Mystic experiences as an alternative spirituality
Mystical experiences, and the pursuit of them, present an alternative path to god that is both more progressive and both more consistent with our observed reality.
First of all, I would like to define what I mean by mysticism or mystical experiences. Mystical experiences are a subset of religious experiences. They are transient and ineffable experiences of feeling a unity with the entire universe; a momentary awareness of the reality of oneness.
They are an alternative to organised religion in that anyone can participate in mysticism, including solitary practitioners. You don't even have to believe in god. Recent studies have shown that more than 40% of US citizens have had a mystical or other religious experience. And it does not happen solely to people who already believe in god, or white male heterosexuals, or people who speak Latin.
Which brings us to the progressive aspect: it happens to the poor and the rich, the powerful and teh downtrodden, the churchgoer and the hedonist. Those who work hard to attain these experiences, and those who never knew they existed until they were brought into contact with the ineffable. What can be more egalitarian than that?
There is also a more tangible aspect to mysticism that is not present in other religious paradigms: the immanent and immediate nature of the spirituality. It brings the practitioner into a more immediate awareness of this exact instant in which we are alive. And not only is the divine present in this exact moment, but also in this very tangible and touchable world, including our neighbours. The idea that you should love your neighbour as if they were god and to love god with all your heart are becomes mre than a moral precept, and becomes a living reality.
However, it is not solely on the individual level that mysticism is more progressive than the more organised alternative. Most (perhaps all) religions have some sort of current of mystic practice in their history. The different practicioners from different religions often act as bridge points betwen the different religions because of their commonality of experience, despite holding different religious beliefs.
The interesting thing is that the mystical experience, unlike a belief in the literal truth of Genesis, is also consistent with our current understanding of science. Even the neuorlogists who study the aspect from a decidedly non-theistic viewpoint acknowledge that belief in the reality of the experience is consistent with our understanding of the universe.
Also, most long-standing mystic traditions also claim that anyone who wishes to have one of these experiences need only begin to practice the different mystical practices that are taught by mystics and they will also eventually attain these experiences. This is consistent with the observation that these experiences happen spontaneously in a large percentage of the population.
Any questions?
In the category of small questions, most of the spirit of your OP housing the big questions:
Has anybody speculated with some kind of attempt at rigour, or even gone surveying, what percentage of the population(s) has had spontaneous mystical experiences.
[Which would be more than say, the rush of feeling the wonder of the universe, the planet, the place you are, humanity, whatever.]
Actually, that's not quite consistent. There are practices - i assume you mean, like meditation, fasting or drugs - and then there is spontaneous experience. The first is relatively easy to study, if a neuro-scientist is interested and gets enough volunteer subjects; documenting the second is entirely dependent on hearsay.
I have no problem with spontaneous mystical experience as a harmless substitute for toxic religions, but i don't think encouraging mystic cults that rely on either drugs or hypnosis is a very good idea.
In the category of small questions, most of the spirit of your OP housing the big questions:
Has anybody speculated with some kind of attempt at rigour, or even gone surveying, what percentage of the population(s) has had spontaneous mystical experiences.
[Which would be more than say, the rush of feeling the wonder of the universe, the planet, the place you are, humanity, whatever.]
http://www.springerlink.com/content/eqn4fnrdq8r0j2qj/
The abstract:
Also:
http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Religious-Phenomena/Visions.html
I hope that helps.
This website here (http://www.spiritwatch.ca/cehsc/ipure.htm) has some interesting discussion on the difficulties of surveys like this.
It starts with this sentence: "Three empirical instruments have been developed to date. They are the Mysticism Scale by Hood (1975), a specific question by Greeley (1974) and the State of Consciousness Inventory by Alexander (1982; Alexander, Boyer, & Alexander, 1987). Hood's (1975) scale was developed from conceptual categories identified by Stace (1960)."
Actually, that's not quite consistent. There are practices - i assume you mean, like meditation, fasting or drugs - and then there is spontaneous experience. The first is relatively easy to study, if a neuro-scientist is interested and gets enough volunteer subjects; documenting the second is entirely dependent on hearsay.
I have no problem with spontaneous mystical experience as a harmless substitute for toxic religions, but i don't think encouraging mystic cults that rely on either drugs or hypnosis is a very good idea.
In terms of spontaneous experience, you are correct that information about those can only be collected through interviews after the fact and rely on the narrative of the person who underwent the experience. This results in linguistic and inevitably cultural interpretations of the phenomena that makes it more difficult to accurately assess what is going on. Research into meditative practices is easier to do and has been quite informativre in terms of the neurology of meditation and induced mystical experiences.
As far as I can tell, the only long-standing mystical traditions that involve drugs are those associated with traditional aboriginal practices. Since I am not a member of any aboriginal groups. I will not speak of those, but I would agree that new traditions that use drugs should probably be avoided.