There is something that is very threatening to a lot of Christianity about these kinds of experiences. In the religion that I was raised in, we would have been taught to be very suspicious of experiences like this. There is almost a deep heresy at the bottom of it all, which is that either this is all an illusion and I don't really exist as an individual self. Even more dangerous, what some mystics go where it takes them is that when I say we're all one, I mean that the divinity exists in me.
David and Tamler talk about William James’ chapter on mysticism from his book "Varieties of Religious Experience." What defines a mystical experience? Why do they defy expression and yet feel like a state of knowledge, a glimpse into the window of some undiscovered aspect of reality? Is Tamler right that David has a little mystic inside of him just waiting to burst forth from his breast?
Plus – another edition of VBW does conceptual analysis and we’re sticking with ‘c’ words – this time the definitive theory of ‘creepy.’
Sponsored By:
Support Very Bad Wizards
Links: