Yeah, okay, I call myself a mystic and a shaman (depending on the audience and subject), so a staunch defense of science might not be what you are expecting, but here it is nonetheless: Science, as a philosophy, is always almost right. The set of rules ("scientific method") and the application of reason to obsevation to produce theories, continual refinement of theory to observed phenominon, will always give you an answer that is as close to 'right' as it is possible to get. Generalizations based on an ignorance of the philosophy of science are almost always wrong.
Since the quantum mechanical discoveries in physics, (I hear the scientific absolutists groan) science has been unable to make fundamental claims about how the universe works without caveats. "It works one way if you are talking about really big things, and it works another way with regard to really small things."
I understand what the fundamental contradictions in quantum mechanics are as well as a mathematically illiterate writer can (which is not, very), and I find sufficient non-understanding to allow for many philosophies. Every time I look to science to relieve me of the burden of mysticism, it fails. It cannot succeed, because in order to say what is not, science must be able to say all of what is, and that, science has never been able to do, even in theory, much less in practise.
There is a state of being that was first explained to me by a marionet/pupetteer at a carnival at which I was making a living as a tarot reader. He called it Bilocation when he was sober, and he called it Possessing the Puppet when he was in an altered state (he was very fond of hard cider). He said that in his late teens he had had one episode with a marionette in which he had felt his conciousness shift, and his perception of the room (that he could not actually see from his position above the stage) was from the point of view of the marionette, and he had the sensation of his movements while controlling the puppet as if the puppet had muscles instead of strings. He said the experience only occupied perhaps 30 seconds of time, but he had spent the next 30 years chasing that one state again, acheiving it many times. He clearly viewed this as a mystical/religious experience, but was acutely embarassed by the fact he knew it was all his own psyche, no magic involved. He had, in the best tradition of scientists everywhere, conducted an experiment when 'in' the state. He had looked at the audience from the perspective of the puppet, and fixed it in his mind, and coming out of the state, looked at the audience. They were not the same. He was not "actually" seeing, getting information, through the eyes of the puppet. He really felt he was going crazy then, because the experience was too vivid, to real-seeming to be anything other than real. He doubted himself, and the value of the gift he had discovered, because it wasn't "real".
THere is a state of being in the practise of most traditional animist shaman, the 'journey'. (christians will recognize the state as the state in which John the Evangelist enacts the book of Revelations). Astral Projection may be the same state, and it may be different, I don't know. It sounds similar.
These states are psychological, sure. They are not "real" in the sense science requires, because there can be no external verification of a completely internal process.
Are they useful? Obviously I think so, or I wouldnt be paying this kind of attention to them. It is the question of HOW they are useful, and there, I must say that I am still working on an answer.
I am a mystic because I have experiences that require me to ask questions that science has not meaningfully addressed, and probably cannot meaningfully address, because of the nature of the experiences (occurring entirely within my own mind, but possessing a claim to reality as strong as does the consensus reality. That is, in the words of science, I experience voluntary hallucinations which I claim have significance to rival or exceed 'reality' yet are obviously different and subjective.
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One day I was driving and became lodged in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The lights ahead made it obvious that there had been an accident. All of a sudden, I was in a man's body in a small truck. My head came up (as if waking) and I was filled with terror as I saw a semi truck bearing down on me and knew there was nothing I could do. I snapped back into my own body, still stuck in traffic. I found out later that a man in a small toyota pick-up swerved into the path of a semi - apparently after falling asleep at the wheel. This is not the only time this has happened and it is very freaky when it does. It always happens when I approach an accident or some other scene of similar high emotional content. (Only once it happened when I pulled up behind a very damaged car on a flatbed truck, but that was the only time when the scene was not immediate.) I often get details that are later confirmed when I come closer to the scene or in a newspaper report. The experience of the puppeteer made me think of it - although the subjects of my 'visions' are not dolls and I do not seek out repetitions - there is no need or desire. The emotions are very raw in these experiences - and not pleasant.
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