Professor Steve Jones has published an exhaustive account* of why mysticism, and spiritual experiences in particular, are just so much joshing around by a playful, but totally out of its depth, human brain.

That last bit is my own interpretation, not his. He is a clever, but deeply conventional, aficionado of the genomic view of life, whereby the world is reduced to four letters and an ocean of numbers. What else would one expect from a geneticist who has spent “a lifetime studying snails”?

In his favour he issues a small caveat which suggests a grain of self knowledge: “I have a blind spot. Brain science sheds little light on why I am denied an experience so central to the lives of others; [mystical experience] and its failure reminds us how little success technology has had in understanding the workings of the inner angel that lives within every nervous system.”

There’s only one reply to that: why bother then if it isn’t science?

If I were his professor I’d also point out that technology has no understanding of anything at all, it merely follows instructions from the human world. However, the flaw in his sentence — one that many of his undergraduates might make — throws bright light on the Problem of Science: definitions.

To be able to speak or write authoritatively on a complex subject, such as spiritual experience, requires precise definitions of crucial terms. It also helps to have some practical knowledge of the processes involved.

Here’s another example: “Devotees insist that when they put their trust in a higher power they ascend into a universe of thought denied to sceptics.”

Such elementary errors might suggest sloppy editing, but I suspect it goes to the heart of the science delusion. “Thought” is part of the contents of consciousness, along with emotions and impressions, not consciousness itself, as he intimates — (see first link below). Spiritual experiences take us way beyond thought. In fact, you can even observe your own thoughts and thinking processes from above — (see second link below).

Another fundamental misunderstanding is revealed in this passage: “Science, in its banal fashion, makes it possible to study the mind in ways impossible in the days of [William] James. The visions of saints, sinners, dreamers, drug users or anyone else can now be explored with technology. To do so may not give much insight into piety [?] itself, but hints that at least some of its symptoms are side effects of the machinery of the nervous system.”

Technology can only point to areas of the brain that become active in certain instances. The brain is like a set-top box on your television. If you didn’t know that invisible radio waves surround us every moment of the day, you might assume that the box was actually producing the TV programmes all by itself.

By extension, and personal experience, the brain is an essential interface into the body for events and conditions, most of which take place outside the human person. As the philosopher Plotinus put it: “We are at all times swimming in a sea of consciousness.” The soul is completely separate from the machinery of the body, including the brain.

Apart from the lack of precision in word definitions, understandable in someone who has not experienced the states he is describing, it’s as if he is painting a picture of the Himalayas from a map in an Atlas of the World. The awe generated by the might of Mount Everest will be completely absent, as well as an accurate depiction of its three-dimensional shape. That would not be “scientific”.

Jones continues his snail’s-eye view of the spiritual landscape: “Priests of many religions spend solitary hours in darkness or silence. Such experiences may activate the pineal gland at the base of the brain. Descartes believed that to be the seat of the soul. Be that as it may, the structure is the source of melatonin, a chemical concerned with sleep and wakefulness. Those who meditate may have more of it than others, with a shift in mental condition.”

Again, “may” and “might” have no place in a scientific treatise. It’s the world according to chemistry. But chemistry is just a servant not a master.

As for the rest of the book, I have only read the Daily Telegraph extract and listened to three of his radio broadcasts, but I would recommend he has it re-edited for precision, for if there are this many inaccuracies in such a short article, what must the final total be?

Back to the real-world drawing board, Professor Jones.

1. Midweek Mysticism: 1. Neuroscience confronts reality of the spiritual
2. Proof of consciousness after death
3. The Serpent’s Promise — Telegraph article

* The Serpent’s Promise, published by Little Brown on May 2 (rrp £25).

John Evans

… who is the author of The Eternal Quest for Immortality: Is it staring you in the face? Available from Amazon and all good booksellers.

Coming eventually: Mystology: A different way of looking at the world. Also a website, mystology.com.

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I’ve long retained a healthy scepticism about the ancient art and practice of divination. I like to think I’m an empiricist in the English philosophical tradition. If I can’t make something work, I lose interest in it.

That doesn’t mean it can’t blossom for someone else, of course. The problem is that many of its practitioners seem to hang out on fairgrounds and slightly downmarket television shows. However, I was in for a surprise.

When I was reading psychology at university my hero was the great C.G. (Carl) Jung, a Swiss genius of towering breadth of learning and imagination. His mystical apotheosis was a revelation in every sense:

When the summit of life is reached, when the bud unfolds and from the lesser the greater emerges … and the greater figure, which one always was but which remained invisible, appears to the lesser personality with the force of a revelation, he … will know that the long expected friend of his soul, the immortal one, has now really come.

It doesn’t get much better than that. Jung was also a lifelong student of the Chinese Book of Changes, the I Ching — a rather intellectual tool for divination.

Its method is similar to most other systems of reaching out to foreknowledge, which use the physical to attain the mystical. In ancient China, Taoists used 49 yarrow stalks, throwing them six times to the ground to make up a hexagram. Jung was convinced it worked and practised diligently.

My own experience of it was one of tedium. I adopted the modern method of throwing three coins instead of yarrow sticks. I managed to get hold of three old British pennies, the surprisingly large and heavy copper coins that were in use until 1971.

At first the process seemed interminable, asking a question, then throwing the coins six times and building up a hexagram of six whole and broken lines. I used the Richard Wilhelm translation which had a stimulating commentary by Jung himself.

It seemed to work on many occasions, but could be densely obscure, lacking the vivid nature of real life. Perhaps I was expecting too much.

Some years later — not long ago — I was given a pack of Tarot cards as a present. These, of course, are much more associated with the fairground that ever was the I Ching. But as I shuffled through them, I recognised Jung’s Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. I was immediately attracted to them and began to try them out.

As often with divinatory methods, it takes a while to break yourself into the deeper aspects of the system. I had sporadic matches with various outcomes, but as with the I Ching, they seemed tenuous and distant, lacking immediacy.

But I didn’t give up on them, because of their archetypal dynamism and the brilliance of the commentary in the book that came with my version. Gradually, the mist clarified and the “immortal one” seemed to answer. I am still staggered by the relevance of the answers I now get.

The Tarot can be a bit scary. The first time you get the Death card is not for the faint-hearted: in some versions, it’s a black skeleton with a scythe riding on a black horse — truly the stuff of nightmares.

All is not lost. The card represents merely a decisive loss, perhaps a job (the sack?) or the need for a complete, beneficial, change of direction. Until, that is, your turn for departure from this world really does come.

If you can accept my assertion that it definitely does work, you stand a chance of making it relevant for yourself after a period of induction. So how does it work?

I suspect it has more to do with biologist Rupert Sheldrake’s “extended mind” — the universal, or Nirvanic consciousness, than any other theoretical medium.

This is genuinely mystical; that is, something beyond normal consciousness and means of seeing. It links our earthly life with what lies beyond. It is both accessible to those who want it enough and will guide them through mysteries without end.

Jung’s “culmination of life” was such an experience. Divination is just the opening shots in the greatest journey of all.

John Evans

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Nirvana has not been explained with any precision in the West. The problem has been that it is often regarded as a realm protected by a small clique of initiates, and by the high priests of the ancient mystery religions who regarded it as a proof of life after death — which indeed it is.

Despite the dismissive attitudes of orthodox science, nirvanic experience, as Daniel Goleman called it, is part of our empirical knowledge. It is not, however, observed by the five familiar physical senses, or by the brain, but by another means of knowing: a space consciousness rather than the point consciousness of our normal senses. Currently, this is a dark region for science, although near-death experiences (NDEs) are opening up this whole area to fresh inquiry.

Dr Sam Parnia’s three-year research project at Southampton University has concluded with a positive view on the existence of NDEs. In his new book The Lazarus Effect, he terms them actual death experiences, because the person undergoing it is, in effect, dead.

I don’t agree with that overall assessment, since my own experiences of it show the body very much alive — see Proof of consciousness after death. But that is a mystical nirvanic experience, not a medical emergency. However, they come to the same thing, actual death being one case among many.

The notion of a single substance, or ground, underlying all things is not new. The pre-socratic Greek philosopher, Thales, thought that all matter was composed of water. His later colleague, Anaximenes, suggested that air was a more likely candidate.

In a purely material reality this seems absurd. But if we were able to see the world in the manner of extended still-frame photography, one picture every 50 years, say, over a period of several million, even the most solid mountain range would appear to move and flow. In fact it would be indistinguishable in many ways from the sea. Any being living at that frequency of thought would see rocks as water. It is a sobering idea that such beings would drink mountains. Water itself would be too volatile to register in such a slow-coach consciousness.

There are three levels of consciousness by which we obtain knowledge of the world:

1. through the “eye” of the five senses: perception
2. through the eye of the mind: conception
3. through the eye of the extra-bodily sense: nirvanic experience.

The first is used for the external world of time and its objects. This is the method of empirical science, which has given us the technology partly to master the physical environment.

The eye of the mind gives us the logic of philosophy and mathematics.

The eye of nirvanic experience (nirvanoception, perhaps) is used for the direct knowing of Nirvana, the world beyond body-mind, but containing it. This eye cannot tell us about scientific or material truths.

Rationalists have a tendency to exclude other forms of knowledge and maintain that there is only rational truth. Descartes is the typical example of this: “I think, therefore I am”.

A similar category error occurred when Justinian, the Byzantine emperor, closed the schools of philosophy in Athens because he claimed that philosophy was unnecessary since the truth had been revealed by Jesus Christ. Humans have three ways of knowing for a reason.

The idea of the suprapersonal is also relevant here. The nirvanic viewpoint is a suprapersonal experience from the perspective of the personal consciousness, the Soul.

It lifts us suddenly away from the ground of our small personal self to a perspective of the unified self-nature of the world. It is a privileged glimpse of what it means to be more than our body-mind. It does not mean that we are not ourselves. Just not whom we think we are in everyday life.

Enlightenment, or cosmosity as I’ve called it elsewhere, is the result of the action of nirvanic experiences on an individual who is ripe for development in this field. Here’s an analogy: the mind (the contents of consciousness) is like a radio broadcast which hitches a ride on a carrier wave. Because the carrier wave is stable, radio receivers can remain tuned to it.

The “carrier wave” in human experience is nirvanoception, which is apprehended as basic awareness. Our awareness, stripped of sense perceptions and thought processes, is therefore the central element in experience. Since, as Plotinus asserted, and nirvanic experience confirms, we are immersed in an ocean of consciousness, it is easy to see how our awareness might be expanded infinitely in moments of cosmosity.

Orthodox scientists, who observe solely through the eye of the senses, thus restricting themselves to the material world, are always surprised by paradox. The layered nature of reality explains many of the paradoxes inseparable from nirvanean philosophies. A ladder of understanding forms part of the ancient “perennial philosophy” of mankind and its absence is the biggest stumbling block for three-dimensional materialists.

Nirvana is now a world-word that has come to mean any paradisical situation or experience, even one generated by drugs. Originally, in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, it meant “deliverance of the mind”.

Nirvanic-type experiences have also been recorded in the annals of other religions and even among people of no religious affiliation at all. Indeed, it may be the case that standard religious practices and doctrines actively discourage the state from developing in an individual.

For a scholarly treatment of the meaning of Nirvana see: Nirvana Defined

John Evans

… who is the author of The Eternal Quest for Immortality: Is it staring you in the face? Available from Amazon and all good booksellers.

Coming up: Mystology: A different way of looking at the world. Also a website, mystology.com.

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There is a view being spread around that David Cameron is more Eurosceptic than Margaret Thatcher ever was.

Putting aside the fact that during most of her period in office, the full horror of the European Union had not yet emerged, her last book Statecraft laid that calumny to rest years ago.

In it the Iron Lady — to distinguish her from the current PM who might be the Ironing Lady — rehearses the way she was totally duped by France’s Jacques Delors, the Barroso of his day, over the Single Market proposal, which materialised into the Single European Treaty (note the profound change of emphasis in the name).

After winning her opt-outs and signing, Brussels stuck them on us anyway via the newly fangled Health and Safety strand, a level of dishonesty that should be remembered and corrected in these more enlightened times.

In Statecraft, published after her retirement, Mrs Thatcher called for Britain to leave the EU by simply repealing the Treaty Acts in Parliament. Too late, alas. John Major was no fighter. His speciality was the elegant cave-in.

David Cameron’s speech tomorrow has been brewing for months, so much so that it will probably be overcooked, emerge flat and gasless, and will please no-one. [Update: this speech has just been postponed owing to the Algerian hostage crisis.]

A referendum in 2018 is totally unacceptable. Brussels thrives on time. They know elected politicians rarely last long and are prepared to wait it out until they are gone. Dave will be put on the Sit-It-Out list, a form of purgatory reserved for the awkward squad (EU code for “the British”).

In the meantime, they will happily get on with building their fiscal inner core, with Britain not included in the decision-making.

How does being “out of Europe” differ from that?

Talking of purgatory, Dan Brown’s new novel investigates Dante’s Inferno and it’s out on the 14th of May.

Harvard professor of symbology, Robert Langdon, will again be on the trail of the “real meaning” of the text and all the shenanigans surrounding it. I predict it will be a cracking tale with hardly a let-up from start to finish — a juicy prospect.

I look forward to it for two reasons. First, I usually enjoy his novels, especially The Da Vinci Code, and secondly, I bought A.N. Wilson’s Dante in Love, plus a magnificent presentation volume of the complete Divine Comedy early last year. I still haven’t read them. The news is just the prod I needed.

I can already hear the groans of the Metropolitan literati set. They really don’t like Brown at all. How very vulgar that his books have sold 200million copies to date, and 80million tills have rung for Da Vinci alone.

It won’t win the Man Booker prize, that’s for sure, but it will tingle the spines of millions worldwide. And teach them a bit of history too. You can’t say fairer than that.

We sometimes take ourselves too seriously.

Recent polls show that the French are among the most mocked and disliked people on the planet. How has this happened? Is it recent, or well established?

I looked through my archive of writings and came up with this little gem from October 2005. Here’s an excerpt:

Now here’s a conundrum. Is it possible to maximize your returns with the minimum of effort? According to a runaway bestselling book in France, it is.

Bonjour Laziness (in the US), Hello Laziness (in the UK) by French economist, Corinne Maier, attempts to dethrone all those American business gurus who entreat hard work and perseverance. To prove it she has written this very slim volume, printed in large type, which … well … sort of proves her point … up to a point.

A senior French newspaper correspondent in London recently said that 25 percent of the French people are still Marxists. He believed this would shock the Anglo-Saxon world. Well, it shocked me, I can tell you. Before, I’d only half-suspected it was true. This little book confirms it.

Ms Maier is a senior economist with the private utility, Electricite de France, which is nothing like an American corporation. She believes that almost no work is done in France except by a small minority of drones, who work their socks off. She even likens them to slaves. Judging by the length of her book, Corinne isn’t one of them.

“Business is dead”, she cries, more in hope than certainty. Her prescription for the helots? “Just play the part of the model worker, say the right words and do the right things, but without actually getting involved.” It reminds me of those student revolutionaries way back in 1960s Paris who shouted, “We have no policies, only demands!” Is it really that bad in France?

But like all French anti-Americanism, you have to read between the lines to catch the envy. What do we make of: “companies aren’t funky or exciting. They’re boring ….” Have you tried Apple or Google, Ms Maier?

This book will confirm every American and British prejudice against France, as well as French visceral dislike of the Anglo-Saxon business model. But, phew, it’s an eye-opening read. If someone like her can feel so badly about us, what on earth do all those Marxist drones think?

In the Leveson aftermath, what is the position for those of us who write online? Here are some thoughts:

In trying to formulate a code of practice for writers and journalists online I suggest we could start with previous attempts at defining human freedom of thought and expression. One of my favourite statements was made 2,500 years ago by Gautama Buddha.

In the Kalama Sutta, sometimes called “The Charter of Freedom”, the Buddha tells the Kalama people not to bother themselves with what others think; not to listen to “wise” men’s pronouncements, or necessarily accept the views of authority. They should prove the truth of each statement by reference to their own personal experience. Even today, this is one of the most breathtaking expressions of personal liberty. It has, of course, been spun a lot, and explained away, since. But let the statement speak for itself :

“It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumour; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, ‘The monk is our teacher.’ Kalamas, when you yourselves know that these things are bad, blamable and lead to harm and ill, abandon them.”

As a code for online writers and bloggers, it’s a very good start.

Poppycock Watch
In a report a while back: It Doesn’t Pay: Materialism and the Pursuit of Happiness, James Montier, once global equities strategist at Dresdner, Kleinwort Wasserstein, claimed that people who pursue materialistic goals are not happy.

He singles out those who think they need the latest technological gadgets as more likely to have attention deficit disorder, paranoia, narcissism, and tendencies to histrionics and dependency. Well, that explains a lot.

One other interesting bit is his view that an income of $44,000 (around £25,000) a year is enough for optimal happiness. This, he says, echoing Abraham Maslow, is all you need for food, shelter and healthcare. Beyond that, breaking with the need for fashionable designer clothes and the latest gizmos, is the first step on the road to happiness.

Personal growth is what counts. We should concentrate on experiences rather than goods.

One thing intrigues me. Montier is a banker. His report presumably had his bank’s imprint. Why would a bank advise us to forego the usual financial goals that banks do very well on?

Profundity of the Week
If a man write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbour, tho’ he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. Ralph Waldo Emerson

John Evans

… who is the author of The Eternal Quest for Immortality: Is it staring you in the face? Available from Amazon and all good booksellers.

Coming eventually: Mystology: A different way of looking at the world. Also a website, mystology.com.

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My new year’s resolution for 2013 is to spend one day every week fasting. And I mean fasting: nothing for 24 hours except cold water and cups of green tea.

I’ve dabbled with this regime before but only for a day or two. This time it’s serious.

The big question is, should it be on different days each week, or on one particular weekday, and which one? Looking through my collection of old diaries only Saturdays are consistently clear of events. Besides, I dislike Saturn’s day almost as much as I enjoy the Sun’s weekly outing.

Plus, a healthy food-free Saturday will set one up for the day of rest, not to mention a clear-headed start to the working week.

What’s not to like? Well, one has to get through the fast day itself and during the nation’s favourite feast and booze-up time. I can report that the first fast is rocketing by with just the evening to go.

There was a recent Horizon programme on the BBC which investigated a two-day a week fast, but the jokey scientist involved was allowed 600 calories a day — what a wimp!

However, after the allotted timeframe, all his vital signs showed marked improvement, clearing him from the at-risk register for the usual batch of male, heart-related problems.

So, how is mine going? I spent the day lying in bed until mid-afternoon reading the newspapers on the iPad, which I’m now using to write this column. Modern tech is not only about frivolity, you know.

My sister is fond of saying she hates Saturdays because of the relentless sound of sport echoing from radio and television. It is possible to insulate the jangling nerves from such din by walking out in the country, which is my favourite leisure occupation. Hence the generic title of this column: Saturday Ramble, which incidentally is often written on Sundays.

She’s right, though, except when it includes Test Match cricket and a rugby international or two. But I’ve already foresworn them on my designated day. I hope the sacrifice will be rewarded.

I intend to spend the evening of this first fast day watching Rowan Williams’s superb film Goodbye to Canterbury on the iPlayer for the second time. It was made by the BBC to commemorate his period as Archbishop of Canterbury, which has just ended, and is a must-see if you have not done so already. As I write, it only has a few days of iPlayer time left, so hurry.

It reveals a very relaxed Rowan, with little there to remind us of the Leftie politician, dubbed Beardie, that so infuriated many would-be supporters during his time in office.

Indeed, here he is positively mystical, taking us into the Cathedral’s “core”, the Choir, where the old pre-Henry VIII monastery once stood. His description of life there is eye-opening.

The monks were “wrestling with Eternity on behalf of the rest of us”. Moreover, they knew how to “contact God” and spent their time rising above “this thin reality” to the richness above, for the benefit of all. This is heady stuff and it includes a thoughtful riff on the inevitability of death and how the monks prepared for it.

Watch it if you can. If you like our Midweek Mysticism columns, you will certainly enjoy it.

But that’s enough ramblings for today. It’s back to the penance for me.

John Evans

… who is the author of The Eternal Quest for Immortality: Is it staring you in the face? Available from Amazon and all good booksellers.

Coming soon: Mystology: A different way of looking at the world. Also a website, mystology.com.

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