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ladytetra777"What I felt on these occasions was a temporary loss of my own identity, accompanied by an illumination which revealed to me a deeper significance than I had been wont to attach to life," (70). To this account James offers during his third lecture, I have a response: this and exactly this. When I applied to this seminary program, I shared what is possibly my most cherished memory: a high school jazz band rehearsal where I did not play guitar, but instead, the guitar played *me.* In that moment, I had lost any sense of who I was, my experience of music was a catalyst for something far greater than myself. It was as if instead of plugging the guitar into an amplifier, I was plugged into God.
I found myself intimately relating to many of the accounts James reads for his audience in this lecture. I imagine on his end, the decision is to continually provide evidence of an underlying "something" that exists without a story being told to itself in the form of an individual identity, a "something" that connects all extant atoms in this universe. "Sometimes as I go to church, [...] I feel as if God was with me, right side of me, singing and reading the Psalms with me" (71) is another account that I intuit as truth, but am seemingly unable to explain why.
I do not think saying I "intellectually" or "psychically" project a presence onto a vacant space sufficiently describes this phenomenon like the account given above, and yet sometimes, it is there, felt definitely. It is entirely different from the hallucinations brought about by my schizophrenia, as it means no harm, I sense nothing menacing from the presence; it is maximally joyful, yet subtle as not to disturb.
James begins this lecture by talking about how such objects elicit a reaction and suggests these reactions may be more than mere sensible presence (53). This seems to speak directly to my experience of jazz band rehearsal: not merely sensing an invisible presence, but being fully enraptured by it, experiencing it outside of the worldly "I" in favor of a greater "I" ineffable.
This feels like Emmerson's notion of the Oversoul, or Hegel's notion of Geist: the underlying unitary faculty that encompasses all existence, for our lives manifest in particulars which in of themselves realize potentials over the passage of time facilitated in physical space. Or, to paraphrase Damien Echols, that which peers out of the eyes of every living man, woman, and child. It's a sheer "eureka" moment to come in contact with such a force, that which James describes in the previous lecture as having a "hotter" quality than that of philosophy, one that he calls "religious."
My experience in reading this lecture is only further validated by last week's Zoom call with other seminarians. To talk to real people who have had lucid dreams, seen strange occurrences in dark mirrors, and felt themselves grow like seeds reifies this Spirit and diminishes the ego. There's something greater going on here, not just in the objects and experiences of James' lectures, but in the experiences of my cohort here, and it's exciting, inducing a fervor that bypasses not just language, but rational conventionality.
Where James ends his lecture is in discussing other components of human life as new religions, specifically mentioning music (77). Here, I return to Hegel, in that Geist is this sense of God expressing itself through particular organisms in a specific way during a given historical epoch. Relating it to music, the modal harmonies of the ancient Greeks are restated in a new sequence as jazz. It is God seeing its own creation in a new light.
I found myself intimately relating to many of the accounts James reads for his audience in this lecture. I imagine on his end, the decision is to continually provide evidence of an underlying "something" that exists without a story being told to itself in the form of an individual identity, a "something" that connects all extant atoms in this universe. "Sometimes as I go to church, [...] I feel as if God was with me, right side of me, singing and reading the Psalms with me" (71) is another account that I intuit as truth, but am seemingly unable to explain why.
I do not think saying I "intellectually" or "psychically" project a presence onto a vacant space sufficiently describes this phenomenon like the account given above, and yet sometimes, it is there, felt definitely. It is entirely different from the hallucinations brought about by my schizophrenia, as it means no harm, I sense nothing menacing from the presence; it is maximally joyful, yet subtle as not to disturb.
James begins this lecture by talking about how such objects elicit a reaction and suggests these reactions may be more than mere sensible presence (53). This seems to speak directly to my experience of jazz band rehearsal: not merely sensing an invisible presence, but being fully enraptured by it, experiencing it outside of the worldly "I" in favor of a greater "I" ineffable.
This feels like Emmerson's notion of the Oversoul, or Hegel's notion of Geist: the underlying unitary faculty that encompasses all existence, for our lives manifest in particulars which in of themselves realize potentials over the passage of time facilitated in physical space. Or, to paraphrase Damien Echols, that which peers out of the eyes of every living man, woman, and child. It's a sheer "eureka" moment to come in contact with such a force, that which James describes in the previous lecture as having a "hotter" quality than that of philosophy, one that he calls "religious."
My experience in reading this lecture is only further validated by last week's Zoom call with other seminarians. To talk to real people who have had lucid dreams, seen strange occurrences in dark mirrors, and felt themselves grow like seeds reifies this Spirit and diminishes the ego. There's something greater going on here, not just in the objects and experiences of James' lectures, but in the experiences of my cohort here, and it's exciting, inducing a fervor that bypasses not just language, but rational conventionality.
Where James ends his lecture is in discussing other components of human life as new religions, specifically mentioning music (77). Here, I return to Hegel, in that Geist is this sense of God expressing itself through particular organisms in a specific way during a given historical epoch. Relating it to music, the modal harmonies of the ancient Greeks are restated in a new sequence as jazz. It is God seeing its own creation in a new light.
no subject
John Gilbert liked Emerson's Oversoul concept a great deal, btw. He talked about it as one of the great American religious visions.
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I am convinced there are some significant differences between experiences brought on by (1) meditation, (2) mental illness, and (3) drugs here, but I don't know how to verbalize them. It feels like the experiences happening during meditation are incidental, like I'm trying to focus on my breath but "something else" happens during the session. I don't share the contents of those particular experiences because I'd rather keep them private.
Experiences I've had as a result of either (2) or (3) are typically accompanied with strong emotions, often fearful ones. When I can interrogate instances of (2), it often feels instinctual, like a confused marker that I should change my behavior, and in instances of (3), it feels like the substance functions to rearrange my perspective and then I have to play catch-up, if that makes sense.
Talking with you about the "spirit" I saw while on mushrooms was deeply helpful. I haven't finished working with it as it comes up, but I now see it as an extension of myself instead of something "given" to me.