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That sounds a lot less like the religious form of scientism I mentioned. Skepticism seems to move people from the religious mindset into an inquiring one in the

That sounds a lot less like the religious form of scientism I mentioned. Skepticism seems to move people from the religious mindset into an inquiring one in the first place. There’s an openness there that isn’t present in purely religious thinking. Moving in the direction of mysticism, as I understand it, is when one crosses a certain threshold of skepticism that results in an ever-greater sense of openness and freedom and ease (even in the presence of painful/uncomfortable circumstances). I also don’t think there’s an endpoint to mysticism, nor do I think there are sharp boundaries between the “categories”/“stages”. Ultimately (at least my perception of it) is that if it really turned out, for example, that there actually was a “God” hiding down there, turning the wheels of the subatomic particles that animate reality, a scientism adherent would probably be deeply dismayed and need to go through a kind of grieving process to eventually accept that reality. I imagine a mystic would accept it easily as being beautiful and just as easily move on to ask: “okay, so what’s for lunch?” The experience of beauty and awe seem to be more prevalent as one heads further in the direction of mysticism.

themacguffinman 5y ago
If you're going to define a "God" as something that can hide down there and turn the wheels of natural subatomic particles, I'd argue that you've already clearly departed from the realm of magic. There used to be an unknown something beneath what we knew that operated on all objects. Now that we know what it is, we call it gravity. So if I'm understanding this right, mysticism is mindset that meets the prospect of a subatomic "God" with "it's beautiful, okay, so what's for lunch?" instead of "holy shit, surely we can apply scientific tools of discovery & knowledge to figure out how what this is and how it works?"? This seems more like lazy thinking to me; the very concept of an inscrutable "God" is a thought terminating cliche. How is that an inquiring mindset? Edit: How is that an inquiring mindset when the mystic reaction to a "God" is not inquiring what it is and how it works?
- mactavish88 5y ago
  I wasn’t trying to define God. Maybe it’s strings down there, or subatomic gnomes (and then we’d have to probe further to discover what makes them tick). Maybe we’ll never be able to know because knowing reality would require knowing all of reality (a la complexity theory). All I was saying was that it seems to me like the mystics I’ve encountered aren’t super attached to what they hope the outcome is. They’re interested in it, deeply curious about it, in awe of it, but not attached to it. There’s a far greater emphasis in mysticism on seeing the world as it truly is (and being able to accept it, regardless of how amazing or fucked up it may be) as opposed to how we want it to be.

themacguffinman 5y ago

If you're going to define a "God" as something that can hide down there and turn the wheels of natural subatomic particles, I'd argue that you've already clearly departed from the realm of magic. There used to be an unknown something beneath what we knew that operated on all objects. Now that we know what it is, we call it gravity. So if I'm understanding this right, mysticism is mindset that meets the prospect of a subatomic "God" with "it's beautiful, okay, so what's for lunch?" instead of "holy shit, surely we can apply scientific tools of discovery & knowledge to figure out how what this is and how it works?"? This seems more like lazy thinking to me; the very concept of an inscrutable "God" is a thought terminating cliche. How is that an inquiring mindset? Edit: How is that an inquiring mindset when the mystic reaction to a "God" is not inquiring what it is and how it works?

mactavish88 5y ago
I wasn’t trying to define God. Maybe it’s strings down there, or subatomic gnomes (and then we’d have to probe further to discover what makes them tick). Maybe we’ll never be able to know because knowing reality would require knowing all of reality (a la complexity theory). All I was saying was that it seems to me like the mystics I’ve encountered aren’t super attached to what they hope the outcome is. They’re interested in it, deeply curious about it, in awe of it, but not attached to it. There’s a far greater emphasis in mysticism on seeing the world as it truly is (and being able to accept it, regardless of how amazing or fucked up it may be) as opposed to how we want it to be.