For this blog, I chose the topic “cognitive science” as the best way to think about “mysticism”. For the other ideas, especially raised from the power relation perspective e.g.,  Orientalism, Feminism, resistance, politics,  I already wrote about those topics and while they are interesting, I am more excited by the concept of mysticism and cognitive science.

www.psych.utah.edu/…/psy3120_2008F.html

In my first journal entry, I discussed mystical experiences as being comparable since all mystical experiences have the same goal – peace. Specifically, mystical or religious experiences are governed or generated by the universal force, e.g., creator, but with different interpretations which are outlined by religion or culture. Mystical experiences are presented as various forms of experiences, that are referred to as the “perennial approach” towards mysticism.

However, for this journal entry (III), I will take a social constructive view to discuss mysticism, and this does not mean that I deny the arguments I have made in the first journal. If the first and second blogs are based on a third person point of view towards mystical experiences, the third blog will be based on the experiencer’s point of view of his or her own mystical experiences.  For this blog, I will argue that mysticism can be thought of in terms of cognitive science while referring to the social constructivist view of knowledge and its effect how phenomena are interpreted.   

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary study of perception and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology (Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)[1]. As cognitive science is a broad concept, I will focus on one branch called “cognitive psychology” to comment on mystical experiences.

Paul Thagard, a professor of Philosophy, Psychology, and Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, explains that “cognitive” psychology is deeply related to the “social context of knowledge” (2005, p. 205). Thagard’s argument emphasizes the importance of an individual’s knowledge and the culture of the individual when the individual evaluates phenomena.

How is an individual’s experience interpreted as mystical or religious? Who judges whether the individual’s experience is mystical or not? I argue that the answer would be us or ourself. We experience things and we judge things according to our knowledge of ourselves and our culture. A third party interpreting our experiences is of less importance because that view is separate from the original expeirence.  

Then how is our knowledge related to the social context? Thagard defines “knowledge” as a “social enterprise” (p. 205) and he also states that “the social context of knowledge” is deeply related to an individual’s psychological dimension and how religious phenema are interpreted.  Based on this premise, knowledge can be said to be socially constructed and that knowledge and its interpretation of phenemenon varies in different social contexts.  

At this point, we can pose two questions: 1) Can the same mystical experience be seen differently in different time periods?;  2) Can one individual’s mystical experience be seen as a “non-mystical” experience by another individual? The first question can be answered by using one of the discoveries in mathematics called “complex numbers”.

In the history of mathematics, complex numbers, e.g., 1 + 2i where i is an imaginary number, were once treated as being “mystical” (Baigrie, 2002, p. 152) due to its imaginary element “i”. However, these complex numbers gained legitimacy after two centuries. The shift or the gap in position of complex numbers shows the change in terms of epistemology[2].  As Thagard points out, according to “social contexts of knowledge” or epistemology in different times, complex numbers experienced a shift of being “mystical” to “non-mystical” or real. This mathematical concept shows that the same experience can be interpreted differently according to different epistemologies. This means, as well, that religious experiences can be interpreted differently based both on the individual’s perceptions and his or her culture.

Let’s consider the second question: can one individual’s mystical experience be seen as a “non-mystical” experience by another individual? This question can be partially answered by comparing different views of mysticism by differnet cultures.

Within Christian society, activities such as tongue-speaking and communion with God, are in fact not considered mystical experiences, but rather as true experiences, but from other religions’ perspectives, these Christian experiences are seen as mystical in their psychological dimension, more specially their knowledge that they are culturally created.

Another comparison can be made between Korea and other societies’ view of mystical experiences. Outside Korean society, Koreans’ predict the conception and a baby’s sex by having a dream which is seen as being a mystical experience from the perspective of observors outside Korea. However, within Korea this is seen as an everyday experience.

Thus, based on the premise that knowledge is socially dependent, cognitive science or cognitive psychology can show how an individual interprets his or her own mystical or religious experience depends on both their culture and whether they are observing or experience a mystical expeirence.

[1] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognitive-science/ Accessed on April 1, 2010

[2] i.e., the branch of philosophy concerned with people’s mind and reasoning.

References

Baigrie, Brian S. History of Modern Science and Mathematics. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2002.

Thagard, Paul. Mind: Introduction to cognitive science. 2^nd ed, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005.

In the modern era, mysticism is generally referred to as a mystical or religious “experience” (King 1999, 21).  William James asserted that true religion is completed with the “private, religious and mystical experiences” of individuals (22). Different religions have their own religious experiences. For example, a Christian can experience witnessing the Holy Spirit. A Hindu may find a connection with the goddess Shiva, for example. A Buddhist might attain the ultimate of the emptiness of the self.  One can wonder if a Buddhist or a Christian, for example, can experience any other religious experience other than that of his or her own religion? Can these religious or mystical experiences be comparative in terms of their nature? By comparing different views on the nature of “the mystical” by various scholars, this discussion will argue that mystical experiences, while differing in interpretation by the individual and through culture are, in fact, all the same.  

Various scholars have different concepts*(see reference section) of “the mystical”. Richard King pointed out that “the mystical” remains the “cognitive site” of a “struggle for authority and power” i.e., representations of “resistance to the dominant paradigm” (28). Steven Katz defined mystical experiences as being “contextualized and constructive” (57). In contrast, William James (1961) proposed that mystical experiences are based on “a single unvarying core” (Sharf 96). Among these different conceptualizations of what is mystical, two major approaches defining “mystical experience” can be found: constructive and perennial (97).

The “constructive” approach to explaining mystical experiences is advanced by Katz. He explained all the mystical experiences from different religions are varied because those experiences are bound by cultures and ideologies (Katz, 1978, 65). He also argues that the preconditioning of each believer’s consciousness varies in different religions (36).  Katz commented (63):

“… constructive conditions of consciousness produce the grounds on which mystical experience is possible at all.”

Katz also noted (62):

“…differing mental and epistemological constructs, ontological commitments, and metaphysical superstructures [have] order[ed] experience in differing ways.”

For Katz, culture and other social and mental constructs predetermine how an individual interprets experience.

In contrast to the constructive approach, the “perennial” approach, a term popularized by Aldous Huxley’s 1946 book of that title (Sharf 97), proposed that there is “a residue in all conscious experience that cannot be reduced to the content of consciousness” (97). Perennialist scholars agree that a residue or “a core experience” can be distinguished from its “divergent culturally conditioned expressions” (97). In addition, according to Claude Levi-Strauss, who is viewed by some as the father of modern anthropology, universal laws must govern mythical thought and resolve this seeming paradox. This produced similar myths in different cultures. Each myth may seem unique, but he proposed it is just one particular instance of a universal law of human thought. It can be argued that mystical experience is also a product of a universal law of human thought.

These two approaches to explaining mystical experience can be summarized as follows. For constructivists, “mystical experiences” cannot be compared; for perennialists, “mystical experiences” can be compared. These two controversial, opposing views both sound logical to me because I believe that there exists a universal force which creates, generates and sustains lives and I also believe that mystical experiences are also distinctive.

The most interesting “religious experience” I have found is speaking in “an unknown tongue” e.g., holy language, in Christianity. It is sometimes referred to as “glossolalia”. Christians, for example, are trained to pray in order to attain the experience which is considered “gifts from the holy spirit”. Many preachers say that this experience does not measure individuals’ religious faith. But in reality, it seems like all religious Christians, including preachers or people involved in church activities, may have all experienced it in some form. Many Christians believe that “glossolalia” is the final manifestation of the Holy Spirit before the second coming of the Christ. Similarly, Buddhism has its own mystical experience indicated by the fulfillment of emptiness, i.e., a religious state attained by following a strict code of meditation. These experiences are not supported by physical evidence, but these experiences are at the core of their religions. In this way, different religions’ mystical experiences are comparable in that they are both goals of religious training and practices.

Here is an interesting question: “Why are all people hoping to attain such mystical experiences?” What effects or consequences can such an experience give to an individual? Do mystical experiences make you feel or be close to God? People who have experienced a mystical experience, all say they feel peaceful and happy because of it. Despite the different processes of getting to the final destination, different religious people seem arrive at the same place.

In fact, before writing this article, I thought that mysticism cannot be compared across religions, but surprisingly, in the end, I changed my position to the opposite: mysticism can be comparative. In this sense my view is similar to that of Levi-Strauss’s, but I believe mystical experiences are universal. Even though a variety of mystical experiences from different religions seem completely disconnected to each other, for me, all mystical experiences are governed by one great mysterious force so even though different religions, cultures, or different individuals see and feel them differently, I believe all mystical experiences are the same and that peace and happiness is the goal.

*Bibliography

Katz, Steven T. Language, Epistemology, and Mysticism, New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Print.

King, Richard. “The power of definitions.” In Orientalism and Religion: Post—Colonial Theory, India and ‘The Mystic East,’ 7-34. New York: Routledge, 1999. 

Sharf, Robert H. “Experience.” In Critical Terms for Religious Studies, edited by Mark C. Taylor, 94-116. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Since I started to minor in East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto, I have started to look at the world differently seeing things with insights instead of judging things according to my personal standard. The East Asian Studies program offered courses which emphasized on concepts like imperialism, capitalism, power, Orientalism, and gender. These terms are hard to define due to their broad usage and their changing applications in different context e.g., different cultures.

I watched a film called “Newton’s Dark Secrets” during my math class the other day. Newton made great contributions to scientific development by discovering incredible theories such as Calculus which is the foundation for all mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Another discovery of his, “gravity”, was another breakthrough in contemporary science. The film shows that progress in Science is a series of new discoveries of unknown, invisible, hidden things in the world. It made me realize that important truths or facts are often hidden or unseen.

Through these academic subjects, professors seem to train their students to view reality from “different” points of view and to take into consideration power relationships in society and to be aware of the marginalized in society. Through my studies, I have realized people tend to believe in things that are physical, tangible, or visible to them without considering inherent, variable, and contextual factors. I learned that we should not judge things or derive truth only based on the physical appearance of things because most of them are more like disguised truth. We should cultivate our ability to see the inner side of things or situations in order to have a more “all-seeing” view of judge things. I wonder, as well, how can we become a person who can see, feel or perceive the “Real”? What is real “truth”? Is everything visible not true? I have strived to find answers for all these questions from religion. But it is not a simple process to find truth.

This blog is to show my path to seek “truth” by exploring my ideas and inspiration from everyday life or from other important academic subjects.