Re: REPLY TO READ'S POINT ON REVELATION

Steve Mizrach (SEEKER1@NERVM.NERDC.UFL.EDU)
Wed, 19 Jan 1994 18:51:04 -0500

>THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN REVELATION AND INSIGHT IS NOT ONLY THAT INSIGHT IS
>THE RESULT OF A COGNITIVE PROCESS OCCURRING SUBCONSCIOUSLY BUT THAT
>REVELATION IS SOMETHING AS YET NOT EXPLAINABLE.

I would, on this point, beg to differ; it can be explained up until
ineffability becomes part of the experience.

>ALSO THE MAGNITUDE OF THE EXPERIENCE IS QUITE DIFFERENT, REGARDLESS OF HOW IT'S GENERATED.THE EXPERIENCE I HAD HAS BEEN DESCRIBED BY PEOPLE IN MANY DIFFERENT
>CULTURES, AND IT CAN BE ACHIEVED IN MANY DIFFERENT WAYS: THROUGH
>Meditation, through motion, and evidently through the process of
>thinking. Also, this state can be induced by drugs.

I would simplify this statement to "it can be induced by any of the means
of creating an altered state of consciousness."

>Just what occurs in the brain to produce this state is one question to explore. But we can also learn something from the ways in which people react to and
>use this experience. Both are legitimate areas of study. The fact
>that we can explain how the brain produces this phenomenon does not
>then tell us what this experience will mean to people. That's another
>question.
>
>Susan Love Brown

My, my. "What the experience means to people." Methinks this brings us back
to the Geertzian problematic again...
Seeker1 [@Nervm.Nerdc.Ufl.Edu] (real info available on request)
Anthropologist, Cybernaut, PoMoDemite, Noetician, Situationiste, et al.
University of Florida, Gainesville, Cosmic Nexus of the Universal Matrix
"'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds!" --Malaclypse the Younger