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DISCERNMENT 

Explaining A Mystic.

Me:  Thank you for your introduction to the current affairs essayist. I’m not much interested in worldy affairs. There is much more afoot than being merely human.

Questioner: GONADS! You are SUPER interested in what Trump’s doing, and Boris too… or at least that’s the picture you paint. And the whole Covid melodrama! And what about your sport of choice: sailing!

Me: Confusing I know, but my interest in human affairs is very shallow because with 99% of the people who do manage to get into my life or be in it uninvited, I’ve got used to using such expected conversations of the day to make myself invisible. I have no defining passion for humans. There is nothing of Real value to study in human existence for people like me.

This gift of discernment can upset former friends because I’m reclusive, have drifted out of their lives. I find them irritatingly, wearily superfluous. I increasingly see this discernment focusing me powerfully so as to protect my first hand experiences of a Reality far beyond the human condition.

There are very few people near to me now compared to the hundred or so deliberately pruned out of my existence.

Current human affairs are more and more of a curiosity to me, an entertainment, a shallow archeological peculiarity, a recreation, a time consuming hobby easily discarded.

You’re practically the only one left to experience my small talk when challenged, something I was only gifted with suddenly in my forties – presumbably to make my life with humans less miserable.

This small talk ability worked then but has become much less needed. So resist stirring it up. LOL.

Questioner: That’s a great explanation. I get it.

The apparent contradiction was confusing before. That clears it up.

Thank you.

mysticexperiences.net

Mystical Experience of Reality

The first review of this Blog’s book, MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES OF REALITY.

Weltanschauung

There are certain activities or states of mind which trigger in me what Abraham Maslow calls “peak experiences”. Reading Keith Hancock’s Mystical Experience of Reality does just that.

I have been sitting in our beautiful cottage garden in the spring sunshine. The birds have been singing and all is well. Phrases in Keith’s book take me to treasured places and I really care little if this seems a mere flight of fancy.

I am in Narnia running ever on into greater and higher levels of Eden, alongside the lion, the children and all the talking animals. I am leaving Middle Earth with the elves, from the harbor at Grey Havens, travelling with them to their mythical and otherworldly origins. I am subliming with Ian M Banks to a transcendent realm outside of physical reality.

It is odd how merely reading about such states or places can often bring on feelings…

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THE SILENCE.

In my view this paper is not just an examination of a powerful poem about the mystical experience, it is also a valuable summary of science and academia’s current interest in the historical and contemporary experience of the Silence of the mystical experience of mysticism (MER).

The full text is available through Academia.net

Silence as Cognition in San Juan de la Cruz’ Coplas del Mismo Hechas Sobre Una Alta Extasis de Contemplación

By Michael Mcglynn, Professor at National University, Taiwan.

SUMMARY

“This essay is an expansive (non-reductive) treatment of one poem of the Early Modern Spanish mystic San Juan de SILENCE AND INEFFABILITY AS COGNITION IN SAN JUAN DE LA CRUZ’ “COPLAS DEL MISMO HECHAS SOBRE UN ÉXTASIS DE ALTA CONTEMPLACIÓN”

FORWARD

“This essay is an expansive (non-reductive) treatment of one poem of the Early Modern Spanish mystic San Juan de la Cruz, namely, Coplas del Mismo Hechas sobre un Éxtasis de Alta Contemplación.

“The refrain of this poem is a claim to transcend all knowledge through an ineffable experience. As disciplinary walls tumble. this ineffable experience bears re-evaluation with evidence from experts in pertinent fields, such as cognitive science. A case is made that Juan’s claim to know by unknowing is a feature of ordinary cognition, though perhaps his experience was an extreme case. As a corollary conclusion, it is observed that twentieth-century approaches to texts are quickly giving way to approaches that match the ‘holistic’, networked culture that characterizes contemporary society from Toledo to Taipei.

INTRODUCTION

“The sixteenth-century Spanish Carmelite priest Juan de la Cruz is famous for his poetry about the mystical union. The refrain of Juan de la Cruz’ 1578 poem about the mystical union, Coplas del Mismo Hechas sobre un Éxtasis de Alta Contemplación, expresses the ineffability of the mystical union with these words: y quédeme no sabiendo, / toda ciencia trascendiendo (2-3: ‘I remained unknowing while transcending all knowledge’).

“This ‘unknowing’, or ineffability, is a common trope in both European and World mystical traditions. The experience of transcendent divinity, whether one believes in divinity or not, is by definition beyond expression. As a poetic trope, the ineffability of such experience is not uncommon, even in secular poetry. San Juan’s more unique claim is that he came into practical knowledge directly by means of this ineffable experience.

“This is a handbook definition of cognition: ‘all the mental processes by which people become aware of and gain knowledge of the world’ (D.A. Statt, The concise dictionary of psychology, London-New York, Routledge, 1990). Juan uses the terms conociemiento, inteligencia and noticia.

READ THE FULL TEXT

mysticexperiences.net

OFFERS TO PROMOTE THE BOOK

My Reply:

No thank you.

I’ve found my new book, MYSTIC EXPERIENCE OF REALITY, pub. BookLocker, is finding its own readers – those who are bewildered by an apparent calling they don’t understand, as well as by scientists and academics who are puzzled by the historical mystic phenomena the book is all about; and others, still secret mystics, who are comforted by the validation the contents offer. They are the ones who have moments of sudden understanding when they come across contents in the book they thought only they had experienced.

The book is not meant for the merely curious who are not called to it by their inner promptings.

I’m also seeing this happen with my blog, mysticexperiences.net.

SPIRITUAL PRACTICE AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Here is an academic study that suggests to me the subject of mysticism is nearing mainstream status. If true this could produce a widely focused transformational understanding of the meaning of human evolution – as some Sufi experiences have predicted for thousands of years.

What do you think?

This excerpt, the author’s Conclusion from the end of his paper, will give you an idea of what I mean:

(Note: As readers will know however, I am not convinced the transformation can be induced by human effort. My spontanious experiences indicate the Mystic Experience of Reality (MER) is caught, not taught).

Spirituality and the Transformation of Consciousness

By Merv Dickinson, PhD

“If, as our spiritual traditions have long maintained and as current studies in transpersonal psychology seem to confirm, it is possible to develop beyond our usual level of ego-consciousness to a state described as self-transcendence, and if such transformational changes as are summarised above typically accompany this transition, then clearly there is value in exploring, from both a personal and a research point of view, whatever practices may in fact facilitate this transition – including those that for so long have comprised the heart of the world’s great spiritual traditions. At the very least, we would do well in this secular post-modern age, when so many of us are distancing ourselves from the apparent absurdities of organised religion, not to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater, but perchance to rediscover what the spiritual Masters have for so long been trying to tell us.”

 

READ THE FULL PAPER

mysticexperiences.net

April 2020

LISTENING

Q: Do you listen to yourself?

A: Not myself, no! I do a lot of listening through writing though. Writing shows me the realities of existence. 

So listening to others is growingly relegated to unavoidable small talk about unreal things. It’s what the majority of humans practice so I go with it, largely unnoticed.

It’s a skill. Sufis call it ‘the cloak of invisibility’, Christians might say it’s a ‘fruit of the Spirit’.

Mysticexperiences.net  April 2020.

PSYCHODELIC DRUGS TO INDUCE MER?

NO! Absolutely not.

Not even as an entheogen!  – a psychoactive plant or chemical used to experience the Mystical Experience of Reality (MER), or take for ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ uses.

Drugs work on the brain. But the brain does not induce MER. Nothing humans can do can induce MER.

Reality uses the brain to receive MER. The brain is for this purpose a receiver not an originator, if my experiences are to be trusted.

All drugs of any such kind interfere with Reality’s perpetual  communication through the brain, whether unobserved, or overtly observed like MER.

Such drugs might have emotional effects. But emotion is a human attribute and plays no part in MER. Emotion does not fulfill our destiny in Reality, whereas MER delivers personal existential, fulfillment – a destiny far beyond being merely human.

Neither can such drugs deliver what traditionally, spontaneously experienced MER’s deliver permanently. On the contrary they are often reported to deliver destructive, crippling brain effects as well as unwanted enhancement of human attributes such as ego and hubris, even fear. Their strange negative effects can linger.

In the old days belief in or teaching of the existence of Shaitan, the Devil, was commonplace. The Devil opposed what humans knew as “God” in those days. The “Devil” spread the “evil” that humans don’t need “God”, that humans are enough in themselves and can enjoy the material things of the earth without “God” because that’s all that exists. In many ways, the same old battle exists today in other words …

In the meantime, the process of MER, known or unknown, is inexorable, with or without our belief in it, or our help.

All Is Well.

Mysticexperiences.net

April 2020

A Road Less Traveled

Weltanschauung

If we seek reality, I am told that we look in the wrong direction by obsessing over the human condition. I think that is right.

Curiously, it is also partly to my endless dalliance on the perimeters of science that I owe an appreciation of this insight. Always fascinated by the natural world, I missed my calling as a young teenager when I failed to appreciate mathematics and its importance in the scientific endeavor. No matter, while even the lower reaches of mathematics remain largely a mystery to me, I have made great strides over the years in acquiring enough skill to master and code algorithms. And to at least begin to appreciate their deeper meaning. All life seems to depend on simple rules, repeated infinitely and fed back on each other. Such is complexity. Such perhaps is sentience. An infinitely complex weave, a beautiful rug.

And science also…

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QUIETISM AS A PRACTICE?

No!

On the matter of quietism, what I know is that nothing a mystic does is a “practice” if my experiences are anything to go by. 

I was infused with quietism spontaneously in the same way mystcism infused and enveloped me. Quietism is not a sought after deliberate discipline or “practice”.

Could quietism be what some Christians call one of the many “fruits of the Spirit”? Is it a step upwards. Is it to help maintain the balance mystics require whilst being partly human?

I was similarly infused with the ability to ‘small talk’ in human company in my early 40’s. That brought much peace, ease and comfort to the separating tumult of my inner calling without admitting to my experiences. Was that a ‘fruit’ too?

Religions stunt any hope of experiencing spirituaity by decrying it because they have filled their collective minds with the disciplines and dogmas of such things as human mythomanias, good works, morality, ethics, emotionalism, mindstuff, and collectivism in lieu of the first hand experience their founders probably had of the Mystical Experience of Reality, (MER).

Science still isolates itself from truth with insistence on pedestrian logic and reason as if we’re still in the witch dunking, rumour and gossip,  stake burning days from which science brought about our escape. Now Science languishes in the dead-end insistence on the primary relevance of matter. A hard question indeed.

So, if you’re a Seeker with strong impulses and intuitions about quietism, congratulations. Its happening to yiu whether you know it or not, like it or not. Don’t fidget at it, relax, embrace it. Wonder at it. You can’t do anything about it. No need for ‘practice’ for you. Resistance really is futile in your case!

If you’re a mystic I’m gratified you’ve bothered to read this far. Humble greetings, and thank you.

If you are a ‘Muggle’, don’t fret either. You are where you’re supposed to be. You are known. You are progessing. Change is always changing, however imperceptibly, like it or not. All is well.

Mysticexperiences.net  April 2020

ART

From the point of view of a mystic or Seeker art is a human artifice, not the real thing – artificial, distractions filled with human values such as emotions, intellect, qualia, lust, anger, greed, attachments and ego (hubris) for instance … The mystic experience is we are not our bodies, brains or minds.

mysticexperiences.net

April 2020

HINT TO SEEKERS

The mysticism that was revealed to me in my multiple, spontaneous experiences of Reality (MER) does not seek or find expression in any human constructs. It is and of itself. It is everything. Humans are a mere part of It.

Keith Michael Hancock, mysticalexperiencesof reality.net April 2020.

SPONTANEOUS AWAKENING EXPERIENCES: BEYOND RELIGION AND SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

By: Steve Taylor, M. Sc., PGCE Leeds, United Kingdom

This academic paper appears to describe the experience of my spontaneous, unrelated religious or spiritual experiences of what I call MER, (Mystical Experience of Reality) every year for over 15 years.

I thought you might be intrigued by this investigation into and conclusion about the phenomenon. The abstract of the paper follows. The full paper is available in pdf., free of charge, from Academia.edu as well as on the author’s website.

ABSTRACT

“‘Awakening experiences’ have been misunderstood to some degree by their long association with religious and spiritual traditions and practices. The research reported here –161 reports of awakening experiences –suggests that most of them occurred outside the context of spiritual or religious traditions. Neither were they induced by spiritual practices such as meditation or prayer. Most occurred ‘spontaneously.'”

Mysticexperieces.net

March 2020

INTUITION

A baffled medical specialist came looking for me at the hospital coffee shop to demand, in my mid-sip: “You’re a mystic … what’s your intuition on this?”

My emergency room had been visited by doctors and many nurses ever since my admission. They wanted to examine the gyrating blood pressure monitor above my bed. Apparently the chaos of my pulse was not connected to any mental or physical symptoms. They repeatedly asked me if I was alright. I said I was.

Someone told me the medical staff and nurses crowded in to add the experience to their professional education …

However, the heart specialist was finding it difficult to establish a professionally safe, defensible medical reason to keep me hospitalised with a portable monitor as I was by then – or should he risk sending me home without diagnosis or treatment?

He waited for my answer, so I said:  “Send me home. Have me checked out regularly.”

So he did. I’m fine. As I intuited, the pulse irregularities appear to have been just a delayed settling down of the system after a previous surgical procedure to eradicate cholesterol build up. I am not a young chicken …

This incident got me thinking about the intuition mystics are said to have.

I think intuition is a human word describing how mystics see widely experienced things humans also see but don’t notice, that intuition is “an ineffable conscious experience, as distinct from any physical or computational process*”.  Intuition seems as common to humans, as their blindness to it.

Is intuition a largely veiled part of ordinary human evolution, Reality at work, starting with the animals that seem to have an abundance of basic survival intuition, whereas most humans are biased against anything not widely experienced or accepted by their cultures – collective blindness?

Will intuition generally develop through basic intelligence, to full blown attributes of intuitive observation, conclusion, action and communication? Will languages die? Is this intuitive process part of the evolutionary process?

Are mystics the only ones currently developed enough to use intuition as part of their daily lives?

As mystics know, in Reality, in which all things are perfect, there are no names or languages. Could this mean intuition is the language of Reality?

Is intuition the human  ‘eureka’ principle, those sudden, logically and intellectually unsupported sudden scientific discoveries we hear so much about?

Is intuition the human word to describe the ineffable experience of MER?  Mystics would say partly, yes, because any experience, particularly the experience of the Mystic Experience of Reality, is the beginning of all wisdom.

*Wordweb dictionary for ‘ineffability’.

Mysticexperiences.net

120 ACADEMIC PAPERS AROUND THE WORLD HAVE MENTIONED ‘MYSTIC EXPERIENCES OF REALITY’ SO FAR SINCE PUBLICATION

Can you help?

Every day Academia.edu send me notification of up to seven mentions a day of my name being cited in academic papers by universities around the world since ‘Mystic Experiences of Reality’ was published in December.

Academia.net is a website claiming membership of over 15,000 universities, including Oxford, Berkeley, New York University, MIT.

They claim over 15,000 scholarly papers and books are submitted to their site every day and urge me to “Track your growing reputation,

see what academics are saying about you.”

They also claim  over 70 million followers.

But when I enquire about details of the citations using my name the only reply I get is a standardised automatic reply that I can find the answer by paying a membership fee of over $112 a year. I see some scholars  have criticised this marketing device. Apparently Academia.net used to sell reviews of scholarly works too.

In the meantime I am also getting almost daily notifications from them of recently published scholarly papers and books on my interest  – mysticism, philosophy, metaphysics, psychology, (but so far none on physics’ dynamic contribution to the subject). I have downloaded some of these papers but on reading have deleted them as being the usual academic/scholarly cannibalisation of ancient and modern skirmishes on the mystery of the mystic phenomenon, nothing that takes the subject forward significantly. None of the scholars seem to have had the experience of MER.

My blog, on the other hand, mysticexperiences.net, seems to be uniquely outstanding for giving a significantly new mystic message that has nothing to do with the collective human condition. Is this a new development in the historic phenomenon of the mystic experience?

So what I’m asking you is if you know anything about the legitimacy of Academia.edu? Is it worth engaging? Thank you.

Mysticexperiences.net