thread: 2007-02-26 : Exorcism followthrough
On 2007-03-02, Charles S wrote:
Christopher,
Those benefits, and how to get them match up with my own thoughts. There is an additional benefit, perhaps related to the benefits of certainty/faith that I see.
I think that mystical/spiritual experience tends to be much more powerful within the context of a system of religious belief, and the (for lack of a better word) crazier religious beliefs seem to be more helpful with religious experiences. I don't have much religious belief (other than believing that mystical/spiritual experiences are profound and useful), so my mystical/spiritual experiences tend to be isolated and unreliable (although I have just enough religious belief to make them meaningful). I'd love to have more mystical/spiritual experiences, but I feel like getting that requires believing things I simply can't make myself believe (okay, I shy away from even trying to make myself believe them, but that is a form of 'can't').
I think this is similar to something Vincent wrote ages ago about missing the feeling of being part of a grand cosmological struggle that he had when he was a believer. On the other hand, I have the feeling that Vincent does a better job of reliably achieving immanent mystical experience than I do, so I wonder how he does so. I do okay on transcendent, or at least I used to, but immanent I have a harder time with.
