Detailed table of contents
(click on any of the blue titles)

Introduction

Advisory for the mystical journey
Objective of this presentation
Happiness, the purpose of natural mysticism
Apophaticism and religion
Is apophatic mysticism religious?

Concepts and definitions

The human psyche
Mentation
Apophasis: Part one
Apophasis: Part two
Inchoate conversations

Why bother with philosophy?
Defining the essense of the mystical experience
Pin the wheel: Mike Butler
Just for the fun of it: Pragmatic mysticism
Spiritual force or forces

No assumptions
My use of the term "God"

Wandering in the realm of the non-ordinary (this is section one)

Certainty and Specificity
Personalizing the experience of the spirit
The spirit: secular or impartial
Reversing and returning the psychic flow

The selfishness of the mystic
Eschatology, ambition, and the mystic's reality-based humility
Urgency
Doubt

Speculation, language, and natural mysticism
Ecstasy and ecstatic wholeness
Words are merely metaphor, when words vanish we are delivered

The numen and "ultimate reality"
Living in the moment
Reductionism

Wandering in the realm of the non-ordinary, section two

Eternal parity
The dangers of reading and writing about mysticism
Acts of compassion
The proof and authenticity of mysticism
Horses, scholars, and mystics
In fear of his neighbors on every side
Contrasting the approach of natural mysticism with science and religion
Working lightly with diligence
Mystical pretensions
Storming heaven
The apophatic's metaphor is sovereign
Is there any advantage in believing in God?

Wandering in the realm of the non-ordinary, section three

The numen: an unspeakable dance of ten thousand
Creating gods
Public and private metaphors
Telling stories that allow more creatively exquisite outcomes
How to find your spiritual master
Heretical thoughts
Psycho-visceral presence
Miracles, delusions, and ineffective beliefs
The manifestation of a god who disappears

Wandering in the realm of the non-ordinary, section four

What does a mystic look like?
Astonishment
Funny stuff
Addiction, attachment, and frugality
Beyond gods
The "evil" force"
Love as a stumbling block
Be as selfish as possible
Convincing masters
Meditation
Spiritual sovereignty
Side effects from meditation


Wandering in the realm of the non-ordinary, section five


Transmuting negative force
Spiritual anguish
Surrendering the idea of the Holy
The noetic quality of mystical experience
Utter vulnerability: the mystic's treasure
The dangers of mystical practice
Superstitious and effective devotion
The importance of meaninglessness
Praying to the world's momentum
Prayer of gratitude for ignorance
Depression

Wandering in the realm of the non-ordinary, Work in progress

Making Being your personal teacher
The sovereign soul
Send your anger to the divine power
Value and belief
Resisting habitual propensity
Presence and absence
Magic, mythology, and science
Rawley Creed on mysticism
Message of Zhuang Zi
The Great Mother
Mysticism and pretense

This and That

Reflections on Buddhism and Zhuang Zi
Rawley Creed Confesses
Sensual pleasure
Who captivates my interest?

How to evoke the shattering of the psyche
Theoretical history of apophaticism
What is a mystic?
The advantage of doubt

Is evil a plausible notion?
Not to reify the divinity
Gain and loss
Emotional appeal
Divinity = hyperconductivity?


Excerpts

Waiting: Stephen Batchelor
Importunate prayer
A Christian apophatic: Augustine Baker
Saint John of the Cross: Dark Night of the Soul
Binding the divine force, idolatry and infidelity in Ibn 'Arabi: Michael A. Sells


William Pepperell Montague on "positive mysticism."

William Pepperell Montague on the inner mystic experience
Hans Waldenfels on Nagarjuna's use of philosophy
Mircea Eliade on the role of Isvara in Patanjali's Yoga

Geoarge Feuerstein and Jeanine Miller on the Kesin Hymn
Ewert H. Cousins: a historical summary on the terms apophatic and cataphatic
Forcing God, Meister Eckhart
Tu-Shun on Theory and practice in Zen

Peter Heltzel on Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher
Christoher Isherwood on Kali, the experience of the Divine Indulgent Mother
No holiness
Pray to whomever it may concern
Robert K. C. Forman on the bimodal mystical process

Attar: An answer of Jesus
Saint John of the Cross: Good and Evil

An overview of apophatic mysticism: Sovereign Contentment


Restatements


The unholy disposition
A god for the atheist
On not forcing compassion on yourself or others
Doubt: a jewel for the apophatic

Shattering
Apophatics and gods
The ubiquity of the divine force
Imaginaing gods
Loving the spiritual source without insisting that she exist

 

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