“The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is good as dead.”
Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate
Spinoza seems to articulate a personal experience of the mystical experience of Reality – but as the likelihood is never mentioned I can’t say it’s true.
How else could what he describes in such detail be so true?
Modern Spinoza scholars seem to have have taken the view that these experiences of Reality can only be achieved by intellectual effort like Spinoza’s.
Yet my experiences were not under any influence, certainly not ‘intellectual’!. They were entirely spontaneous every year from the age of early 15 years to about 35 years of age. They gave me experience of a Reality greater than any mere human construct could imagine. There was nothing human about it.
Spinoza also suggested along with other philosophers before him that these experiences are only for a few, (a notion that upsets those attached to the obviously false concepts of equality and perfect democracies. Democracies in particular are weakened by the unlikely concept of a fully ‘informed’ objective rather than emotional and prejudiced decision making electorate of ‘equals’ … Clearly they’re not).
However, throughout history the MERs do seem random, not at all inclusive. I have no doubt Reality has a purpose in this. “There are no failures” a Sufi master told us.
Mystical Experiences of Reality 
“God is Man’s greatest invention.”
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1885), Nobel Astrophysicist
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Whoops! 1910-1995.
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Spinoza’s God. Something I too have always believed in.
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Spinoza seems to articulate a personal experience of the mystical experience of Reality – but as the likelihood is never mentioned I can’t say it’s true.
How else could what he describes in such detail be so true?
Modern Spinoza scholars seem to have have taken the view that these experiences of Reality can only be achieved by intellectual effort like Spinoza’s.
Yet my experiences were not under any influence, certainly not ‘intellectual’!. They were entirely spontaneous every year from the age of early 15 years to about 35 years of age. They gave me experience of a Reality greater than any mere human construct could imagine. There was nothing human about it.
Spinoza also suggested along with other philosophers before him that these experiences are only for a few, (a notion that upsets those attached to the obviously false concepts of equality and perfect democracies. Democracies in particular are weakened by the unlikely concept of a fully ‘informed’ objective rather than emotional and prejudiced decision making electorate of ‘equals’ … Clearly they’re not).
However, throughout history the MERs do seem random, not at all inclusive. I have no doubt Reality has a purpose in this. “There are no failures” a Sufi master told us.
All Is Well.
Keith.
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