It finally came to me in the night how to write this sonnet version of Psalm 23, The Lord is My Shepherd. There is a particular reason.
The psalm has echoed my experiences for years, though always “as through a glass, darkly”. Now, finally (?), it’s been made clear.
The psalm validates mystic experience with the joy of transcendence, witnesses out loud how Reality reveals Itself and why:
Reality is my companion.
I do not want,
My needs are met, my soul restored.
I am embraced.
My fate is death yet I fear no evil,
Protected, guided,
Existing beyond comprehension,
Now am Real.
Despite my lust, anger, greed, attachments and ego
I am, for ever.
Mystical Experiences of Reality 
A very beautiful psalm. I was reading about Christof Koch’s near death experience and it occured to me more forcefully than ever how reality can be very different from what we ordinarily see and yet based on physics. Given the right pyhsics it seems to me bliss and transcendance are achievable within the structure of the universe as it exists without the need for metaphysics.
In other words given the right mix of physics, consciousness could become a very different animal indeed. Maybe that is what reality has in store for us.
No need for gods and demons or dogma. Just what is and what we may become.
https://alleninstitute.org/news/exploring-the-minds-mysteries-with-christof-koch/
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Physics is about researching existence.
Metaphysics is about experiencing existence.
Physics pulls evidence of aspects of existence apart bit by bit. It then asks ‘what is it?’ It will never be able to provide the answer,
Metaphysics explains that historical experiences of reality reveal a reality beyond physical understanding or decription that already envelops humanity.
The inference is mere human subjects like physics and metaphysics will be rolled over by evolution as the human race becomes its fullest, real spiritual self.
Science will disappear into human technology, physical mind stuff.
Metaphysics will be taken for granted, like breathing, become beyond the need for explanation.
All is Well.
Keith.
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What I was trying to say is that Koch experienced transcendence, an alternate reality.
And so have many other people. Some would say “it’s just chemicals” but I think that misses the point.
Whatever chemicals normally fill our brain, whatever neuronal connections our brain normally make, provide us with the “reality” we normally experience.
And our senses limit what we can make out of reality. Our sight does not pick up most wavelengths of light, our hearing fails to pick up most sound waves and so on.
Near death experience alters how our senses make sense of reality, our brain and body and senses are in a very real way in a different reality at such times.
And so my point is that there is not just one reality. There are as many realities as our senses and our brains can pick up.
And so we can experience what we choose to experience provided we can put our mind and body in a mode which can pick up and experience what it is we want to experience.
Who therefore can say what is “real”? Reality is no one thing. Reality is what we can perceived, reality is what we can experience.
In my view this does away with the need for a supernatural – which after all is merely something we have imagined, made up.
We can experience whatever we want if we train our senses.
If Koch feels it’s “just chemicals”, well good for him. But I think it misses the point. All of reality, the whole universe may be “just physics” but emergence means that our of what is there anything can be created and experienced. It is unlimited, like space and matter itself.
And so our experience is also unlimited – whatever can be imagined can be experienced.
Scientists seemed determined to create a dull and sterile universe with their rules and their insistence that consciousness does not exist.
What nonsense. Of course consciousness exists and we can experience whatever we want. Perhaps evolution will eventually enable us to perfect our control over our senses so that we can live in permanent transcendence and bliss
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My experiences have lead me to the realisation the pure mystic experience does not include humans or any human attributes, senses, etc.
Humans and their works did not exist in my transcendences.
I see Reality as a non human, non biological, non mass, spiritual energy creating everything known and unknown everywhere that humans cannot know, now and forever.
There was no human, or evidence of humans, in any of my experiences.
‘I’ even observed Keith Michael Hancock’s human form disappear in that everlasting reality.
So, Anthony, while I am somewhat taken by your careful speculation of the possibility of humans deciding their own level of realities, I have to go with what I know from experience.
All best wishes, as ever.
Keith.
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And yet when you read Koch’s description of his NDE it is exactly as you describe. No “human” element, no mind, no body. Simple, pure, untethered awareness.
Such as most mystics describe.
Pure consciousness, unrelated to that “normal” form of consciousness we experience from day to day.
And very much the experience which can be had from a deep meditative trance or from some forms of exercise. Which of course is what yoga is all about.
Each day I have an experience not unrelated to what Koch describes. Sometimes strong, sometimes milder and less extreme.
But it’s there, it happens. A different form of consciousness brought about in the “normal” physical world.
Which turns out not to be so very normal at all!
Or at least those are my experiences. And the ability to enter through a different door of perception is very welcome, however it comes about. Whatever the reasons or explanation behind it.
Difficult to explain. I have been meaning to write about it properly but never seem able to grasp either the topic or to describe properly my own experience.
Best
A
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It would be interesting to know what you experience when you go through those doors of perception, Anthony.
This is a wonderful development by the sounds of it. How do they happen?
Best,
Keith.
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