Brian Quass
As a 1989 philosophy major graduate who has only recently returned to reading "hardcore" philosophical works, I find myself asking the following question:
Is philosophy perhaps a mistake, at least insofar as it attempts to unveil ultimate truth with words?
Take Hannah Arendt’s “The Life of the Mind.” To a person who has become aware of the philosophically didactic potential of psychedelic plants, one is tempted to put down Hannah’s book and say with Hamlet, “words, words, words.” Was humanity really meant to strain so assiduously for the truth with imperfect language, or was the truth something that was meant to be experienced, something that everyone could share and then acknowledge amongst themselves with a mere wink? Can truth be a feeling instead of a “final theory”?
For a final theory can always be gainsaid and never taken to heart. A feeling is a feeling and cannot be gainsaid – and surely ultimate truth should not be subject to gainsaying – except for those who choose a judgmental religious doctrine in which the nonbeliever is consigned to the abyss.
I think back on 20 years of "talk therapy," none of which I ever internalized, and compare it to one hour of "satori" that I experienced, when a naturally occurring psychedelic substance instantly made me "feel" the truth of all that had been said before. Yes, the talk therapists were right in theory (with their talk about my need to socialize, the fact that I had this and that potential, etc.) -- but they were clearly mistaken in thinking that talk (or theory) could take me to the place that I needed to be. Their 20 years of effort were bested by a few hours of enlightenment induced by natural substances. This has been the big error of psychotherapy, I think, the premise that a mental sufferer need only sufficiently hear and understand the truth in order to be cured by it. My life experience says otherwise as do the recidivism rates for so-called mental illness.*
I wonder now if this excess faith in language is a similar problem with philosophy. We suppose that the ultimate truth can be discovered through words, when perhaps it can only be experienced as a feeling and a disposition: in other words, something that simply cannot be gainsaid.
A Native American leader once said the following in praise of peyote-based religious ritual: “The white man goes to church to hear about Jesus; the Indian goes to church to talk with Jesus.” One wonders then, if, in an analogous way, we “white men” (i.e. we westerners) are not more happy talking about truth than experiencing it.
We westerner’s don’t want to “let ourselves go” like that. And so we recoil from the actual experience of truth in the same way that we once recoiled from the unseemly syncopation of jazz – which, of course, had to be introduced via African influences and could only be enjoyed by our mainstream over time, as we learned to stop blushing thanks to our puritan scruples and simply enjoy the music.
*This is not to argue in favor of the pill-pushing paradigm of modern psychiatry, which has used this failure of talk therapy to promote a materialistic cure for mental suffering -- one that (in line with the protestant ethic and the drug war mentality) scorns the sort of "satori" mentioned above, claiming that it does not treat "the root causes" -- thereby implying the highly debatable proposition that such "illnesses" like anxiety and depression, with such a highly variegated list of patient background stories and symptoms, can even theoretically have one root cause in all individuals and thus be subject to a one-size-fits-all pharmacologic cure.
Psychiatry's first rule should be, "first do no evil," but their motto today seems to be: "first don't let the patient actually enjoy themselves. There’s nothing scientific in that! In fact, it’s most unseemly!"
Sci Patel
Scott
But then again, a few of the big names of Silicon Valley and Seattle are rumoured to have used them and had deep experiences, but what did they then do? I mean, if the experiences are indeed deep, I think I would personally have a great deal of trouble 're-integrating' into regular society, let alone capitalism. So I don't buy into the hype. I'll make do with what I've been given.
Scott
Scott Roberts
On Sunday, August 25, 2019 at 2:38:35 AM UTC-10, Brian Quass wrote:
Was humanity really meant to strain so assiduously for the truth with imperfect language, or was the truth something that was meant to be experienced, something that everyone could share and then acknowledge amongst themselves with a mere wink? Can truth be a feeling instead of a “final theory”?
Lou Gold
Lou Gold
On Sunday, August 25, 2019 at 2:38:35 AM UTC-10, Brian Quass wrote:
Lou Gold
I think back on 20 years of "talk therapy," none of which I ever internalized, and compare it to one hour of "satori" that I experienced, when a naturally occurring psychedelic substance instantly made me "feel" the truth of all that had been said before. Yes, the talk therapists were right in theory (with their talk about my need to socialize, the fact that I had this and that potential, etc.) -- but they were clearly mistaken in thinking that talk (or theory) could take me to the place that I needed to be. Their 20 years of effort were bested by a few hours of enlightenment induced by natural substances. This has been the big error of psychotherapy, I think, the premise that a mental sufferer need only sufficiently hear and understand the truth in order to be cured by it. My life experience says otherwise as do the recidivism rates for so-called mental illness.*
I wonder now if this excess faith in language is a similar problem with philosophy. We suppose that the ultimate truth can be discovered through words, when perhaps it can only be experienced as a feeling and a disposition: in other words, something that simply cannot be gainsaid.
The old saw says, "You can bring the horse to water but you can't make him drink." On any path, with the exception of a true gift of Grace, there are requirements for true realization or healing: merit and faith. Merit means that one has accumulated the life experiences (especially failures) to make one deeply, sincerely, truly want to heal. Faith means that one has arrived at a willingness to ask, humbly surrendering a sense of "I am the doer" and being willing to accept the answer. When these two ingredients are present and the seeds are ripe, the auspicious event may arrive in a dream, in a peyote tipi, in a meditation, in an OBE or NDE or whatever. Stepping into the truth, suddenly everything makes sense including the past failures. Until then, "You can bring the horse to water but you can't make him drink."
