This summer I will be teaching a course on altered states of consciousness. The course title is " Common Threads of the Mind-Bending Disciplines", and I intend to deal with ways in which we use different proscribed methods to change the way we experience our inner and outer reality.
From Transcendental Meditation to Centering Prayer, and from Autogenics, to mystical Kabbalah, it seems to me that there are many obvious overlapping behavioral elements for how we get to the altered state, and how we see life as a result. For example, there seems to be the element of relaxation involved in nearly everyone of the practices. Many involve breath work. Some use chanting or repetitive mantras.
Years of doing hypnosis and self-hypnosis has brought me to see many similarities among the practices of mind nourishment and spiritual uplifting. When the preacher or liturgist is praying as part of the worship experience, I have detected many phrases, religious or not, that are suggestions. Different than what hypnosis itself might use, but metaphors about God ("shepherd" , "healer", everlasting arms") are aids to worship, just as stained glass and pleasant music is. The Taissé Community makes full use, in its worship practice, of stimuli to all the senses: sight, aroma, sound. It is as if somehow, the shamans through the ages sacred and secular, knew they were not dealing with objective reality. The"How" of altered states is familiar to Tai Chi and Yoga, practiced as a discipline. Something changes from ordinary to even blissful.
The "Why" of altered states may be hinted at or openly lauded within the different methods. Many disciplines point to the need to stop "doing" and move into the neutral place of "being". Experiencing the sense of NOW is for the purpose of contentment, and/or a new sense of self-awareness. My understanding of Buddhism is that the disengagement from the prevailing life experience of suffering is achieved with a meditation discipline. Mindfulness, as practiced by Jon Kabat-Zinn, is meant to be therapeutic for a number of emotional problems. Clinical psychology has expanded the practice of mindfulness to treat anxiety, depression, and drug addiction. Both spiritual enlightenment and emotional health are goals of these different expressions of meditation. Are these the same phenomenon? Pet scans by the psychologists show very similar blood flow in the brain during the time of meditation.
Mystical traditions from Christian history (for example, John-of-the-Cross), make contemplation sound very much like meditation. In the religious traditions of the mystics, both Christian and Jewish, there is an added element, that of transcendence, by which they usually mean being in touch with the Divine. It is a kind of vertical dimension to the otherwise secular and horizontally experienced meditation. The presence of "the Holy" is a gift bestowed upon those who are quiet and receptive. The mystical pathway is described as Inward, Upward, and then Outward. Outward becomes the added activity of compassionate service to mankind, to whom the meditator is linked "unitatively" , a sense of Oneness with everything. There is no competitiveness between persons, because, by this awareness, we are all in the same boat.
The course may be found in the curriculum of Silver Bay, New York, Conference Center (silverbay.org) for the week of August 11-18, 2018. it is a beautiful spot on Lake George.
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