Krimel said: He [dmb] says that people are capable of having a particular kind of experience which he calls mystical. The question I have asked over and over again is, "So what?" we have all kinds of experiences what makes this kind special? Does it produce greater certainty or meaning? Certainty about what?
dmb says: The central point was to make a distinction between second-hand belief systems and the original experience which gives rise to them. To site fundamentalism as an example of mystical experience would certainly show that this distinction is quite lost on you. Carl Jung and B.F. Skinner walked into a bar. Jung said, "nice place. I think I'll have a beer". Skinner was way on the other side of town and said, "ouch!. Who put a steel bar across my path, god damn it?!? I know. It's a lame joke but there is a point to it. Sometimes people think they're together and that they're both talking about the same thing when they aren't together at all and have completely different ideas about what certain words mean. I saw a film last night called "Jesus Camp" and watched little kinds babble and writhe on the floor in church. It broke my heart and made me sick. It was apparently an intensely emotional experience but it was also clear that they weren't speaking any kind of language and it otherwise looked like a put on. That's certainly NOT what I'm talking about. There is an interesting book called "The Chemical Muse" that documents the fact that the ancient Greek culture, especially the mystery religions, we saturated with hallucinogens. The Native American Church uses peyote. And I don't discount either as genuinely mystical simply because it involved chemicals and I think it would be reductionistic to do so. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live™ Hotmail®:…more than just e-mail. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t2_hm_justgotbetter_explore_012009 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
