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Is God All In The Mind?


taniwha

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I'm not sure what you mean. Are you meaning to say only one who is adept in meditation is somewhat capable of recreating those experiences consciously? The exclusivity of the experiences I am proposing? To my understanding, people have never needed anything like that to ascribe to a faith.

Heh? I'm only saying that experiences induced by entheogens are accessible without them. It does help to be adept at meditation, but some not so much. Some are naturals. Then there are those that are both. No they don't . Quit the opositte those that have the exslerince of meeting entities say a goddess or angel, no longer need faith, they have direct experience. What they have to decide is if the entity is purely a mental construct or something more.

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On a side note DMT is only hypothesized to be in the pineal gland. Last time I checked unless something has changed this was merely a suggestion from "the spirit molecule" not a biological fact.

Edit oops: somethjng may have changed if this legit

https://www.cottonwoodresearch.org/dmt-pineal-2013/

Another edit: Im suspicious I can't find any info that's not from one source which apears to be the guy that hypothesized that it was there in the first place.

Edited by White Crane Feather
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On a side note DMT is only hypothesized to be in the pineal gland. Last time I checked unless something has changed this was merely a suggestion from "the spirit molecule" not a biological fact.

Edit oops: somethjng may have changed if this legit

https://www.cottonwoodresearch.org/dmt-pineal-2013/

Another edit: Im suspicious I can't find any info that's not from one source which apears to be the guy that hypothesized that it was there in the first place.

Yes I did state it was theorised. The research was conducted by Rick Strassman. Probably the first person to ever to do well documented and extensive research on the substances affect on humans. In which he later made the spirit molecule documentary.

Edited by Orcseeker
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Heh? I'm only saying that experiences induced by entheogens are accessible without them. It does help to be adept at meditation, but some not so much. Some are naturals. Then there are those that are both. No they don't . Quit the opositte those that have the exslerince of meeting entities say a goddess or angel, no longer need faith, they have direct experience. What they have to decide is if the entity is purely a mental construct or something more.

I see. Although in what other ways would you say that one could come in contact with these entities?

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I see. Although in what other ways would you say that one could come in contact with these entities?

After entheeogenes there are meditation induced trances the easiest being a shamanic journey Better known as Astral projection or as skeptics will call it a Wake induced Lucid dream ( WILD). Then other aboriginal methods range from endurance dancing to hanging by your pectorals to steam lodges. Some are very dangerous. Entheogens are the easy way, they are considered medicine not sport.

Edited by White Crane Feather
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After entheeogenes there are meditation induced trances the easiest being a shamanic journey Better known as Astral projection or as skeptics will call it a Wake induced Lucid dream ( WILD). Then other aboriginal methods range from endurance dancing to hanging by your pectorals to steam lodges. Some are very dangerous. Entheogens are the easy way, they are considered medicine not sport.

That was interesting albeit painful to watch. I do understand that there are other tryptamines, alkaloids and entheogenes that could induce such a state. I realise I shouldn't have stated it as exclusive to dmt.

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Orcseeker

Or are you suggesting Peruvian natives for example had this accessibility?

I do not understand what information you are seeking, but it sounds like your question is better directed to a Peruvian native than to me.

After all. This is a compound found in you and I.

So are any number of noxious chemicals. That's why God made p***.

Explain it's reason for being there

Presumably as the toxic by-product of some useful chemical reaction(s), probably involving tryptophan. I undersatnd melatonin synthesis is a strong candidate.

it's affect on the mind

At the doses of interest or concern, toxicity presents to the mind the sort of imagery, sensations and disordered cognition that arise in a wide variety of encounters with unconscious contents. You mentioned dreams, for example. There is a strong similarity in content among the many forms of "visionary' experience, regardless of cause.

So, since I can have similar experiences by taking poison as I can have by sitiing down, shutting up and staying that way for a while, I "attempt to discredit" taking posion. Go figure, eh?

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Orcseeker

I do not understand what information you are seeking, but it sounds like your question is better directed to a Peruvian native than to me.

So... About that hospital table statement

Presumably as the toxic by-product of some useful chemical reaction(s), probably involving tryptophan. I undersatnd melatonin synthesis is a strong candidate.

It would more likely resulting from some form of metabolising from tryptophan->tryptamine->dimethyltryptamine. Although it is still possible that it could be occurring endogenuously. But again, that is a theory.

At the doses of interest or concern, toxicity presents to the mind the sort of imagery, sensations and disordered cognition that arise in a wide variety of encounters with unconscious contents. You mentioned dreams, for example. There is a strong similarity in content among the many forms of "visionary' experience, regardless of cause.

So, since I can have similar experiences by taking poison as I can have by sitiing down, shutting up and staying that way for a while, I "attempt to discredit" taking posion. Go figure, eh?

Since when was dimethyltrytamine a poison? Wouldn't it be more accurately called a neurotoxin by your stance on it?

On that note how much dmt content would you consider toxic? As you would urinate a lot of other things that simply aren't toxic and are just removed by the human body. But of course in varying amounts be considered toxic. Or are you standing by your statement of it being simply a byproduct that is just simply waste?

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Please do I even need to look? More God helmet style logic? Come on davros, I have faith that you smarter than simple standardness . Oh wait..... You must be a follower of cupercino or whatever his name is? ;):devil: why don't you define irrational for everyone.

What's da matter?

All mad because most people here do not see you as the Guru you wish you were?

AWE!!!

:(

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That was interesting albeit painful to watch. I do understand that there are other tryptamines, alkaloids and entheogenes that could induce such a state. I realise I shouldn't have stated it as exclusive to dmt.

My point was that it's not always a substance. There are about as many methods as there are traditional peoples. :)

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What's da matter?

All mad because most people here do not see you as the Guru you wish you were?

AWE!!!

:(

Guru means teacher. I am a teacher. To lots of people. But no spiritual leader that's for sure more like a sharer and seeker. I'm not sure why you thought I was mad. It's just your style seems to reflect a couple of silly YouTube characters I have run across. Given your thing for you tube, you seem to be influenced by them. Hell you could be one of them. But you seem smarter than to listen to some of their crazy antics. I deal with teenagers and kids all day, childish antics are wasted on me and it makes me think you don't really have anything to say and are here to push an agenda.

Edited by White Crane Feather
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My point was that it's not always a substance. There are about as many methods as there are traditional peoples. :)

Although perhaps certain substances were being processed in the brain during this process to cause those hallucinations. Just speculating as I simply don't know what happens to the body in a trance like state displayed in that video. A entheogen is a chemical substance of some sort after all. I assume due to the prolonged pain from the slow pulling of the skin while being in that trance state could have the brain release chemicals in response to it.

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Although perhaps certain substances were being processed in the brain during this process to cause those hallucinations. Just speculating as I simply don't know what happens to the body in a trance like state displayed in that video. A entheogen is a chemical substance of some sort after all. I assume due to the prolonged pain from the slow pulling of the skin while being in that trance state could have the brain release chemicals in response to it.

Oh... Well yes. I'm sure something like that is going on. I guess ultlimately it could be DMT. Maybe even other entheogenes activate it somehow. If it is the root neurotransmitter for conciousness, then it would probably have to.

I think the bigger point here is that Gods/goddesses, and other spiritual entities have their roots in these exsperiences. In this way I'm certain they are not human inventions ( though certainly their elaborations are). Now a human archetypical construct based on paridolia style cognitive manifestations could be an arguable possibility. But not intentional inventions at the base of its construct. I think it's clear people exsperience these entities ( what ever their nature) based on actual exsperince and not human story telling, though it certainly ensues afterward.

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Oh... Well yes. I'm sure something like that is going on. I guess ultlimately it could be DMT. Maybe even other entheogenes activate it somehow. If it is the root neurotransmitter for conciousness, then it would probably have to.

I think the bigger point here is that Gods/goddesses, and other spiritual entities have their roots in these exsperiences. In this way I'm certain they are not human inventions ( though certainly their elaborations are). Now a human archetypical construct based on paridolia style cognitive manifestations could be an arguable possibility. But not intentional inventions at the base of its construct. I think it's clear people exsperience these entities ( what ever their nature) based on actual exsperince and not human story telling, though it certainly ensues afterward.

There is certainly a decent amount of anecdotes to suggest that is so. That could be possible but how have these perceived entities been elevated to such importance in the experiences I will address next. A number of steadfast atheists I have talked to, read of or listened to have experienced a being what they perceived as a God or Godess at the time in their deep meditative state of mind. Not that it changed all their beliefs after the experience, although some had theirs changed, apparently at the time they stated it was just so that they simply accepted it in that state. It would still be most desirable to somehow get a number of subjects who have no concept of a God/Godess and see how that plays out through whatever methods generally replicate the experience. Although what I learned was still an interesting prospect, peoples beliefs essentially turned on their head if not completely, for the duration of the experience.

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So, out of interest im wondering is it possible that God, angels, demons etc be simply a figment of our imagination?...and if so how did they get there?...and why? There should be some sort of rational explaination...shouldnt there?... if indeed we live in a purely rational world.

You went and did it!! Good for you!!

Have you looked at the depictions, and put them together with how we think though? Why would God have Angels with wings, we know Heaven is not just above the clouds anymore, so wings make no sense do they? But they did when man though Heaven was above the clouds somewhere, and that is how they got down to earth - just like birds. These hybrid creatures of the bible are just a mix of conventional life on earth, something like a totem pole.

Are believers simply fooling themselves and no one else? Or are skeptics the foolish ones?

I think your question answers itself myself, Belief or fact? Which is accurate?

Thing is science can now answer the questions the Bible has guessed at for centuries, and is repeatable. You can ask science to prove itself to any individual and can, not only that it moves with new discovery, science is fluid, not static like the bible, which to me seems to reflect nature well.

A skeptic might ask, where is the proof of God...where is he hiding?

No, not for me anyway, I do not need to know God exists, I need to know what his function is. He does not have one, the Universe and everything in it can exist without God just fine, he is not hiding, he has become redundant. Science has taken over, and gives us the answers we seek. The Bible describes a misogynistic, homophobic cruel control freak which really does not strike me as a "perfect being" at all. Most people seem to be more benevolent than God, he is more like an angry bad parent who thinks a child owes them for their very existence.

On the skin of things this seems like a righteous enough question, one that we have all asked of ourselves at one point in our lives. Maybe deep down we are all believers, in some case without answers.

Culture tends to start us off in that direction. I would put it forward that any single rational person who honestly questions religion in depth is going to come away jaded by it. I simply do not see a rational alternative to hard fact.

But if God be put down to pure fantasy, how is it that miracles can manifest through prayer such as spiritual healing?

Miracles? Sorry, no idea what you speak of? Spiritual surgery has been exposed, stigmata has been exposed as a fraud, and some Christians consider lame things like speaking in tongues a miracle, it's not.

Do you have any other instances of other miracles or spiritual experiences that has happened to you?

Ideally something manifest in the physical world.

I come from a very religious family, and my parents claim to have had visions, Church caused their divorce though, and advocated it because my Father refused to convert, and remained Catholic. When I joined here, I would have called myself Catholic, now I say Atheist. It was a gradual transition, and it is sad that my faith is gone, nothing to comfort me, but I find facing life head on gets me much further and reaps greater rewards.

Lawrence Krauss is a very inspirational man to listen to as well.

Are there scientific or earthly answers to any of this? Or to all of this?

Is there an idiot proof test perhaps? One that can put rest to the question once and for all,

"Is God all in the mind?"

Well, is there any reason to consider Christian or Islamic, or any other God different to the Greek and Roman Gods we once held in the same light?

When or will this mystery ever have closure? Any answers?...Any questions?

A decent education, and science can answer any question apart from abiogenesis, and that is only a matter of time. Religion is simply redundant as the species develops and grows up, our last safety blanket to let go of. It did it's job, it helped us attain democracy, science, law and order, it was the precursor to many things, we just have trouble letting that safety blanket go. But it is time for the species to grow up again, if we remain religious based, this is surely leading us into another dark age. We should be celebrating the 21st century, not wallowing in the 11th.

If you have a look for that doco I showed you in the other thread "The Unbelievers" I think it can explain this better than I can.

Thanks.

Thank you for the effort, I was mildly surprised, and pleased to see your thread.

Edited by psyche101
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Good points. The fact you were born at all might be defined as a miracle mightnt it? How do You explain your being here?

Not at all!!

It is no miracle it is a biological process. Every animal on earth gives birth, but does the bible let them all into heaven?

I cannot explain my being here, only because it is a family forum, and my manner is somewhat blunt..........

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I think at least one has to seek out the truth.

If you try to extract accuracy from any Bible, it never works out.

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Does this mean 'God' is simply a figment of our imaginations? No more than 'taniwha' is.

God also lives 5 minutes for the Christchurch Airport?

:lol:

If religion were wiped out now with no trace... it wouldn't be created again exactly the same way, with the same rituals, names and beliefs.

That is why it should be made redundant by accountability, not driven underground.

We started in the mind of God.

Far as I know, I started as a twinkle in my father's eye.................

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There is certainly a decent amount of anecdotes to suggest that is so. That could be possible but how have these perceived entities been elevated to such importance in the experiences I will address next. A number of steadfast atheists I have talked to, read of or listened to have experienced a being what they perceived as a God or Godess at the time in their deep meditative state of mind. Not that it changed all their beliefs after the experience, although some had theirs changed, apparently at the time they stated it was just so that they simply accepted it in that state. It would still be most desirable to somehow get a number of subjects who have no concept of a God/Godess and see how that plays out through whatever methods generally replicate the experience. Although what I learned was still an interesting prospect, peoples beliefs essentially turned on their head if not completely, for the duration of the experience.

Well im going to have to give you props. Very few people recognize this. Not the atheists, not the religious. They get so mired in their agenda that they stop evaluating information with any kind of objectivity. Atheists perpetuate that it's all invented woo woo, which isn't really true, and theists well..... Accept certain narratives. Any anthropologists will tell us that altered states of consciousness form the origin of our spiritual history, and it is still self evident in shamanic cultures to this day. Being somone who has experienced these things, I can instantly identify altered state happenings when I read them in various scriptures and holy books. It boggles my mind why normally rational people cannot accept this.

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taniwha

(... Furtively checks to see that we're in S vs. S, where frank talk is allowed). You're kidding, right?

Thanks for your detailed response, but no kidding.

So, because you cannot find different words for the shape of a cloud, God answered your prayer? Carl Jung vivdly and repeatedly hallucinated an old man with wings and a halo who talked with Jung about weighty things, and Jung managed to find other words for that vision than angel. Here's what Carl (a journeyman artist) drew from what he saw:

http://tns.commonweal.org/event-series/archetypal-psychology-series/

In this league, a shapely cloud doesn't cut it. Sorry.

Are you saying these hallucinations that the artist Jung envisioned were also seen after he prayed? Unlike Jung, It happened for me once and once only. Once again, .... it happened only once.

Yes, both angels and torture instruments owe much of their shape to the human form.

And clouds? Do they owe their shape to torture instruments and human forms?

No, the cloud was there. There was ambient light to illuminate it. Condensed water vapor aerosol (what clouds are) is typically "silvery gray" (and it was night, so maybe your color vision wasn't fully available anyway).

If i had seen a 'man being' with wings in the sky i might of said i saw an Angel, but i clearly said i saw a cloud, that being in the resemblance to an Angel and a crucifix.

What do you expect a cloud to do except "hover?" "Angel" and "crucifix" are patterns found throughout Western culture, not just in the mind, people paint them and sculpt them, and so forth, making tangible objects.

It is an interesting theory you have, however it might be easier to answer, if the question was " what dont you expect a cloud to do...?"

I dont expect a cloud to have manifest above my backyard a couple of hundred feet off the ground, visibly the only cloud in the entire sky. I dont expect it to have a perfectly symmetrical pattern. I dont expect it to hover there at all. How did it get there? There was no wind.

What was in your mind was the relationship among establishing your mental set (that prayer), changing your physical setting (moving to a perceptually rich environment, outdoors, where you're bound to sense things, to see or hear or smell something), and what happened next, that there was something which, once found, could be said to fit your broad search specification: "Show me something arguably related to religious belief."

Yes, i have asked my self as much since. However I rule this out. If i had not have prayed at all that night, i would have still been awestruck by the Cloud hovering over my yard. And yes i would have identified it immediately as resembling an Angel, as would any

one in their right mind, if they had seen it too :)

Your experience is properly called a synchronicity, in the most basic sense: a coincidence where the two things being connected, prayer and cloud, are related by shared meaning rather than actual causality. It is interestingly difficult for people to "hold on" to synchronicity and not at least toy with the idea of a causal relationship between the things themselves, and that includes the word's inventor, Carl Jung, who seems always to be musing that the unconscious which makes use of the coincidence just might have caused the thing. Which is fine, but that just shows that introducing still another invisible intelligent power (God, that is) cannot be proven on evidence like this. I did mention that I am sorry about that.

Again, very interesting. If the cloud formed by scientific process as you describe, coincidentally timed as you suggest, oddly enough condensing water vapour over my yard, into the shape observed, at the exact time and space i prayed for a sign of Gods presence to be known, for this supernatural feat to occur merits the term miracle in my opinion. How else do you suppose God should communicate back?

If God indeed dwells within the mind then i suppose prayer is one way to unlock that dimension.

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If religion were wiped out now with no trace... it wouldn't be created again exactly the same way, with the same rituals, names and beliefs.

Hmmm, I wonder what a post-apocolyptic religion would look like...?

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You went and did it!! Good for you!!

Have you looked at the depictions, and put them together with how we think though? Why would God have Angels with wings, we know Heaven is not just above the clouds anymore, so wings make no sense do they? But they did when man though Heaven was above the clouds somewhere, and that is how they got down to earth - just like birds. These hybrid creatures of the bible are just a mix of conventional life on earth, something like a totem pole.

Who even knows how near or how far heaven is? Angels carry messages from God. Wings are symbollic of the transmission between earthman and this heavenly realm. A lot of ancient stories are symbollic, even cryptic, their meanings lost through the ages. For instance there exists a Maori carving i know, it is of a human figure, its mouth is ferocious, carved with two tongues protruding from it, one tongue curling to the left and one tongue curling to the right.

Is this a realistic representation of an ancestor? Was there really once a race of people in NZ, born with this ominous looking facade? No. Is it all fantasy? No. Is it a God? No. This ancestor was well versed in both English and Maori language. It is a stylised depiction of bilingualism. Thus the two tongues. There are many such carvings that tell the stories of the past. Once they are explained, through their simplicity one may become enlightened.

So yes, i think you are right, the bible stories are totems in written form, they have a deeper meaning than face value.

I think your question answers itself myself, Belief or fact? Which is accurate?

Thing is science can now answer the questions the Bible has guessed at for centuries, and is repeatable. You can ask science to prove itself to any individual and can, not only that it moves with new discovery, science is fluid, not static like the bible, which to me seems to reflect nature well.

If you dont read it of course it will remain stagnant, if you dont wish to understand it then it will be no more than badly written poetry.

If you do decide to blow the dust off the pages, take care it doesnt blow into your eyes. :)

No, not for me anyway, I do not need to know God exists, I need to know what his function is. He does not have one, the Universe and everything in it can exist without God just fine, he is not hiding, he has become redundant. Science has taken over, and gives us the answers we seek. The Bible describes a misogynistic, homophobic cruel control freak which really does not strike me as a "perfect being" at all. Most people seem to be more benevolent than God, he is more like an angry bad parent who thinks a child owes them for their very existence.

Culture tends to start us off in that direction. I would put it forward that any single rational person who honestly questions religion in depth is going to come away jaded by it. I simply do not see a rational alternative to hard fact.

Are you actually stopping short of saying you know that God doesnt exist? I just happen to believe some intelligent energy greater than our being exists, but its not called science so i call it God.

Miracles? Sorry, no idea what you speak of? Spiritual surgery has been exposed, stigmata has been exposed as a fraud, and some Christians consider lame things like speaking in tongues a miracle, it's not.

I come from a very religious family, and my parents claim to have had visions, Church caused their divorce though, and advocated it because my Father refused to convert, and remained Catholic. When I joined here, I would have called myself Catholic, now I say Atheist. It was a gradual transition, and it is sad that my faith is gone, nothing to comfort me, but I find facing life head on gets me much further and reaps greater rewards.

No man should let faith be beaten into him, and no man should let it be beat out of him. We have to be true to ourselves. After all we are only human beings. Good luck to you psyche. I admire your honesty.

Lawrence Krauss is a very inspirational man to listen to as well.

:tu:

Well, is there any reason to consider Christian or Islamic, or any other God different to the Greek and Roman Gods we once held in the same light?

How does this provide an idiot test?

A decent education, and science can answer any question apart from abiogenesis, and that is only a matter of time. Religion is simply redundant as the species develops and grows up, our last safety blanket to let go of. It did it's job, it helped us attain democracy, science, law and order, it was the precursor to many things, we just have trouble letting that safety blanket go. But it is time for the species to grow up again, if we remain religious based, this is surely leading us into another dark age. We should be celebrating the 21st century, not wallowing in the 11th.

If you have a look for that doco I showed you in the other thread "The Unbelievers" I think it can explain this better than I can.

Thank you for the effort, I was mildly surprised, and pleased to see your thread.

Im pressed for time now but i will check it out when possible. Will comment as soon as, cheers psyche.

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Does an intelligence exist greater than that of humans? Well what is an intelligence and how would one be greater? Intelligence is I suppose some measure of smartness, so the ability to figure things out better than we can?

The thing is the idea of some "greater intelligence" is not a given but an assumption of Western culture, even the possibility that the idea means anything. How do I say that I am more intelligent than a rock? It will last a good deal longer than I do.

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taniwha

Are you saying these hallucinations that the artist Jung envisioned were also seen after he prayed? Unlike Jung, It happened for me once and once only. Once again, .... it happened only once.

Jung, who was a physician by profession and an artist by hobby mostly, wanted to make his expereince into a method, and so it was an often repeated expereince for him. His first brush with it was involuntary (he had two horrific unbidden hallucinations). However, there was a specific moment (according to his autobiography) where he intentionally opened himself to the "insanity" he feared it was. I would say that his moment resembled your prayer very much, except it wasn't addressed to God (or if it was, Jung left that out of his report decades later).

And clouds? Do they owe their shape to torture instruments and human forms?

That the volume they subtend has any "shape" at all owes much to the observer. There is a word for it, pareidolia (searchable). The cloud has no fixed shape and no unambigous sharp boundaries. That is one of the things that the adjective "cloudy" means.

If i had seen a 'man being' with wings in the sky i might of said i saw an Angel, but i clearly said i saw a cloud, that being in the resemblance to an Angel and a crucifix.

We have no dispute about that.

I dont expect a cloud to have manifest above my backyard a couple of hundred feet off the ground, visibly the only cloud in the entire sky.

Then we differ, because I have seen just that many times. I expect that I will see it again.

How did it get there? There was no wind.

Water vapor in the air condensed into fine droplets when the air containing the vapor cooled. That there was no wind can only help, and fully explains the resulting aerosol mass "hovering."

If i had not have prayed at all that night, i would have still been awestruck by the Cloud hovering over my yard. And yes i would have identified it immediately as resembling an Angel, as would any one in their right mind, if they had seen it too.

It is always difficult to say with confidence what would have happened if what actually happened hadn't happened. Meanwhile, anyone who cares to can experiment with pareidolia, and establish that setting and set matter. (That is, somebody is asked to look at a cloud and tell what they see it as. He says "I don't see anything except a cloud." The other person with him says "I see an elephant, don't you?" Often enough the person who didn't see anything at first now sees an elephant, too. And once the game is afoot, the person might even add "or maybe a giraffe, if the elephant is raising his trunk...").

ETA: Here's an interesting article:

http://www.wired.co....areidolic-robot

I found it through Google images. Not realizing that I was "supposed to" see a face, I actually saw an angel at first. Then, once I saw the face, I can't see the angel anymore. I still see where it was (on the right side of the frame), and I can point to its "features" still, but I don't "see it" anymore.

How else do you suppose God should communicate back?

I recommend William James' classic The Varieties of Religious Experience, available for free many places online, for a partial listing of the ways some people think God already has communicated back. You may also be interested in the blogs linked at the bottom of this post.

Orcseeker

I understand "neurotoxin" to be a kind of "toxin" which is a kind of "poison." If your understanding of the relations among these common terms is different from the previous sentence, then that restricts the usefulness of further discussion between us about a neurotoxin.

As a general observation, you seem to think that encounter with species-specific unconscious contents requires disordered cognition, and conversely that disordered cognition will somehow put you in touch with something other than species-specific unconscious contents. The first is simply not the case. As you might expect from a stereotypical Swiss academic, Carl Jung worked out the first one (although it is very doubtful that he was the original innovator - see below), and the second is a speculative hypothesis at best.

Even before Jung, Freud (his guru turned nemesis) had observed that people routinely confront unconscious contents while fully awake and fully functional. That's what "projection" is all about. All that disordered consciousness adds is a (possibly retrospective) awareness that something unusual happened. The same can be achieved simply by learning what projection is and paying attention. "Sit down, shut up, and stay that way for a while" exaggerates the difficulty involved.

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

Here is a specific antecedent to Jung, in which entirely orderly cognition and no hallucinations accompany a vivid "spiritual experience," intentionally sought and spiritually interpreted. The article discusses the relationship between this and Jung's "active imagination" (searchable).

http://uncertaintist...-jungs-science/

Oh, and while I ws visiting the blog to capture that link, I stumbled across a more recent post, where people get pretty much the same results, including the disordered perception you apparently prize as the mark of spiritual achievement, by looking at themselves in a mirror using dim lighting.

http://uncertaintist...halloween-1914/

Edited by eight bits
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