Here is the third installment in my series on the metaphysical foundation for mystical experiences. In this series, I am investigating some of the inherent issues and biases in the current methods of the social scientific study of religion (i.e., the field of “religious studies”). Do you think that mystical experiences are rare aberrations which diverge from “normal” life? This investigation may surprise you…
When Plato Ruled the Earth
To discuss metaphysics, it is difficult not to bring in Plato (428/7 or 424/3 BCE – 348/7 BCE) at some point because the metaphysics of Plato dominated the Western worldview for close to two millennia. However, our current metaphysics is much closer to Aristotle, which is why I began out of chronological sequence in our metaphysical discussion. That is not to state that Plato’s influence is wholly absent from the present, for Plato’s philosophy undergirds almost every academic discipline. I do not want, however, to dip too far into his comprehensive philosophy. Let’s stay focused on his metaphysical argument because it is in Plato’s metaphysics where we can see the specific implications of his worldview for mystical experience.
The foundation of metaphysics for Plato is his concept of Forms which is most succinctly and visually communicated through his oft-cited metaphor of the Cave.[i] While this metaphor as originally recorded is complex; it can be simplified to five basic points. In the metaphor, (1) people who do not know the concept of Forms are like prisoners chained in a cave who cannot turn their heads, (2) behind them there is the mouth of the cave, and the sun is shining outside, (3) the prisoners only see shadows cast on the cave wall, (4) they mistake these shadows for reality of what life is like outside the cave, so (5) the Forms are reality as it really is; the shadows are how we perceive these Forms in our everyday, unexamined lives.[ii] In other words, the structure of reality for Plato is essentially representational. Additionally, unlike Aristotle, matter is not neutral. Material reality definitely has a lesser status and harbors potential to deflect the knowledge-seeker from arriving at true knowledge. From this understanding, matter begins to take on moral connotations, as we will see more fully in Plotinus. At the basis of all reality are the Forms of everything, but what we see around us is only based on that sublime pattern. Matter partakes in “true” reality but only in a derivative way as a “shadow” of the true, full reality.
Today, Plato’s view of reality is not the dominant one for scientific or philosophical discourse; however, when most of the world’s major religious mystical traditions were formed, this view of the world, to one extent or the other, was common even between East and West. “True” reality was not equated with what we see every day. We could quibble whether this illusion is total or partial, but one way or another we’re not getting the full picture of reality. This metaphysics is quite different from the current scientific-materialist metaphysics in three foundational ways that impact the present discussion: deduction vs. induction, empirical evidence, and the role of the soul.
Metaphysically speaking, Plato provides an important interpretive direction that impacts the study of mystical experience in both social scientific and theological modes. Plato views investigation into reality as essentially a deductive process. In other words, Plato begins with overarching rational categories of reality, and he then designates everyday experiences and empirical details as examples to be sorted into these categories. For instance, as sarcastically observed by Socrates in the Dialogue with Meno, “How he [Socrates] asks, can he know that Meno is short or fat, or know anything else about Meno, if he does not know who Meno is?”[iii] All of the empirical details and specific experiences of Meno are placed within the rational category of “Meno the man” which precedes those qualities. Aristotle, on the other hand, would work inductively, stating that all of the empirical details about Meno combine to form a complete picture of “Meno the man.” The details precede the category. The same perspective applies to more abstract ideals, or Forms, such as beauty or virtue and especially to Plato’s ultimate Form: the Good. It is from this fountainhead that all other Forms spring. Reality is metaphysically deductive, and, according to Plato, trying to understand it any other way is akin to describing reason and intelligent choice as fundamentally issuing from the bones and sinews of our bodies.[iv] Yet, there is quite a significant problem by beginning investigation in this direction. The Forms themselves are not subject to any form of tangible evidence in order to demonstrate their reality. As Terence Irwin summarizes: “We cannot know about the Forms through the senses; for anything accessible to the senses suffers from compresence of opposites and from ceaseless change, and so cannot be a Form.”[v] This conundrum is, in part, responsible for the shift to a different metaphysical basis that allows for empirical investigation and, eventually, the rise of a scientific worldview. In other words, a Platonic worldview requires the metaphysical assumption of Forms as the source of reality without empirical evidence. At least, that is the prevailing objection to Plato’s metaphysics, but what if there was another type of “empirical” evidence for Forms?
The seeming empirical weakness of the theory of Forms changes in light of the place of the soul in Plato’s worldview. According to Plato, one can sense Forms not through our five empirical senses; rather, Forms are “sensed” through the soul. The soul is the evidence of the Forms, and our strongest link to them. Now, it is easy to argue that the soul itself is intangible and untraceable; however, the social sciences spend great effort and spill much ink over the issues of the intangible and untraceable aspects of humanity that are only indirectly visible through resulting behaviors. The social sciences do not doubt the reality of anger, fear, love, or joy on the basis of not being able to observe them directly as physical matter. Is the soul all that different? In fact, one literal translation of the word psychology is “the study of the soul.” As a descriptive label for inner human experience, the soul exists. It is just more popular now to call it by different names: psyche, personality, ego, or mind. One can argue that these other labels for inner experience are not exactly analogous to the concept of soul. I agree, but my point is that we do not simply dismiss the concept of psyche or ego due to lack of empirical evidence. A similar consideration should be made for the soul as a meaningful description of the intangible aspects of what it means to be human.
Additionally, a Platonic metaphysics becomes more difficult to dismiss when one examines the link Plato makes for the individual soul to a sense of collective Soul or, at least, a collective memory.[vi] The founding fathers of modern sociology and psychology argued for just such an idea whether it was termed “collective consciousness” (Emile Durkheim) or the “collective unconscious” (Carl Jung).[vii] So, there is some empirical, or at least evidential, basis for reintroducing the concept of soul – by any name – if we were to move religious studies’ investigations to a Platonic metaphysics.
Let’s take a moment to apply that Platonic metaphysics to mystical experience. If we take the Forms seriously, then mystical experience ceases to be an aberrant form of experience. It fits. In fact, it has a distinct purpose in individual life and society for a Platonic worldview, which is why societies that have a designated social role for shamans and mediums operate from this epistemology or from something similar. Does that mean we have to shift our entire worldview? Not necessarily. But, it does mean that we have a ready-made and fully articulated metaphysics and epistemology within which mystical experience fits. That should not be ignored. If nothing else, the metaphysics itself should be part of the study and interpretation of mystical experience. That’s where mystical experience fits and displays significance. Also, it would open up the discipline of religious studies to be able to move away from questions of the existence of mystical experience to delve more fully into the individual and communal meaning of mystical experiences. While that shift in perspective is possible through Plato, one of Plato’s later interpreters, Plotinus, offers an even more promising metaphysical basis for fruitful engagement with mystical experience. So, let’s dial the wheel of time forward to the third century C.E. and to the thought of Plotinus.
[i] See Plato, The Republic, tr. G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1974), Books 6 and 7, specifically lines 507a-521c and 531c-534e.
[ii] Irwin, Classical Thought, 94-95.
[iii] Irwin, Classical Thought, 86. See also Plato, Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo, tr. G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1981), lines 71a-c in Meno.
[iv] Plato, Five Dialogues, lines 98c-c, 99a-b in Phaedo.
[v] Irwin, Classical Thought, 90.
[vi] Plato, Five Dialogues, lines 85d-86a in Meno.
[vii] Susan F. Greenwood, “Emile Durkheim and C.G. Jung: Structuring a Transpersonal Sociology of Religion,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 29.4 (December, 1990): 482-495, at 489-90.