Lecture Archive – Footnotes2Plato

Lecture Archive – Footnotes2Plato




Lecture Archive

PARTICIPATORY KNOWING IN GOETHE AND WHITEHEAD: SCIENCE AND THE SOUL OF THE WORLD

GOETHE’S STUDY OF METAMORPHOSIS IN LIGHT, LEAF, AND BONE

A CARTOON INTRODUCTION TO WHITEHEAD’S ORGANIC COSMOLOGY

A DRUNK HISTORY OF TIME: THE EINSTEIN, BERGSON, WHITEHEAD DEBATES

ALTERED CONSCIOUSNESS AFTER DESCARTES: WHITEHEAD’S PHILOSOPHY OF ORGANISM AS PSYCHEDELIC REALISM

INTRODUCTION TO GERMAN IDEALISM


RUDOLF STEINER’S TWELVE VIEWS OF THE WORLD

THE BIRTH OF LIFE AND THE FUTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS WITH BRUCE DAMER

ASTROLOGY: ART, SCIENCE, OR RELIGION?

WORLD-ECOLOGY RESEARCH NETWORK CONFERENCE PRESENTATION ON WHITEHEAD AND MARX

LECTURE CLIPS ON SCHELLING & HEGEL FROM MY ONLINE COURSE “MIND AND NATURE IN GERMAN IDEALISM”

THE STATE OF CONTEMPORARY COSMOLOGY: INTRODUCTORY LECTURE FOR A SHORT COURSE AT SCHUMACHER COLLEGE


Lecture Playlist from Spring 2018 course “Process and Difference in the Pluriverse”

INTRODUCTION TO PROCESS PHILOSOPHY

DIAGRAMMING GERMAN IDEALISM (KANT, FICHTE, SCHELLING, & HEGEL)

CRITIQUE OF PURE FEELING: WHITEHEAD ON KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL AESTHETIC

THE INTERRUPTED IRRUPTION OF TIME: TOWARDS AN INTEGRAL COSMOLOGY, WITH HELP FROM BERGSON AND WHITEHEAD

RELIGION IN HUMAN AND COSMIC EVOLUTION: WHITEHEAD’S ALTERNATIVE VISION

WHITEHEAD’S NON-MODERN PHILOSOPHY: COSMOS AND POLIS AND THE PLURIVERSE

WAR OF THE WORLDS: LOVE AND STRIFE IN THE PLURIVERSE

MINDING TIME: CHRONOS, KAIROS, AND AION IN AN ARCHETYPAL COSMOS

EVOLUTIONARY PANPSYCHISM OR ELIMINATIVE MATERIALISM: TOWARDS AN ANTHRODECENTRIC PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE

PSYCHEDELICS AND THE EXTENDED MIND THESIS: THE ECOLOGIZATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

INTRODUCTION TO GERMAN IDEALISM/ROMANTICISM (PARTS 1 AND 2)







THE PSYCHEDELIC EUCHARIST: TOWARDS A PHARMACOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KANT’S AND SCHELLING’S PHILOSOPHIES OF NATURE

DISENCHANTMENT, MISENCHANTMENT, RE-ENCHANTMENT: A DIALOGUE WITH RICHARD TARNAS

EMERSON AND WHITEHEAD: TOWARDS A TRANSCENDENTALIST COSMOPOLITICS

WORLDLY RELIGION IN WHITEHEAD AND DELEUZE: STEPS TOWARD AN INCARNATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

COSMOPOLITICAL THEOLOGY: THE PUSH FOR A PLANETARY PEOPLE

DEMOCRACY AND INITIATION AT BURNING MAN: A COSMOTHEANDRIC INQUIRY

THE COPERNICAN ODYSSEY: FROM KANTIAN SKEPTICISM TO TARNASIAN PARTICIPATION


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Judy Frey
MAY 4, 2015 AT 7:57 AM


Where are any thoughts on Rudolf Steiner?
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Matthew David Segall
MAY 4, 2015 AT 1:30 PM


https://www.youtube.com/user/0ThouArtThat0/search?query=rudolf+steiner
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2108 The Mystical Experience - Friends Journal

The Mystical Experience - Friends Journal

The Mystical Experience
August 1, 2021
By Donald W. McCormick


Illustration by Donald W. McCormick.

===

Reclaiming a Neglected Quaker Tradition

Many influential Quakers, such as Rufus Jones, Marcelle Martin, and Howard Brinton, have seen mysticism as the heart of Quakerism. In her Pendle Hill Pamphlet Quaker Views on Mysticism, Margery Post Abbott wrote,

In the mid-1990s, I interviewed articulate Quakers from Britain, Philadelphia, and the Pacific Northwest, many holding major positions in monthly or yearly meetings. These sixty-plus Friends overwhelmingly agreed that ours is a mystical faith.

There’s no shortage of coverage of it in Friends Journal. Type “mystic” into the search box of the online archives, and you get 26 pages of links to articles and book reviews that refer to mystics, mysticism, and mystical experience.

Despite all this, Quakers who talk about their mystical experiences are sometimes met with indifference. They aren’t believed or get some other negative response. I spoke to one Friend who began to have mystical experiences after she started attending Quaker meeting. She obtained a clearness committee to help her understand what was going on, but its members were uncomfortable dealing with her experiences and shuffled her off to talk to a different standing committee.

Also, there is little about mystical experience in central, authoritative Quaker bodies and books. Britain Yearly Meeting and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting are the largest groups of Quakers in the northern hemisphere, but Britain Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice only has a few brief mentions of mystical experience, and Philadelphia’s Faith and Practice has even fewer. In the 565-page Oxford Handbook of Quaker Studies, there are 39 chapters by different authors; none of them is about mysticism. In the chapters, there is very little about mystical experience and nothing about the large scholarly literature on it. For a definitive academic study of a mystical religion, this is pretty casual treatment.

Viewing mystical experience as a spectrum from theistic to unitive makes room for the full range of mystical experience in Quakerism, does not suggest that one type is better than another, and provides a framework that can help us to benefit from decades of research on mystical experience.

The Range of Mystical Experiences

There are thousands of publications in the scholarly literature on mystical experience. A central figure in this literature is American psychologist Ralph Hood. He argues that there are two types of mystical experiences: theistic and unitive.

The theistic mystical experience (also called prophetic or numinous) is “an awareness of a ‘holy other’ beyond nature, with which one is felt to be in communion.” It may be called Krishna or God or Allah or Yahweh. It’s the direct experience of the Spirit or of God. In Quakerism, mystical experience is usually thought of in theistic terms. Hearing the still, small voice of the Spirit is an example of this. Theistic mystical experiences can take the form of visions or voices, as they did with George Fox. The most common venue for theistic mystical experiences is worship, where people feel the presence of the Spirit.

The unitive is the other type of mystical experience. It is the type that is usually studied by neuroscience and psychology researchers. Many scholars who do this research argue that a sense of oneness or unity is its defining characteristic. There are two kinds of unitive mystical experience in Hood’s model: introvertive and extrovertive.

In the introvertive unitive mystical experience, there is an overwhelming sense of oneness, but there are no thoughts, emotions, or perceptions. No sense of time, place, or self. And it’s ineffable; that is, it’s impossible to adequately convey in words.

In the extrovertive unitive mystical experience, the person “continues to perceive the same world of trees and hills and tables and chairs as the rest of us . . . but sees these items transfigured in such a manner that Unity shines through them,” according to British philosopher Walter Terence Stace, whose research on mystical experience formed the basis of much of Hood’s work. In this type, one’s sense of self merges with what one is perceiving. One may directly experience oneness with everything—with other Quakers at a gathered meeting or with the ocean. Someone in this state often perceives an inner subjectivity, an aliveness, in all things, even inanimate things such as a stone or sunset.

These qualities of mystical experience aren’t thoughts or ideas. One doesn’t think about or feel the oneness of everything; it is experienced directly. In a unitive mystical experience, emotions like joy, love, openheartedness, a sense of mystery, awe, reverence, or blissful happiness can arise later.

People often see their unitive mystical experience as a source of knowledge more valid than everyday reality, and feel the experience is sacred or divine. Some people say they were united with God or use other religious language to describe it.


Images by Shusha Guna.

===

Quaker Thinking about Mystical Experience

Contemporary Quaker works about mystical experience tend to be based on the work of writers from 70 to 100 years ago, such as William James or Rufus Jones. Being stuck in the ways they thought about mystical experience is a problem because we’ve learned a lot about it since then.

Take William James’s 1902 book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, the most influential work in the field. Some of his ideas have held up over time (the ineffability of the unitive mystical experience) while others have not (the idea that getting drunk could “stimulate the mystical faculties”).

Rufus Jones is the most influential Quaker writer on mysticism and one of the most influential figures in Quaker history. He is the primary source of the idea that Quakerism is an experiential, mystical religion. But according to Hugh Rock in a 2016 article in Quaker Studies, Jones was hostile to the unitive mystical experience and felt that it reflected an immature stage of religious development. Also, like William James, many of Jones’s ideas have been questioned by later research, such as his assertion that the unitive mystical experience is “a metaphysical theory voicing itself, not an experience.” Anyone who’s had a unitive mystical experience, myself included, knows that they are genuine experiences, not theories.

Unfortunately, almost all Quaker writings on mystical experience fail to mention developments in the study of it from recent decades. You rarely see any mention of current thinkers or discussion of contemporary debates.

Also, when I talk with fellow Quakers about the unitive view of mystical experience, the most common response is, “Oh? There’s another view? What is it?” Our isolated views result, in part, because we don’t talk much with Christian, Buddhist, Sufi, Jewish, or other mystics, or participate much in the discussion of mysticism that goes on around the world in books, scholarly journals, conferences, and the web.

All this limits our thinking about mystical experience and makes it out of date; we don’t benefit from new developments about it that come from the hundreds of studies published about mystical experience each year in neuroscience, psychology, religious studies, and philosophy.

Our insularity also means that scientists conduct research on Buddhist, Catholic, and other mystics, but not Quaker mystics, even though Quakerism is seen as a major Western mystical tradition. We Quakers have a lot to contribute to the literature on mystical experience, but our isolation prevents this.

People know that Quakers value mystical experience. We help people to have mystical experiences, to recognize their mystical experiences, and to make sense of them. As a result of all this, Quakerism has become a spiritual home for mystics in the West.

Reconciling Theistic and Unitive Views

Quaker writing about mystical experience tends to emphasize theistic mystical experience and de-emphasizes or ignores the unitive. But within Quakerism, we can reconcile theistic and unitive perspectives on mystical experience by thinking of different mystical experiences as falling on a spectrum: with purely theistic experiences at one end, purely unitive experiences at the other, and a mix of the two in the middle. What does a mixed mystical experience look like? Marcelle Martin offers a vivid example of one in a 2016 Pendle Hill talk accompanying her book Our Life is Love:


One night . . . I was walking under the stars and I suddenly knew that the stars were me. I was in the stars. That we were part of a oneness and that there was a light flowing through everything and connecting everything and I could feel it flowing through my body and out of my arms and out of my fingers into the world with great power. It wasn’t my power. It was like a power of this divine reality. It took me a few years before I could say, “That’s God” because it was so different from what my expectations of what God was like.

Like Marcelle Martin, sometimes people who have this experience don’t think of it in terms of God or the Spirit until long afterwards. That happened to me. I had an intense introvertive mystical experience, and it took me years to realize that the oneness I had experienced was “that of God” in me.

Viewing mystical experience as a spectrum from theistic to unitive makes room for the full range of mystical experience in Quakerism, does not suggest that one type is better than another, and provides a framework that can help us to benefit from decades of research on mystical experience.

The Uniquely Quaker Contribution to Mystical Experience

Howard Brinton wrote that “mystics generally think of [the experience of union] only as union with God, but the Quakers . . . think of it also as union with their fellow men.” This sense of union with others is most common in the gathered meeting for worship. Current research on mystical experience generally doesn’t include the Quaker group mystical experience. One of the rare exceptions is Stanford Searl’s research. He writes that a gathered meeting doesn’t represent some version of ecstatic experience of mystical oneness with all creation. . . . What it represents and signifies is heightened awareness of interconnections among one’s self, others in the worship setting, and others in the wider world.

Sometimes a group mystical experience can be unitive. You can see this in William Tabor’s classic Pendle Hill Pamphlet, Four Doors to Quaker Worship. In it, he says that in the gathered meeting “The sharp boundaries of the self can become blurred and blended as we feel ourselves more and more united with fellow worshipers and with the Spirit of God” and that this experience can bring “joy, peace, praise, and an experience of timelessness.”

Most writing on the Quaker group mystical experience is about the gathered meeting, but the group mystical experience also happens outside of worship. In The Gathered Meeting, Thomas Kelly writes of the sense of unity or oneness that can happen between Friends:

It occurs again and again that two or three individuals find the boundaries of their separateness partially melted down. . . . But after conversing together on central things of the spirit two or more friends who know one another at deep levels find themselves wrapped in a sense of unity and of Presence.

A Vision of the Future of Quakerism and Mystical Experience

My own mystical experiences and study of both Quakerism and mystical experience have led me to a vision for the future of Quaker mysticism. Imagine this scenario for ten years from now:

Copies of Faith and Practice and reference works talk more about mysticism, and Quaker scholars interact with the larger community of mysticism researchers and publish in non-Quaker journals.
People have group mystical experiences in gathered meetings for worship. Many people come to meeting and keep coming back because it’s the place where they have this deep experience. More and more people are becoming Quakers.

People in our meetings aren’t afraid to talk about their mystical experiences. They don’t fear that their fellow Quakers will say that their experiences are implausible, incomprehensible, or inconceivable. We understand and support people’s mystical experiences. We’ve expanded our idea of mystical experience to include unitive ones that may not have a theistic aspect to them. This makes room for the mystical experiences of nontheistic Quakers, who now experience a closer connection to the mystical center of Quakerism.

People know that Quakers value mystical experience. We help people to have mystical experiences, to recognize their mystical experiences, and to make sense of them. As a result of all this, Quakerism has become a spiritual home for mystics in the West.

Correction: Margery Post Abbott’s name was misspelled in the earlier online and in the print edition.

Donald W. McCormick

As a professor, Donald W. McCormick taught management, leadership, and psychology of religion. His interests include the scientific study of mysticism and Quakerism, and evidence-based methods for teaching mindfulness. He is co-clerk of Grass Valley Meeting in Nevada City, Calif., and director of education for Unified Mindfulness. Contact: donmccormick2@gmail.com.
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January 1 2022



David Castro
Bryn Mawr, PA, August 3, 2021 at 10:37 am


Thank you for this wonderful essay. I have always found the mystical element of Quakerism to be very important. I love your vision of how the mystical elements within Quakerism can be uplifted. There is something very powerful (and mystical) in the immediacy of silence and silent corporate worship. We carry the past with us in our memories, but a gathered meeting is also vitally present to the current moment and the experience of the light within the world, within ourselves, within others. It is a direct encounter with the spirit in which we have the opportunity for both theistic and unitive experiences!
Reply1

Priscilla Ppraeluso
Citrus heights Cap, August 6, 2021 at 12:45 pm


Well said.
Inspiring to this interested,
Outsider. I will be searching
Quakerism meetings when I Move to New England.
Thank you
Reply1

George Powell
Carmel Valley CA, August 30, 2021 at 5:40 pm


This essay is a great analysis of an ineffable subject. The categories of theistic and unitive mystical experience (and the sub-categories of introvert and extrovert for the latter) are useful for logically understanding this phenomenon. In my experience, all of these are experienced simultaneously, like united paradoxes.
Reply

George Powell
Carmel Valley CA, August 30, 2021 at 5:56 pm


Carl Jung wrote that the only experience of the Collective Unconscious in the world is found in the gathered or covered Quaker Meeting for Worship.
Reply

Kerry Shipman
Dorrigo NSW, September 2, 2021 at 12:18 am


Beautiful.
Reply

Rhonda Ashurst
Reno, Nevada, August 14, 2021 at 4:05 pm


I was happy to see this article on mystical experience in FJ this month! I am one of the editors of What Canst Thou Say (WCTS). WCTS has been sharing the personal stories of Quaker mystics for over twenty-five years through our quarterly publication. We also have an email listserv and blogs to foster sharing of mystical and contemplative experiences. I began writing for WCTS 15 years ago, when one of the editors found my writing and encouraged me to submit some of my pieces. It was through WCTS that I learned about Quaker faith and was ultimately drawn to Reno Friends Meeting. 

I felt like I finally found my tribe–others who had experiences like mine. You can find out more at our website: http://www.whatcanstthousay.org/. 

Friends are invited to request a free sample copy or send submissions for future issues. All varieties of mystical experience are welcomed and valued. You can also submit to our blog or sign up for the listserv through the website.
Reply2

schast
Philadelphia, PA, September 1, 2021 at 12:07 pm


I enjoy What Canst Thou Say.
Reply

donmccormick2
Grass Valley, CA, August 17, 2021 at 10:40 pm


I’m delighted by your post, Rhonda. I see we don’t live that far apart either. Did you by any chance attend the special interest group on mystical experience that I led at Pacific Yearly Meeting a few years back? I’m also glad that you mentioned What Canst Thou Say. To those who are unfamiliar with it, I can’t recommend it highly enough. In fact, partially in preparation for this article, I bought a copy of every back issue I could get–going back to 1994.
Reply1

Rhonda Ashurst
Reno, August 22, 2021 at 5:45 pm


I’m happy to hear that you are a reader of WCTS and that is has been helpful to you. I have only been going to Reno Friends Meeting since 2018, so I’m sorry I missed your group. We at WCTS are delighted by your article and thank you for writing it!
Reply1

Susann Estle
Danville, IN, August 30, 2021 at 12:02 pm


I, too, experience mysticism in a unitive fashion. I have often seen these experiences through the lenses of Native American or Indigenous spirituality – that the earth and all on it are interconnected, and yet there is “that of God in all” (not just humans). Quaker beliefs and practices help me practice equality and peace with this knowledge.
Reply1

donmccormick2
Grass Valley, CA, August 30, 2021 at 3:48 pm


That’s wonderful that you are having unitive experiences and that “the lenses of Native American or Indigenous spirituality” are ways that you find helpful in understanding mystical experience. Years ago, when I was trying to create a theory about spirituality in the workplace, I studied a variety of spiritual and religious traditions. One thing that I found that really impressed me was that certain cultures, such as the Navajo, are deeply spiritual but have no word for religion or the spiritual per se, in part because it is seen as such an integral part of life. If people don’t experience a separation between work and spirituality in the first place, a theory that looks at the degree to which work is more or less integrated with their spiritual lives is meaningless. I’m curious, do you engage in any Native American or Indigenous spiritual practices, like the sweat lodge or the sun dance?
Reply

friendmarcelle
Chester, PA, August 30, 2021 at 2:27 pm


Thank you for this wonderful article. I love the Vision of the Future of Quakerism and Mystical Experience. The author’s colorful illustration is amazing.
Reply1

Helen Meads
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire , August 30, 2021 at 6:31 pm


Here’s a link to a serious academic study of Quaker religious/spiritual/mystical experience, Don: https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/3076/1/Meads11PhD.pdf
Reply

George Schaefer
Glenside, PA, August 30, 2021 at 7:34 pm


Thank you, Don for your informative article and the reminder that Quakerism is, in fact, a mystical and experiential faith.

I agree with your assessment of the Oxford Book of Quaker Studies (2013.) The absence of any direct reference to the mystical Quaker religious experience is noticeable. While the editor (Stephen Angell) intended this volume to present Quakerism to the academic world, anyone searching for information, scholarly or otherwise, in this authoritative book, that explores in depth the bedrock Quaker conviction that spiritual knowing can only be found in a direct encounter with the divine, will have to look elsewhere.

The Cambridge Companion to Quakerism edited by Stephen Angell and Pink Dandelion and published in 2018 includes only one reference to mysticism in its index. It references the writing of Rufus Jones (Mystical Religion) published in the early twentieth century. While it states that Jones tried to locate Quakerism in the stream of Western mysticism, it claims that he drew heavily on American Transcendentalist thought and the early modern European mystics. There is no mention of the early Quaker mystical religious experience other than a brief reference to the idea of the Inward Light as central to Fox’s theology.

Again, it is the intention of the editors to present Quakerism to the wider-world and so the core religious and mystical experience that motivates Quakers to do what they do is not delved into. However, Pink Dandelion has published and spoken publicly about the profound mystical experience (extraverted unitive, to use your useful topology) he had as a young Englishman traveling in American. I know that Pink Dandelion is a sociologist and not a historian of religion. But he is a mystic! I hope in the future, as editor he will fix this lacuna in his presentation of Quakerism to those outside of the fold.

One corrective to this oversight is Mind the Oneness: The Mystic Way of the Quaker by Rex Ambler (PHP 463.) published in 2020. Rex’s pamphlet is based on a talk he gave to the Quaker Universalist Group at their annual conference in 2017. It “explores Quaker mysticism from the earliest years of George Fox to the present day.” Rex sees mysticism as part of the search for “ultimate reality” and authentic self hood: “a finding of oneness against the forces of separation and alienation, always in direct, unmediated experience.”

Ambler does make the caveat that mysticism is not a systematic endeavor. This is because the spiritual searching and the finding of a living truth to be guided by is not a static, step-wise process. It is a life long practice that unfolds as we engage with our world both inner and outer. I have experienced both introverted and extraverted unitive experiences (both theistic and non-theistic) at various times in my life. How this happened is a mystery, of course. But the glimpse of unity and the inner peace it brings leaves me with a thirst to know more.

And, for Ambler mysticism may involve protest. The Quaker mystic is often compelled to reconcile the unitive reality of our collective being with the social structures established by governments that attempt to separate (and thus alienate) people from their intuitive and noetic understanding of our common humanity as apart of the created world. To my mind, this is the basis of our equality testimony.

At the conclusion of Ambler’s pamphlet, he hopes that in the future the Quaker mystical vision will continue to be embodied in new and practical ways. Thanks again for raising up a topic so essential to our lives and work as Friends. I hope that the more we talk about this foundational aspect of our tradition the more appealing Quakers will be to those searching for a home (both theistic and non-theistic) where talking safely and respectfully about the mystical in the language of our present experience is welcomed.
Reply

donmccormick2
Grass Valley, California, August 31, 2021 at 4:32 pm


Dear George,
You wrote,
“Again, it is the intention of the editors to present Quakerism to the wider-world and so the core religious and mystical experience that motivates Quakers to do what they do is not delved into.”
“However, Pink Dandelion has published and spoken publicly about the profound mystical experience (extraverted unitive, to use your useful topology) he had as a young Englishman traveling in American. I know that Pink Dandelion is a sociologist and not a historian of religion.”
I once talked to a person from the field of sociology of religion and said that the field seems to study religion as if the existence of God was not a relevant question. They agreed that this was the case.
But he is a mystic! I hope in the future, as editor he will fix this lacuna in his presentation of Quakerism to those outside of the fold.
I suspect that the reason that mention of mystical experience is avoided in these books is that academics who are unfamiliar with the literature on mystical experience in neuroscience, psychology, history, and religious studies are embarrassed to write about it. There may confuse mystical experience with mysticism and there be anxiety that it would be like writing about something too intimately religious, or too new-age-wacky for academic study. I would very much like to know why they don’t include mystical experience in their books. But your comments made me realize that I don’t need to guess, I can just ask him via email. I think I will.
“Ambler does make the caveat that mysticism is not a systematic endeavor. This is because the spiritual searching and the finding of a living truth to be guided by is not a static, step-wise process. It is a life long practice that unfolds as we engage with our world both inner and outer. I have experienced both introverted and extraverted unitive experiences (both theistic and non-theistic) at various times in my life. How this happened is a mystery, of course. But the glimpse of unity and the inner peace it brings leaves me with a thirst to know more.”
I disagree with Ambler about this. I think that Buddhist and other disciplines are systematic and do lead to mystical experience. Also, the current research in the use of psylocibin and other psychedelic drugs can provide a system for it.
“And, for Ambler mysticism may involve protest. The Quaker mystic is often compelled to reconcile the unitive reality of our collective being with the social structures established by governments that attempt to separate (and thus alienate) people from their intuitive and noetic understanding of our common humanity as a part of the created world. To my mind, this is the basis of our equality testimony.”
That’s really beautifully put. I always wanted to have some buttons or t-shirts printed that said
Activist + Mystic = Quaker
But I’ve held back because I keep thinking it would offend some people, although I’m not exactly sure why.
“Thanks again for raising up a topic so essential to our lives and work as Friends.”
You’re welcome. I really enjoyed your comments.
Reply

Nola Landucci
August 30, 2021 at 11:42 pm


Theistic and unitive responses are different faces of the essentially mystic nature of creation in its essence, in themselves they are neither opposite nor in competition All vibrant spiritual systems are animated by and thru them, and ultimately united in the communion of the saints. Singing.
Reply

Kerry shipman
Dorrigo. New South Wales, August 31, 2021 at 1:41 am


Thank you for this wonderful article. I am a relatively newcomer to Quakers and after six months of regular meeting I feel as if I have been a Quaker all my life. I have always been drawn to the traditions of mysticism and feel sad about how it has been trivialized and exiled to the periphery by the very traditions that nurtured it and brought it into being. It as been hijacked by the esoteric blanket throwers and now is its time to reclaim its rightful place within the midst of community and the routines of every day life. St Teresa of Avila basically said the best way to distinguish between a neurotic and a genuine mystic is their ability to integrate into daily life of community. The heart of a mystical experience is to be grounded in the here and now.
I suspect at this time in our collective histories there are profound disintegrations of paradigms within the broad spectrum of Western culture and society aided and abetted by crass consumerism and radical individualism. The old reference points no longer give us direction – the old is dying but not yet dead and the new is coming to birth but not yet born. Perhaps the age of disconnection has run its course and humanity is ready to reach out for a connection that embraces us in mutual relationships grounded in stillness and silence.
In the silence of our meetings I experience the most profound embrace of Presence and connection and I don’t think we will have to wait too long to recover something we already have in abundance.
Reply

donmccormick2
Grass Valley, CA, August 31, 2021 at 4:35 pm


Kerry, I sincerely hope you are right about not having to wait too long. – Don
Reply

Sandra Palmer
Vienna, VA, August 31, 2021 at 1:28 pm


Thank you, Donald, for bringing forward the essence of Quaker practice, for our examination. I believe mystical experience is not meant to be mysteriously available only for a special few. It is meant to be commonplace and available to everyone. Reinforced in Meeting for Worship and other gatherings but also available while washing dishes or pulling up weeds. The more experience I have, the fewer useful distinctions I can make. That state of being really is ineffable. Yet we need to talk about it in order to provide validation for folks who may not understand what is happening, or has happened, to them. And because we need to know that one’s spiritual experience can–and should–develop, grow, and change. The One in whose oneness we participate does also instruct.

As a Quaker, I recommend also investigating the writings of Evelyn Underhill, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and T.S.Eliot. Each of them has provided invaluable validation of my experience and opened doors to more, despite being no longer with us.
Reply

Chris King
Ojai, CA, August 31, 2021 at 2:26 pm


The word “mystical” puts me off. I prefer ‘transcendent’ because such experiences are greater than ordinary ones, but they don’t *necessarily*signify that I have communicated with some higher power. This is the puzzle to me—why people assume their experience of connecting with a higher power means they have in fact done so. As an author and artist I know that the experience of ‘outside’ can come from inside (though some would argue that ‘genius’ is something visited upon us.) I see visions nightly in my dreams. I can be ‘transported’ by sexual ecstasy or drugs or even exhaustion. What is curious to me is the strong human desire to be larger than ourselves. Why do we see some prophet’s dream as some greater truth rather than just some personal ‘trip’ that they enjoyed? Personal or prophetic, I guess we see transcendence as the antidote to that other deep vision the full knowledge of our own and our loved ones’ decay and death.
Reply

Kerry Shipman
Dorrigo NSW, September 1, 2021 at 2:47 am


Dear Chris,
I tend to agree and l think we need to grapple a little longer before we find descriptive words that resonate with the Western mind set.
One of our problems with the term mysticism is it implies a disconnection from the ordinary events of day to day living. The same can be said regarding Mystic. Mystery tends to be interpreted as a problem to be solved.
We have lost our capacity to recognise the mysterium as a reality to be penetrated with openess and curiosity. The insights gained by the individual experience is always for the benefit of the community.
I suspect there is a recalibration of significant paradigms taking place within our cultural and social fields placing our familiar reference points in a state of flux. The old is dying but not yet dead and the new is coming to birth but not yet born.
For me, the concreteness of ‘Now’ centres me within this state of flux, for the past is always present within the Now and actions to change the future are anchored in the Now. Perhaps mysticism may teach us the language of actions rather than words “…..for the word killeth.”
The Light lives within me/us, reverberates within me/us, and radiates from me/us as me/us.
Reply

David Leonard
Kennett Square, PA, August 31, 2021 at 3:47 pm


Thanks for this useful article.

One important Quaker thinker on mysticism who has been missed in this discussion is Douglas Steere. He was the Haverford colleague of Thomas Kelly and editor of the latter’s important TESTAMENT OF DEVOTION. He also was well connected personally across denominational and faith boundaries to other mystic leaders — Catholic, sufi, etc. He saw Quakerism as a lay mystical religious order within the larger, ecumenical church. Perhaps for that reason most of his longer work was published outside the world of Quakerism, even though he was deeply involved with Pendle Hill for many years. His 1984 edited volume on QUAKER SPIRITUALITY was published by the Paulist Press and much of his work on prayer was published by a Methodist press. The latter does a good job of bridging between mysticism and more conventional devotional spirituality.

Much of what appears to be the short shrift given to mysticism in “official” Quaker publications is due to the fact that those experiencing it often use other language for their experiences. George Fox spoke of “openings;” Issac Pennington and John Woolman also had direct divine “leadings.” There is no shortage of references to these leaders and their clearly mystical experiences in the multiple versions of FAITH AND PRACTICE.
Reply

donmccormick2
Grass Valley, CA, August 31, 2021 at 4:39 pm


I know of one accomplished mystic who explained to me that when you are no longer identified with a particular body or person, but instead identify with the entire universe, that the death of the individual self is no longer something that is to quite be so feared.
Reply

schast
Philadelphia, PA, September 1, 2021 at 12:21 pm


Thanks for (re) starting the discussion. I’ve found it helpful to think of mysticism in tandem with “terminal screens” (Kenneth Burke, 1966)–though I’ve expanded the concept, I think, in accepting how I experience mystically. For example, I might hear Jesus’ voice and God’s voice, but I know mentally, physically–and all ways of knowing–that these two ideas/entities don’t have “voice.” It’s as if–along with all the other languages of Babel–‘what-is-experience’ seeks a channel through which I will receive. That channel may be similar or different to how others experience, it may be a group experience, it may be familiar, it may be surprising and new. When we factor communication in with experience, I believe we expand the idea of mysticism and help individuals to see that they may have been mystics all along.
Reply

donmccormick2
Grass Valley, California, September 4, 2021 at 11:04 pm


That’s a very good point you make about the way that the Spirit communicates with us. If God or Jesus or the Spirit does communicate with us, it must be through some way that we can receive it. I’m reminded of people who dismiss religious experience as “just” something physical or neurological or biological. As if there is some form of communication that has no sensory or physical component to it. These people also remind me of the story of the holy man who is caught in a flood. His neighbor pulls up in a car and offers to give him a ride to safety. He replies, “No thanks. I have prayed and God will provide.” The water gets up to his neck and someone else comes up in a boat and offers to help. The man says, “No thanks. I have prayed and God will provide.” The man drowns and when he meets God in heaven, he asks God why his prayers weren’t answered. God replies, “I don’t understand either. I heard your prayers and I sent your neighbor in a car. Then I sent someone in a boat…”
Reply

Aaron J Freeman
New Haven, CT, September 1, 2021 at 12:44 pm


The six days of Labor, Commerce and Obligations, potentiate the seventh day of Rest. To understand the mystical nature of The Quaker Religion, it would help to understand the mystical nature of the Sabbath: you are going to die, which ultimately beats the alternative; The Sabbath is a good rehearsal for this; Quaker Meeting supercharges The Sabbath; Meeting is no more the whole of The Quaker Religion, than The Hinge is the whole of The Door. The experience of Reality should be a mystical act.
Reply

Kerry shipman
Dorigo NSW, September 3, 2021 at 12:42 am


I think the Sabbath is celebrated on Saturday and belongs uniquely in the Jewish tradition. Christians chose the first day of the week (Sunday) as it represented new beginnings in the light of the resurrection.
Reply

D Lockyer
Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK, September 4, 2021 at 5:33 pm


Thank you for this article. I have been engaged in the study of the actual relationship between C G Jung and a group of Quakers who were in Geneva in the 1930s, and how they disseminated their transformed understanding of Quakerism as a mystical, experiential and experimental religion that resulted.
The key members of that group, Irene Pickard, Elined Kotschnig (who played a leading role in the Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology), P W Martin (who wrote the book Experiment in Depth), and his wife Margery, created an archive of materials which Irene Pickard fortunately preserved.
They knew Rufus Jones, Howard Brinton and Douglas Steere, and like them, laid great stress on the mystical tradition within Quakerism, which for them was given extra zest by what they saw as the psychological underpinning provided by Jung.
The resultant work is currently with a publisher.
Reply

Irreducible Mind - Wikipedia

Irreducible Mind - Wikipedia

Irreducible Mind

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Irreducible Mind

Author	Edward F. Kelly Emily Williams Kelly Adam Crabtree Alan Gauld Michael Grosso Bruce Greyson
Published	2007 Rowman & Littlefield
Pages	800 pp.
ISBN	9780742547926

Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century is a 2007 psychological book by Edward Francis Kelly, Emily Williams Kelly, Adam Crabtree, Alan Gauld, Michael Grosso, and Bruce Greyson.^[1] It attempts to bridge contemporary cognitive psychology and mainstream neuroscience with "rogue phenomena", which the authors argue exist in near-death experiences, psychophysiological influence, automatism, memory, genius, and mystical states.^[1]

The authors' approach repudiates the conventional theory of human consciousness as a material epiphenomenon that can be fully explained in terms of physical brain processes and advances the mind as an entity independent of the brain or body. They advance an alternative "transmission" or "filter" theory of the mind-brain relationship. In doing so they explain how dualism^{[disambiguation needed]} may be a more fundamental theory that rejects a materialistic perspective of consciousness. Other books which advocate dualism like this book include “The Oxford Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality” published by Oxford University Press and “From the Knowledge Argument to Mental Substance: Resurrecting the Mind” published by Cambridge University Press and “Exploring Frontiers of the Mind-Brain Relationship” published by Springer.

Contents

• 1Authors
• 2Contents
• 3Reception
• 4See also
• 5References
• 6External links

Authors[edit]

The authorship of the book is diverse, with representatives from the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.^[2] The book is interdisciplinary in that the authors also come from various fields of psychology, science studies, and psychical research.^[3] Lead author Edward F. Kelly is Professor of Research in the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.^[4]

Contents[edit]

The book begins by presenting a brief overview of contemporary neuroscience followed by a summary of the approach to scientific psychology proposed by Frederic W. H. Myers. Myers (and William James) posited that a "true science of mind should seriously take into account all kinds of human experiences before prematurely accepting a theory of mind". Kelly argues that modern psychology has continued, contrary to the advise by Myers and James, to ignore phenomena from psychical research and religious experience simply because they don't fit into the prevalent views of mind.^[2]

The book endorses phenomena related to psychosomatic medicine, placebo effects, near-death experiences, mystical experiences, and creative genius, to argue for a "strongly dualistic theory of mind and brain".^[3] Irreducible Mind depicts the mind as an entity independent of the brain or body, with which it causally interacts and the death of which it survives.^[3] The book "challenges neuroscientific reductionism"^[5] as it argues that properties of minds cannot be fully explained by those of brains.^[2]

The book is broken into 9 sections followed by an introductory bibliography on psychical research and 100 pages of references.

• Chapter 1: A View from the Mainstream: Contemporary Cognitive Neuroscience and the Consciousness Debates
• Chapter 2: F. W. H. Myers and the Empirical Study of the Mind-Body Problem
• Chapter 3: Psychophysiological Influence
• Chapter 4: Memory
• Chapter 5: Automatism and Secondary Centers of Consciousness
• Chapter 6: Unusual Experiences Near Death and Related Phenomena
• Chapter 7: Genius
• Chapter 8: Mystical Experience
• Chapter 9: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century

Reception[edit]

Andreas Sommer writing in Journal of Mind and Behavior after providing a complete review of the book content, praised the work for its thoroughness in addressing its multidisciplinary subject and "a constructively critical and genuinely scientific tone and spirit" maintained by the authors throughout the work. Sommer argued that "the book has the potential to serve as an invaluable guide for psychologists and other scholars who are aware of the increasing crisis and lack of orientation within modern academic psychology."^[6]

Critics writing in the American Journal of Psychology had a generally negative review of the work. They objected to some inaccuracies and omissions in the lead author's representation of history of physicalism. They also objected to what they see as lack of specifications in Edward F. Kelly's representation of the mind–body problem that the book's authors claim to offer a solution to, some ambiguities in their proposed dualist "receiver theory" of mind-brain interaction as well as ignoring plausible versions of the type identity theory that they refute in their work. The critics also highlight what they see as the authors' failure to elaborately cite empirical evidences from alleged paranormal phenomena to support their theory and instead referring readers for specifics of the evidence to the large bibliography of psychical literature listed in the book's appendix. They also pointed to the controversial nature of the psi phenomena and discounted the authors' references to them (such as near-death experiences) on the ground that they are anecdotal.^[3]

Lead author Edward F. Kelly writing in the American Journal of Psychology in response to his critics stated that “the empirical inadequacies of physicalism are evident whether one takes the results of psychical research seriously or not” and that other phenomena discussed in the book such as psychophysiological influences and mystical experiences are enough to show that physicalism is false.^[7]

The critics in their rejoinder found an irony in Kelly's justification for the shortcomings that they perceived in the historical background of the work considering the authors' inclusion of a CD-ROM copy of the Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death by F.W.H. Myers as a companion to the book as well as having "a long chapter (by Emily Kelly) on the history of psi and related research since the 19th century." They insisted that the authors' too "broad and oversimplified" description of physicalism made it difficult to understand what specific doctrine is allegedly refuted by their empirical research.^[8]

Clinical neurologist Sebastian Dieguez argued that the book is "painstakingly redundant, astoundingly arrogant in its claims and intents". Dieguez wrote that the authors of Irreducible Mind took reports of paranormal phenomena and wild claims at face value, utilized "quantum babble" and formed an ignorant "soul of the gaps" argument.^[9]

Alexander Moreira-Almeida, reviewing the book in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease praised the authors "for their courage and scholarship in dealing with such a controversial topic" and presenting thought-provoking ideas for the mind-body problem while stating that a wider transcultural scope and views by experts in philosophy of science would have been also useful.^[2]

Paul Marshal writing in Journal of Consciousness Studies described the book a monumental work with far-reaching revolutionary ambitions, "a heavyweight intellectual contribution that will be indispensable to those interested in late nineteenth-century reactions to scientific naturalism, to investigators of anomalous experiences, and to students of consciousness studies on the lookout for stimulating data and ideas."^[5]

See also[edit]

• The Conscious Mind
• Extra-Sensory Perception
• Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind
• Varieties of Anomalous Experience
• Quantum flapdoodle

References[edit]

1. ^ Jump up to:^a b Edward F. Kelly; Emily Williams Kelly; Adam Crabtree; Alan Gauld; Michael Grosso; Bruce Greyson (2007). Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-4792-6. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
2. ^ Jump up to:^a b c d Alexander Moreira-Almeida. Book Review: Irreducible Mind Archived 2010-11-29 at the Wayback Machine. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Volume 196, Number 4, April 2008, pp. 345-346.
3. ^ Jump up to:^a b c d Mitchell G. Ash, Horst Gundlach, Thomas Sturm. Book Review: Irreducible Mind?. American Journal of Psychology, Volume 123, Number 2, Summer 2010, pp. 246-250
4. ^ Edward Francis Kelly, Ph.D. Division of Perceptual Studies, University of Virginia.
5. ^ Jump up to:^a b Paul Marshall. Book Review: Irreducible Mind Archived 2010-11-23 at the Wayback Machine. Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vol. 14, No. 11, 2007, pp. 125-128.
6. ^ Andreas Sommer. (2008). E. F. Kelly, E. W. Kelly, A. Crabtree, A. Gauld, M. Grosso, and B. Greyson: Irreducible Mind. Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 29, pp. 359-370.
7. ^ "Yes, Irreducible". The American Journal of Psychology. University of Illinois Press. 124 (1): 111. 2011. doi:10.5406/amerjpsyc.124.1.0111. ISSN 0002-9556.
8. ^ Mitchell G. Ash, Horst Gundlach, Thomas Sturm. A Cross-Disciplinary Misunderstanding: Reply to Kelly. American Journal of Psychology, Volume 124, Number 1, Spring 2011, p. 112
9. ^ Dieguez, Sebastian. (2008). The Soul of the Gaps. (Review of Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century by Edward F. Kelly, Emily Williams Kelly, Adam Crabtree, Alan Gauld, Michael Grosso, and Bruce Greyson). Skeptic 15: 75-77.

External links[edit]

• The Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

hide v t e Parapsychology
Outline
Topics	Apparitional experience Astral projection Auras Bilocation Clairvoyance Deathbed phenomena Dermo-optical perception Dream telepathy Ectoplasm Electronic voice phenomenon Extrasensory perception Ganzfeld experiment Ghosts Kirlian photography Levitation Materialization Mediumship Near-death experience Orb Out-of-body experience Pam Reynolds case Parapsychology research at SRI Past life regression Plant perception (paranormal) Poltergeist Precognition Psychic Psychic detective Psychic reading Psychic surgery Psychokinesis Psychometry Pyrokinesis Reincarnation Remote viewing Retrocognition Second sight Sensory leakage Spoon bending Telepathy Thoughtography Xenoglossy Zener cards
Active organizations	American Society for Psychical Research Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena College of Psychic Studies Institut Métapsychique International Institute of Noetic Sciences International Association for Near-Death Studies Koestler Parapsychology Unit Parapsychological Association Parapsychology Foundation Rhine Research Center Society for Psychical Research The Ghost Club
Defunct organizations	American Psychical Institute British College of Psychic Science Cambridge Ghost Society International Club for Psychical Research International Institute for Psychical Research London Dialectical Society Metropolitan Psychical Society National Laboratory of Psychical Research Oxford Phasmatological Society Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory Society for the Study of Supernormal Pictures
People	List of parapsychologists Skeptics of parapsychology
Publications	An Experiment with Time Extrasensory Perception Irreducible Mind Journal of Near-Death Studies Journal of Parapsychology Journal of Scientific Exploration Life After Life (Moody book) Life Before Life Mental Radio Old Souls: The Scientific Evidence For Past Lives Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind The Roots of Coincidence Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation Varieties of Anomalous Experience
Category  Commons

Categories: 

• 2007 non-fiction books
• Books about the paranormal
• Neuroscience books
• Parapsychology
• Philosophy of mind literature
• Dualism (philosophy of mind)
• Theory of mind

==

Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century 1st Edition

by Edward Kelly (Author), Emily Williams Kelly (Author)

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Current mainstream opinion in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind holds that all aspects of human mind and consciousness are generated by physical processes occurring in brains. Views of this sort have dominated recent scholarly publication. The present volume, however, demonstrates empirically that this reductive materialism is not only incomplete but false. The authors systematically marshal evidence for a variety of psychological phenomena that are extremely difficult, and in some cases clearly impossible, to account for in conventional physicalist terms. Topics addressed include phenomena of extreme psychophysical influence, memory, psychological automatisms and secondary personality, near-death experiences and allied phenomena, genius-level creativity, and 'mystical' states of consciousness both spontaneous and drug-induced. The authors further show that these rogue phenomena are more readily accommodated by an alternative 'transmission' or 'filter' theory of mind/brain relations advanced over a century ago by a largely forgotten genius, F. W. H. Myers, and developed further by his friend and colleague William James. This theory, moreover, ratifies the commonsense conception of human beings as causally effective conscious agents, and is fully compatible with leading-edge physics and neuroscience. The book should command the attention of all open-minded persons concerned with the still-unsolved mysteries of the mind.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

pp. 153 of Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife, Simon & Schuster, 2012

For those still stuck in the trap of scientific skepticism, I recommend the book Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century, published in 2007. The evidence for out-of-body consciousness is well presented in this rigorous scientific analysis. Irreducible Mind is a landmark opus from a highly reputable group, the Division of Perceptual Studies, based at the University of Virginia. The authors provide an exhaustive review of the relevant data, and the conclusion is inescapable: these phenomena are real, and we must try to understand their nature if we want to comprehend the reality of our existence.

-- Eben Alexander III, MD, Neurosurgeon and author of Proof of Heaven and The Map of Heaven

The authors have not only plausibly argued that the empirical and conceptual horizon of science, particularly the science of the human mind, is both capable and in dire need of expansion, but―and I use this strong term deliberately―they have proven it. -- Andreas Sommer, junior research fellow in history and philosophy of science, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, Journal Of Mind and Behavior

[A] comprehensive review of empirical evidence that questions the assumption that 'properties of minds will ultimately be fully explained by those of brains.'. . . Kelly et al. deserve to be praised for their courage and scholarship in dealing with such a controversial topic. -- Alexander Moreira-Almeida Harold Koenig, Duke University, Journal Of Nervous and Mental Disease

Thoroughly scientific, systematically reasoned and courageous. . . as exciting and enjoyable as it is provocative and profound! -- David J. Hufford, Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Psychiatry, Penn State College of Medicine

Irreducible Mind is an enormous and daring enterprise. Its scholarship is impressive. . . and made me think long and hard about many issues. -- Etzel Cardeña, Professor of Psychology, Lund University, PsycCRITIQUES

[A] must-read for anyone working in consciousness studies, psychology and the history of science. -- Jonathan Edelman, Oxford University

[A] monumental work. . . . Only a very resistant observer will remain unpersuaded that a proportion, as least, of all this carefully evaluated data presents a significant challenge to conventional views. -- Paul Marshall, PhD, BSc, RGN, RMN, Journal of Consciousness Studies

[A] sustained, sophisticated, and empirically based critique of contemporary cognitive psychology and mainstream neuroscience. . . the implications for the study of mind, consciousness, and religion border on the unspeakable. -- Jeffrey J. Kripal, Rice University, Religious Studies Review

[B]rilliant, heroic and astonishing . . . a scientifically rigorous and philosophically informed critique of various contemporary orthodoxies in mainstream psychology, especially the idea that the human mind (including consciousness and our sense of free will and personal agency) is nothing more than a material entity and can be fully explained in terms of brain processes. -- Richard A. Shweder, Harold Higgins Swift Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago

Irreducible Mind [is] yet another book on the mind-body problem. However, this book is different, very different, from all the rest... In the future history of the science of mind, Irreducible Mind may well prove a book of landmark significance, one that helped spark a revolution in the scientific investigation of the nature of consciousness... In the arena of neuroscience of mind, it is the most exciting reading to have crossed my path in years. -- David E. Presti, Professor of Neurobiology, University of California-Berkeley, Professor of Neurobiology, University of California-Berkeley

Irreducible Mind is well written, detailed, and passionately argued, and should be central to parapyschology for some years to come. Its great value is that it helps to close the gap between the conventional view of mind on the one hand, and on the other, responsible research into phenomena which are utterly antithetical to that view. In that sense, it greatly advances the process that Myers began more than a century ago, but was so rudely interrupted by behaviourism and the virtual outlawing of consciousness as a scientific entity., Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, July 2009

The author's sincerity and the extent of their labors are beyond question., American Journal of Psychology, Summer 2010

About the Author

Edward F. Kelly is currently research professor in the Department of Psychiatric Medicine at the University of Virginia. He is author of Computer Recognition of English Word Senses and Altered States of Consciousness and Psi: An Historical Survey and Research Prospectus. His central long term interests revolve around mind-brain relations and functional neuroimaging studies of unusual states of consciousness and associated cognitive phenomena. Emily Williams Kelly is currently research assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatric Medicine at the University of Virginia. Adam Crabtree is currently on the faculty of the Centre for Training in Psychotherapy, Toronto. Alan Gauld is a retired reader in psychology, School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, as well as past president of the Society for Psychical Research. Bruce Greyson is the Chester F. Carlson Professor of Psychiatry and director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia. Michael Grosso, though nominally retired, is currently teaching at the University of Virginia's School of Continuing Education. He is currently a director of the American Philosophical Practitioner's Association and Review Editor of the Journal of Philosophical Practice.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1442202068

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; 1st edition (November 16, 2009)

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Paperback ‏ : ‎ 832 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781442202061

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1442202061

Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.85 pounds

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.11 x 1.89 x 9.09 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #101,828 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

#5 in Logic (Books)

#19 in Medical Psychology Research

#27 in Neuropsychology (Books)

Customer Reviews: 4.4 out of 5 stars    187 ratings

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william james irreducible mind near death kindle version edward kelly quantum mechanics death experiences psi phenomena years ago human personality mystical experience cognitive neuroscience henry stapp mind-body problem must read near-death experiences empirical evidence emily kelly mind and the brain highly recommend

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Rach67

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Have For Any Seeker

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2020

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I bought this book several years ago after reading a Near Death Account by Dr. Ebin Alexander. I’ve spent my entire life immersed in science as a biology teacher and had reached a point in which after a lifetime of trauma I considered myself Agnostic. I could not confirm nor would I deny the existence of God though I certainly was opposed (and still am) to traditional religious beliefs. I’ve always been very spiritual but could not buy into the narratives presented by most religions. Then I faced yet another horrific tragedy. In 2012 my 22 year old gifted son shot himself in the head in my home without any warning. This further cemented my belief that there is no God acting in our lives. However, slowly over a period of years I had so many unexplainable experiences and mystic experiences that I could not deny that my path was being directed. There were just too many “random” encounters to have statistically been considered random. This still occurs today. I’ve been in a spiritual awakening. This book came into my life as part of that awakening. I’m a scientist. I needed evidence. I literally had no idea that such a volume of research existed as is shared in this text. I just want to note that this book is not bedside reading. It is 800 pages of graduate level scientific research on the topic of continued consciousness or what some might call life after death. Much of this research stems out of the University of Virginia so it is academic in nature. The book compiles research on Near Death Experiences, Death Bed Visions, Mystic experiences, genius and more. I used it as reference in my own book that I hoped would help parents devastated by the loss of a child to suicide. This book was both literally and figuratively a God send. I will never try to persuade someone to adhere to my spiritual beliefs, not only because I am the first to profess that I nor anyone else truly knows all of the truth, but because I do know that until you suspend belief in everything and discover your own truth, you will always have doubt. So if you find yourself in that position and happen to be a seeker of your truth, this book may be for you (if you possess the vocabulary and academic background to understand it. ). I’m about to purchase it again as a gift for my personal psychologist. I plan to keep mine for further books I hope to write some day.

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J. Clarkson

5.0 out of 5 stars First Person Experience: Yes, Psi Is Real

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2015

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I'm going to approach this book from a slightly different perspective. In the past year, I've had both a precognition (beyond any doubt) and a mystical experience (meeting all seven criteria for an introverted mystical experience set forth by W.T. Stace, and summarized in Chapter 8 in Irreducible Mind).

Up till December 21st, 2014, I had many things happen to me that I could not explain. They seemed to converge on psi abilities, or any of the related phenomena. I talked to a lot of people, read a lot of books. I was leaning towards belief, but as a raging introvert I needed irrefutable proof to believe any of it. For me, that proof was an out of body experience, so I spent a good bit of time meditating and trying to induce an OBE. No go.

And then December 21st, 2014. Alone at night, driving home from a friend's house, on a two lane road in the country, I come upon a curve at 55 MPH. Suddenly, to my upper left, as if superimposed on a screen overlaying my windshield and roof, I see a deer. It is lit flatly, sort of a dull beige. It is facing left, with its head down. Deer, my brain says. I slow from 55 to 10, for no good reason other than "deer". Five seconds later, as I round the blind corner (it is in the woods, and the sides of the road are banked) I see the EXACT DEER in front of me: lit precisely like my vision, facing the same direction as my vision. The exact same in every single detail as my vision. The deer lifts its head, looks at me, and saunters off the road to my right. I immediately called my wife. You'll never guess what happened to me. She does of course, because she thinks this happens to me all of the time. I am more of a skeptic though. But this time, I can't dodge it. It happened, and I can't explain it away. It happened, and it was precognition.

My mystical event happened on March 25th, 2015. It was in a dream, but it wasn't a dream, I don't think. I could copy and paste the entry from my dream journal, but it would utterly fail to convey the experience. It remains the singular most astounding thing I've ever encountered in my 43 years of (this) existence.

I picked up Irreducible Mind about four years ago in an attempt to explain some things that were happening to me. It was a form of solace, knowing that perhaps you aren't crazy, and that reputable scientists and researchers also believe similar things, and that others have experienced the very same things you have. I was still doubtful four years ago (I could explain most things as coincidence, or find a rational explanation) but the book gave me a bit of courage to keep exploring and researching.

Now, on the "other side", Irreducible Mind has given me validation. I believe. I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that F.W.H Myers was completely on the ball. Psi phenomena are real. Trust me, I've been there. Hell, I am there. I'm a fairly smart guy. I refuse to be duped. It took my own personal experiences to convince me. BUT. I just read the chapter on mystical experiences last night, and I cried when I found my experience mapped neatly to Stace's features of introspective mystical experience. (Four years ago, I thought this chapter was a bit far-fetched.) Validation is a beautiful thing. Not being alone is a beautiful thing.

Anyway. Well. I'm not here to convince you one way or another about the reality of psi phenomena. I will say, if you are curious, on the fence, or going through something you can't explain, pick this book up. It can help.

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T Shannon Doyle

5.0 out of 5 stars A game changer

Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2018

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This weighty tome constitutes a final stake in the heart of reductive physicalism. It’s easy for me to know because I’ve had numerous and often shared experiences which cannot be explained by physicalism. This book isnt very scholarly and I just opened it at random for a while, and soon it gripped me and I read it cover to cover, a lot of it twice. This is one of the very best books I’ve read- William James would be proud, as he still stands ahead of modern theories.

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5.0 out of 5 stars A bold, liberating, eye-opening, paradigm-shifting book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 31, 2013

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This is a courageous, ground-breaking book; but more significantly it is almost certainly a promise of things to come. The authors are a group of academics from Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychology departments (with the exception of Michael Grosso who comes from a more philosophical background) who have the distinction - rare in such environments - of being characterised by one overriding ambition: to take the mind seriously as mind. In their view it merits nothing less and they are determined not to submit to the common knee-jerk practice of pronouncing the mind to be `nothing but' matter.

Their basic assumptions are that scientific psychology is not at all well served by following the materialistic-naturalistic agenda of reducing all mental phenomena to the complicated operations of the neural mass in the skull. Indeed it is their view that this agenda has resulted in a kind of reductio ad absurdum within the discipline in which the practitioners of the method, writers such as the Churchlands, Dennett, Pinker, Hofstadter, Freeman, Wegner etc., despite the modish allure of their theories and the optimistic talk of a `computational theory of mind', have actually succeeded in the absurd project of pronouncing themselves non-existent. No bad thing, one may say; but this does not prevent the materialistic theory of mental function peddled by such high-profile ideologues from being the most dominant view of mind in academic circles. Academic psychology manages to live with the almost farcical situation in which we are supposed to believe inconsistent propositions of the following type:

- that the persistent conviction human beings have always entertained, and continue to entertain, about the reality of consciousness is, `in reality', a delusion;

- that the investigators of human consciousness are themselves likewise deluded, but emerging from their delusion by means of their `discoveries';

- that these investigators are `in fact' unconscious along with every other apparently conscious being despite becoming conscious of their unconsciousness through their theories;

- that the theories elaborated by such investigators not only arise from unconscious activity, however much they may broaden consciousness, but are themselves held unconsciously;

- that this unprovable `truth' is true, despite the fact - for fact it is - that no-one either inside or outside of their little coterie seriously believes anything of what they say;

- and that life, human relations, planning, intention, moral decision-making, self-awareness, empathy etc... etc. are impossible if one genuinely believes their tenets, indeed that believing and living by them would be psychopathic or psychotic.

The authors of this collection of essays will have none of all this stuff. They begin from the premise that psychology lost its way once the `matter' branch of the Cartesian bifurcation was enthusiastically pursued to the complete exclusion of the `mind' branch. They believe that the works of writers such as Frederick Myers, William James and Alfred North Whitehead among others, are not only worth rediscovering but stand in vital need of rediscovery. Thus they take seriously the entire range of mental phenomenology from the mere irrefutability of self-awareness, clear to everyone, to such `rogue' phenomena as near-death experiences, out-of-the-body experiences, reincarnation, telepathy, telekinesis, genius and so on. They neither prejudge such things nor do they pronounce them to be impossible on the basis of slavish adherence to the dogma of materialism.

The fact that such matters have preoccupied the human family for millennia means that there is a wealth of material on which to work; and the authors are determined to explore this material in a purely empirical manner, without credulous acceptance and without materialistic bias or behaviouristic preconception, in the belief not only that there is something in it, but that developments in modern quantum physics have made the business of examining such phenomena scientifically that much more credible.

These brave psychologists are to be thanked and congratulated for sticking their heads above the parapet and daring to declare in the face of academic totalitarianism and vested interest that the emperor has no clothes. The `no mind' theory of mind is a patent absurdity, whose absurdity is not diminished by means of the impressive scientific paraphernalia with which it is promulgated. The authors of this collection have simply woken up to the human reality of the situation and realised that there is a whole world of potentially paradigm-shifting discovery to be made by the application of genuine, open-minded - as opposed to doctrinaire - scientific investigations to the true range and true wealth of documented human experience.

The materialistic dogma is ripe for destruction. It works for technology but literally leads nowhere in psychology. This book deserves a wide readership, for it dares to take on an entrenched establishment, determined to diminish humanity, in the interest of normal human experience in all its variety and richness.

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DC Bickersteth

4.0 out of 5 stars Can the mind exist outside the body?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 12, 2018

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A very thorough look, very technical, on the mind and conscience personality with the conviction that the mind can be independent of the material brain, so the possibility of many psychic phenomena are examined. The book is made up of long chapters written by sympathetic psychologists in their field of interest. I confess to skipping much of their detailed phesis and jumping to the documented evidence. If the argument of this book holds water then we see a convergence between science and spirituality which is of the highest importance in a reductionist materialistic age.

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J. Locke

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written but for the serious student!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 18, 2015

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I am a retired research chemist with experience also in computing. Since my student days I have also taken an interest in philosophy, religion, evolutionary theory, physics and so on. Particularly intriguing have been issues involving the mind, brain and consciousness and unexplained associated phenomena. Good examples are mysticism, near death experiences (NDEs), the capabilities of yoga adepts and occurrences of 'terminal lucidity' in the dying. It is clear to me that a model of the brain/mind as a computer is woefully inadequate and that consciousness is a distinct entity separate from the world as described by traditional physics. A short while ago I read Eben Alexander's book 'Proof of Heaven'. So many things that I had pondered over the years seemed to be coming together. At this point I decided to tackle 'Irreducible Mind' to find out more.

Be warned, 'Irreducible Mind' is an academic tome, but carefully put together by a group of authors. It is not for the fainthearted! I have read a substantial portion of it and some sections, e.g. concerning NDEs, I have read more thoroughly than others. A huge range of topics is covered especially certain phenomena, well proven, that cannot be explained by main stream psychological theory. The authors have been truly scientific and considered all relevant phenomena including those that do not fit easily into the 'conventional wisdom'. The book strikingly reveals what miserable progress has been made, in the previous 100 or so years, in describing what consciousness really is . They stress that we must develop in psychology a 'theory of everything' that will bring together many disparate threads of human experience. They do not themselves claim to have all of the answers. They point to further scientific experimental work needed to expand earlier comprehensive psychological theories (e.g. of Myers and James) that have been either largely ignored or decried for decades.

John F. Kennedy said - 'We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.' The same could be said of the nature of consciousness -'We choose to develop a sound overall theory of consciousness, not because it will easy, but because it will be hard'.

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GranMac2

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 10, 2017

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One of the most fascinating books and I am still reading ...

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Emmy Noether

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 2, 2020

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Detailed, evidenced, fascinating

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