Privileged Access, the sequel

What is in question, in my mind are two related issues: the problem of esotericism, in which there is a claim to a “privileged access” to the truth for an elite few; and second, the question of authority and expertise as it relates to the idea that we have a “privileged access” to our inner states.

There is an ambiguity built into the semantics of the term “privileged” that perhaps needs to be clarified. If by “privileged access” we mean that I, and only I, have access to my inner states, I see no problem with saying this. Again, and to reiterate, I am not denying that we have a “privileged access” to inner states in so far as no one else has access to my private mental states. Another sense of “privileged” though is the idea that I am some sort of authority or expert about my inner states since I have a “privileged access” to them. I think that this idea is potentially problematic.  In this vein,  this discussion, as well as this commentary, may be relevant. 

By implication, then, the idea is that those who have had “mystical experiences” are experts on mysticism since they have a “privileged access” to the mystical states that characterize mysticism. I see this as an attempt to wrest power and control from a certain class of authors, and to substitute the discourse of another class for the discourse of that the first class.

One difficulty I find with the discourse of class 2 is that it is the discourse of an “in” group, the discourse of a cloister, that is not public. Here, the “specialness” of the knowledge granted by the “privileged access” to mystical states parallels the group's understanding of itself as “special,” as having an elite status by virtue of its possesion of a kind of “gnosis” — a special insight into mystical experience and insight derivative of the “privileged access” to those states.

I remain unconvinced though that this supposed privileged access gives the second class of writers any more authority, and feel that analogies like that of the carpenter, who can build a house, to be false analogies — metaphors put to use for rhetorical effect. (That analogy, btw, can be traced back to Epictetus.)

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Again, this may sound like the expression of lamentation coming from somone of the first class (the “mere pundit) who fears losing control of discourse about mysticism. But I may very well be a mystic who has had mystical experiences.  Indeed, anyone can claim to have such mystical experience, and on that basis, they will be able to say anything they want. The problem here is that neither these mystical experiences, nor the so-called first-hand knowledge about them, cannot be subject to critical scrutiny. So an argument made on such a basis will merely be an argument from authority.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Kelamuni, thanks for starting this new thread; I have been wanting to hear your further thoughts on these questions.  From what I'm reading here, I agree with many of them.  I'll comment in more detail in another post.

Here, I wanted to ask you if you could direct me to the post in question which contains my reaction to your claim that you had experienced “clear light.”  I only dimly recall this.  I want to read it before responding to your comments here, because honestly I'm surprised by what you're telling me I said.  For many years, I would have simply have accepted that you could have the “same” experience as Buddhists, whether or not you were Buddhist, because I would have taken the “experience” as given and universally available to all.  (Tibetans say we all experience clear light when we sneeze or ejaculate, for instance.)  More recently, reflecting more on enactment and the constructedness of experience, I have questioned whether it's meaningful to assume a unversal spiritual experiential ground (a shared mountain top at which we all meet by our various paths).  Admittedly, there are a number of questions I'm still considering and reflecting on (re: post-metaphysics, postmodernism, etc), and I'm not clear where I stand yet on all of them, but I don't think there is any point in this continuum of the development of my thought when I would have felt that mystical experience was fundamentally “closed” to “non-practitioners.”

Best wishes,

B.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Hi Bruce,

The clear light comment came up in the thread where Ed had his breakthrough, changed his name, and started posting comments on Tarot cards. I'm not sure myself where it is.

I don't want to make much of this particular example, and I'm certainly not attempting to make anything personal out of this. I myself am not sure what do do with such animals. On the one hand, it may be that such things are more common than we think. On the other, I feel a natural tendency to respond to such claims with the charge of hubris.  (For example, seeing Ken claim “nirvikalpa samadhi” in the EEG video really bugs me :-)

In any case, I merely wanted to point to the curious ambiguity or irony in your response there vis a vis what you had said elsewhere concerning privileged access (an ambiguity that, as I freely admit, I am also party to). That ambiguity, or tension, I felt, was in wanting to argue for privileged access and then being skeptical of the “claim” of having access to the clear light. In other words, we want to argue for the possibility to make claims of extraordinary states, but then when someone actualy does make such a claim, it gets our hackles up (because, perhaps, we feel that we want to reserve such extraordinary states for extraordinary, transcendent heroes like Ramana and Shunryu Suzuki?)

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

I found the discussion.  I'll comment later; just wanted to save the link for now.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

The clear light comment came up in the thread where Ed had his
breakthrough, changed his name, and started posting comments on Tarot
cards.

You make it sound like I had a religious conversion, shaved my head, donned saffron robes, rejected rational argument and now run around city streets chanting and dancing while clinging mini-cymbals between my fingers!

Balder found the thread but has yet to post about it. I think it was the one about that psychologist's interpretation of Buddhism, the one that favored insight meditation as an exercize in using the ego to watch itself as Witness. That observation is a true breakthrough in western pomo Buddhist recontextualization, imo, and not just because I've been selling it for the last couple of years. I didn't come up with the idea.

This relates to this thread in that we all have access to the experience of an ego-Witness by nature of developing egoic-rational capacity. It is not privileged access. Nor is having so-called nondual fusion experiences privileged; they are as Wilber admits, natural states. What is privileged is the interpretation of these experiences within spiritual or esoteric contexts. And granted such interpretations indeed require a lengthy apprenticeship to learn, much like a Ph.D. degree from a university.

And also granted that these traditions of experience also laterally develop such states beyond our natural given access, providing a sort of privileged access. Even though we can all bounce a basketball few of us can do a quick cross-over dribble, spin on a dime, take off from the foul line and do a tomahawk jam in the basket. But is it ultimate reality? That's where privileged interpretation comes in, and where outside privileged interpretion (e.g, pomo), being in the same enacted methodology (hermeneutics), can recontextualize it.

By the way, I don't find the comparison between basketball skill and enlightenment that far off developmentally. As I've said elsewhere, meditative skill is enhancing even more primitive, primordial skills than basketball from our pre-reflective brain stem. This recontextualization can really move us forward in appreciating meditative skill and its legitimate uses in our postmodern world while not elevating it into privileged access to ultimate reality or enlightenment.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

By the way, that's my reason for going back to Tarot symbolism and imagery; to reconnect with and laterally develop my pre-formal skills for the many healthful benefits. Sans robes, shaved head, cymbals and strict metaphysical interpretation. Singing and dancing still allowed.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Hi Ed,

“You make it sound like I had a religious conversion, shaved my head, donned saffron robes, rejected rational argument and now run around city streets chanting and dancing while clinging mini-cymbals between my fingers!”
 
Haha. Ya, just some ribbing there. I thought maybe we knew each other well enough that I could take the luxury of some gentle razzing. (Canucks aren't very good at that sort of thing, so when we do it, it can sound like we are being serious. :-)

Nor is having so-called nondual fusion experiences privileged; they are as Wilber admits, natural states. What is privileged is the interpretation of these experiences within spiritual or esoteric contexts. And granted such interpretations indeed require a lengthy apprenticeship to learn, much like a Ph.D. degree from a university.

An interesting take on the issue. My take is that experience in general is “privileged” insofar as our personal experience is more or less private. Again, though, the issue here may hinge to some extent on what we mean by “privileged.” You bring up the issue of “privileged interpretation,” by which you apparently mean that certain people seem to have the idea that they have a certain authority to interpret experiences in a certain way. I would agree that it is by no means clear who determines who is correct as to the interpretation of meditative and illuminative experiences. Simply because I have the experience, this does not mean I have the authority to interpret it however I wish to, at least when it comes to discussing, in the public arena, the meaning of such states or the ontic status of the referents in such states. Good point.

By the way, I don't find the comparison between basketball skill and enlightenment that far off developmentally.

I would agree that there is such a thing as what some scholars have called “meditative virtuousity.” I don't want to deny such things. Such skills parallel other forms of virtuousity such as virtuousity in debate. The brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu apparently understood themselves, and were understood by tradition, as exemplifying such skills, respectively. But again, just because someone is a meditative virtuouso, this does not mean that that person is thereby an authority about questions of interpreting experience, or about the ontic status of the referents within such experience.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Haha. Ya, just some ribbing there. I thought maybe we knew each other well enough that I could take the luxury of some gentle razzing. (Canucks aren't very good at that sort of thing, so when we do it, it can sound like we are being serious. :-)
 
I knew you were joking and I was re-ribbing, you socialist Canadian. Youse guys do have some good bacon though, eh?

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

I want to come back to the main issues in this thread, but just briefly I want to comment on the impression you got that I doubted that you, as a “scholar” or “pundit,” could have any experience of something esoteric like “clear light.”

In the discussion in question, I had the impression that both you and Edward were dismissing Epstein's remarks about clear light out of hand, possibly without even reading them, and that both of you were mockingly claiming to have had such experiences yourselves.  I didn't think either of you were seriously attempting to report what you regarded as “authentic” mystical experiences, but were just making light of the topic.  That's why I responded the way I did.

With that said, I do recognize what you say when you describe feeling skeptical (or even annoyed) when people claim to have experienced exalted mystical states.  I sometimes have that reaction too, and have noted the irony of my simultaneous “belief” that such states are possible for anyone and my skepticism when overt claims of realization are actually made (by folks other than the recognized “greats”). 

I've also been on the receiving end of such skepticism when I've discussed my own spiritual experiences.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

“I've also been on the receiving end of such skepticism when I've discussed my own spiritual experiences.”

As have I, and it has caused me to reconsider the value of personal testimony. Mystical experiences can be deeply meaningful at a personal level. But this does mean that they will be meaningful for someone else.

As for the “pundit” issue, I have no idea what you really thought, since you have privileged access to your thoughts, feelings, and intents. ;-) I was merely trying to get you to “search your feelings,” as it were, and think about what it is that makes us respond the way we do when people make claims based on “experience.”

“… but were just making light of the topic.”

An interesting instance of misunderstanding. Actually, I wasn't. I was referring to a time when I administered to myself twice as much ayahuasca as I was told to, and something very interesting happened. :-) My impression afterwards, and during, was a sense of conviction. But what was it I was convinced of? I decided that the only thing I was warranted to say was that I was now convinced of Maurice Bucke's thesis that profound illuminative states are a human possibility. But I don't think that such states “prove” the existence of “brahman,” “the non-dual void,” “God,” or what have you. I don't personally think that kind of leap is valid.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

I administered to myself twice as much ayahuasca as I was told to, and something very interesting happened. :-) My impression afterwards, and during, was a sense of conviction. But what was it I was convinced of? I decided that the only thing I was warranted to say was that I was now convinced of Maurice Bucke's thesis that profound illuminative states are a human possibility. But I don't think that such states “prove” the existence of “brahman,” “the non-dual void,” “God,” or what have you. I don't personally think that kind of leap is valid.

I wouldn't feel comfortable making that leap either.  While I'm sympathetic with Proudfoot's arguments, to a degree (and I was going to post a deconstructive/constructivist treatment of emotions awhile back, on the status of states thread), I've had “mystical experiences” which seem to me to be richer, more surprising and profound, than simply an “arbitrary, culturally influenced interpretation of a physiological disturbance.”  So, to me, Proudfoot doesn't seem to fully appreciate the potential scope and nature of such experiences (not presupposing, here, a self-existing nature).  But with that said, even though I've experienced “profound illuminative states” – and therefore accept them as a human possibility – I don't think there is much in these experiences that I could (responsibly) appeal to as “proof” of some metaphysical model or feature of reality.  (An exception, which we've discussed, is ESP:  some experiences point in the direction of the validity of the notion that some form of 'non-local knowing or exchange of information' is possible.  But I still don't regard such experiences as “proof”).

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Proudfoot may be entirely wrong. But I think his arguments, and those of others, are worth considering and exploring. I think I agree with some of the drift of such arguments, though I don't entirely agree with dismissive accounts, though I'm in the process of considering those as well.

I admit that the question of the ontic status of the referents in such states is a bit of side issue, though certainly worthy of consideration in itself.  When this thread originated, I was not able to fully articulate my Wittgensteinian “suspicions” at the time, and so I brought up the issue of ontic status. My main concern now is with the “authority” of first person accounts.

I'm going to try to digest Proudfoot more thoroughly over the next couple of days.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

With the degree of specialization that exists in science now, where professional assessment of scientific claims requires highly specialized theoretical and procedural knowledge, I wonder if the 'esotericism' argument carries the same weight it might have a century or two ago.  Arguably, scientific knowledge and discourse is becoming increasingly 'esoteric,' outside the ability of the average individual to easily grasp or assess.

I am not saying that scientific and contemplative “experiments” are on par – verification of contemplative experience has its own unique challenges, which we're exploring in this thread – but I do want to question any “hard and fast” distinctions between science as “public” and contemplation as “esoteric.”

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Hi Bruce,
Re: esotericism and specialization. Yes, I thought this might come up, and I give a short caveat in the other thread. I'll have to think about this more, but off hand, I'm not sure the analogy works in its details, though it sounds good initially. The one area that does seem like a form of esotericism to me is string theory.

I also think it is beholden to the integralist or transpersonalist to show that he is not an esotericist if he wishes to enter the public forum. I can, however, think of areas that are “esotericist” in the sense that I am talking about, and those are dogmatic Marxism and ideological feminism. There is the sense, when talking with such types, that they are thinking “you just don't get it.” And indeed, their response, at times can be, “there is no point talking to you until you've had your consciousness raised.”

That topic was the subject of my initial blog posting, but I later incorporated it into another post. (It comes up at the end.)

I am not saying that scientific and contemplative “experiments” are on par – verification of contemplative experience has its own unique challenges, which we're exploring in this thread – but I do want to question any “hard and fast” distinctions between science as “public” and contemplation as “esoteric.”

I think we need to keep these issues distinct, even though they are related. I was thinking about the analogy of “acquaintance” again today, and one issue that comes to mind is that the “acqauintance” in a subjective state is different from that in the socalled “objective” world. For one, there is the problem of confabulation where inner states are concerned. The problem of sleep paralysis is most instructive in this case. What happens is that the mind becomes lucid, but the hallucinatory capacity remains active. This makes people believe that aliens or witches or incubi or lepruchauns are sitting on their chest. That is one issue. The other issue, that of esotericism, has to do with the problem of the “in” group vis a vis the public forum.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

I was not able to give a final editing to the above as we had a power outage (thank broomsticks and pitchforks that I saved what I was working on). Clearly, the second paragraph is a quote and should be in italics as per my usual formating for references.

Bruce, you wrote:

'I do want to question any “hard and fast” distinctions between science as “public” and contemplation as “esoteric.” '

I take it that you want to retain, or leave open the possiblity of, the idea of a first person “science” or investigation of “inner states,” to some degree anyway. I think that such things have a place. I think, for example, that if you want to write about psychedelics it might help to try try 'shrooms at least once in your life. I don't think you need to try them to write with authority about them, though. At the same time, I think we need to move very cautiously with the idea of a “first person scientific” investigation, even a phenomenological one. To me, the idea of a “spiritual science” is a very loosely applied metaphor (which I address in more detail at the blogspot site, within the context of Vivekananda's suggestions), an analogy that has a largely rhetorical basis in that it is used to justify the practice of yoga in the face of the concerns of modernity.

I also take it that this comment is, at least in part, a response to what I said when I wrote, “The problem here is that neither these mystical experiences, nor the so-called first-hand knowledge about them, [can] be subject to critical scrutiny.”

We have covered this question to some extent, and I would agree that we can subject such experiences to a degree of scrutiny, through interview and testimony, and so on. I guess the question is the degree to which this “scrutiny” is possible and whether the rigour of that degree will be adequate. I think that within a spiritual community, the standards for, and quality of, such scrutiny will be much different since they will be less public, more closed. Interview and testimony, in other words, will have a different function.

I personally think that understanding is potentially subject to a much higher degree of scrutiny, particularly within such communities. “Experience” though is vague and shadowy.

For example, I really have no idea what it means to have an experience “confirmed,” as when Ken refers to his own experiences and “realizations” as “confirmed.” To me, as far as the experience is concerned, confirmation seems more or less like an arbitrary judgement. Its sociological function, though, is more like a ritualistic consecretion: “Yes, OK you seem like a big boy now, and ready to teach. So I grant that you have achieved 'nirvikalpa samadhi'. From now on you will be called swami chit, shave, n' shambhu.” Who knows whether or not the guy has attained 'nirvikalpa samadhi.' But apparently the teacher now feels that the student is ready to leave the ashram and start his own boy's club. To me, “confirmation” here sounds more like what the Christians mean by the term.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

dang. should read: ”fourth paragraph.”

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Hey

Mantra: I am not nomadic. I am not nomadic, I am not non-nomadic.

There's this desultory low grade hum, a fitful white noise; moths
beating at the screen door irritation about this thread 'bout the
original, beating toward the light and the right to call it that, calls
for the solvent, calls for the DSMO; dissolve to Santa Fe Opera; I
share a workspace (wordspace worldspace) with these two clowns who
can't let go…all this time arguing Pop Music over against and prior
to pop music over against and prior to Pop because one has a noun and
the other has an adjective and each tries to make what the other has
over into an image of their own…just so they can have a desultory
talk to make the time pass like moths beating at the screen.

DSMO helps the horses run.

The depressed and alcoholic architect whose house at the top of this
particular road inspired the law against building on a ridge line in SF
County, he whose wife raises King Charles Cavaliers, calls this guy the
Bumble Bee and the Bumble Bee hates that name but never climbs off his
buzzing ATV except to talk of when he was an abductee at the mercy of
the The Grays while his father-in-law who once spent a little too much
time short on O speaks in circles of Perry Como and the dead wife he
can't remember to save his sanity save for the fact that he mourned her
pitiably. He circles between tears and Perry Como and Bumble Bee talks
of beaming up to the Mother Ship. He's a believer, Bumble Bee, he's had
privileged access. Fine. Let him have it. I feed him straight lines. Is
there truth to the matter? Sure…Bumble Bee's telling me stories.
That's all I need. Fuck the Truth and the pig it rode in on. Bumble
Bee's story counts right here right now. Truth and beliefs,
rationality, the songs that each of us sing are a dime a dozen and
common as common dirt and worth a bare fraction as much. I haven't
heard a really new song in 20 years and most of those before then
sounded pretty much like the one that played on either side of it. The
singers have been a different issue. The only value of all those
privileged songs out there is they make the singers bearably
entertaining      more or less.

DSMO will carry scapolomine into the bloodstream faster than rendered
baby fat. Amnesia is sure to follow so broomsticks are long forgotten.

Kela writes: “Simply because I have the experience, this does not mean I
have the authority to interpret it however I wish to, at least when it
comes to discussing, in the public
arena, the meaning of such states or the ontic status of the
referents in such states”…apparently because ol' Ed said before
times: “And granted such interpretations indeed require a lengthy apprenticeship to learn, much like a Ph.D. degree from a university.”

God, there are times when the civility around here makes my blood
run cold. Dissolve to La Cascada, upmarket mall in Carrizal, Edo.
Miranda, Vla, today, noon:

M (who has lived every place else in the world except the USA): In the
States people don't eat lunch and serve the public at the same time, do
they?

S: Sure they do.

M. In Canada they wouldn't allow that. At least not when I lived there.

S: You have to remember, the USA is a lot less civilized than Canada.
(Under his breath) Thank God! (Aside) Of course Vla is a lot less
civilized than the USA…thank God…ya have to love a country where
traffic lights are nothing more than suggestions.

Dissolve to black…DSMO…almost totally non-toxic

“…this does not mean I
have the authority to interpret…”

what a civilized Goody Two Shoes thing to think…

Milton Friedman had the experience, or a series of them, which told him
that The Market (whatever that is) is always self-correcting…and he took
the authority to not only interpret that as truth, but to state it and
for at least the next 100 years people will be lighting candles to the
sonofabitch. They will never take away his Nobel Prize or the money
that went with it…why?…because he was right! He just failed to
mention that the corrections start sometime after the suicides begin
kicking in and the kids would
be testifying in Castellano: “Nos tan jodido!”). In short, if you can't
take the authority, get out of the kitchen, Goody Two Shoes. I have
known those who, at least four times a day, would tell a lie if the
truth (whatever that is) would work better and brass it out, and brass
it out, and brass it out, and that brass and the Glock that may or may
not have been in their back pocket gave them the right to say I win.
Goody Two Shoes need not apply. But that was (not the Integral
Province) and besides the wench is dead.

It was not a good point, E and K.

Way back in the start of it all Jim spliced in here a riff about
Hildegaard Von B who thought she had privileged access to THE TRUTH
about God and Heaven…if like Wittgenstein one throws a little DSMO on
that stuff it boils (literally) down to the fact that folks have the
only exclusive look at the pictures from their brain and all the rest
goes up in the steam and smoke. Dissolve this thing called The Truth
and there is nothing more to say; we are left with the purely
idiosyncratic brain pictures enflamed by the fairly standard
bio-electrical chemistry in our bloodstream    waiting in our
glands     and our irrepeatable series of experiences and the unique
fingerprints called DNA (a.k.a. “authenticity”) which added all
together total Insignificance to the 10th - 1 (if you can stand to
think of yourself as that vain–if not just Insignificance to the
10th)…where is the argument? Where is there material for a coherent
thread?

I had savant times when a kid…I tracked a man across frozen ground,
through river bed brush, willows and juniper, aspen, after sundown,
because there was luminosity where he put his feet on the frozen
ground, on rocks, and where he brushed against a branch here and there.
I was so naive, at 11 years old, I didn't even think that was very
strange. No big deal I found out later: happens all the time outside
the pernicious vanity of civilization. I have had more “mystical”
experiences than I can recall, ecstasies…heaven blazing into the head
for a month…for a full six-weeks or until the time came where I had
to go back to work…and the best one told me fuck truth, fuck spirit
and the pigs they rode in on. It is just you in the flesh and the rest
of the world.

Let them all eat straight lines.

ciao,
Steven

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

lol! kudz to the ken kesey of the integral post-metaphysics forum. luv it. haha.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Ed:
Nor is having so-called nondual fusion experiences privileged; they are as Wilber admits, natural states. What is privileged is the interpretation of these experiences within spiritual or esoteric contexts. And granted such interpretations indeed require a lengthy apprenticeship to learn, much like a Ph.D. degree from a university.

kela:
An interesting take on the issue. My take is that experience in general is “privileged” insofar as our personal experience is more or less private. Again, though, the issue here may hinge to some extent on what we mean by “privileged.” You bring up the issue of “privileged interpretation,” by which you apparently mean that certain people seem to have the idea that they have a certain authority to interpret experiences in a certain way. I would agree that it is by no means clear who determines who is correct as to the interpretation of meditative and illuminative experiences. Simply because I have the experience, this does not mean I have the authority to interpret it however I wish to, at least when it comes to discussing, in the public arena, the meaning of such states or the ontic status of the referents in such states. Good point.

My view, and argument, is that people are free to intepret their experiences any way they wish to. Some, Mr. Wilber, for example, feel that they can impose their interpretation of such experiences upon us. For example, Mr. Wilber continues  — regardless of what he says otherwise, about “methodological pluralism” and so on —  to suggest that there are universal features of such experiences. I don't these universal features. I see Mr. Wilber attempting to foist his Vedanta-Tantra interpretation upon me as if it is objective and universal.  

If we are to talk about the “correct” interpretation of such experience, we will need some form of criteria that allows them to be discussed in a public, quasi-objective manner. I don't see that happening, and its possibility continues to be, in my mind problematic. Until such time, people are, of course, free to interpret their experiences in any manner they see fit; but this does not them a green light to impose their intepretations on my experience.

I write, Simply because I have the experience, this does not mean I have the authority to interpret it however I wish to, at least when it comes to discussing, in the public arena, the meaning of such states or the ontic status of the referents in such states.
 
No doubt, the language here is ambiguous; it sounds like I am saying that people are not free to interpret their experience any way they want.  But of course, they are. If Bumblebee wishes to believe that he had the experience of greys holding him capative, or if Steven wishes to piss into the Santa Ana devil winds so as to feel its cooling effects, they are free to do so, and interpret their experience however way they wish to. My point is that, simply because Bumblebee owns the experience of being harassed by the greys, and wishes to believe that he was harassed on that basis, I am in no way beholden also to believe his testimony, simply because he was in the “privileged” position of having had the “experience” of being “directly acquainted” with the greys. This is what is implied by my caveat, “…at least when it comes to discussing, in the public arena, the meaning of such states or the ontic status of the referents in such states.”  In short, “personal testimony,” “privileged access,” and “knowledge by acquaintance,” in the case of Bumblebee, don't mean shit, as far as I am concerned. And the same goes for testimony, etc. about private meditative experiences.

As for screwing the search for truth… We are all entitled to our opinion and our choice of path. But I reserve the right to write in the manner of my choice, and to pursue whatever fucking course I wish to pursue, including, if I choose, pissing into the wind. :-)

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

I think this is where Wilber makes the distinction between allowing one to interpret as they choose but one must behave as society chooses. I cannot punch you in the face just because I interpret your sideways glance as a death threat. At least without consequences. So in a very real sense we do tell each other what we can and cannot do, and rightfully so. Except when it's not right.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

In an online review of William James' Varieties of Relgious Experience, I came across this discussion.

The question raised concerning “spiritual elitism” is interesing. It straddles both aspects of what I refer to above as the issue of “privileged access.” 

James apparently distinguishes “first hand” religion from “second hand” religion.  This parallels, and implies, the distinction between “knowledge by acquaintance” and “knowledge by description.” It also implies that there are an “elite few” who have this “knowledge by acquaintance” — the so-called “realizers” of a tradition, one might say, but one could also call them the “mystics” of any religion. From here we move to the idea of that there is an “esoteric core” of each religion, as described by Schuon, Guenon, and others; in other words, we move to the issue of esotericism.

The distinction between “first hand religion” and “second hand religion” also parallels other distinctions, such as the distinction between “truly transformative” religion and “merely translative” religion, and those found in Vivekananda, such as that between the “sage” (or guru) and the “pundit.”

I think we have good reason to challenge the distinction between “first hand” religion and “second hand” religion, and not necessarily on the purely “ethical” point that it is “elitist” (and thus not democratic). I think we can challenge it because it assumes that there is an elite few who have access to the truth via their experience. It assumes that hoi poloi only have access to a mediated form of religion, mediated throught the elite few who have the privileged access to the truth (and I hear echos of the protestant claims against catholicism, here). And yet the purported criterion for this privileged access is experience. In other words, it assumes that hoi poloi do not practice their religion in accordance with “experience” but through some other means, like reading the Bible or listening to sermons (cf. the charge of you're “mere talking school”, you book reader). But who is to say that experience is not a part of the practice of their religion, or that these people are not having genuine religious experiences, that, for example, engaging dialogically with an evocative and potentially life-changing text is not “experiential”“? In recent surveys of Americans, a large and significant percentage of Americans aid that religious experiences, such as experiences of “transcendence”, were an important part of their religious life. So I think the assumption can be challenged, or at least questioned. We don''t know what's going on in people's heads. How can we say that experience is not a part of their religious life; who's to say that “average” people are not having genuine mystical experiences akin to those of “practising yogis”? And if we are going to accept personal testimony, then that the testimony apparently challenges the assumption.

I also think that saying things like, “yes but they don't meditate” (subtext: “and I do”) assumes a kind of “spiritual elitism” as well, as if “meditation” were somehow “proven to be 58% more effective in fighting karma than the next best brand of spiritual practice” — as if we were listening to a toothpaste commercial, or something. And what do we mean by “meditation” anyway? Is prayer not meditation? Is communion not some form of “direct acquintance”” So, the issue leads to the related issue of the problem of distingusing “mere translative” from “truly transformative” spiritual practices, which to me is merely an reflective of a bias in favor of asian religion, as if it were “more authentically spiritual” than western religion. 

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

“But certain states such as absorption are typically open only to those who practice absorption.”

Ok, maybe I got a bit carried away in the last paragraph. But then again, maybe things like absorption are more common than we think. I know musicians who describe something like a state of absorption when they are immersed in a performance, for example; or maybe really good sex can induce a state of absorption. I can't help but feel that, for some, namely those who argue in the above manner, there is this aura of “specialness” surrounding the practice of meditation, and a correlative holy nimbus surrounding practitioners who sit on the sacred zabuton once a day. Habermas talks about “deflating the extra-ordinary” in the essay posted on my blog. I wonder if we could use a bit of that in this context.

…And why is it that, when Deepacked Chakras speaks on PBS, there are a few people sitting quietly on zabutons in siddhasana — some smiling, some with eyes closed listening — while there is a larger number of people sitting in the “audience,” laughing and nodding their heads. Is that the “zabuton chorus” or something? Do they get extra brownie-points in their karma-cards? :-)

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Kela, I've been reflecting on these last two posts of yours, and at the moment, it seems to me the issue hinges more around the question of “truth” than the first-hand / second-hand distinctions.  I'll come back to this in a minute.

I continue to feel the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description is valid, and don't have a problem with that distinction being used in a religious context.  (I had heard about mystical experiences before I ever had one, and I recognize a difference between these descriptive and “experiential” forms of knowledge [the latter generally being more rich, vivid, multi-dimensional]).  However, I also appreciate the concerns you are raising, and the aura of specialness, elite membership, access to power / authority, etc, that often attends the use of these distinctions.  In Christian circles, for instance, I know well how these distinctions play out:  “You were baptized as an infant, and you haven't accepted Jesus as your personal lord and savior (in the way that we have), and therefore you do not have any living knowledge of God.  Whatever you believe or 'know' (as a Catholic, e.g. false Christian) is the product of your fallen mind, or the devil; only when you 'get saved' will you truly understand.  Only then will you experience Jesus living in your heart.”  At the time, I felt that I could go through certain external motions (getting baptized as an adult), and say the right words, and that I would be able to convince these individuals that I was now “saved,” and now had access to the same “living knowledge of God,” the same “holy spirit,” as they did.  The point was, there was no way they'd really be able to tell if anything had shifted internally for me, and so it seemed to amount to a sort of language game.
 
Versions of this show up in Eastern contemplative contexts, of course.  I do see it as a challenging issue.

And yet, in all cases (Christian and Eastern), I still feel there is validity to distinctions made between first-hand and second-hand knowledge of spiritual 'truths.'  I see the same distinctions as relevant in psychology.  For instance, I see a difference between descriptive knowledge of the theory of transference and the experience and working through of transference in therapy.  I don't think theory and experience can be neatly separated, of course, and yet I believe a meaningful distinction between these two modes (or levels) of acquaintance can be made.

So, returning to the question of truth.  You wrote:  “I think we have good reason to challenge the distinction between 'first hand' religion and 'second hand' religion, and not necessarily on the purely 'ethical' point that it is 'elitist' (and thus not democratic). I think we can challenge it because it assumes that there is an elite few who have access to the truth via their experience.”

To me, what stands out here is not the first hand/second hand (descriptive/experiential) distinction so much as the association of particular experiences with 'absolute truth.'  In other words, it seems to me that the issue is not this distinction as much as it is the context in which this distinction is made – specifically, whether it is made in a representative, metaphysical context or a postmetaphysical, enactive one.  The problem in a non-enactive context is that first-hand knowledge is imagined to give one 'direct access' to metaphysical absolutes (and hence to absolute authority, etc).  But does the same issue arise in a post-metaphysical, enactive context?  It doesn't seem to me that it does.

What do you think?

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Hi Balder,

I'm enjoying this thread and think it is one of the better ones I have engaged in here, as it has forced me to clarify what have been only murky predilections. We have also had a number of unresolved issues here and this thread has brought some of them to the fore. I may post an edited version of this exchange in my blog here at some time.

You say, “I continue to feel the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description is valid, and don't have a problem with that distinction being used in a religious context.”

One issue for me is how the distinction between the two forms of knowledge is used, and how the distinction tends to morph into other issues in a slippery, equivocal manner. For example, the Western traditions of antiquity distinguish between discourse about spirituality and the discourse of spirituality. This, to me, is the more basic distinction, which the modern empiricist distinction tends to blur. In the traditions of antiquity, both forms of discourse can be found in “books” or “texts.” Some texts were written as primers, and they primarily contained discourse about spirituality — facts, and so on. Other texts were considered to be part of the actual practice of spirituality. Reading them in the company of a teacher was considered part of the actual discipline, the practice of the tradition. Such texts were considered to be potentially transformative works; in the words of modern hermeneuts, they were considered “evocative.”  They were meant to engage the reader, to challenge him/her. More often than not they were dialogical works, and they were meant to instill what was considered one of the most important facets of the practice of such traditions: the development of an inner dialogue. The development of an inner dialgoue was considered to have a potentially transformative effect on the individual insofar as it was an important facet of the development of the “authentic” self, for lack of a better term. If you have a look at Hadot on this, you can see that reading for him was just as important as “meditating” or “enquiry” or the myriad of other forms of “practice.” So, saying that reading books can only ever be “merely translative,” to me represents a kind of bias against traditions for which reading was considered essential.

So, one issue I have is with the idea that reading only ever is, and only ever can be, a form of knowledge by description. To me this conflates two senses of “reading,” and the two kinds of discourse that I refer to above. To me, saying that, 1., there is a distinction between knowledge by distinction and knowledge by acquaintance; and then 2., referring to “book learning” as if it can only ever be knowledge by description, is a form of red herring that omits an important classical distinction. The effect it has is rhetorical. Within the context of Neo-Vedanta — which to me appears to be one of the sources of this kind of move — it was designed specifically to wrest control of a tradition from its tradition basis.

My concern here is not so much with who is right: the classical pundits or the Neo-Vedantins. I'm not really out to say the former are “more correct.” And I am not out to defend the scholar per se as over against the practitioner, though I have serious doubts about whether one needs to have had a mystical experience to write seriously about mysticism (which is the claim of some). My concern is for a kind of fairness, and for other traditions like traditional Vedanta — such as Judaism, Catholicism, and the now defunct philosophical traditions of antiquity such as Stoicism, Skepticism, Kynicism, Epicureanism, and Neoplatonism — for which the act of reading was an important part of “practice.”

When Derrida defends the written word over against the so-called primacy of the spoken word, I see him as defending Judaism, which has a strong textual basis, against what he sees as an arbitrary imposition, analogous to the so-called distinction between “first hand” and “second hand” religion. The assumption is that the spoken word is always primary, more “essential.” And this indeed is the argument we hear time and again from “esotericists”: that it is the “direct,” “secret,” spoken transmission from student to teacher —  from “mouth to ear” —that is primary, that is essential. But I think we have to understand that there is a political dimension to this idea, for it primarily arises when, for whatever reason, the classical “book” comes to be rejected, as for example, in China when Ch'an as a school arose.

As for your question about the enactive approach, I will have to think about it further. One thing that does come to mind is that the enactive approach will tend to erode the distinction between “direct” and “mediated” forms of knowledge.

cheers.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

One assumption that appears to be at work is the idea that “experience” is the essence of religion and spirituality. And what follows then is, people who have had certain “experiences” have a “knowledge of acquaintance” of the essence of religion.

Besides the assumption this kind of move makes, viz., that “experience” is the essence of spirituality, I think it also equivocates on what we mean by “experience.” There is a distinction that can be drawn between two senses of “experience,” that can be found in the German distinction between Erliebnis and Erfahrung. If anything, it is the latter that might be said to constitute the “essence” of being spiritual, though that is debatable, but the problem to my mind, is that by “experience,” most people mean the former, which to me amounts to saying that the essence of being spiritual and religious is something akin to undergoing a series of LSD trips.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

An analogy that Franklin Jones used in the late seventies, when he renamed his Northern California sanctuary “The Mountain of Attention,” is that of ascending a mountain, seeing the view from the mountaintop, then going back down into the valley to integrate the higher view, and then going back up to the mountaintop. He said that one must repeat this cycle again and again (and in most cases from one lifetime to the next).

For him at the time, the process of taking in the view from the mountaintop was a wholly transformative process. He often likened this process to immersion in fire that burns away impurities and tempers the “whole body” toward the end of “whole body enlightenment.”

But he also said, and had been saying this since the early seventies, that “listening” to “high” spiritual “Teachings,” through reading, study, and listening to live or recorded talks by an enlightened master, is also experiential and transformative. He emphasized that such “listening” was very different than listening to university lectures or any other kind of reading or study. “Listening,” he said, must be done to the point of “hearing,” and “hearing” was also primarily experiential. To really “hear the Teaching” is to undergo a transformative shift.

As he outlined it, “hearing” goes hand in hand with “seeing.” (One “hears” the Teaching and “sees” the Teacher.) All of this predictably led to conversations like this within Da's community: “Joe's thinking of leaving the community.” “He obviously has yet to 'hear' the Teaching.”

So certainly the emphasis was on Erliebnis or ineffable “lived” experience versus Erfahrung or “ordinary perception of interpreted fact” (as Answers.com defines these terms, which I never heard before reading your post).

I think this can be related to a distinction Jones/Bubba/Da made in the very early seventies, between a guy, who he characterizes as kind of a slob and loser, who sits in his room masturbating to “girlie magazines,” versus the same guy getting out into the world and getting into a relationship with a woman. He compared this guy to those who read (but don't truly “listen” or “hear”) lots of “spiritual” books but who do nothing that involves lived experience and “real transformation.” (I think it's obvious that Wilber's rhetoric about “mere translation” versus “authentic transformation” is straight from Da.)

But he clearly didn't mean someone like James Steinberg, who since the early seventies to Jones's recent death was Jones's resident scholar. So Jones would also distinguish between the scholar who studies, “listens,” and “hears,” and the scholar who has what Georg Feuerstein, when he was one of Jones's disciples, called “scholaritis.” The scholar who has “scholaritis” has a breadth of knowledge but lacks a depth of understanding.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Hi Jim,

Thanks for your contribution. I remember reading “Method of the Siddhas.” It took me several months to digest, and I have to say that it was one of the best “reads” that I had ever engaged in to that time. As far as a critique of spiritual materialism, I found it much more powerful that Trungpa's book. There is a passage in Siddhas where, if I remember, he compares a certain approach to spirituality as akin to looking at pornography. I have been thinking about this alot recently, particularly in regard to the Hamilton thread. Personally, I'm beginning to suspect that we are interpreting spirituality far too much in terms of a kind of aestheticism, and by this I mean not so much aesthetics in the sense of artistic beauty as much as what Kierkegaard means by “aesthetic” — not just sensual pleasure, but experience itself. What seems to be missing, to my mind, is a kind of “ethical” development and growth. The “aestheticized” approach to spirituality seems to me to emphasize the experiential in a self-centered way that approaches the path of the sensualist, and in this sense it is akin to a kind of pornography.

With respect to the distinction between the two forms of experience, what I had in mind is a distinction between particular experiences, like doing LSD, or ecstasy, or undergoing samadhi, or having an orgasm, etc. — Erliebnis — and another sense of experience — Erfahrung — which as I understand it, refers to the “experience” we mean when we write a resume and it asks to list our experience. I don't have time right now to explore this distinction phenomenologically and semantically but I think the difference can be inferred from the example.

Also, saying that the essence is spirituality is “experience” has an air of tautology to me. Since “experience” accompanies everything we do, we could say that anything or everything has “experience” as its nature. I once had an extended discussion with BY that went around in circles on this point. He seemed to think there was something profound about saying that “experience” accompanies everything we do. I could not understand how that line of thinking helps us. And there is something strangely self-indulgent about going about grooving to the fact that “experience” accompanies everything we do.

I watched Star Trek Insurrection last night and felt somewhat vomitous when it began to sound like one of the writers was trying to give us a lesson culled from Eckhart Tolle.

In any case, this post is ending up with a slightly gadflavian flavour to it. :-) So be it.  When I have a bit more time I try to write something more cogent.

kela

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

A few more points:

“He often likened this process to immersion in fire that burns away impurities…”
I had intended to write on this idea under the End of Enlightenment thread. I call this the “magical” approach to yoga and meditative experience. This is actually a very ancient conception that is as at least as old as the oldest Jain texts.  In the ancient Prakrit it is called nijjara. The idea was that through certain practices, karma could literally be burnt away. We find a similar idea in the Yoga Sutras, which mentions that the seeds (bija) of the samskaras can be “burnt away” through repeated entry into samadhi. I see this idea as related to a similar modern idea, viz., the idea that enlightenment will serve as some kind of panacea that will take away all our pain and turn us into good humans. This idealization of enlightenment seems to be at work in Hamilton's tract.

With respect to “listening” or “hearing” and “reading.” Yes, clearly there is a difference between hearing a college lecture on yoga and “hearing” one's teacher during satsang. The difference to me clearly has to do with the level of existential commitment involved in each: there is none in listening to a lecture, while there is while listening to one's teacher. Of course there will be little to no change involved in listening to a university lecture: there is no challenge coming from the teacher to turn one's life around, and there is no active engagement with one's self.

As for experience, what I had in mind was the total experience of living a life lived in accordance with a spiritual teaching — including not only meditation, but discussion, reading, etc — vs. particular yogic experiences that happen along the way. To me, the former is much more important and relevant. I'm not sure why particular experiences have gained such prominence in the West. To me, if someone asks, ala Jimi H., “Are you experienced?” the relevant interpretation would be, “Have you had the experience of living your life in accordance with a teaching for an extended period of time, of coming to see yourself and your place in the world in accordance with a teaching,” and not, “have you ever had the experience of samadhi?” To me, the latter is about as “profound” (self-indulgent) as saying, “Have you ever had sex on acid?”

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

I agree that “the total experience of living a life lived in accordance with a spiritual teaching” is much more important and relevant than “particular yogic experiences that happen along the way.” And a number of spiritual teachers in the West have been saying that at least since the early seventies and perhaps longer. Even Ram Dass, who initially pushed “particular yogic experiences,” began in the early seventies to emphasize that seeking particular yogic experiences was tantamount to “stopping to smell the flowers along the way.” (I'm not defending Alpert, I'm just saying.)

Suzuki Roshi was never into emphasizing experiences, nor are modern Buddhist teachers such as Jack Kornfield.

I find it interesting that Wilber has equated a lack of emphasis on higher state experiences by modern Buddhist teachers with “boomeritis Buddhism.” It's as if he can't think of a reason why a teacher who is intimately familiar with higher states might consider it unskillful to emphasize them.

In our consumer culture where pursuit of instant gratification is the norm, it's no surprise to me that so many spiritual seekers seem to prefer the notion that spirituality is a matter of having some kind of “radical,” “evolutionary” conversion experience whereby one goes from a grey, boring Kansas to a technicolor Oz and permanently “abides” there.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Re: seeking out particular experiences. In Siddhas, the image Bubba used in relation to this was that of a dog going to the master for a bone, and the master having to throw the student the “bone” once in a while — giving the student a “kunda-pop,” or some such thing, one imagines. The image used by Trungpa in Cuttting Through was of cutting the musk gland from the musk deer: “Just give me the Djokchen realization, please, and hold the bell ringing, sand mandalas, and mustard.”

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

What do you think of insight meditation / vipassana in relation to these issues?  The aim in vipassana is not really to have far-out experiences, but to mindfully attend to the patterns of one's ordinary experience.  This involves an interpretive framework, of course (influencing how you “attend,” what you attend to, etc), but it does seem there is an “experiential” component that is emphasized as necessary for the “rooting” and “flowering” of the transformative insight the tradition seeks to cultivate. 

In my view, the “power” of the experiential component seems to have more to do with Erfahrung than Erliebnis.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Hi Balder,
I think that the term “meditation” is a rather fluid term. And yes, of course, “mindfullness” can have a different goal or goals than in inducing “peak experiences” and such things. In the tradition ancient context, “mindfulness” was closely connected to “sila” or conduct. It appears to have been closer to what the Stoics had in mind when they spoke of prosoche. Indeed, the metaphors used by each are strikingly similar, and may have something to do with a possible Hellenic influence. This brings in the ethical element that I was referring to. Of course, there is an “experiential” component to this insofar as attentiveness is a kind of “experience,” but I'm not sure if emphasizing this is necessary or helpful. It's like saying that the experience of music is an important part of being a musician.

Dropping the German terms for now (I'm not if they even help), can you explain how you think that the “power” of the experiential has more to do with experience1 than experience2?

cheers.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

“Listening” and “considering” occur in the Buddhist Suttas, as well as in Vedanta. The two are followed by “bhavana” which corresponds to “nididhyasana” of Vedanta.  It is not easy to translate “bhavana” and “nididhyasana.” They are often translated as “meditation” or “contemplation,” but I think such terms are a kind of misnomer.  Bhavana is related to bhava which means being, so perhaps bhavana can mean “becoming.”  Another term sometimes used to translate it is “cultivation,” and here I am reminded of the German “Bildung,” formation. Really, to me, it is the stage in the path where, through a process of inculcation, the teaching becomes incorporated into one’s very being; the path is “realized,” not in the sense of a cognitive event — realization as “enlightement” — but in the sense where it becomes a reality for a person, where one lives one’s whole life in terms of the teaching, where, to use another terminology, one has thoroughly en-acted the teaching. 

I am using the two German senses of “experience” in an idiomatic and technical way (which I have partly derived from Gadamer). Perhaps I should drop the German distinction and simply develop what I mean to say.   As I say, there is, on the one hand, particular experience, notably yogic or meditative experience, which happens along the way of a spiritual path. This is one sense of “experience.” And there is, as I say, another sense of “experience” that refers to the lived experience of someone who is existentially committed to being on a particular path, to a particular ethos.  Now, I think that it is certainly possible for someone to have particular yogic-like experiences without being on a path, and to me this fact makes them contingent. Such experiences might be “transformative” for some, in that they help one to change his life, but I don’t think they need to be, or are necessarily transformative. Wilber, for example, seems to think that there is some sort of magical, one-to-one, causal relation between “meditation,” or meditative “experiences,” and personal development or growth. I don’t think there is. Meditation is merely a part, and a small part at that, of the path.  If anything, I think we have learned that meditative experience is no guarantor of anything — re: the case of Da.
 
To me, meditative experience belongs alongside “consideration.” It functions not so much as a kind of “proof” as it does as a kind of tool for “persuasion.” It is no accident that thinking, or “analysis,” occurs with, and is in competition with, “meditation”: the two go together, and they are meant to address different types of persons. And of course, the Romantic mind will invariably get hung up on which is “better,” which is the more powerful — “who would win in a fight.” etc.
 
To me, there is a detached quality to particular experiences. They do not, for me, yet denote the stage where existential commitment is complete.
 
Let me use one more metaphor to inculcate my point: There is reading about Africa; and then there is going to Africa to see it for oneself. True enough. But then there is one more stage: going native. And that, is something else entirely.
:-)

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

This seems to be going in a circle. If being inculcated in the system provides the contextual meaning of meditative experiences, and the meditatitive traditions have less than postmetaphysical interpretations of said experience, then why do we really need to invest that huge commitment of time and energy into being brainwashed? Why can't we pursue meditative experiences outside of tradition by creating our own, postmetaphysical tradition that relatively better interprets said experience? Yes go native, but with the best of science and technology (meditative to machine) in our native habitat.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

There is a circular quality to it, which is why I have said before that the whole empiricist language of “verification” and “acquaintance” is so off base here.

These are good questions Ed, but I don't want to get too sidetracked in this thread. Perhaps we could start a new thread. For now, having said what I wanted to say, I'm trying to figure out what it all means for the metaphor of “privileged access” and “knowledge by acqauintance.”

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In answer to the above questions: yes, yes and yes.

It seems kela and Jim were both Da Das in the past? It's ok to admit it if you were. I myself am a former Wilberrie. The latter are like dingleberries in that they both are detritus that clings to an asshole!

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Yeah, I joined Bubba Free John's community in the mid-70's and lived in it for several years. I've had a piece about all that online for years that I wrote in 1996. At the behest of John White I sent a copy to Wilber (White insisted I do so and he gave me Wilber's snail mail address). About a month later, after Wilber wrote me a letter about my manuscript thanking me and telling me that he knew Da was “problematic,” he published his first public e-statement about Da on his (Wilber's) Shambhala website. Here's a link to the thing I wrote back then: http://bewareofthegod.blogspot.com/

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Thanks for providing the link Jim. I scanned it quite quickly having some knowledge of Da's background and found your reference to Saniel and his then un-published paper that he would allow you to have for a 'donation' of $120.

Beware of any god that charges a buck. They are literally making money based upon absolutely nothing. Gotta admit, it's the ultimate scam.

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Still a great read after all these years Jim. I love it. Great stuff.

However, and I hate to say it, but the mystical experiences were what it was all about for me. So much so that I can't indulge this stuff anymore without threatening death. ;-).

Wilber can say whatever he wants, but he craves satori and needs it to validate his endless babbling philosophy.

There's got to be a payoff.

But the fact of the matter is and was - there was no real payoff in early Buddhism just as there wasn't one for Stoicism. So the later followers provided one. Who would follow otherwise?

Anyway great stuff on the DaMeister. ;-).

Love Gaddy   

P.S. With respects to some other posts, the Buddha created the Sangha. How collective can we get! Of course the philosophy points in that direction. Take it all the way and the whole entire Universe is one great collective, Hail Ramana, ;-). What else is new. If only it were true.    

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Hi Gaddy! Sorry it's taken me so long to reply. As I told you I was travelling.

Shit, I just wrote a reply and for no reason tried to attach a photo of a frog in my back yard to it, and the Gaia system rejected it as too large and I lost what I wrote. I'll try again, this time without the frog.

You talk about the payoff, “There's got to be a payoff.” You say there was no real payoff in early Buddhism and in Stoicism.

According to Mark Siderits in his book Buddhism as Philosophy, the early Buddhists didn't say much about enlightenment beyond that it was the end of existential suffering. They didn't describe enlightenment in positive terms.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online entry for Stoicism, “When considering the doctrines of the Stoics, it is important to remember that they think of philosophy not as an interesting pastime or even a particular body of knowledge, but as a way of life. They define philosophy as a kind of practice or exercise (askêsis) in the expertise concerning what is beneficial (Aetius, 26A). Once we come to know what we and the world around us are really like, and especially the nature of value, we will be utterly transformed. This soteriological element is common to their main competitors, the Epicureans, and perhaps helps to explain why both were eventually eclipsed by Christianity.” (There's that two-dollar word you love: soteriological! ;-)

In his EEG video, Wilber describes enlightenment as permanent alignment of the individual bodymind with “Spirit” (I think he says “pure Consciousness” or something like that), and he adds that there must be an “upper right hand” correlate (in other words, neural correlates) for this. And for Wilber, higher states or “great states of consciousness are converted to permanent waking realities by developing through the levels of consciousness.”

There's the payoff; higher states that can be “converted into permanent acquisitions” (italics in orig., from Wilber's “Sidebar G”).

One problem I have with this notion of enlightenment is that it posits something that cannot be permanent, unless we abandon “post-metaphysics” and posit an Atman or some kind of permanent nonphysical substratum to phenomena, as the be-all and end-all. Even advanced Lamas can get Alzheimer's and I bet that if Ramana were conked hard enough by a rock-wielding monkey he'd have gone from permanent Self-realization to a persistent vegetative state.

This notion of enlightenment is only a bit more sophisticated sounding than Ram Dass's definition of enlightenment circa the early 70's as a constant “cosmic orgasm” in every cell of the body.

The definitions I prefer focus on non-attachment, no-seeking, no-clinging, non-grasping, letting go, nothing to cling or attach to, and so on. I doubt that there is any one kind of brain state that can be correlated with non-grasping and no-seeking.

I do think, however, that one can't let go of things one doesn't have access to. I can't, for example, renounce wealth unless I have wealth. One can't be unattached to super duper mystical states unless one has access to such states. So I think there is some value in helping people to access such states. I think spiritual seekers would do well to lose their spiritual virginity and then get over it instead of getting caught up in seeking some ultimate permanent cosmic orgasm.

~ Jim

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

“I think spiritual seekers would do well to lose their spiritual virginity and then get over it instead of getting caught up in seeking some ultimate permanent cosmic orgasm.”

Me too Jim. ~ aka embrace

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Hi Mark, Thanks for the link. Hope you're doing well! ~ Jim

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You betcha Jim. Yeah, gettin' better by the day.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Hi Jim,

Good post as usual and I generally agree. I think we are on the same wave length.

I guess my point was that some of these philosophies in their early formulation tended to stress accepting life “as it is” and avoiding getting into dream land escapes - which can cause suffering. Now for those seeking escapes, this was not very encouraging and later thinkers tended to provide an escape because that is often what people are looking for - especially in a religion. Otherwise they probably would have died out. Just my opinion of course.

Wilber, imo, is in the “escape” business, like Adi Da was, and I guess we can say he is no fool. The problem is that his ideas never seem to work. (Something he blames Krishnamurti for).

Now when I read Ramana he keeps on insisting the everyhing is a “one” thing and separatism is an illusion.  I question this hypothesis. And this, of course, is where the problem begins. “How to we get this one thing consciousness?”  And besides, “is it true?” It seems that we are being asked to turn everything upside down and deny our natural experience from birth.

The advanced evolving mind can creat greater and greater generalizations. But do we turn those into concrete realities?

Now on the old Forum Broken Yogi would accuse people of believing in concepts and that supposedly was their problem. But when I read Ramana, the whole deal seems like one big concept to me. I mean this was hardly a dude who rejected concepts.

Anyway, enough. Good talking to you.

Gaddy





    

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

I read Da's books with interest at one time, “especially his earlier, funnier movies” (Woody Allen), but I was never a “disciple” of Da or his teachings. I also read Wilber with interest as a youth, but eventually lost interest when I came to realize the holes in his system, the degree to which he BS's, and how many of his facts he actually gets wrong.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

My wife and I just removed our membership from 'Integral Life' after being members for over 6 months. Wilber's BS is pretty much out in the open there and it's quite entertaining watching his sandcastle crumble.  One can't use the word 'integral' when their whole framework is built upon fragmentation. Particularly fun to watch is their CEO, Robb Smith doing his CEO thing on damage control.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

This is, folks, about Privileged Access, but first a preface:

I am continually amused at how the Religious/Spiritualism (R/S) Trades
automatically claim proprietary rights to ecstasies, samadhi, volcanic
kundalini awakenings and all other unconventional states that serve
their needs to hijack.  Or there are some, like Wilber, in The Trades who recognize the existence of such experiences in the secular realms, but remain exclusivist posessive with claims that only in a spiritual environment, with spiritual processing and fore knowledge, do these experiences reach their highest states as if it is a universal given that the holy man's ice is always coldest.

This even extends to the Franklin Jones semi-spiritualization of “hearing” and
“seeing” the Teaching and the Teacher. The teaching and the teacher can
be entirely secular and still elicit a “hearing” or “seeing”
transformative experience. I have entered transformative ecstatic
states reading Maslow, Arandt, Camus, Jung,  long forgotten others and
even an Economics text book once while studying for a mid-term, but
never from any spiritual text I have read and never from being in the
presence of a spiritual teacher though my opportunities in that area
are limited: I once went to a Gangaji satsang and once watched an hour
long video of Ramesh Balsekar and found them both to be verging on
shallow. But that is not a surprise. When younger, as a radical
journalist, I was involved in both civil rights and anti-war work.
These area attracted a lot of attention from the R/S Trades and I found
that no matter how well any from The Trades performed their particular
duties there would always be two or three from the secular ranks who
could do it better, easier, faster. From my perspective, the holy man's
ice is the first to melt. (The sole exception to this is Brother Will D. Campbell
who used to be my neighbor outside of Nashville TN.  He and I would
visit quite frequently, tell stories and drink Jack Daniels from the
bottle.)
 
I have found that the transformative quality of “hearing”
or “seeing” is not about the holy content of the text nor the righteous
charisma of the teacher, but the degree of energetic intensity with
which one attends to them or any other activity–highly focused
attention, some delight plus a little anticipation trips open the
endocrinal and endorphinal flow and, presto-chango, transformation in
which one does, indeed, have privileged access; though not to God or
the secrets of the universe (in whatever phase one has been taught it
possesses) but to a heightened attunement within one's own full
physical resources. This is sort of along the lines Kela was thinking
(presumably) when he wrote:

The difference to me clearly has to do with the level of existential
commitment involved in each: there is none in listening to a lecture,
while there is while listening to one's teacher. Of course there will
be little to no change involved in listening to a university lecture:
there is no challenge coming from the teacher to turn one's life
around, and there is no active engagement with one's self.

The differences I see between this interpretation and my own is that I
see the commitment being more energetic than existential. And for me
turning one's life around doesn't have a lot to do with it, I found the
experiences more in the form of a life affirmation than a tool for
turning it around. But then I never wanted to turn my life around. I
just wanted to make it wider and further and deeper. As for engagement, it
was not so much with my self as it was a blind engagement with all
that was transpiring in that moment.

My experiences with unconventional states suggest to me that these sudden changes in blood chemistry mentioned earlier are eons-old survival mechanisms that enhance one's performance when the blood is up no matter whether the task is disappearing into the pit of one's psyche in search of an
enlightened perspective or running big, gnarly white water or
performing oracular ritual or writing poetry or studying economics. I
have a true sensualist's pitiably low endocrinal/endorphinal threshold
so I have had more than my fair share of opportunities to study the
unconventional state such as the five just mentioned and maybe 70 or 80
more not counting the duplicates. And Kela is right, they are all
contingent.  (These do not include instances that involve enhancements.
Medicine Journeys are too often synthetic, forced and dishonest.)
Though I cannot say they were all transformative, they were all
valuable to the way I shaped my life in that moment or over months or
even years.  Additionally I found each instance had a “flashback”
possibility as in just returning to the scene of an unconventional
experience or holding a mind's eye picture of the place could trigger a
faint blood chem change that could be deepened by some kind of almost
ritualistic reenactment of the original event. So it is a piece of cake
to bring it back time and again in meditation, which–if I can follow
my own twisted logic on the matter–makes meditational experiences
largely contingent too on the initial happening. Though I have been
practicing mindfulness meditation for over 30 years, it has not brought
me any more than one or two unconventionalities. Insight mediation, for
instance focusing on a dream image while writing of it in my dream
journal (likewise in its 33rd year) works better.

For someone like me, I have to agree with those who say the
unconventional state is of certainly more importance than what it has
been given by the general consensus on this thread. For me they are
akin to the Jones's mountain analogy that Jim mentioned because if
every one of them is examined with a minimum of cultural accretions and
sentimental or awe-struck frou-fr0us,and perhaps later
reexamined, one can learn an amazing amount about how best and most
joyfully, most artistically, one can enliven the times they have
between feedings. Thus these experiences, like every other local and
transitory experience, should inform the life well lived  If
one is not in over their head in the former, the latter will just be
bogus. And those lame, bogus lives just aren't worth living.

Kela wrote: Personally, I'm beginning to suspect that we are interpreting
spirituality far too much in terms of a kind of aestheticism, and by
this I mean not so much aesthetics in the sense of artistic beauty as
much as what Kierkegaard means by “aesthetic” — not just sensual
pleasure, but experience itself. What seems to be missing, to my mind,
is a kind of “ethical” development and growth. The “aestheticized”
approach to spirituality seems to me to emphasize the experiential in a
self-centered way that approaches the path of the sensualist, and in
this sense it is akin to a kind of pornography.

While some of this is a little syntactically difficult to decipher– I am not exactly sure what the “aestheticized” approach really is–but one certainly cannot gainsay the infusion of ethical development into any project, spiritual or otherwise. I'm not sure it does all that much good on the ground, but it doesn't do any harm. But my main comment is in regard to “the sensualist” in that I hope you had in mind someone like Old Man Karamazov and others in
that limited stereotype when you wrote it. One is born a sensualist, at
least I was as was my mother, and I know of few people who could
surpass her in ethics, refinement, lofty spirituality and a steadfast
will for living an aestheticized life dedicated to serving her fellow
humans. An ethical life can be grounded in any path of anyone who has
respect for humanity, likewise,  no matter what their path, the ethical
life is always absent from those who don't.

Kela wrote, Jim wrote: the total experience of living a life lived in accordance with a spiritual teaching —

I don't know what that means since I never thought that was a
particularly attractive or effective way to live, though once I was
tempted. I once thought the Heart Sutra was a down right decent
teaching. I initially read it in the first volume of Anthony Yu's four
volume translation of Journey to the West (the greatest novel
ever written), but then I was instructed that I had interpreted it all
wrong. I had thought that when the author (in the novel the Crow's Nest
Monk wrote the sutra) wrote there is no dharma, I, not wise to the
subtleties of Sanskrit, thought he meant, “there is no Dharma,” and I
figured that any text that could annihilate the ground on which it was
based was the text for me. Not so, I guess, so now I read it like just
another spiritually obscurant veil, though the mantra is cool.

Maybe y'all cold explain what living a life lived in accordance with a spiritual teaching means in a postmetaphysical frame of mind. To me it means living within the confines of someone else's artificial restrictions which is not for me.
But I can understand where it might appeal to others. The C&W
singing legend George Jones had a great hit with “The Bartender's
Blues,” in which he sang, “I need four walls around me to keep me from
blowing away…” That line always brings Ken Wilber to mind.

Ciao,
Steven

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

 
My special
friend, Steven,
You wrote.
 
I once thought the Heart Sutra was a down right decent

teaching. I initially read it in the first volume of Anthony Yu's four

volume translation of Journey to the West (the greatest novel

ever written), but then I was instructed that I had interpreted it all

wrong. I had thought that when the author (in the novel the Crow's Nest

Monk wrote the sutra) wrote there is no dharma, I, not wise to the

subtleties of Sanskrit, thought he meant, “there is no Dharma,” and I

figured that any text that could annihilate the ground on which it was

based was the text for me.
 
 
Dharma,
dharma:  righteous duty, as a general definition.  More literally ¨That which
upholds the universe¨ as I´ve often heard it mentioned in Hinduism and Budhism.
They give examples of the Sun and Moon rising and setting at predictable times so as to fulfill their dharma with us and our planetary system. But then that is the
smaller picture.  We know that in timelines much longer than those we use over breakfast conversation, the Sun and Moon can and will do mighty unpredictable things – and to hell with their usual dharma – and our ´needs´. Their dance follows bigger needs or whims. 
 
You, interpreted the heart sutra RIGHT.  To ´annihilate
the ground it is based on´ is the ultimate aim of any well figured dharma, religion
or ´path´.  The dharma of Arjuna to be a rightful warrior was annihilated when he had to kill cousins, uncles, Gurus (a mega no-no) in the field of battle, prodded by Krishna, his charioteer God-head.  The same-said Krishna God-head was hotly involved in sultry nights with married Mrs. Radha in the woods of Brindaban, both of them breaking a mega dharma of a woman´s marital faithfulness. Impurity is to be avoided vehemently by many Yoguis, but some of their schools embrace it by drinking out of still-rotting sculls, dancing on corpses etc. 

All of the above creatures had been followers of dharma, as THE LAW, and then broke it to bits. Why? What for?  Their íllicit´actions fully engaged them with the DHARMA which has NO DHARMA. Just the rightness of the moment, of existence, of totality.  The needs of that which is ever changing and ever alive and far beyond our little logic.  It blew their restrictions and the ´four walls´ round which they walked their dharmic path on a tight leash, to smithereens. A dangerous path.  Not for everybody.  You can go check on their ultimate experiences.  You might find them familiar.
 

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Thanks, sweetheart.
I'll see you in bed soon as I shut this machine down.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Am I getting blown to smithereens here?  Where is your dharma !?

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Lionza wrote: Am I getting blown to smithereens here?

Only your cover.

And then: Where is your dharma !?

We don't need no stinking dharma! Do we?

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Steven:

I had thought that when the author (in the novel the Crow's Nest
Monk wrote the sutra) wrote there is no dharma, I, not wise to the
subtleties of Sanskrit, thought he meant, “there is no Dharma,” and I
figured that any text that could annihilate the ground on which it was
based was the text for me.
 
Personally, I think that at one end of the spectrum, these traditions, the mystical and ecstatic traditions, lead inevitably to spiritual anarchism. And that this anarchism can be said to be resonant with post-modernism, and hence with a “post-metaphysical spirituality.”

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Hi all,

Steven writes,

I am continually amused at how the Religious/Spiritualism (R/S) Trades
automatically claim proprietary rights to ecstasies, samadhi, volcanic
kundalini awakenings and all other unconventional states that serve
their needs to hijack.  Or there are some, like Wilber, in The Trades who recognize the existence of such experiences in the secular realms, but remain exclusivist posessive with claims that only in a spiritual environment, with spiritual processing and fore knowledge, do these experiences reach their highest states…
 
To me, this hits the nail on the head, and probably says what I have been attempting to say better and more concisely than I have been able to. It really captures the idea of “privilege” that is at work here.

As for what I was after when talking about “aestheticized” spirituality, my point was merely that chasing after “experience” is a bit like chasing after skirts. I was attempting a bit of a normative critique of the category of “experience” — that it is not the be all and end all, and that it receives far too much importance — but I think I have climbed up onto a high horse in the process, and so now I think I will climb down.

I think Steven and Ed bring up an important point about whether such experiences can be “explored,” or simply enjoyed, within the “secular” realm, or outside of the context of having to be involved with a “tradition.” I had written a response to Edward's questions and attempted to post it in the Revisioning Tradition section, but alas the post was hijacked by the Gaia gremlins and it now exists only in the etheric void. But I will attempt to reconsititute the post anon.

Basically, my point was that while it is possible to explore mystical and ecstatic states of consciousness outside of tradition, the context in which such states occur can have an effect on not only how they will be interpreted, but on how they will be experienced and on the the force that such states will carry in terms of how they will effect one's life, ie on their potential “transformative” power. In this sense, context is also important. An an analogous example, when states of consciousness are explored via entheogens/psychedelics/hallucinogens, the effect of the context in which a substance has been ingested will influence the overall effect that the substance has. This is known as “set and setting” in studies on the effects of psychoactive substances. Mutatis mutandis, I think that something analogous can be said to be at work when one is involved in, or commited to, a “tradition.” Basically, and to use Edward's language, it is important not to minimize the potential power and influence that “brainwashing” can have.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Kela says:

Let me use one more metaphor to inculcate my point: There is reading about Africa; and then there is going to Africa to see it for oneself. True enough. But then there is one more stage: going native. And that, is something else entirely. 
:-)

Steven quoted by Kela:

I am continually amused at how the Religious/Spiritualism (R/S) Trades
automatically claim proprietary rights to ecstasies, samadhi, volcanic
kundalini awakenings and all other unconventional states that serve
their needs to hijack.  Or there are some, like Wilber, in The Trades who recognize the existence of such experiences in the secular realms, but remain exclusivist posessive with claims that only in a spiritual environment, with spiritual processing and fore knowledge, do these experiences reach their highest states… 
 
Kela:

To me, this hits the nail on the head, and probably says what I have been attempting to say better and more concisely than I have been able to. It really captures the idea of “privilege” that is at work here.

Jim:

Joe Blow has what in the R/S Trades are sometimes referred to as kundalini awakenings (volcanic and otherwise), etc., and he goes beyond merely reading about and visiting Africa by going native, and all this occurs outside the Trades. Meanwhile, there do indeed exist those within the R/S Trades who claim privileged access and proprietary rights to such experiences, and who seem to think that the Joe Blows of this world cannot possibly go as far, high, deep, and wide as those within the Trades and “spiritual” environments can go.

There are many variations on “holier than thou”: more integral than thou, more gone native than thou, more anarchist than thou, more nihilist than thou, more grounded in groundlessness than thou, more nondual than thou, more postmetaphysical than thou, less brainwashed than thou, more rooted in tradition than thou, freer of tradition than thou, etc. Everyone, within and without the Trades, seems vulnerable to this bug, which is related to the “spiritual 'elitism'” bug, to use a term Kela uses in a previous post.

People within the Trades do not have privileged access, nor do outsiders to the Trades. No one has privileged access.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Jim and Kela, yes, one could say access is a property of matter of a certain minimum level of organization (to distinguish away the rocks, for example).  God knows how many ways, above that threshold, access might manifest, ey?

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Steven asks,

Maybe y'all could explain what living a life lived in accordance with a spiritual teaching means in a postmetaphysical frame of mind.

Good question. One that I think this pod is attempting to explore.

In one of his works, Nietzsche describes a lucid dream, “And then I realized, it is but a dream! And so I resolved: I will dream on!” Something to that effect. So, perhaps it's not so much a matter of the suspension of belief as the suspension of disbelief. (?) I really have no idea.

For me personally, there is something about watching a lass dance a maypole dance in a long pleated shirt and bare feet while I play an Irish tune on my fiddle… To me, that's “re-enchantment,” that's my version of “post-metaphysical spirituality.” :-)

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LOL.  Hi, M.!!  I'm pleased to know these halls have been haunted all along by a dakini.  (And I wouldn't be surprised if you're not the only one!)

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Hi Balder,

So much for my alter ego.  I read here far more than I post.  Time pressures and the occasional loss of posts when they´re complete don´t help.   This happened to a reply I had for the thread on Magic etc. I liked the style you used there in your narratives, could nearly feel the fever. 

The M. and S. household is never boring.  Visit sometime.

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Well holy dharma, you mean those two are not two??

My observation that women are not genuinely interested in our blathering just got stronger.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

kela, you might be interested in Heron's notions of the different types of knowing, “experience” being one, and how they relate. See this post in the “next Buddha” thread.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

I wrote a report on India in grade four. Then I went to India and saw it for myself. After I had stayed in India for a year, my knowledge of it was different from when I had first seen it. All of this is terribly important to myself at a personal level. I'm not sure how important it is for anyone else beyond idle, informal banter. Perhaps this relates to what elsewhere had been called a form of “quietism” with respect to mystical experience. I'm not sure of the value or validity of personal testimony in the public domain. If it leads to a kind of pissing contest where there only thing we have to go on is personal testimony based on private experience, then its value is negligible. Perhaps this thread has exhausted itself.

Next pointless discusssion… :-)

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

“If it leads to a kind of pissing contest where there only thing we have
to go on is personal testimony based on private experience, then its
value is negligible. Perhaps this thread has exhausted itself.” [italics mine]

Well, I remember as a boy having pissing contests with my friends. They were fun and I rarely lost. Yes, those were the days…

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Kela, sorry it has taken me so long to respond.  I've had quite a busy week.  I read above that you've given up on this thread, but I'm still interested in it, so belatedly, I'm joining (back) in. 

Overall, I've been sympathetic to the points you've made in your last several posts.  I'm not sure I'm entirely in agreement with your argument, but I believe I get what you're saying, and I think this is an important discussion – at least for me, since I happen to work in a field (transpersonal psychology) where “spiritual experience” is often afforded primary value.

I agree with your argument above that the ideas that “the experience of meditation” proves the metaphysical claims of a spiritual tradition, or automatically (and rather mechanically) leads to (trans)personal growth, are both problematic.  I also agree that spiritual experience, within the context of a spiritual tradition, can serve a persuasive purpose (leading perhaps to a deepening of conviction, a confidence in the claims of that tradition).  This confidence may even help one to “go native.”

But I'm still thinking there's a dimension to 'spiritual experience,' a functional role, that isn't really covered by the probative / persuasive distinction.  I am thinking this through and will try to write more about this later.

For now, here is a line of thought I'm developing (and a question for you) …

I'm aware of the historical irony of the present contention over “theory vs. experience.”  In early Orphic understanding, theoria meant 'passionate sympathetic contemplation,' before being redefined by Pythagoras as 'passionless contemplation of rational, unchanging truths.'

I think this change in definition allowed for certain important developments in human thought (the emergence of science, etc).  Following Levin, I think one aspect of a turn toward post-metaphysics will involve re-integration of theoretical-instrumental vision with the body of felt experience.

One of the problems, as I see it, of the re-privileging of experience over theory that informed the early transpersonal movement, for instance, is that it still implicitly accepted basic modernist premises – namely, the empirical focus, where transpersonalists naively assumed that “experiential practices” would simply disclose pre-given, unchanging metaphysical realities or truths, or somehow scientifically “prove” the claims of the perennial philosophy.

I think an enactive or post-metaphysical argument calls for a different approach, and so, as I said, I am sympathetic to a number of your arguments.  However, when you say, “To me, meditative experience belongs alongside 'consideration.' It functions not so much as a kind of 'proof' as it does as a kind of tool for 'persuasion,'” I am concerned that your formulation here still overly subordinates experience to understanding (or theory, tradition, etc).  I may not be fully following your line of thinking, so I welcome your corrections here, but in my view, suggesting that the role of contemplative experience is, at best, to support or bolster or confirm a particular spiritual vision – something trotted out to (ornamentally or secondarily) reinforce a pre-existing model or form of understanding – is still a bit too “gnostic” for me, or for a postmetaphysical, enactive form of spirituality.  For one, I don't think it fully acknowledges the potential for forms of embodied experience to challenge and in-form us (instead of simply confirming the 'already known').

What do you think?

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Bumping the above post.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

I'm considering what you have to say here Balder. It may mean a consideration of what we mean by “experience,” which is where the discussion was moving at another point.

The long and the short of this thread for me has been that the idea of “privileged access,” with its corequisite emphasis on “experience,” has a certain connection with the “philosophy of the subject.”

Your point that particular experiences are grounding in “experience” in general is well taken. I guess the issue for me becomes the degree to which “practitioners” realize this. This has not only theoretical, and “meta” conseuqences, in terms of how we comport ourselves along the path, but, as I tried to argue above, practical ones, vis a vis the whole problem of “spiritual materialism” as it pertains to how we view those experiences.

I'm perhaps willing to admit, or “see,” that while Tantrism seems to be heavily oriented toward a kind of “experientialism,” to the extent that it attempts to address experience in general, or as a totality, that is, to the extent that it aims at the transformation of our “experience” in toto, it perhaps does not necessarily aim at seeking out particular experiences. I'm not sure every practitioner of “tantra” can claim this view, though I really have no right to cast aspertions upon “tupperware and Kegel” parties until I actually attend one.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

I haven't read this entire thread, so I'm piping in underinformed.  Pardon my oversights if I miss the mark with my comments. 

There exist numerous examples of people who underwent an experience who, on the other side of that experience, found themselves essentially agreeing with traditional formulations of experiences of that sort.  One inference I draw from this is that developmental unfolding has elements of a general structural nature that cut across social, cultural and temporal differences and distance.  These general elements, AKA commonalities, can in my mind be assigned something of an objective status.

On a slightly subtle level, to say these experiences do not prove or disclose metaphysical realities is I think merely to say those realities don't exist as realities in the way they claim to, so they cannot be proven on those terms, or at all.  But to say those realities do not exist is not to deny the efficacy of some other understanding.  The world does not go away, after all, and it has structure.  Structure, for its part, or order, is so general it can be seen to underlie any experience, including anything said about experience.  A theory of the structure of experience therefore seems to me a valid enterprise—and an enterprise having, if you will, a metaphysical foundation, if by metaphysics is meant that which is implied by anything at all.  This view of metaphysics is post-metaphysical in that it views metaphysical as inhering in any particular thing, element or concrete detail, as the flip side of a coin, but ultimately a coin with only one face.

Re: Privileged Access, the sequel

Hi Tom,
I'm not sure if your comments fall into line with what we have been discussing here, but they are related and follow from it, and I think you raise some very interesting issues that perhaps we could discuss in another thread — re: universality, objectivity, commonality of structure, and so on. This thread is on the verge of unwieldy anyway.