RE: Temporal lobe epilepsy & religious experience.
September 1, 2021 at 12:03 pm
(This post was last modified: September 1, 2021 at 12:06 pm by vulcanlogician.)
William James discusses this sort of thing at length in Varieties.
James has an interesting reply to the question of mystical experiences being caused by epilepsy or abnormal brain activity. His answer is, "so what?" He urges us to judge the content of the experience rather than the cause. If you have a high fever and see a bunch of pink elephants dance around on your wall paper, the content of the experience is bankrupt of meaning. Go ahead and ignore it.
However, if the same fever causes some cosmic vision that has meaning to you, why not take that experience seriously? Especially if it empowers you in some way. James is a pragmatist, so that sort of thing is his main focus. "How useful is such an experience to one who has it?"
Plenty of objections to this approach, of course, but I am fascinated by James's take on things.
James has an interesting reply to the question of mystical experiences being caused by epilepsy or abnormal brain activity. His answer is, "so what?" He urges us to judge the content of the experience rather than the cause. If you have a high fever and see a bunch of pink elephants dance around on your wall paper, the content of the experience is bankrupt of meaning. Go ahead and ignore it.
However, if the same fever causes some cosmic vision that has meaning to you, why not take that experience seriously? Especially if it empowers you in some way. James is a pragmatist, so that sort of thing is his main focus. "How useful is such an experience to one who has it?"
Plenty of objections to this approach, of course, but I am fascinated by James's take on things.
