need to pare down), is there an implication here about the nature of "self"? That is, if we can still have interpretable experiences while the self is "dissolved", what does that say about the purported need for us to have a stable, existing through time, unitary "self"? Of course, these experiences are, to some extent, "ineffable" and often reported by negative comparisons. The fact, however, that we can have some kind of reporting seems to imply that they are not entirely beyond the boundaries of human thought. This may need to be treated separately, however, since it doesn’t necessarily hinge upon the epistemological questions and is, rather, phenomenological and metaphysical.
Arbitrary Chatter:
Aaron Boyden: Well, back when I was an... Aaron Boyden: The evaluation of historical... Loden Jinpa: thanks Richard: Thanks Colleen — let me just add... Loden Jinpa: >Finally, I just read the draft...