PHL 230 Lecture 15: Mystic Experiences - Wainwright
Document Summary
People report experiences that could be considered evidence for the divine, helping to build an a priori argument. Wainwright argues we should take religious experience seriously, enough to use as evidence. What is a mystic experience: nature mysticism - experiencing nature in a mystical way, and then experiencing existence itself. Identity experience - emptying of consciousness met with a sense of the reality of everything. Same/similar to brahman-atman: specific divine experience - experiencing a specific aspect of the divine. Often uses erotic imagery to convey the feeling of the love of god. Instead he things general experiences more seriously because of the many similarities across cultures. Wainwright claims they have cognitive value because they have cognitive content. He acknowledges there is no way to prove these experiences true by comparing it to the fact that there is no non-circular way of verifying sense perception of physical objects and yet we trust our senses anyway.
