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InvisibleSilversoul
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Mystical Experience Survey
    #5329756 - 02/22/06 10:01 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Who here has had some mystical experience? Either tripping or sober. Did you feel that you were seeing/experiencing God? Has your experience influenced your beliefs? Do you conseder your experience to justify your beliefs?

I've had two major trips that strongly influenced my beliefs. One was on five grams of mushrooms. I experienced a sense of oneness with the universe. I felt a sort of ultimate reality that could be called God, or the One. After that, I came to understand what is meant we people say we are all one.

The other trip was on approx. 3 hits of acid, plus an E pill. During my peak, I closed my eyes and saw the face of Jesus. I felt the power of Christ come over me, feeling a sense of unconditional brotherly love towards everyone. That night, I accepted Christ as my lord and savior, and feel that this experience profoundly changed my heart. I became interested in gnosticism after this, and found much wisdom in what I've read about it.

So anyway, share your mystical experiences with everyone, and how they affected you.


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Offlinebarfightlard
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5329899 - 02/22/06 10:36 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

I've felt the whole we are one thing.

Question for you though.  When you saw the face of Jesus did he look how Western civilization depicts him?

btw...funny as I was writing my question to you about your Jesus experience I was listening to a Blind Melon song I put on before seeing your post and some of the lyrics came up

"But if I could buy the sky that's hangin'
Over this bed of mine
If I could climb these vines
And maybe see what you're seein'

If you were standing on the corner staring straight
Into the eyes of Jesus Christ"

:tongue:


--------------------

"What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, say, think, who I fuck, what I take into my body - as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet?" - Bill Hicks


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: barfightlard]
    #5329928 - 02/22/06 10:41 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

bellylard said:
Question for you though. When you saw the face of Jesus did he look how Western civilization depicts him?



Sort of, but not exactly. I should say it looked more like his astral body than like a physical body. It doesn't matter to me whether the way Jesus appeared to me was historically accurate. What mattered for me was the feeling of Christ consciousness that came over me, and the way it changed my heart.


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Offlinebarfightlard
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5329946 - 02/22/06 10:45 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Ok, I was just courious. Your right the feeling is what matters anyways. Glad to hear you had a positive life changing experience.


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"What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, say, think, who I fuck, what I take into my body - as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet?" - Bill Hicks


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OfflineGomp
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5330143 - 02/22/06 11:37 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

:levitate:


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OfflineDeviate
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Gomp]
    #5330377 - 02/23/06 01:11 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

ive had many mystical experiences, either acheived through surrender or self-inquiry while under the influence of a psychedelic chemcial (which i no longer use). i will describe one of my 2 experiences of the christ consciousness though because i feel these are the most interesting. i was high on marijuana and performed self inquiry, as i continued the inquiry i kept rising higher and higher in consciousness until the point where i was so far above my normal level of awareness that all sense of seperation and duality dissapeared. the world was just a tiny appearance in my all encompassing awareness and i looked upon it with an unconditional love. essentially i became the consciousness of God, looking down on creation and i realized that we are all God, it's just we don't normally have full awareness of this. its important to note that i did not perceice the world as seperate from myself. at this moment jesus's words came to me"
"I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained.

Split a piece of wood; I am there.

Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." and i understood.

2 other things i understood were what jesus meant when he said "there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed to you" and "whatsoever you have done unto the least of my breathren, you have done unto me".

this onness with God, being God in on earth, is what i call the christ consciousness. i'm going to stop here because i simply become frustrated when i try to put this experience into words, i cannot describe it properly or in a way that satisfies me.

this experience certainly influenced by beliefs, i had recently gone from atheist/materialist to buddhist and after this experience i began to consider myself a christian and became interested in gnosticism and other teachings having to do with christ.


Edited by Deviate (02/23/06 01:18 AM)


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Invisibledblaney
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5330693 - 02/23/06 06:30 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

With nitrous I am often able to very temporarily enter a state of seemingly nonduality, where I am not aware of anything, even the lack thereof. I'm only able to infer such an experience, as I have no memory of it during the experience itself. It's more like there's a blip in my awareness where time seems to skip forward a few seconds.

A more profound mystical experience occured on two hits of fairly weak LSD and two hits of decent MDMA. I intended it as a therapeutic psychedelic experience, wherein I could learn more about myself and interpersonal relations, etc. I gained quite a bit of insight during the beginnings of the experience.

Then at one point, I was checking my e-mail (yes, silly to be doing such a thing during a psychedelic experience, but it was what I did), when suddenly my mind went silent, as though I had been meditating for hours. Then a voice practically shouted at me, though 'a voice' wouldn't be the best description of it, more like an intuited voice, it said "FIND CHRIST". I just about threw myself on the floor, where there was an art book by Alex Grey, and started flipping madly through it to find his painting entitled "Christ". I was so compelled to do so that I'm not sure if anything could have stopped me. Finally I found it, and gazed into the eyes of the painting.

For a moment it seemed like just a painting, but then suddenly it seemed as though a tangible force 'entered' the painting, and I got the impression that I was staring into the eyes of Christ himself. (keep in mind I was born and raised Jewish). I felt completely and utterly fulfilled, as though I could rest that way eternally. I managed to scribble down a few things in my notebook during the experience somehow, including "Christ's love is infinite...all else is irrelevant" and "Mission of life: free yourself from Maya" (Maya being Hindu for the illusion of duality and suffering which creates Karma).

I also got the intuitive message that I still had work to do. Right after that I intuited that the force would be leaving in a moment. Just a minute or so later, the force simply vanished, and my rational mind kicked into overdrive, trying to rationalize and figure out what the hell just happened.

I'm still not sure what happened, though it's possible I temporarily experienced the Logos or experienced what I've learned the Christian's call a 'divine grace'.


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"What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?"

"Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword"
- John Mayer

Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin.

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln


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Invisiblepsyka
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5330839 - 02/23/06 08:24 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

I used to suffer from mystical expirences. Then I realized it was my own mind empowering me through choice. I realized that religious thought was unnecessary, and that there is plenty to be in awe about without all the nonsensical explanation. There is still much mystery in the Universe, which is fragmented. It is not "us" who is a fragmented whole, but the knowledge we contain.

Any attempt to put emotion behind the mathematics, is essentially human, in nature. It is flawed, incomplete, and does not reveal the true reality; only the humanized one.


--------------------
As the life of a candle,
my wick will burn out.
But, the fire of my mind
shall beam into infinite.



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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5330914 - 02/23/06 09:03 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

My first BIG mystical experience was once when I did cock and took some pills - I don't remember exactly 1 or 2 - and everybody around me was so freaking paranoid and you could really feel the tensions and the negative vibrations they were inducing.
In just wouldn't go into that state and I couldn't leave from there because I was so high I was not able to call a cab, try to act sober while being in the cab, and all that shit I had to do till I finally got home.
So all I could do was stay there and concentrate to ignoring them. And I was able to do that, and much more. Suddenly EVERYTHING made sense, I could see that I really needed that to happen so I could realize that I'm able to go trough anything and still be ok, I could really enter their minds and understand what kind of problems and frustrations they were feeling that made them act so stupid. My mind became extremely clear and aware of everything around me, so that I was also able to fight with my every fear and negative thought.
Since then I've had less or more important mystical experiences, I can't write all of them right now because that's what I feel like right now, I just felt the huge need to tell this first one, because to me it's the most important, meaning that nothing compares with that first moment when you feel for the first time that fear, love, hate, lust, envy, happiness and every thought it's in your mind, it's all up to you whether you're happy or not and that you have the power to make great things. There are only two conditions: to be aware that it is possible, and to want it.


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:


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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5330963 - 02/23/06 09:22 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

> Who here has had some mystical experience?

I have had experiences that I cannot explain. Mystical is as good of an adjective as any to describe them, I suppose.

> Either tripping or sober.

Both. First time was tripping, but the most mind shattering one was sober over the course of several months.

> Did you feel that you were seeing/experiencing God?

I cannot answer this with a "yes" or a "no".

> Has your experience influenced your beliefs?

Certainly.

> Do you conseder your experience to justify your beliefs?

Yes, but I don't consider my experiences justification to judge other people's beliefs.


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.


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InvisibleSkorpivoMusterion
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5330994 - 02/23/06 09:38 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Due to the nebulosity of the word, I'm going to define Mystical as that which is a Mystery; mysterious experiences within my life that, ultimately, all things considered, I have no concrete answer for.

Did you feel that you were seeing/experiencing God?

No. I don't carry such a belief. I was experiencing or seeing an aspect of nature.


Has your experience influenced your beliefs?

My experience has influenced my attitudes to some extent, specifically, it has strengthened my wonder of such a mystery - but I've learned over time, to be careful to leave such a wonder alone - not because I wish for it to remain a mystery, but because I am cognizant of the fact that I simply won't find THE answer - only best guesses. Once more, this is something I've learned over time, experiences and growth of mature honesty.


Do you conseder your experience to justify your beliefs?

To justify the ponderment of such a mystery? Absolutely.




--------------------
Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5332001 - 02/23/06 02:55 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

I've never believed the bizarre experiences I've had were something more than bizarre experiences.


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5332607 - 02/23/06 06:43 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Almost every Entheogenic Excursion, except for the very first weak ones, touched upon the mystical. However, over 30+ years of using Entheogens, first in conjunction with magickal theories, then with Yoga and Eastern thought, and finally with Christian theology, there have been a number of decidedly classic mystic experiences. These events constitute the most intimate experiences of my life - events which determined complete attitudes towards life and death and 'how' I should conduct my life.

I realize that this thread is really more of a voyeuristic attempt to read the particularities of people's mystical experiences, but for my part, I would sooner describe sexuality with my Lady in a public forum than expose these intimacies to public scrutiny. They are Sacred Events, and as such, they are far more intimate than any physical-emotional intimacies. they are deeper, closer-to-the-heart and beyond even the personal domain of experience that constitutes sexual intercourse with one's spouse. The mystical is transpersonal, and as such it takes one through the veils that ordinarily prevent one from experiencing the Divine Presence that is actually closer to us than our own jugular vein (as the Qur'an says in one of its truer statements).

I will, and have, gone out on a proverbial limb to discuss experiences of mental telepathy and precognition, even my most profound experience of Petitionary Prayer and its manifest results against astronomical odds. But of mystical experience I will say this: they are colored by the mental concepts that are being entertained during the time of life in which one has such experiences. So, if, like St. Paul who was busy repressing Christian sentiments and even participating in the murder of Jewish heretics (like St. Stephen, patron saint of the Grateful Dead who was 'stoned to death'), and one has, like Paul, an experience of the Presence of Christ, then you are also being granted an instant psychological analysis of the processes you are unaware of. Sometimes one consciously is 'into' one system and one has quite the opposite type of experience (just like the Pharisaic Paul). On the other hand, one may simply interpret based upon consciously held beliefs. When I saw those magnificent silvery kaleidoscopic wheels turning in the air, I saw 'magick circles' when I was into magick, I saw mandalas when I was into Eastern thought and Jung, I understood Ezekiel's vision when I was studying the Bible, and so on.

These are visions, not mysticism, and not revelatory visions at that, so I feel free to share. It is not like going into detail about that 'I' which is wise, which 'Knows,' as Ram Dass described his experience of Gnosis in BE HERE NOW. Ram Dass was bold to describe a pivotal experience in a book and I'm glad he did, yet without trying to give the impression that I am creating a personal mystique about my own experiences, I do not wish to expose that which is Sacred to me to any incredulous, sceptical, disbelieving eyes out there any more than any of you would want to place your naked spouse on public display.

Peace.

-MtG


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #5333050 - 02/23/06 08:54 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

I realize that this thread is really more of a voyeuristic attempt to read the particularities of people's mystical experiences



While that was part of the purpose here, I was also curious to see if any of the "skeptics"(by which I mean scientific materialists) had had any mystical experiences like my own. I was interested in knowing if they had simply not had the kind of experiences I've had, or if they had them but shrugged them off as mere hallucinations.


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5333701 - 02/23/06 11:38 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

During one of my Salvia trips, I became a very tall tree. I think whats most interesting is how distorted my sense of reason was. On mushrooms or LSD, if I had the same perception, I would've realized how nonsensical this delusion was. Trees aren't conscious and I am, so I would've easily deduced that this was just some bizarre hallucination. But, on Salvia, it seemed so entirely normal to be a tree. At the time, I had no recollection of me being anything other than a tree and when I started to come back to 'ordinary reality', I thought I was having a delusion that I was a human being! Eventually, my memory returned and I became aware that I had taken a powerful drug and began to piece everything together, etc.

This experience had me shaken up for awhile. During the experience, I was so absolutely certian I was a tree and had no reason to doubt it.

Unfortunately, I have no way of verifying if I was truely a tree, or even if I still am tree hallucinating I'm a human. But, this possibility seems extremely low; what seems much more probable is that it was all just a hallucination.

I've decided to look at this experience the same way I view Solispism. I'll accept the slight possibility my mind left my body and merged into a tree, but I'm going to go on living as if its not a possibility at all. Even if I am 'truely' a delusional tree, right now I 'am' a human being. All the information I currently recieve supports this view and I don't seem to have any other choice but to go on living as a man. Thinking I was/am a tree doesn't seem to have any pragmatic value.


Edited by MushmanTheManic (02/23/06 11:40 PM)


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Invisibleknowhereman
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5333765 - 02/24/06 12:10 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Ive had a few mystical/ religious experiences under mushrooms.

Ive strongly felt Christ through out my body and my soul and so many things ive learned from being a Catholic started to piece together so perfectly that the thought(s) became the answer or key to life. I felt Christ within my heart and every person's heart like it's commonly said. I looked at the journey of life in the human body as a taste of Jesus Christs own life, but not as extreme/harsh. I looked at a young kid and could see his whole life- his past present and future flashed through me. I had the strong urge to spread the word to every single human being about the love of Christ and felt (still feel) that when we all believe and have faith and go by God's word..that is when the skies will open and we will be invited to heaven - actually saw this happen in a closed- eye vision. This was the most positive experience, and also my first mushroom trip!

i have another experience ill post later if you want to know.


--------------------
Everybody HA HA!


Edited by knowhereman (02/24/06 12:11 AM)


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OfflineDeviate
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5333870 - 02/24/06 01:10 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Paradigm said:
Quote:

I realize that this thread is really more of a voyeuristic attempt to read the particularities of people's mystical experiences



While that was part of the purpose here, I was also curious to see if any of the "skeptics"(by which I mean scientific materialists) had had any mystical experiences like my own. I was interested in knowing if they had simply not had the kind of experiences I've had, or if they had them but shrugged them off as mere hallucinations.




in my opinion, the mark of a true mystical experience is the realization that its not a hallucination, at least no more so than ordinary reality. for me mystical experience is simply the removal of ignorance, becomming aware of something which is obvious but i was somehow missing before. it a state of consciousness in which you can see and understand everything you previously saw and understood, but you understand MORE. as if you are looking at a picture and you zoom out, before the zoom you only saw a little part of the picture and did not see what lay around it. after you zoom out you stil see your little peice of picture but you also see more.

of course ive had bizzarre experiences as well like becomming a cactus. these experiences are interesting and obviously must fit in somewhere but i don't dwell on them or give them much importance because they don't constitute the removal of ignorance.


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5334154 - 02/24/06 05:57 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Wasn't a condemning sentence - I'm fairly voyeuristic myself (but focused on women  :grin:). A sense of the sacred is necessary for people to discern true mystical experience and not merely psychic experiences. I wonder if people recognize 'holy wonder' and 'religious awe' if it occurs.


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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OfflineGomp
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5334169 - 02/24/06 06:19 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

This IS one..


--------------------


--------------------
Disclaimer!?


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InvisibleSclorch
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Gomp]
    #5336166 - 02/24/06 09:30 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

It's fun to believe stuff.






You guys should try the biggest trip of all: stepping away from the bullshit.
I can't tell you how fucked up it is the moment you pull yourself out of the shit and realize that it's so much better without the extra weight that all that shit exerts on you. Your mind runs free. And without that overpowering stench, your nose can actually begin to smell again. No decongestant can do that... well, maybe a few bottles of cough syrup, but that can be hard on the stomach.


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OfflineDemotriton
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Sclorch]
    #5336327 - 02/24/06 10:28 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Since most people here seem to be posting mystical experiences with drugs heres one without any drugs.

My first mystical experience was when I was about 3 years old. I was sitting in the park by myself got bored and started questioning what I was and how I existed, somehow I came to a conclusion that I couldn't exist, and my existence was an illusion.

The next thing I remember I floated out of my body straight upward, I got scared that I would lose sight of my body so I concentrated on it as I flew straight up ever higher. What I saw was kinda of like funnel vision somehow I could still see my body even though I was up in space looking down at it.

It was there I heard voices and felt the presence of God telling me to go back to my body as that was what I was here for.

I had other similar experiences like this in childhood, the other experiences I didn't leave my body because I was to afraid and instead I ended up feeling like I didn't exist and was terrified at the thought of it. When I would come back I would have amnesia for a short period of time, I had to fight really hard to get my memory back which is why I have not attempted this since.

My thought to get into this state in questioning my existence is mentally going beyond the limits of our 3 dimensional world, I would keep thinking I was infinitely large and infinitely small at the same time and found that being infinitely large and small are the same thing.

Its hard to describe how I got into these states, but now that I am older and wiser I find what I have read about the Merkaba Meditation and self inquiry into getting to these states to be similar to what I did, I was just doing it in a different way.

I've thought about going back to methods to achieve enlightened states naturally without drugs, but my unpleasant experiences as a child have kept me from it. I mean isn't enlightenment suppose to be a pleasant thing? Was I doing something wrong? Was it the fear that made it unpleasant?

I have recently had a spiritual awakening and know I must move toward the path of enlightenment and purge this fear from me.


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Demotriton]
    #5336567 - 02/24/06 11:55 PM (17 years, 11 months ago)

You guys should try the biggest trip of all: stepping away from the bullshit.

:thumbup:

What justifies believing an experience is a truely divine one? Simply because it appeared mystical?



Edited by MushmanTheManic (02/24/06 11:59 PM)


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Offlinepeace_n_love
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5336706 - 02/25/06 12:42 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Yes, I have had a truely spiritual and mystical trip before although not through and mind-altering substances. Me and my band usually get together an improvise music for about 10-30 mins just as a warm-up but about 2 weeks ago we just kept on playing and playing for almost 2 and a half hours. Now at a certain point during that time maybe about an hour through, I lost track of time, I lost track of the world around me I became totally engrossed in the music being played and the gap between what I was playing and pure emotion and thought was bridged. It was an experience like no other. I suggest all of you to play music , get reasonably good to the point where you are comfortable improvising and then play for as long as it takes for you to feel this. Please send me a PM if you've had the same experience.

Peacefulness.


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5336790 - 02/25/06 01:09 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

MushmanTheManic said:
What justifies believing an experience is a truely divine one? Simply because it appeared mystical?



Because it feels divine. You can't even understand what the divine is until you've had a mystical experience.


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InvisibleSkorpivoMusterion
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5336825 - 02/25/06 01:20 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Because it feels divine. You can't even understand what the divine is until you've had a mystical experience.

And how are we to know if we've had a mystical experience? Define mystical in less than one paragraph, in your own words, please.




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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5336833 - 02/25/06 01:25 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

SkorpivoMusterion said:
Because it feels divine. You can't even understand what the divine is until you've had a mystical experience.

And how are we to know if we've had a mystical experience? Define mystical in less than one paragraph, in your own words, please.



I cannot describe to you that which is beyond description. You are asking me to explain mysticism using the language of rationalism, which cannot be done. Mysticism transcends definition. All I can say is if you've had a mystical experience, you'll know.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5336890 - 02/25/06 01:44 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

If you've experienced it, you can conceptualize it - because it existed. Therefore, I think you are able to communicate it. If it exists, it can be communicated, one way or another. You prove this with your own parent post, as you've described your mystical experience. You say "mysticism transcends definition", neglecting the fact that it is only because mysticism is definable, that it can be communicated in the first place.
Take a trip to the library and visit the "New Age" section for further evidence. The very fact that such aspects of human nature exists and is communicatable, lines the pockets of many a mystic.


If something truly cannot be explicitly understood, and it cannot be proven, it isn't worth thinking of.




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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5336903 - 02/25/06 01:47 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

I could describe my mystical experiences(in fact, I did in this thread), but describing mysticism only tends to make sense to those who can relate to it. People have to have a common point of reference in order to communicate.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5336911 - 02/25/06 01:50 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

what must be understood is that the map is not the territory, intellectual study of mystical knowledge is all well and good but it is not mystical knowledge.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5336918 - 02/25/06 01:51 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

So you can describe/define mysticism. Please do so in less than one paragraph, in your own words.




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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5336928 - 02/25/06 01:53 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Mysticism is the experience of that which is transcendent.

Any further elaboration on that would be asking too much, I'm afraid.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5336954 - 02/25/06 02:02 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Because it feels divine. You can't even understand what the divine is until you've had a mystical experience.

I've had a number of experiences which seemed divine, ineffable, or transcendent. But, simply because something appears or feels a certian way, it must be that way?


Edited by MushmanTheManic (02/25/06 02:03 AM)


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5336965 - 02/25/06 02:06 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

thats like saying i broke my leg yesterday and it seemed painful but was it actually painful? the fact that it seemed painful is enough to make it painful.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5336970 - 02/25/06 02:07 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Transcendent of what, specifically?

From that definition alone, I've had many a mystic experience, as many others have. I've transcended nescience [which is a continual transcendence everyone goes through], I've transcended suffering, and I've transcended various forms of deficiency-cognition, to name the bare essentials.



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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Deviate]
    #5336973 - 02/25/06 02:07 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

That says nothing about the meaning of the pain, only of its existence.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5336980 - 02/25/06 02:09 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

MushmanTheManic said:
That says nothing about the meaning of the pain, only of its existence.




well i am not saying anything about the meaning of the divine, only that it exists.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5337003 - 02/25/06 02:15 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

MushmanTheManic said:
Because it feels divine. You can't even understand what the divine is until you've had a mystical experience.

I've had a number of experiences which seemed divine, ineffable, or transcendent. But, simply because something appears or feels a certian way, it must be that way?



Our senses are our only way of experiencing the world. If feeling divinity doesn't qualify as an experience of the divine, then the whole concept of the divine becomes moot.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5337011 - 02/25/06 02:18 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)


Transcendent of what, specifically?


that is the right question to ask but i think it only illustrates the language problem paradigm mentioned. i "know" what paradigm means when he says the transcendent. i also know that from a purely intellectual standpoint that it is not an adequate explanation.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5337013 - 02/25/06 02:20 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

SkorpivoMusterion said:
Transcendent of what, specifically?

From that definition alone, I've had many a mystic experience, as many others have. I've transcended nescience [which is a continual transcendence everyone goes through], I've transcended suffering, and I've transcended various forms of deficiency-cognition, to name the bare essentials.



See, I knew it was going to come to this. You keep badgering me about a definition when I've already told you it defies the ability to adequately define. Not everything fits so neatly into your hyper-rationalistic objectivist worldview in which everything is easily defined and categorized. I've said all I can. You'll just have to figure it out on your own.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Deviate]
    #5337016 - 02/25/06 02:22 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

I don't disagree that the feeling of divineness exists, but I do disagree that this feeling justifies assuming experiences in which this sensation is present are truely representational of divinity. Feeling depressed doesn't mean the external world is depressed, and likewise, because a certian chemical gives you the sensation of deep insight or illumination doesn't mean what you're experiencing is truely divine.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5337023 - 02/25/06 02:25 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Our senses are our only way of experiencing the world.

Agreed, but what you're describing is an emotion.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5337026 - 02/25/06 02:26 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)


I don't disagree that the feeling of divineness exists, but I do disagree that this feeling justifies assuming experiences in which this sensation is present are truely representational of divinity. Feeling depressed doesn't mean the external world is depressed, and likewise, because a certian chemical gives you the sensation of deep insight or illumination doesn't mean what you're experiencing is truely divine.





why should feeling depressed mean the external world is depressed? since when are we talking about the world?


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Deviate]
    #5337030 - 02/25/06 02:27 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

It was an analogy to help illustrate my point.


Edited by MushmanTheManic (02/25/06 02:27 AM)


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5337032 - 02/25/06 02:28 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

MushmanTheManic said:
Our senses are our only way of experiencing the world.

Agreed, but what you're describing is an emotion.



It's more intuition than emotion, actually.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5337041 - 02/25/06 02:33 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

MushmanTheManic said:
It was an analogy to help illustrate my point.




i understand that but my point is that i never made any claims about anything external.


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5337048 - 02/25/06 02:39 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Intuition in what sense?


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5337060 - 02/25/06 02:50 AM (17 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

MushmanTheManic said:
Intuition in what sense?



Intuition in the sense of "knowing" without knowing. A sort of "revelation," if you will.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5342566 - 02/26/06 07:47 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Meaning: more gobbledy gook.



Here's the persistent cycle:
1. Make claim.
2. Be asked questions.
3. Make more claims as to why you cannot answer clearly.
4. Repeat.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Sclorch]
    #5342719 - 02/26/06 08:18 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Sclorch said:
Meaning: more gobbledy gook.



Here's the persistent cycle:
1. Make claim.
2. Be asked questions.
3. Make more claims as to why you cannot answer clearly.
4. Repeat.





Par for the course in mysticism.




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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5343069 - 02/26/06 09:17 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Correct me if I am wrong: You had an experience with strong religious/spiritual imagery and at sometime during this experience you had the feeling you knew it was undoubtedly divine?

"Early stages of diseases such as schizophrenia, are often accompanied by feelings of deep insight, mystical knowledge and religious experience." -- Shroomnoob


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5343146 - 02/26/06 09:33 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Sorry, but that is just crude materialism. Chemicals do not 'give' consciousness. Chemicals might alter the way or the intesity in which mental phenomena are Witnessed. It is the Witness that constitutes Consciousness, and from a Gnostic perspective, we are first and foremost Consciousness, in which mind and matter exist. In fact, from the same Gnostic perspective, the infrasructure of existence is not matter (matter is derivative of pure energy at the Big Bang, which is derivative of an Unknown), but Consciousness. Not 'reason,' or what moderns call 'intellection,' but pure Consciousness before it is modified by its interface with biological-neuronal material structures into self-consciousness constitutes the 'Unmoved Mover.'


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5343197 - 02/26/06 09:47 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Speaking from my own Experience, as well as having studied a good deal of the classic literature on mysticism, there is this word - 'ineffable.' St. Paul's account of having been "caught up to the third heaven," and of having heard things which were "unlawful to utter," a major consensus is that 1) he was not having a mere [Psychic] Out-of-the-Body-Experience, but, 2) rather a mystical experience for which the poor translation suggests that he was prevented by divine beings or even God from revealing what he had heard. The word ineffable suggests that he was unable to use linear language and had an inadequate vocabulary to express his experience. Such is a common phenomenon among mystics, and the communication of such experiences comes by way of a life-style change and demonstartion of said change over the life-span, not by verbal description. Mystical experience changes things at a foundational level of being, not merely within the psychic/psychological apparatus.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #5343220 - 02/26/06 09:53 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

MarkostheGnostic said:
The word ineffable suggests that he was unable to use linear language and had an inadequate vocabulary to express his experience. Such is a common phenomenon among mystics




This could be said of any psychedelic experience.


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #5343338 - 02/26/06 10:18 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Sorry, but that is just crude materialism.

Sure is.

Chemicals do not 'give' consciousness. Chemicals might alter the way or the intesity in which mental phenomena are Witnessed.

If 'consciousness' is not material, how would chemicals alter it? Do chemicals have an imperceptible duality?


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #5343384 - 02/26/06 10:28 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

MarkostheGnostic said:
Sorry, but that is just crude materialism. Chemicals do not 'give' consciousness. Chemicals might alter the way or the intesity in which mental phenomena are Witnessed.



Still dishin' it out from that lofty perch?
Gnosticism? Complex, boring as fuck, and useless in the world of mud and grit.

How can you say with any authority that we AREN'T just a bunch of chemicals? Maybe God is a chemist and we're a little more than a Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. It'd fit well with all that fractal/holographic/compatibilist bullshit.

I think we ARE just a bunch of chemicals... chemicals that gained sentience. THAT is magic. The magic of biochemistry.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5343392 - 02/26/06 10:30 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

MushmanTheManic said:
Do chemicals have an imperceptible duality?



It is not your place to question. It's ineffable. /excuse


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Sclorch]
    #5343493 - 02/26/06 10:44 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

I forgot, how silly of me! Since it is not linguistically possible to explain, perhaps someone could anwser with an interpretive dance.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5344159 - 02/27/06 04:07 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

ordinary experience is mystical as long as one refrains from categorization (mathematics). how can it not be?


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5344273 - 02/27/06 05:42 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Chemicals alter the 'modifications' (to use Patanjali's classic Yoga terminology) of the 'vrittis' or 'mind stuff.' That is to say, the psychological is an effect - the effect of unchanged pure Consciousness 'interfacing' (to use a modern term) with physical-neurological structures in biological entities. Consciousness exists a priori, and is not characterized as material/matter. Matter has extension in space-time, Consciousness does not have extension in space-time. Even compared to energy such as light, one can measure the speed of light, or the wavelengths of light, but Consciousness cannot be so measured. One can record psycho-somatic response times (the further interface between the psychic and the physical domains), but pure Consciousness is Primary.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #5344306 - 02/27/06 06:23 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

we are first and foremost Consciousness, in which mind and matter exist. In fact, from the same Gnostic perspective, the infrasructure of existence is not matter (matter is derivative of pure energy at the Big Bang, which is derivative of an Unknown), but Consciousness.

But it sounds to me like you are advocating the ole Primacy of Consciousness.

To be conscious is to be aware [of something]. One can not be aware without something to be aware of. In other words, a consciousness without anything to be conscious of is not a consciousness. Nor can a consciousness be aware of itself and claim to be independent of existence, because if a consciousness is aware of itself, then it must itself exist and be an existent.

The truth is that Existence is primary.


To grasp the notion that existence exists, means to grasp the fact that nature, i.e., the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated, that it cannot come into or go out of existence. Whether its basic constituent elements are atoms, or subatomic particles, or yet some undiscovered forms of energy, it is not ruled by a consciousness or by will or by chance, but by the Law of Identity. All the countless forms, motions, combinations and dissolutions of elements within the universe - from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life - are caused and determined by the identities of the elements involved. Nature is the metaphysically given - i.e., the nature of nature is outside the power of any volition.

"Creation" does not [and metaphysically cannot] mean the power to bring something into existence and out of nothing. "Creation" means the power to bring into existence an arrangement [or combination or integration] of natural elements that had not existed before. [This is also true of any human product, scientific or esthetic: man's imagination is nothing more than the ability to rearrange the things he has observed in reality.] The best and briefest identification of volitionary power in regard to nature is Francis Bacon's "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."

In essence, it is perfectly logical and reasonable to extend the observation that we as volitional, sentient beings have consciousness as a product of this Earth's existence, to the entire Universe itself. Consciousness can not exist without reality. Reality can exist without consciousness.




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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5345638 - 02/27/06 02:41 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

That is to say, the psychological is an effect - the effect of unchanged pure Consciousness 'interfacing' (to use a modern term) with physical-neurological structures in biological entities.

But, HOW do these two substances interact? How does this mind-stuff causally effected the brain and visa-versa?

Consciousness does not have extension in space-time

'Consciousness' is not emergent, it can be reduced to brain-states and some of it already has.


Edited by MushmanTheManic (02/27/06 02:46 PM)


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Sclorch]
    #5345662 - 02/27/06 02:49 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Sclorch said:
Meaning: more gobbledy gook.



Here's the persistent cycle:
1. Make claim.
2. Be asked questions.
3. Make more claims as to why you cannot answer clearly.
4. Repeat.



Actually, in this case, step 2 came first, which is why I was so hesitant to answer it in the first place. Then you guys get all high and mighty about how I'm just spouting nonsense when I told you from the start that it defied my ability to explain it.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5345667 - 02/27/06 02:50 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Fun, isn't it?


Edited by MushmanTheManic (02/27/06 02:51 PM)


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5345670 - 02/27/06 02:53 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

MushmanTheManic said:
Fun, isn't it?



For you, maybe. To me, it just looks like a childish ego game.


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5345702 - 02/27/06 03:03 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Childish ego game? No wonder you're not havin fun. Stop sitting in the stands mentally hurtling down maledictions at the players and try playing the game, dude.


Edited by MushmanTheManic (02/27/06 03:05 PM)


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OfflineDeviate
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5345732 - 02/27/06 03:08 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

SkorpivoMusterion said:
we are first and foremost Consciousness, in which mind and matter exist. In fact, from the same Gnostic perspective, the infrasructure of existence is not matter (matter is derivative of pure energy at the Big Bang, which is derivative of an Unknown), but Consciousness.

But it sounds to me like you are advocating the ole Primacy of Consciousness.

To be conscious is to be aware [of something]. One can not be aware without something to be aware of. In other words, a consciousness without anything to be conscious of is not a consciousness. Nor can a consciousness be aware of itself and claim to be independent of existence, because if a consciousness is aware of itself, then it must itself exist and be an existent.

The truth is that Existence is primary.


To grasp the notion that existence exists, means to grasp the fact that nature, i.e., the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated, that it cannot come into or go out of existence. Whether its basic constituent elements are atoms, or subatomic particles, or yet some undiscovered forms of energy, it is not ruled by a consciousness or by will or by chance, but by the Law of Identity. All the countless forms, motions, combinations and dissolutions of elements within the universe - from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life - are caused and determined by the identities of the elements involved. Nature is the metaphysically given - i.e., the nature of nature is outside the power of any volition.

"Creation" does not [and metaphysically cannot] mean the power to bring something into existence and out of nothing. "Creation" means the power to bring into existence an arrangement [or combination or integration] of natural elements that had not existed before. [This is also true of any human product, scientific or esthetic: man's imagination is nothing more than the ability to rearrange the things he has observed in reality.] The best and briefest identification of volitionary power in regard to nature is Francis Bacon's "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."

In essence, it is perfectly logical and reasonable to extend the observation that we as volitional, sentient beings have consciousness as a product of this Earth's existence, to the entire Universe itself. Consciousness can not exist without reality. Reality can exist without consciousness.








i dont see how that goes against what markos said. he simply has taken it one step further.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Deviate]
    #5345761 - 02/27/06 03:16 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Markos is arguing the primacy of consciousness. Skorpivo is arguing the primacy of existence.

"Consciousness can not exist without reality." - Skorpivo

"...the infrasructure of existence is not matter... but Consciousness." - Markos


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OfflineDeviate
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5345786 - 02/27/06 03:22 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

in markos's theory consciousness is a property of the single supreme being, "Brahman" in hindu thought. in other words markos doesn't contend consciousness can exist without reality, he is simply not a materialist. consciousness existing without reality doesn't make sense and is not what he means.


Edited by Deviate (02/27/06 04:19 PM)


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Deviate]
    #5346294 - 02/27/06 05:25 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Consciousness IS Reality.
Reality IS Consciousness.

Consciousness is modern for Spirit.
Spirit is archaic for Consciousness.

In Humans, Consciousness includes: Unconsciousness - Subconsciousness - Consciousnness - Superconsciousness. Superconsciousness can provide awareness of Reality.

It is true that I have learned tremendously from Hindu thought, and one of their most profound doctrines is that Brahman - Ultimate Reality - has aspects that are Personal and Impersonal, namely Saguna Brahman [God-with-attributes] and Nirguna Brahman [God-without -attributes]. The Buddha focused on Nirguna Brahman and reinterpreted the Impersonal in terms of the subjective Human factor (Nirvana) or the Objective factor (Sunyata). Together, I would add that Ultimate Reality is Transpersonal in that it embodies the Personal and the Impersonal, but transcends both.

'God,' an unfortunate English rendering of a number of Hebrew Divine Names into one word (similar to the several Greek words into our singular word - 'love'), is 'at least' Personal in the metaphysical role of Creator, but this does not refer to a mythological creation of Humankind in the past. It refers to the notion that Human 'beings' partake of 'God' or pure Consciousness in every moment of existence. It means that phenomenal existence arises moment-to-moment from the center of every atom, so-to-speak. It suggests that the forces within the atom (at-'om') emerge from the Ultimate substratum of Existence as part of the Great Chain of Being (that Ken Wilber has spoken of so much), and that the Ultimate Substratum of Reality is indivisibly simple and Unitary.

Such assertions cannot be touched by rational analysis because the Object is without part or dimension. It is the 'eye' which sees, but which cannot be seen. It is the Awareness behind the limited awareness of 'I,' and It can be Experienced in one's 'I,' but not by one's 'I' because the finite 'I' is annihilated when it becomes 'filled' with Infinite Awareness. Thus, the mystic Experience is essentially, God Experiencing God 'within' the Human awareness. It is the tautological Experience of 'I AM That I AM,' within ourselves. These are mystic statements, not scientific statements. The Reality in question may be available to Human Consciousness, but only because Human Consciousness is co-extensive with, and derivative of Infinite Consciousness. This goes way beyond St. Anselm's claim that we couldn't even have the idea of God unless God existed. It is only conceptually different from Buddhist assertions that the ego is illusory. We are the Ocean itself, not the individual waves that come into being and go out of being. THAT is the illusion. The Realization is Enlightenment, it is Gnosis.

Reality = Truth.
Truth = Reality.


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5346484 - 02/27/06 06:21 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

I've had incidents where I saw the world around me as a Gnostic prison controlled by a feeling of evil, while above I could almost see some sort of Sophia-like God/ Goddess looking down on my material form. I've also had other experiences such as astral projection, ego dissolution, visions of ancient Egyptian pharaohs, feelings of an impending apocalypse, communications with plant entities...

All of my experiences have either been in dreams or under the influence of drugs, though. I've never had a mystical experience under completely sober/ conscious circumstances.

However, I don't believe they were anything more than chemicals interfering with the brain, or, as Markos calls it, "crude materialism." I am a crude materialist in every sense of the word, and believe that my delusions of God simply were chemically-caused interferences with my brain's normal perception of reality.

Quote:

Has your experience influenced your beliefs?




Sure hasn't, except now I appreciate the sheer power of the brain more. It's a wonder that a dome-shaped organ bouncing around in our skull can create such a world.


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #5346705 - 02/27/06 07:09 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Consciousness IS Reality.
Reality IS Consciousness.


You are dropping the context of what consciousness actually is and does. Consciousness is the faculty which perceives that which exists; it identifies existents. That is its definition: that is what it does [what we observe it doing]. More specifically, it takes in sensory data, automatically transforms it into percepts, identifies the percepts, and then internally manipulates the data.

Consciousness exists as a specific type of existent with a specific identity. To claim that it does any thing other than what we see it doing is completely arbitrary and without merit.

Consciousness is the faculty of perception. Thus, it is a part of reality - but by no means is our faculty of perception any more than what it actually does - and precisely what it is, is directly correlated to what our brain does. And by no means do I imply or follow the notion that consciousness and brain are two seperate substances that "interact" with each other.
There is no more "interaction" between the mind and the brain than there is between vision and the eyes, or between hearing and the ears; nor could there be, as this would imply that the mind exists independently of the brain, which would, in turn, imply that cognition can take place without any brain or sensory receptors, i.e., without any physical means or method of cognition. The only way that you can have an "interaction" between two things is if they exist independently of each other. You wouldn't say that there is an interaction between the stomach and digestion, for example, because digestion depends on the stomach.

Consciousness is simply a manifestation of brain activity. That doesn't mean, however, that mind is not efficacious or that mental activity is simply an epiphenomenon of brain activity, which is the conclusion that dualists are prone to draw from this analysis. To say that consciousness is a manifestation of brain activity does not imply that we don't control our mind's activity. Since the mind and the brain are one, to control one's mind is to control one's brain and vice-versa. Mental activity is simply brain activity experienced from an internal, rather than an external perspective.


It suggests that the forces within the atom (at-'om') emerge from the Ultimate substratum of Existence as part of the Great Chain of Being (that Ken Wilber has spoken of so much), and that the Ultimate Substratum of Reality is indivisibly simple and Unitary.

Overlooking the arbitrariness and unverifiable premise of such notion, why can't this substratum be some form of energy or meta-energy that is something else entirely? The Ultimate Substratum of Reality just has to be consciousness? I've found it rather humorous that many new agers concerned with humility find the nerve to believe in such borderline megalomaniacal notions rooted in the PoC.


Reality = Truth.
Truth = Reality.


Reality precedes "truth", much as the premise precedes the proof. There can be no "truths" in relation to a consciousness with no reality by which to refer, just as there can be no proofs in relation to a consciousness with no premise by which to refer.

Ergo, existence exists, and is primary.




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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5346779 - 02/27/06 07:25 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Then you guys get all high and mighty about how I'm just spouting nonsense

Says the mystic who claims to have divine revelation and professes to hold vague, higher transcendental truths that are beyond reason and incommunicable to us non-mystics back here on earth.



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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5347244 - 02/27/06 09:25 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

You can limit your definition of Consciousness to psychic or psychophysical phenomena if you want to. That is your choice. I see the word as a modern synonym of Spirit, and I identify it with God. I share this perspective with Advaita philosophy (and Sri Ramana Maharshi's Jnana Yoga in particular), with Western Gnostic philosophy, and with other streams of mystic thought that I'll not waste time expounding on. You are free to live your life based on your perceptions, and I am free (and often ecstatic) to live my life immersed in mine. OOBEs have convinced me that Human consciousness can exist is subtle sheaths, astral bodies, as a field effect - independently of the physical body. I have built my weltanschauung on non-ordinary reality, and I've taken it from there. There is no going back, and hopefully, no return to this plane at death.


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


Edited by MarkostheGnostic (02/28/06 05:27 AM)


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OfflineDeviate
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #5347317 - 02/27/06 09:52 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Markos i think you are mispelling Sri Ramana Maharishi's title, i've studied his teachings extensively and i've always seen it spelled "Sri Ramana Maharshi".


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Deviate]
    #5347527 - 02/27/06 10:35 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

On Mushrooms, I get a sense that I myself am a god, a god of my own mind and space, and a god of nature.... Strange?


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Deviate]
    #5348336 - 02/28/06 05:28 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Deviate said:
Markos i think you are mispelling Sri Ramana Maharishi's title, i've studied his teachings extensively and i've always seen it spelled "Sri Ramana Maharshi".




Noted and corrected, thank you (still, 'Great Rishi')  :wink:


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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #5348411 - 02/28/06 06:50 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

> St. Paul's account of having been "caught up to the third heaven," and of having heard things which were "unlawful to utter"

Markos, can you elaborate on this? Where can I find more information... specifically, the last part of the quote, "having heard things which were unlawful to utter". I am mainly interested in the meaning of "unlawful" in this context to see if it matches up with my own experiences. Is "unlawful" used in the sense of one being told/instructed not to do so, or is "unlawful" used in the sense that doing so would be impossible (within our reality), or would somehow "break the rules" that govern our reality? In my case, "things" would imply the name of ...


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Seuss]
    #5350664 - 02/28/06 07:02 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
> St. Paul's account of having been "caught up to the third heaven," and of having heard things which were "unlawful to utter"

II Corinthians 12:1-4
My Revised Standard Version footnotes this "The third heaven," the highest bliss...4: Things that cannot be told, because they are too sacred."
This says little about Paul's experience, although I'll add that the body of knowledge that contains references to the First, Second and Third Heavens belong to Gnostic literature. Typically, Gnostics spoke of seven heavens and the eighth called the Ogdoad, which was the 'Fullness' [Pleroma] of the Godhead. However, the NIV says "He heard things that man is not permitted to tell," and again, the language is deceptively personified as if Paul heard certain 'words' or was 'told' certain knowledge. It must be remembered that in scriptural literature it is important to keep ever in mind that 'states of being' or 'levels of consciousness' are frequently personified. Even in Gnostic literature, the 'Aeons' are sometimes personified beings and other times they seem like 'spaces' or 'cosmic places.'

The New International Version says "The third heaven designates a place beyond the immediate heaven of earth's atmosphere and beyond the further heaven of outer space and its constellations into the presence of God himself." The mythic-metaphsical nature can be remembered when one considers that God is written of as a king on a throne, in heaven. Such archetypal imagery was never intended to be literal even when it was composed.


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Seuss]
    #5350666 - 02/28/06 07:02 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Edit: double post


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OfflineBasilides
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5360363 - 03/03/06 01:16 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Paradigm said:
Who here has had some mystical experience?  Either tripping or sober.  Did you feel that you were seeing/experiencing God?  Has your experience influenced your beliefs?  Do you conseder your experience to justify your beliefs?

I've had two major trips that strongly influenced my beliefs.  One was on five grams of mushrooms.  I experienced a sense of oneness with the universe.  I felt a sort of ultimate reality that could be called God, or the One.  After that, I came to understand what is meant we people say we are all one.

The other trip was on approx. 3 hits of acid, plus an E pill.  During my peak, I closed my eyes and saw the face of Jesus.  I felt the power of Christ come over me, feeling a sense of unconditional brotherly love towards everyone.  That night, I accepted Christ as my lord and savior, and feel that this experience profoundly changed my heart.  I became interested in gnosticism after this, and found much wisdom in what I've read about it.

So anyway, share your mystical experiences with everyone, and how they affected you.




My first experience of gnosis took place in January of 2002 on a very large dose of mushrooms. Since then I have had the exact same experience on LSD, mushrooms, and while sober/meditating. These experiences define who I am. My gnosis is my comforter, and a Mercy revealed out of Mercy. I sought God in my heart through the literal idea first. I over came the diatribes and psychological dogma of the exoterics and kept diving deeper. I was rightly rewarded with the peek of the unseen I so desperately craved. Now I am waiting, waiting for my exodus from this world and for my seperation to end. :stoned:


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"Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Basilides]
    #5360935 - 03/03/06 08:46 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

You just haven't taken enough drugs and experienced the general public at the same time.

Drop some acid, go to the mall, and try to find God there. I'll even give you a head start - find the homeless person scooping change out of the fountain near the food court, they'll be able to help you in your quest.


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Note: In desperate need of a cure...


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Sclorch]
    #5363311 - 03/03/06 10:41 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

I've tripped everywhere locally that I can think of, including a mall.

As for homeless folks, from my experience, God seems to get them by alot more than panhandling. With a bit of luck, next winter will mercifully put the older ones out of their misery, returning them to God's bosom where poverty is only a distant dream.

Yep, this world ain't perfect. Regardless how bad and awful it gets, in the end it's just a blink of the eye for the soul. Poverty has been around for thousands of years, and fortunately, the vast majority of humans through history who were unlucky enough to spark in a poverty stricken situation (or worst, under despotic regimes and inquistions) are now dead and have been burning in God's breast for centuries now (redundent unfathomable compassion).

The face of God is everywhere my friend, even in the bloodfields of Iraq, like a soul sponge. It's the greatest love story ever told.


--------------------


"Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Sclorch]
    #5363410 - 03/03/06 11:15 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Sclorch said:
You just haven't taken enough drugs and experienced the general public at the same time.

Drop some acid, go to the mall, and try to find God there. I'll even give you a head start - find the homeless person scooping change out of the fountain near the food court, they'll be able to help you in your quest.



In case you forgot, my life-changing acid trip where I saw Christ and achieved gnosis did not occur in some forest or mystical setting, but at a rave, full of teenage candy kids and loud techno music. Not exactly the most spiritual setting, and yet I had a greater spiritual revelation that night than I have on any other trip.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5364339 - 03/04/06 11:39 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

That wasn't Christ... that was DJ Keoki in a Buddy Christ costume.

Beliefs are dangerous. That is all.


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Sclorch]
    #5364384 - 03/04/06 11:49 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Sclorch said:
Beliefs are dangerous.



That is a belief.


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Invisibleit stars saddam
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5364593 - 03/04/06 01:23 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Paradigm said:
Quote:

Sclorch said:
You just haven't taken enough drugs and experienced the general public at the same time.

Drop some acid, go to the mall, and try to find God there. I'll even give you a head start - find the homeless person scooping change out of the fountain near the food court, they'll be able to help you in your quest.



In case you forgot, my life-changing acid trip where I saw Christ and achieved gnosis did not occur in some forest or mystical setting, but at a rave, full of teenage candy kids and loud techno music. Not exactly the most spiritual setting, and yet I had a greater spiritual revelation that night than I have on any other trip.




Was it a bad trip? I mean, were you frightened at any point?


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: it stars saddam]
    #5364727 - 03/04/06 02:10 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Nope. Instead, I felt a feeling of infinite love and compassion. It was Christ conscousness.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5365142 - 03/04/06 04:47 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Paradigm said:
Quote:

Sclorch said:
Beliefs are dangerous.



That is a belief.




"History has shown that people have slaughtered each other in wars, inquisitions, and political actions for centuries and still kill each other over beliefs in religions, political ideologies, and philosophies."
-Jim Walker

This is not a belief - it is an observation.




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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5365244 - 03/04/06 05:38 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

SkorpivoMusterion said:
This is not a belief - it is an observation.



You mean, just like how I observed Christ?


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5365330 - 03/04/06 06:15 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

You mean, just like how you observed your LSD-induced hallucinations of Jesus Christ during a teen-rave?



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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5365342 - 03/04/06 06:19 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

SkorpivoMusterion said:
You mean, just like how you observed your LSD-induced hallucinations of Jesus Christ during a teen-rave?



Why don't you ask spud about his gnosis experience? It didn't involve any drugs. BTW, I still see Christ frequently.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5365421 - 03/04/06 06:38 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Paradigm said:
Why don't you ask spud about his gnosis experience?  It didn't involve any drugs.  BTW, I still see Christ frequently.




As long as the experience doesn't lead to any conclusions or definitions of any aspect of reality beyond our personal realm, it doesn't really matter. To state that one has an intimate, inner relationship with an unexplainable experience as Christ is in the clear, as long as it is not being proposed to be a statement or observation of physical reality.

That is to say that the experience or belief cannot support any declarations of the nature of reality beyond that of one's personal, mental realm, and it is exactly this that occurs frequently. Not stating that you personally behave in such a manner, just that it happens a lot and this is just an observation on typical discussions that result. :nut:

:headbang: :headbang: :headbang: :satansmoking:
Peace. :mushroom2:


--------------------
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If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you

:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: fireworks_god]
    #5365461 - 03/04/06 06:48 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

That is to say that the experience or belief cannot support any declarations of the nature of reality beyond that of one's personal, mental realm, and it is exactly this that occurs frequently.



I see where you're going with this, and I concur. Unlike Skorpivo and other materialists, I do not take my personal experience of reality to be the yardstick of truth against which others' experiences are to be measured. Simply because I have had personal experiences of Christ, I do not dismiss others' experiences of the Buddha or the Tao, or Hindu deities. If there is one belief I have, it is that reality is far too vast and complex for anyone to claim a monopoly on it.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5365518 - 03/04/06 07:06 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Paradigm said:
I see where you're going with this, and I concur.  Unlike Skorpivo and other materialists, I do not take my personal experience of reality to be the yardstick of truth against which others' experiences are to be measured.  Simply because I have had personal experiences of Christ, I do not dismiss others' experiences of the Buddha or the Tao, or Hindu deities.  If there is one belief I have, it is that reality is far too vast and complex for anyone to claim a monopoly on it.




Any meaning is communicated, to ourselves or others, through symbols. In terms of our personal experience, we have multiple states of mind and levels of consciousness that work together to provide for ourselves that experience, and it is thus such that abstract forms of symbolism would result when one is attempting to represent inner experiences and realizations. :wink:

The form with which we represent such is not important, and it can take any form (:grin:). Our symbols are our own, as well as to underscore the fact that they are only valid as our own symbols, not as symbols to represent reality beyond our own realm. Mutliple observers are to designate such together. :lol:

:headbang: :headbang: :headbang: :satansmoking:
Peace. :mushroom2:


--------------------
:redpanda:
If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you

:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5365629 - 03/04/06 07:52 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

I see where you're going with this, and I concur.

I, for one, also agree that as long as you recognize the difference between metaphysics and epistemology, between existence and consciousness, between the metaphysical and the man-made, then any espousement of such experiences are in the clear as well.


Unlike Skorpivo and other materialists,

How am I an actual materialist when I recognize the efficacy of consciousness?
If you care to actually know, I would be classified as a Realist. This means I accept the independent objectivity of the material world as well as acknowledging forms of nonmaterial existence. But, feel free to stick with the Materialism/Idealism polarities if you wish.


I do not take my personal experience of reality to be the yardstick of truth against which others' experiences are to be measured.

And your personal experiences are non-related to your aforementioned concurrence? If you agree that one should maintain the crucial differences outlined by Fireworks and I, then on what do you base such an agreement?


Simply because I have had personal experiences of Christ, I do not dismiss others' experiences of the Buddha or the Tao, or Hindu deities.

If you are talking about Christ Consciousness, Buddhahood, and Taoistic Receptivity - as in archetypal templates of higher cognitive functioning, then there I have no disagreement - quite the contrary. If such a concept is maintained to be pertinent to a method of epistemology, or of psychology, or of psycho-therapy, then I as well do not dismiss such experiences. The fact that such experiences have shown to be useful, evinces the correspondence with reality. Absent any relation or cohesive correspondence to reality, there can be no usefulness - as with any arbitrary concept. In other words, classification is crucial; differentiation is just as important as integration. One without the other only creates imbalance.


If there is one belief I have, it is that reality is far too vast and complex for anyone to claim a monopoly on it.

Translation: "I prefer to view the world as too complicated, with far too much vague unknowability, and hence I become threatened by any logical, coherent, non-contradictory system of philosophy, that facilitates utmost certainty and cuts through the bullshit in a world plagued with non-certainty and bullshit."




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Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.


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OfflineBasilides
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: fireworks_god]
    #5365649 - 03/04/06 08:03 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

I'm glad to see gnosis is making a come back. Or is it? Maybe people are simply talking about their experiences more with the advent of the internet. The friends of God aren't exactly spread accross the earth in solitude as they used to.


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"Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."


Edited by St_Valentinus (03/04/06 08:12 PM)


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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5365756 - 03/04/06 08:44 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

If there is one belief I have, it is that reality is far too vast and complex for anyone to claim a monopoly on it.
---
Translation: "I prefer to view the world as too complicated, with far too much vague unknowability, and hence I become threatened by any logical, coherent, non-contradictory system of philosophy, that facilitates utmost certainty and cuts through the bullshit in a world plagued with non-certainty and bullshit."

No. I think he says that there are many valid ways, so claiming one way as THE way is quite an assumption.

BTW, could you please tell me what you think about 'concrete identity' in regards to 'archetypal templates' ? `What happens, if those will mix together ? Is the identity becoming a template ? Or does the templates identity melt with ones personal identity ?
Just curious.


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Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'


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InvisibleSkorpivoMusterion
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #5366849 - 03/05/06 09:43 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

No. I think he says that there are many valid ways, so claiming one way as THE way is quite an assumption.

So when Jesus said, "I am The Way.", he was making quite the assumption, eh? Those Taoists espousing that they are following The Great Way must be making The Great Assumption as well.


BTW, could you please tell me what you think about 'concrete identity' in regards to 'archetypal templates' ? `What happens, if those will mix together ? Is the identity becoming a template ? Or does the templates identity melt with ones personal identity ?

[Assuming you mean individual person by "concrete identity"]
Such archetypal templates are conceptual devices that communicate a specific state of being which is highly efficacious in many respects. One does not genuinely reach such states by merely following any cues or imitating any guidelines contained therein, but rather by insight. These templates show how one lives when they have attained such cognitive insights.
What facilitates such an insight? Some say it is suffering, which causes people to become cognizant of their detrimental actions and behavior. Some report that drugs such as hallucinogenics have provided them with such insights, as the drugs warp their mind and thus break their regular thinking patterns. Some learn the insights by reading books, learning from teachers/authors, and applying the learned lessons to their experiences.

However one gains such an insight, the common denominator remains the same: once stretched to a new insight, their minds never return to their former dimensions [the same goes for learning any new thing or idea].
In that respect, it is the individual that evolves - not by means of the template itself, but by the cognitive [thinking] evolution that gives rise to efficacious actions.

And in regards to evaluating insights:
"The litmus test is quite simple. Did you merely go "Wow!" or was your life changed in a positive way as a direct result of said experience?"
-The Great Swami



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Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.


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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: SkorpivoMusterion]
    #5367002 - 03/05/06 10:43 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

No. I think he says that there are many valid ways, so claiming one way as THE way is quite an assumption.
---
So when Jesus said, "I am The Way.", he was making quite the assumption, eh? Those Taoists espousing that they are following The Great Way must be making The Great Assumption as well.

Hehe, yes, why not ? He/they saw his/their way and saw that it was good, so he/they said what he/they said.
Interestingly Jesus statement appears only one time in the bible (John14,6): "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Doubleinterestinly this part is in combination with the strange concept of "father" and the exclusivenrss of this way. Triple interestingly, most of the other quotes from the bible about "the way" are about "the way of god" or "the way of the lord"... and as everyone knows, "God moves in mysterious ways" :laugh:
I, personally think he never really dismissed any other way which would lead to the same goal (god/tao/*)...as far as I have understood. Why this sentence appears in Johns version, I have to dig out the greek version again :smile:

Thanks for the explanation of my question about the archetypal templates. I have to chew a bit on it :wink:


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'


Edited by BlueCoyote (03/05/06 11:08 AM)


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Offlinepioneering_south
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5367493 - 03/05/06 01:57 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

most of my mystical experiences relate to the third eye.. Especially cognitive dreams, and out of body experiences.
I won't even go into detail just yet, because of all the skeptics, and because I don't feel the need to justify my experiences to you guys.
It's very real( to me
:peace: :sun:


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: pioneering_south]
    #5367508 - 03/05/06 02:02 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Don't worry about justifying your experiences. Let them point and laugh like schoolchildren if they want. What's important is that you're comfortable enough in your own experiences not to care what they think.


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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: Silversoul]
    #5367680 - 03/05/06 03:04 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Let them point and laugh

:dielaughing:


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OfflineMarkostheGnostic
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Re: Mystical Experience Survey [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #5368072 - 03/05/06 05:28 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)



BE HERE NOW


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself


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