As we move from the mysticism of the individual to a We-Mysticism that is shared between us our use of language becomes critical. Language is the medium of exchange through which we attune human behavior … Read More
From Mysticism to We-Mysticism
Mysticism is most often associated with the lone spiritual adventurer who separates from the world in order to turn his or her gaze inward and unite with the divine. Yet there is also another form … Read More
The Doorway to Mystical Experience
The Mystic knows that the key to entering into mystical realms of experience is the ability to let go of the familiar. Our ordinary and familiar perception of reality is exactly what we must learn … Read More
The Heart of the Mystic
A mystic is one who sees the deeper reality that lies hidden beneath our ordinary experience of reality. The mystic looks deeply into the nature of things by letting go of conventional wisdom and allowing … Read More
Pluralism and Relativism
There are two other terms that many of us have heard which are good to look at more closely, because they are often misused – or only used partially for what they are. The terms are pluralism and … Read More
Is there One World or Many?
Our spontaneously arising experience of the present moment is a miraculous event that we are constantly in the middle of. In my last couple of posts I described the depth and majesty of all that … Read More
Experience and Existence
The present moment as we experience it is “thick” said William James. It is bursting with layers of sensation, perception, conceptualization, interpretation, feeling, intention – you name it. Everything we experience, we experience as part … Read More
The Transformation of the Present Moment
Generally we assume that the world just exists – sitting there dead and meaningless – the object of our perceptions. The world doesn’t just exist – it shows up. It presents itself to us through … Read More
William James and the Flow of Pure Experience –or– Why are two experiences better than one?
What you are experiencing right now is all there is – at least that is one of the implications of William James’ radical views on reality. William James was the first great American psychologist and … Read More
Did Modernism Isolate Us from the World?
The world doesn’t just exist, it shows up for us. It appears as the pure experience of the present moment. And one of the most amazing things about the world is that it changes – … Read More
Thinking About Thinking Series: The Circumstances around us are changing faster than we can
The world and everything in it is changing all the time, and our beliefs about it all must change at least as quickly. Often they don’t. We find ourselves stuck in beliefs whose time has … Read More
Thinking About Thinking Series: You May Not Be Who You Think You Are
We think we are a “something”—an entity that emerged in the universe on a planet called Earth. Are we really? What is a human being? What am I? Am I my body, my brain, my … Read More
Thinking About Thinking Series: Human Life is a Risk
Every step we take, every action, every choice to do anything is ultimately an act of faith. Most of the time, thankfully, we live with an ongoing sense of certainty. We imagine that the world … Read More
Are we just Thinking Things in a World?
What do we really know about the relationship between the world and our experience of it? That is an important question and there are at least three things that we can be sure of. We … Read More
Cartesian Dualism and Brains In Vats
If you could put your brain in a nutrient bath so that it could keep on functioning outside of your body what would it (or would it still be you) experience? Would it still have … Read More
The Ego Tunnel and the Nature of Reality
Thomas Metzinger’s new book The Ego Tunnel weaves research in out-of-body experiences, lucid dreaming, phantom limbs and other extraordinary human occurrences with leading edge neuroscience to create a convincing picture of how neural activity constantly … Read More
Society and the True Self, Part 4: Up from Inside the Matrix
In my last post I described how many of us awaken to find ourselves in the middle of a life that is more a reflection of social mores than our own autonomous choices. We look … Read More
Society and the True Self, Part 3: Waking Up in the Matrix
In my recent posts I have been developing the idea that individual human beings might be more accurately seen as individual expressions of social preferences, attitudes and beliefs than as separate autonomous individuals. We live … Read More
Society and the True Self, Part 2: The Socially Conditioned Self
In my last post I described how other peoples’ outside opinions about us get incorporated into our own internal experience of ourselves. Now I want to show how the opinions about us that become part … Read More
Society and the True Self, Part 1: How the ‘me’ became the ‘I’
Human existence is punctuated by distinctions – self/other, me/you, in/out, here/there, us/them, up/down – and the list goes on and on. These distinctions are what we use to locate ourselves in reality. For those of … Read More