The New Paradigm - Part 4 - first half

The New Paradigm - Part 4 - first half

The Mystical - First Hand Religious Experience

It is best I lay my cards on the table to begin with. I am agnostic. I don't think anybody really knows what is going on. I see no evidence of, or reason to believe in an interventionist God. Any ideas of the supernatural were gone from my mind around the age I saw through the Father Christmas lie. As a child I prayed to God but was met by silence. Religious people told me that faith was the key. You must believe despite any evidence to the contrary. I found I was unable to choose what I believed in. I saw no god so my choice was truth to myself or to pretend I believed. To lie. But, despite my god free perspective I experienced things beyond any material explanation. Life is full of them. Mine anyway. The most vocal exponents of what has come to be known as The New Atheism betray themselves with an obsessive fixation on engaging in debates on the existence of God. It inclines impartial observers to wonder why they are so motivated. Most appear to have either been brought up by religious parents, raised in highly religious cultures or educated at religious schools. Their passion only makes sense by realising that they once believed. That they are angered by having been manipulated as children or face personal embarrassment at the beliefs of their younger selves. At worst they appear terrified. Desperately defending a position to the point of obsession. Or like Victorian prudes who repressed all sexual desires making them frustrated and uptight as they fought back natural drives. The spiritual impulse is as natural to humans as the sexual drive. Repression can only lead to its finding expression in perverted ways. 

Having been raised by an atheist father whose pivotal epiphany came from the natural world and evolution, the question of an interventionist gods existence was of such ludicrous banality that the subject was rarely mentioned, seldom crossed my mind. In later life as jihadi Islamists began terrorist campaigns, murdering in the name of Allah, the allied British and American response from the country's then leaders Tony Blair and George W Bush both involved a lot of killing whilst these two world leaders justified their actions by  invoking the support of God, my silence on matters of belief in the supernatural and faith, was broken. Schools in America teaching creationism continue to spread untruths. So I spoke out. Political debates should always be secular. Claiming divine rights through a god others don't believe in is clearly wrong. Still, I always felt the truly scientific mind should be agnostic; all a scientist should ever claim is holding a working hypothesis, ever open to change by fresh evidence. I saw no reason my beliefs should be any more likely than any others. Of course, I remained critical on those who chose faith; belief despite lack of evidence as reason appears to be humanities skill. Just as the peregrine and cheetah had speed, we had reason. The abrahamic religions assumption that we had souls where animals had none seemed silly. In these religions more devout forms women also were without souls. There are several issues atheist theories stray into. Is there a benevolent interventionist god? Do humans have a soul, an essence that is not dependent on the living body? It was on the subject of souls where all my serious debates took place. Having witnessed Alzheimer's in others, brain damage and the effects of drugs it seemed clear to me that human consciousness depended on a functioning brain. The idea of a soul, as I have often pointed out, may at first appear an uplifting idea. Deeper consideration and its quickly clear that considering the soul as our unit of currency rather than a life is problematic. If this life is of only minor importance, a stage we go through like puberty, indeed, far smaller than that when one considers the souls eternity. This renders life a minuscule phase when compared to the infinite. It is only since western minds abandoned the idea of a soul, accepted that this life was it, that the greater peace spread. Respect for others follows. You don't get atheist suicide bombers.

Christopher Hitchens famous debate with Tony Blair, 'Is Religion a force for Good? ' displayed the superior arguments Hitchens brought forth to Blairs faith arguments. Toward the end of this fascinating debate, topics perhaps of most interest, certainly to those like myself familiar with similar debates prolific at this time where a vocal new atheism arose were in the dying minutes where Hitchens briefly touched on transcendence, the numinous, mystical experiences. Sadly few thoughts were exchanged in these final minutes of the debate. These need not enter the theist/atheist debate. They occur in people. As undeniably as love, if not as universal. These human experiences in minor form affect all but the most extreme affect only a few. But a number sufficient for all bar the extremist materialist to deny. God as Blair promoted him may be out of fashion but the new atheists had little to say on the mystical. 

Britain today remains a Christian culture. There are many still of various Christian faiths and Islam is the fastest growing religion in the country. But the larger part of the population now fall in to a kind of scientific humanism either by proxy or through deliberation. Their belief system follows the Christian model, a model stretching back to Aristotle. Humanities struggle is seen as a linear journey of human progress. In Christianity man is seen as moving towards salvation through faith. In scientific humanism man is seen to be following a similar linear path of progress to total understanding through science and reason. Christianity may be the most anthropocentric of all faiths yet at least with concepts such as original sin and the Adam and Eve story of the problems arising from biting into the fruit of the tree of knowledge, an acknowledgement of our fallibility helped to put the brakes on our hubris. These myths prevent a dangerous pit humanism falls into. The most important lesson from Darwin is that we are but animals. We are the result of an evolutionary process that favours survival. Nowhere in Darwin is there any notion of progress. An incorrect assumption laymen often have. We are not superior or more evolutionarily advanced than other animals, we just have different specialities. Anyone who has spent long with a dog will know that they are not much different to us. The famous joke that there are two types of philosophers, dog owners who believes dogs have souls and philosophers who don't have dogs who believe only humans have souls. And where do you draw the line? If dogs have souls, do cats, birds, lizards, grass hoppers, worms, amoebae?

But the idea of a soul can be taken literal or metaphorical. In some sense we all have a soul. We all enjoy consciousness. I would argue, if we do then so must all other animals. Even an earwig I believe has some basic consciousness. Curiously, the neurotransmitter serotonin that scientists believe has something to do with happiness and other emotions is found in the most basic forms of life suggesting emotion is an early evolutionary strategy not a trait peculiar to humans. Neuroscientists spent the twentieth century focused on cognition. Emotion was deemed too slippery a subject to study. Revealing a lingering subconscious belief in human souls. It is only recently science has begun to explore the biology of emotion. It is impossible to state how far we are from understanding the workings of the human brain. The mind was long deemed the sole territory of the philosopher but early steps are being taken in the development of a science of consciousness. So terrifying in its difficulty many believe we will never understand how the mind can emerge from the brain. How sensory input is converted in to qualia we have no clue. This is known as The Hard Problem of Consciousness. How we are able to see the blueness of the sky, enjoy the smell of tobacco. These sensations we can draw to mind at will. But what is the blueness of blue in our memories of a day last summer? Given practically all we know is quantifiable only through metaphor, what is consciousness like? Only like itself. One could be forgiven for giving up and accepting that the metaphorical soul is as far as we are ever likely to get.

But baby steps are being taken. Some argue that the self is an illusion the mind creates, no more than the combined threads of all we know, think and feel. Others believe the self is crucial to any form of consciousness, however primitive. Extreme materialists argue that only that which we can find material existence of truly exists. 

But here I must stray from science. It is a great methodical system to understand our world. But it is useful only within limits. Greater hopes for its scope are delusional. Interestingly, Candace Pert, the American scientist who first discovered opiate receptors, that led to the discovery of other receptors and neurochemical messengers that in turn paved the way for our much greater understanding of how our brain body works, the scientist who first offered a biology of emotion, was, before her death, ostracised from the scientific community for holding 'new age spiritualist' ideas. Her earlier work remains a frequently referenced model. To my mind, anyone discovering something so important as the biology of emotion ought to be given the respect of exploring her flights of imagination, however outlandish they may feel to our own. At least listened to. Of course it is minds like hers, able to think outside the box who can break open a new paradigm, though, by their nature, minds that make unusual connections can be prone to wrong connections also. But up until her ground breaking work we may have accepted Francis Cricks 'Astonishing Hypothesis' intellectually, we were still working under a subconscious acceptance of a super natural soul. 'The Astonishing Hypothesis is that 'you', your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.' So simple, so obvious, so true yet so radical, so ruthlessly terrifying many still will not accept it. Not only religions that believe in a transcendent soul, not only general public that never consider more than the day to day but also scientists, philosophers, psychologists, professionals in all disciplines related to the mind, still operate under an unspoken and often unconsciously held belief that there is more than a material origin to our consciousness. Candace Perts research led to Sol Snyders Nobel prize. Scientists, having grasped her peptide messengers and receptor concepts raced to find the body's endogenous opiates. Endogenous morphine, named endorphins by their discoverers earned a Nobel prize. Yet the discoverers of the body's naturally occurring psychedelic, dimethyltryptamine earned no such award. Their discovery I will come to later. Most likely there will one day follow a biology of the mystical. Experiences that are at the heart of all religions.

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Materialists will argue that as other things once thought super natural, through time and human reason, have delivered themselves to a material cause, so too will the mysteries of the mind. But it is worth looking at how science works. Far from being a linear process of progressive discovery it invariably offers only a hypothesis, always ready to be thrown aside once fresh data can not be squeezed in. All scientific models have to begin with a set of untested assumptions. A model will be tested until it can no longer contain all evidence at which point a fresh model is created, accommodating the new facts but again built on a set of assumptions. In science there is no truth. Only temporary conjecture. For all the atheist scoffing at religion their scientific alternative is also dependent on faith. Yet, for all its flaws, all its hubris, science and reason are always open to change. It accepts it is no more than an opinion. Clearly scientific discovery ushered in a period where human survival grew rapidly. Fewer religious wars, biological disease prevention, many technologies have raised the opportunities for masses more people. As such, as a survival strategy, reason, at least for a while trumped religion. However having now reached an era of vastly extended life expectancy and epidemic overpopulation of our planet we have become too successful. The destruction of the environment our success has entailed has delivered the sixth great extinction. Half the planets species have become extinct in my fifty years alive. It doesn't take a genius to see this is a terrible path we have taken.

Given science can not deliver truths and is built on assumptions we have to compare it to religion as a survival strategy, one not only for the short term but the long term. We may have mocked the historic superstitions of the wrath of the gods, but this respect in something greater than us prevented the hubris that is leading to our demise as a species. Like Pandoras Box, now science is here and we have all but rejected god we can't go back and reinvent him. We can not pretend to believe. So where did all that religion come from? Why do virtually all cultures have a belief in something more? Not purely because having faith in having a god behind you in support as most champion sportsmen appear to, leads to better chances of survival. First hand religious experiences. What's all that about?

Who amongst you readers has fallen in love? Even those who haven't must have met people in love. A person, and it is usually beyond your control, walks in to your life. All people are the same. Some smarter, some prettier but in essence there is little to divide us. Yet once or twice in a persons life someone walks in and they glow. You can't stop thinking about them. You are preoccupied thinking about them. Being in love can drive a person beyond any normal limits. Feats of endurance, strength, loss of interest in food, loss of concern for ones own safety, laying down ones life to save theirs, on occasion killing others to preserve them, and in twisted cases of jealousy murder of rivals, in rejection suicide, even the murder of the loved one. Falling in love is one of life's greatest possibilities. Such sensations are of a quality that transcends normal life. But, if we accept Cricks Astonishing Hypothesis it has a material biology.

As yet, the condition of being in love is not material science of any real substance. There are suggestions of neural correlates (evidence through various brain scanning technologies) but these same neural distinctions correlate to many other conditions. In truth, though pet and FMRi scans offer some insight into the workings of the human brain the level of understanding they can deliver has been compared accurately to flying over Europe in a jet plane. We can see from the planes window the shape of the continents, some of the topography, where major rivers, lakes and desserts lie, but we can not guess the political systems by which the country's are governed, which nations are at odds with each other, never mind understand why Peter Jenkins at 2 Primley Park Road in Leeds, West Yorkshire has fallen out with his neighbour over differing philosophical outlooks regarding the positioning their wheels bins. We are decades, maybe centuries off understanding the complexity of the human brain. Clueless as to how consciousness can emerge from grey meaty mush. Many think we will never be able to figure out such things. We are, after all, just animals, not gods. Evolved to survive. Any capacity to figure out why we are here, how the universe formed, is but a happy side effect, a byproduct of our development. Furthermore, would discovery of neural correlates that matched our feelings of falling in love add anything worthwhile? I doubt it. To reduce the wonder of love to maths, biology and chemistry would by the very nature of the approach miss the point. These are states only understandable through inner experience. The poet, novelist, song writer and artist can explore the human condition in ways that matter, ways that help us. Science can do nothing but reduce it into complete incomprehension. This autistic folly illustrates the limit of science' reach.

I bring falling in love up as an example of something that everyone knows exists, yet has no material substance. The human mind does not exist in physical space yet we all have one. What is more the human mind, the animal mind, can move matter in space. This contradicts all physics. My first stabs at this problem, long term readers might recall, led me to think that the mind, the self, was something of an illusion. An illusion is something that appears to be something it isn't. Not to be confused with a delusion. Our illusion of free will exposed in studies conclusively revealing the unconscious brain activity taking place seconds prior to 'our' decision. 

So we have examples here of human potentials beyond current science. This is not to say they are supernatural, or dismiss the possibility of science uncovering their secrets. But emotions, love, the mind, presuming they have a biological basis, look extremely unlikely to surrender their wonder to the scientific method. Few would argue that love, in its many and varied forms, does not exist. Yet try touch it. Measure it. Place it in a container. It has no material aspect. But, to quote Donna Summer, 'I feel Love.'

Last year I had something of a mental breakdown. In my teens I became interested in the mystical experiences. These were of paramount importance to me in my early teens. I will explain what I mean by that shortly. But for a number of pragmatic reasons by the age of twenty one I turned my back on it. Dismissed my experiences as delusional. From then on I followed a path most of my adult life that focused initially on the practical. I became a joiner. My reasons for starting this were to find solid ground, unquestionable values. Art had been my original calling but when I came to see the confused mess contemporary art had become, rather than having the courage to forge my own path within art, I abandoned it. After a while it became clear my aptitude in woodwork lay in finer work and so I drifted to fine furniture. On discovering the designer maker movement I figured I could marry the self expression I had enjoyed in art to the permanent craft values of woodwork. I repressed my spiritual urges and impulses and adopted a scientific view to negotiate the world. Gradually I found fine furniture could only be afforded by the rich. I wrestled with this dilemma for years gradually developing a psychosis. Through drugs and drink I managed to continue working in a field I no longer saw any moral worth in. Finally, in a bursting of this psychic boil I threw it all in. Though not conscious of what I was doing or why the animal me was extricating myself from a situation that was destroying me. By systematically offending clients, agents, promoters and others in the field of fine furniture I engineered an escape route ensuring all bridges were burned. Looking back this psychotic episode, or episodes were not rational but purposeful. I was reaching fifty and feared I might make posh furniture for the rest of my life. Excersizing my skills creating unnecessary objects of status for a wealthy elite. It is hard to escape when a large part of ones self esteem and identity rests on something. People forever telling me how good I was and how worthwhile my work was, all the time knowing it was a folly and my years were running down. During a quest lasting several months I grew madder until I was able to free myself. Once free I experienced the deepest mystical experience of my life. So profound was this that I abandoned all craft furniture work to pursue an understanding of the mystical. I now work every day on my studies into the mystical with a vigour and dedication I have not had since university.

First the realisation that time is by far our most valuable commodity. We are on this beautiful planet for a few short years. To work on futile money making, or producing vanity objects is an insult to life. An insult to God, if you have one. No amount of money can buy back lost years spent chasing money working in factories, workshops, colleges, schools, boardrooms or wherever your professional life places you. To wait till seventy to retire and finally take a look at the world is a terrible waste of your one opportunity. My only regret is I left it so late. Caught up, looking sideways at what others were doing, grinding down their bodies till they were broken, believing all the crap you hear about the nobility of labour. I wasn't strong enough to disregard what the consensus was. I had an almost masochistic inner guilt that I could only satisfy by working so hard that I came home exhausted, falling into bed my body aching. I recognise now this 'workaholic' mentality was neurotic and see many of my peers still caught up in it. As with all types we were drawn together, our world view compounded and reaffirmed by seeking out and befriending others of a similar bent. I knew somewhere, deep inside what was right and wrong but so many people I knew were caught up in the collective psychosis of throwing away their lives for money, commitment to a materialist craft ideology, a working class guilt expressed through the Protestant work ethic, or other poor excuses. So prevalent within my culture was the ideology, that only through disciplined hard work could a man accept adult responsibility for his own life and feel inner justification and personal pride. Even to question this cultural mindset was deemed mad. It is difficult for even those of a stronger mind to see an endemic cultural delusion for what it is. It is quite natural to believe that it is you who is wrong when the majority face the other way. For sure, I respect many whose work is vocational. It isn't everyone. Primary school teachers, psychiatric nurses, nurses, conservationists, many lead good working lives. Yet even amongst those whose work is of unquestionable societal worth, the workaholic obsession can arise. In my personal work, and for others engaged in material culture,  if you are making unnecessary objects, or just in some synthetic money creating loop that uses our dwindling resources, well, take a long hard look. Many say they're doing it for their children. Walter White from Breaking Bad comes to mind. Tony Soprano. Our culture excuses even the darkest actions through the ethical loophole of familial love. Further than this inner turmoil concerning ones personal regard, status anxiety affects virtually all of us. Despite the relatively humble socio economic niche most of my peers occupy, I still felt a need for approval. To drink in pubs requires a degree of wealth. To eat in restaurants requires a higher degree of wealth. These exclusive clubs we form, inclusion attainable by a parity of cash in the pocket. From the cheapest public house to the finest restaurant, the same hierarchical rules of exclusion apply. Sealing the door to those we feel inferior. Our fear of being locked out, refused entry, as our peers sit and feed, laugh and drink, is both deep and pathetic. Property ownership has become the measure of inclusion into middle class society. Homeownership promoted so steadfastly by government from Thatcher onward has drawn a line by which the measure of success is drawn. An ugly pride in the desire to conform. Another status problem arose in my life from my journey from trade to craft. The working class tradesman shares a skill base that has evolved throughout history. Stood on the shoulders of their forefathers, the working class artisan finds a dignity in through apprenticeship and skill mastery. A qualified joiner able to make and hang a door as well as the next. Anonymity being a defining quality. But the college trained artist craftsman places primacy on the individual. It is not equivalence but seperation that is sought. A vanity and narcissism is encouraged through the elevation of innovation over trade standards. It would seem idiotic for the working class joiner to exhibit their work as it has no distinction over any others, their objective being societal service. But the middle class designer maker signs their work, exhibits and competes. A status anxiety endemic to the crafts concept that is lacking in the trades. Once the journey has begun, the appearance in books, magazines, exhibitions becomes the marker of achievement. The designer maker never fully content, forever aware of the successes of their peers and their self esteem entwined in hierarchical inter connectivity. The personal feelings of worth in anonymously having done a job well becomes subsumed by infantile hunger for praise.

It isn't having a job that gives a person dignity, it is having a purpose. Your life must have meaning and passing the buck to the next generation is not a real reason. The unemployed are currently reviled by the conservative government and Labour Party alike. The mantra of 'get a job' rings out across Cameron's Britain. Population Growth. Economic growth. Make money from using up the planets depleted reserves for your own greed. Thatcher quote, "Greed is Good." Greed is not good. The clear and inescapable truth is that endless growth from limited mineral reserves is impossible. A higher standard of living for each generation has been the material goal of all major political parties since government began. The amount of mineral resources burnt up during a lifetime increasing with every generation. Wanting more for your offspring than you enjoyed.  The unemployed use a fraction of the resources of the workers. Getting by on ten pounds a day is a noble and altruistic act. The resources are not ours alone, they are our children's and every life form on the planet. Those who greedily make money, consuming as much as they can are either thoughtless or selfish. A cabinet of millionaires spout rhetoric at the humble who bravely accept financial poverty for the common good for which they are bullied. Time is our most valuable commodity and living a purposeful life our duty.

It was with these realisations I knew I must change path. The paradigm is crumbling. In our post religious world where science and reason have vanquished all meaning, where are we to look?

It is our duty to search out a new paradigm. My initial quest took me to visit pre Roman sites. Three thousand years ago we were no less intelligent. There is a serious delusion endemic to our present culture. Evolution takes millions of years. A mere three thousand years ago, when Stonehenge was being built, our brains were as advanced as they are now. Technology and scientific development Is mistaken as part of evolution. Yet even a summary reading of Darwin reveals the time scales involved for evolution. Human material progress becomes mistakenly included. The alignment of stones at ancient sites reveals an astral knowledge way beyond things we know now. Our telescopes and computers can deliver data and should not be underestimated, but still they rediscover patterns that were common knowledge to our ancestors. The path we took is not the only possible one. The paths are infinite. As science, built on the back of an assumed Christian superiority over our environment and all other animals has led to its near destruction. But we can not go back. We can not unknow, only look elsewhere.

So it is to the mystical I look. Mystical experiences are as real as love. Just as sexual repression in Victorian England led to perversions, so too does the denial of the spiritual. These words: mystical, spiritual have become so loaded but I know of no other vocabulary to use. If emotions have a biology and transcendent souls are a myth, then the mystical must too have a biology. Indeed the fact that mystical States can be engineered through fasting, meditation, psychedelic use more or less confirms the biological origins of mysticism. But this need not spoil it. To the scientifically biased it requalifies the value of the mystical. As with falling in love, only experiencing the state means anything. Let us quickly look at William James four distinct observations on the mystical experience. The four qualifications.

1: Ineffability - the mystical defies expression, no accurate report can be given in words. It follows that it must be directly experienced. It can not be imparted to others. In this sense they are more like feelings than intelect. We all experience minor mysticism in our experiences of love, music and art.

2: Noetic quality - although similar to feelings they are also a state of knowledge. Imparted illuminations, revelations full of significance and importance.

3: Transiency - they usually last from half hour to three hours in length. Often when faded they cannot be drawn to memory but when they occur they are recognised and from recurrence to another it is susceptible of continuous development in what is left as inner richness or importance.

4: - Passivity - although the oncoming of mystical States maybe facilitated by preliminary voluntary operations, as by fixing the attention, or going through certain bodily performances, or in other ways which manuals of mysticism describe; yet when the characteristic sort of consciousness once has set in, the mystic feels as if his own will were in abeyance, and indeed sometimes as if he were grasped and held by a superior power. The latter peculiarity connects mystical States with certain definite phenomena of secondary or alternative personality, such as prophetic speech, automatic writing or the mediumistic trance. When these latter conditions are pronounced, however, there may be no recollection whatever of the phenomenon and it may have no significance for the subjects inner life, to which, as it were, it makes a mere interruption. Mystical states, strictly so called, are never merely interruptive. Some memory of the content always remains, and a profound sense of their importance. They modify the inner life of the subject between the times of their recurrence. Sharp divisions in this region are, however, difficult to make, and we find all sorts of gradations and mixtures.

At its most basic the mystical experience can occur in the everyday. It can be a phrase one has heard all ones life, a song one has heard a thousand times, a painting that has hung on ones wall since childhood; then, as if from nowhere, you see the light. Then it is fully understood.

All organised religions appear to begin with mystical experience of some sort. The first hand experience often triggers such an epiphany in the subject that their behaviour and approach to life alters significantly. Often an impulse to share the new knowledge combined to the extraordinary change in their character, other people, hungry for meaning become attracted. The newly enlightened one may find themselves in an exalted position. It is common that the politics of human nature creates a hierarchy of followers, jealous for status, approval of the enlightened one. Others may experience mystical States through following the methodology of the first, yet mystical States are frustratingly disrespectful of human society. Jesus Christ was graced with enlightenment though few of his apostles experienced first hand transcendence. There was jealousy at his special love for Mary Magdalene, the apostles deep seated cultural sexism found them struggling to accept a woman before them in line to their saviour. By devoted support his disciples hoped Jesus visions would enlighten them too,  and his teachings generously shared what he had learned. Politically opposed to the Jewish preisthoods unwarranted monopoly on the divine, Christs word was that the Kingdom of God was open to all, regardless of status. This dangerous undermining of the preisthoods authority resulted in his being set up to the Roman authorities. Following his execution his followers began a jealous battle for the succession of spiritual authority. Mary Magdalene was first to encounter his resurrected spirit in a mystical moment. The earliest existing writing about Christs life come from paul who never met Christ. Initially opposed to Christs word he travelled to subjugate the growing cult around his resurrection. Yet on route Paul was overcome by an epiphany of such strength he was blinded for three days before reversing his stance and became the integral figure in the creation of the church and the spread of Christs message. There were many gospels and written works on Jesus life though these were strictly edited to create a bible with maximum appeal. The motive was to create a church, not to record historical fact.m The four gospels chosen were all written some two hundred years after his death. These present events in Jesus life as miraculous. The gospels of more earthly descriptions were destroyed or discredited though a collection of these, lost for 2000 years, were discovered in the mid twentieth century in Egypt. These told of a spiritual resurrection, not the physical one orthodox Christianity based its foundations on. In the first two century's AD the fight for the claim to be the rightful church of Christ saw gnostic Christians dismissed by the Orthodox Church as heretics. Gnosis, or knowledge from within, saw no elitism but accepted anyone from beggar to prostitute could experience transcendence. Indeed, Christ had clearly stated the meek were more loved by God. However the Orthodox Church dismissed mystical experiences in Gnostics as delusions. Only through their connections through family to long dead apostles, most of whom never saw the light anyway, could the path to heaven be found. The Orthodox Church jealously guarded their unique access to God. The Christian preisthoods hierarchy of man elected by man, untouched by religious experiences claimed sole ownership and authority over religious matters. To this day, the Catholic Church qualifies the popes unique divine access through lineage stretching back to Peter, an apostle who never had a mystical experience and, as legend has it, denied Christ thrice. Furthermore, whereas gnostic Christians placed presedence on the value of the first hand religious experience, the Orthodox Church came to applaud the polar opposite. Piety and godliness was qualified by the unwavering retention of faith bravely held despite gods apparent absence. In death such blind dedication would find its reward.

This pattern of first hand religious experience followed by a developing group hungry for a taste. Political hierarchy where the initial experiences gain a value unattainable by lower ranked followers, even dismissal of commoners mystical experiences as of no substance. Even Buddhist groups see this phenomena where position within the group overcomes importance to the mystical states they claim to hold most dear.

What is particularly galling for religion as a whole is that, though certain practices such as chanting, fasting, meditation, celibacy, rituals and studious commitment can increase the chances of experiencing mystical states, nothing can guaruntee it. Buddhist monks, nuns and lifelong priests often never have these experiences. To make matters worse an atheist or other individual of no spiritual calling can have a mystical experience. Evidence shows no prior religious interest is necessary. It appears these experiences show no favouritism. Perhaps most frustratingly of all for devout religious practitioners, psychedelics; LSD, DMT, psylocibin, ibogain and many other substances can deliver deeper and more profound mystical experiences to anyone open to their effects. It would be misleading to suggest a chemical alone can deliver mystical experiences. Only well practised and skilled psychedelic use with considered set and setting, or some other practiced and understood spiritual framework within which to contextualise the blitzkrieg of knowledge powerful psychedelics can unleash can an individual make sense of what can be a chaotic blur to untrained minds. These short cuts are regularly discredited as not 'real' religious experiences by most faiths. Clearly such free access undermines the authority and monopoly religious hierarchys wish to preserve as their divine right.

As the abrahamic religions have seen their beliefs influence weakened first by Galileo, and the evidence of a universe not for earth or man but vast beyond comprehension placing us in a cosmic backwater, Darwin returned man to just another animal, subject to animal laws, finally the soul appears biological. With our very consciousness a wonder of biology so it follows our highest moments, falling in love, the ecstasy of being, ultimately mystical experiences, spiritual epiphany and revelations must too be biological in origin. For most religious people this all must feel upsetting. Yet I argue a biological aspect should in no way detract from the wonder of our existence.

The scientists that discovered the endogenous (natural bodily) morphine, endorphins, that do so much more than simply nullifying pain, were awarded the Nobel prize. Our reward system, further, our emotional reality negotiation system that provides an intuitive, high speed assessment of the world we explore, shielding us from danger and directing us through safe passage, is dependent on the subtle symphony of neurotransmitters. Yet the equally amazing discovery of our endogenous psychedelic delivered no such rewards. Dimethyltryptamine, DMT is found in hundreds of plant species. These plants have been used by shamans to enter other dimensions, to engage with a variety of spirits and demons, both benevolent and malevolent for thousands of years. Incredibly DMT occurs naturally within our bodies. Where most chemicals are rejected the brain actively seeks out DMT, allowing its passage through the blood brain barrier. Very similar in molecular structure to serotonin it operates via specific serotonin receptors. LSD molecules also have comparable similarity to serotonin and connect to the 5hta receptor. DMT is an entirely natural human process, though it's function not yet fully understood though it appears to play a roll in near death experiences, and presumably death. Survivors speak of a bright light. Both eastern and western religions speak of a blinding white light that accompanies enlightenment. The term 'seen the light' is an expression found in the language of many cultures. DMT is found in its highest density in the pineal gland. It is the only brain organ not twinned but sits deep down between the hemispheres. The pineal gland has been known of since Ancient Greece though it's purpose never fully understood. In the brains of evolutionarily older animals such as reptiles and amphibians it sits much closer to the surface and is known as the third eye. Here it is light sensitive having a lens, cornea and retina. In adult humans it is not light sensitive but appears well protected in its deep position. An interesting experiment is to ask a person where they believe their 'soul' or self is. Most often people will accurately point their fingers from above and temple at the pineal gland. Descartes believed it to be the location of the soul, an intermediate organ between the spirit and the physical.

DMT is the most powerful entheogen known to man. The effects of smoking DMT are beyond the description of words. For fuller descriptions read Strassmans 'The Spirit Molecule.' His research studies make fascinating reading. Simply, the trip is short. Fifteen minutes or so. Subjects express strong feelings that there is no feeling of intoxication. The experiences are not felt as hallucinatory or dream scrapes but are more real than normal reality. Often a swooshing noise builds before they feel fired into another dimension. Some say shot into outer space. Colourful mandala like patterns fill the vision whether eyes remain open or closed. These colours replace reality, they are not seen as superimposed. If one can remain undistracted this can be broken past into a place where there are other beings, often interested and benevolent, some say loving. For others the entities display lack of interest, but seem unsurprised at your being there. From balls of light, to elves, to insects, the creatures vary from individual to individual though most describe their technologies, far in advance of our own. An organic computer, biological and beyond our understanding features often in trip reports. They often impart knowledge, or merely reassure you that you are loved. Some describe the entities giving them medical examinations, curious at our physicality. Most experience them as friendly though there are cases of people being terrified. These 'bad trips' invariably accompany subjects resistant to the drugs effects. Indeed, allowing the trip to take you in all psychedelic use is good advice. Resistance, trying to fight off the effects, or those of a self deceptive persona quickly find problems. Any closet traits hidden from oneself will be exposed. Any affectations or repressed traits will be found out. Resistance to DMT is futile. By ten minutes, though time here is quite different and though to outer observers short, the experience can feel very long, they are saying farewell, hoping for you to return. By fifteen you are back in our normal reality.

What is curious is the recurrence of this experience of meeting other beings. Other hallucinogens never deliver such specific, recurring features; it is as though everyone who takes DMT journeys to the same place. These DMT trips are not taken lightly, there is virtually no recreational market, the experience the opposite of escapist. You are brutally exposed to yourself, few people want that, most harbour some romantic self image. That's no crime. Whatever it takes to get you through the night. DMT is not experienced as reality as seen through an interesting distortion. It replaces this reality with another, more real one. Most, LSD for example, delivers mainly pseudo hallucinations. The tripper sees visions but is aware they are figments of their imagination. DMT experiences 'are' real. Often the suggestion that a returning persons visions weren't real can illicit a profound dismissal. An ignorant lack of respect to something beyond the uninitiateds meagre comprehension. To the tripper this reality is more real than our own.

Another common experience is of death and rebirth. Words fail as this is felt as real death and rebirth.

Most find the experience of great significance. Often the most important of their life. Concerns over death are often overcome. Other fears that can preoccupy the mind can be overcome.

Reading DMT trip reports one could easily be reading the descriptions of alien abduction. Given its endogenous nature it seems likely some naturally dispensed DMT from the pineal gland could explain this recurring phenomena. A phenomena, I confess I had dismissed alongside the Loch Ness Monster and UFO sightings. Since my DMT studies I have been forced to shake aside prejudice and reassess alien abduction.

One theory is that the pineal gland delivers DMT to the brain at both birth and death. The similarities of near death experiences, often coloured by cultural expectations but consistent in the sensation of love, a divine presence, a corridor leading toward brilliant white light. Some believe Descartes wasn't far wrong. That the pineal gland provides the means for the spirit to leave the dying body.

As yet, other than other people's intuitive feelings, I have seen nothing to lead me to think consciousness survives bodily death. I suspect the desire to continue must presume some peculiar delusion of ones greater significance. The cycles of life and death seem the common denominator of all of the planets organisms. Besides, in the same second my consciousness expires, six new conscious minds, to impartial observers no different to mine, get their opportunity to see the utter magnificent wonder that is life on Earth. 

To my mind, in all likelihood, the pineal glands secretion of its endogenous psychedelic plays a large part in mystical experiences. The feelings of profound revelation, divine significance, the sheer and unavoidable immersion in a different reality where time and space utterly differ. Though I believe there are other factors that combine. Next I will describe my own mystical experience, hopefully this will enable me to explore how the mystical delivers still more.

To remind you of my perspective from most of my adult life, I was an outspoken exponent of secularism. At heart,  agnostic as I find anyone who pretends to know what the fuck is going on is ridiculously self delusional. To illustrate the situation the astrologer who did my birthchart described me as 'spiritually retarded' such was my disrespect for her trade. I found new age Mystics who engaged or took any interest in this sort of fakery, with a yearning for magic whilst each day living oblivious to the mind blowing magic all around. We are conscious animals on a blue planet in space, lush with wonderful life forms. How incredible, how sublime and beyond possibility this existence is if ones eyes are open. To miss what lies under their noses and favour crystals and astrology, when the real magic of astronomy somehow eludes them. That is spiritual deaf, dumb and blindness from where I am sat. Besides, the spiritual is ever present for me, in the natural world, in the values and meanings we invest in the objects we create.

My early to mid teenage years were spent in an abundance of mystical revelations I experienced through magic mushrooms, later LSD. But young and reckless I overdid it, never spending time post trip to assess the barrage of spiritual information I was bombarding my brain with. As I approached my twenties the dreams we shared began to crack as life's realities began to seep in. My faith in the psychedelic mysticism waned. Perhaps this was just drug illusions. In rebellion I took up joinery for its material clarity. The harder builder class seemed more able to handle this tough world with their beer, brotherhood and the interaction with matter. Grounding after the mysticism became at once terrifying in its flirting with madness and no longer convincing. It may have felt as though we had felt the secrets of the universe but maybe it was just the sense of enlightenment, not enlightenment itself.

And this new materialism, this contact with matter served me well until I was thirty. Without a spiritual framework, I drifted in to mental illness. I became successful designing and making furniture but my mental health suffered as gradually, what began in innocent woodwork grew into making expensive furniture for rich listers. No one I knew socially could afford my work. All I had become was a performer producing unnecessary objects to indulge those with too much money. 

Years past making more furniture. People forever told me how great it was to make beautiful things but I could never find any moral virtue as the pieces grew pricier for a smaller minority that could afford them. I took to drug abuse to compensate, never happy in what I did. The spiral intensified until in crisis I took a massive overdose. I lived but spent a month in a psychotic state. I'll describe where I went later. Amongst all this I discovered there were a new generation of advanced lysergamides. Gradually experimenting with its potential I learned how to use AL -LAD, a purified derivative of LSD. In growing psychosis I engaged on a quest tracking Joseph of Aramatheias footsteps from Lynmouth to Challice Hill and Glastonbury Tor. In a final psychedelic ritual on Cley Hill I realised I must change everything in my life.

Packing in my furniture business I made for the Welsh borders where I withdrew from prescription opiates. In a fragile condition I travelled up to Leeds, my hometown. It was here I was to experience a full on mystical experience. Nothing in my life before had come close to this. I don't know why it happened then or there. But my life was never to be the same again.

By its nature the mystical state can not be expressed in words, nevertheless, they are all I have. Much is forgotten but I shall try my best to describe the feelings, sensations and understanding or knowledge I felt was imparted to me. I have a respectable psychedelic CV though most of it from my teenage years. Something in the area of a thousand psylocibin trips, some one hundred LSD trips. After a thirty year hiatus where I lost faith in the validity of the psychedelic experience I discovered the new, advanced lysergoids, first trying LSZ then AL-LAD. First trip it seemed like acid without the anxiety I had sometimes felt on mushrooms and acid. A further ten AL-LAD trips revealed how superior to LSD it could be. Discovered first by a Japanese group of scientists in the 1970s, AL-LAD involves, in its synthesis, first making LSD25. To make this into AL-LAD involves a 75% reduction. It takes 1000grammes of LSD to produce 250grammes of AL-LAD. My knowledge of chemistry is not great but this three quarters reduction appears to dispense with any of LSDs dark corners. Experimenting with different doses rom 150ug to 750ug. Settling on a single dose of 300ug to 450ug as optimum. Above this, though pleasureable the knowledge imparted and change in consciousness became harder to use as the chaos of visual effects could confuse me, losing the higher state of awareness I sought in the overwhelming chaos. Any sacramental takes time to learn how to use properly though my thorough grounding in psychedelics in general meant it was the idiosyncrasies peculiar to AL-LAD that I had to understand and explore. This study period involved many profound experiences through the early AL-LAD sessions. Most pertinent being that AL-LAD had a euphoria unique to the experiences, the freedom from anxiety that can cause one to hold back on LSD meant this new lysergamide provided a security and confidence permitting one to 'let go', to abandon oneself to the trip, let it take you where it would, and not to fight the effects. This resistance to psychedelics as many feel scared by the loss of control as a new reality takes hold wastes the experience and is the main cause of bad trips. I have not had so much as a bad moment on AL-LAD.I had developed a scientific outlook, agnostic with a bias toward a materialist perspective, a cynicism toward spiritual attitudes and even supercilious disrespect to religious ideas. Even following this life changing experience I remain confused by people of faith. What happened this Saturday evening was triggered by AL-LAD but was so far beyond any other experience of my life, reducing it to the effects of a drug both misses that the greater part of the experience was the stuff the drug triggered, not the drug itself. I have read that lysergoids, being effective at such tiny doses, are more of a trigger than an intoxicant. Much of the chemical has left the body by the time the trip peaks. The word 'drug' is misleading as the effects are unlike those of anything else we call a drug. As little as 50 thousandths of a gramme can be effective. What seperated this experience from any other in my life was its profound reality. Where as a drug tends to distort ones sense of reality, this experience made my normal reality seem delusional. This was more true and real than any other moment in my life. Another factor that may have played a part is that I had recently undergone withdrawals from synthetic opiates. My endorphins were low and my brain chemistry in transition. Opiates lock onto endorphin receptors all over the body with a high density in the brain. Since the discovery of endorphins, the parts they play in our lives have begun to open up to science. But no book, no biochemical knowledge, no second hand experience can educate a person remotely like experience physiological opiate dependence and withdrawals. Though highly unpleasant heroin taught me more about myself and the human condition than anything else I had experienced before. I wouldn't advise anyone to try heroin but the reason people start using it is because nobody can imagine how profoundly important the endorphin system is. The very deepest parts experienced as 'you' can remain a delusion of a seperated soul or spirit, none dependent on the body or the brain but heroin withdrawal is impossible to imagine when a person only has illnesses to use as tools to imagine what it might be like. Your brain chemistry 'is' you. Endorphins simplest function is to create this illusion. We are cushioned, numbed to the physical world. Through this nullifying of pain and emotion, endorphins enable us to sail about whilst in good health as though the world were physical and our consciousness spiritual. A misconception many have about opiates comes through only looking at the surface, the word 'painkiller' simplifies their effect. Rather than stopping the pain messages reaching the brain, they alter and to an extent, the emotional responses to pain. Opiates change our relationship to the pain. It is this emotional subjugation most junkies want. Childhood trauma, bereavement, rape or other experiences that can't be resolved, understood or placed within a conceptual framework; the absence of parental love in our workaholic culture leaves the child to negotiate their emotional development alone, sometimes other children are turned to but are equally I equipped to help. A further less understood role endorphins play, in all animals, is explored in the books of Antonio Damasio. As we negotiate reality, each object (people included) requires evaluation. Our first experiences to the new are observed and given what Damasio calls a 'somatic marker'. A pulse of neurotransmitters compliments the experience so the stored memory is both sensory and emotional. If the first time we see a dog we are bitten, the idea of 'dog' carries a stab of fear as even thinking 'dog' triggers adrenaline as a warning. On the positive side, if the dog is loving and affectionate, the child places a somatic marker with a pulse of endorphins. This system, common to all mammals (there are suggestions the system may stretch to all animals, serotonin can be traced in minor organisms suggesting the emotional survival strategy could be in all organisms. Some even believe plants 'know' emotionally what is good for them) operates unconsciously. Reason is primitively slow in helping us negotiate reality. When a lion pounces we leap way before we have time to think, otherwise we would die. Many illnesses and psychological conditions are the result of following our head and not our hearts. Depression, addiction even cancers can result from resisting our intuitive sense and favouring our cold rational. We may be unable to operate autonomously free from the prisons of taboo. People continue in jobs, marriages, relationships through duty and an inability to entertain other possibilities, despite, deep down, knowing we are not happy. Many face years of depression, often preferring to medicate, either by doctors prescription or by self medication with illicit drugs or alcohol. The psychological or physiological blockage compounds the illness, be it alcoholism, depression, tumour until self awareness turns up to rescue us. Many are so repressive of their natural desire their entire lives are wasted. Cultural expectation and prejudices may stand in opposition to an individual's nature leaving them cursed never to find true happiness or self expression. The life lived by the heart, steered by intuition, not reason, is a shade idealistic. We all hold irrational feelings; racist, sexist, moral Puritanism. To live purely by submission to impulse and desire, certain individuals of perverse tastes can become serial killers, rapists and kleptomaniac. Whilst trusting our noses, we ought still challenge our urges, policing our actions. It is the harmonic balance of head and heart that is the optimum human approach to life. There are many truths that are counter intuitive. It is only the bravest minds, able to reason beyond the limit of appearance that delivers the great paradigm shifts of human history.

Once the opiate dependent stops using, the intensity of withdrawal that follows is an experience of such profound change, such physical and psychological pain, they rarely return to the innocence of the person they were before. No longer protected by the emotional shield, opened by AL-LAD, my mind was opened to the mystical. 

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