APPLIED MYSTICISM: Studies of the Uses of Meditation
and Psychedelics in Secular Contexts
Secular Mysticism, Part 2
The Scientific Study of Mystical Experiences
Studying the effects of meditation and psychedelics on people has been a prominent part of the resurgence in the interest in consciousness and the workings of the brain since the 1990s. Theories have been advanced on the neurology underlying mystical experiences (see, e.g., Lutz, Dunne, and Davidson 2007; Barrett and Griffiths 2018; Schmidt and Walach 2014; Tang, Hölzel, and Posner 2015). For example, neuroscanning of brain activity shows how meditation and drugs disrupt the neural mechanisms underpinning our sense of a “self” distinct from the rest of reality, permitting a different level or type of consciousness to emerge. Triggers of mystical experiences besides meditation and psychedelics are also being studied. Many naturalists may not be particularly interested in these studies since they already assume that the experiences and states of consciousness are purely natural, and so discovering the actual mechanics underlying them need not concern them—even if none are found, this would not upset their assumption but only show the limits of science. However, the studies do show how mystical experiences can fit into the naturalist picture of a person.
Whether mystical experiences involve real insights into the nature of reality or are delusional, today it is increasingly becoming apparent that the experiences themselves are real and their occurrence can be observed and measured through the accompanying neural activity (e.g., Yaden et al. 2017: 60). There may be no one area of the brain devoted to mystical experiences, but there is evidence of distinctive configurations of brain activity uniquely associated with each category of mystical experiences—scans indicate that electrochemical activity increases or decreases in certain areas when a mystical or another ASC experience is occurring even if the experience is not produced by the brain. So too, scientists have found different neurophysiological effects from extrovertive and introvertive meditation (Hood 2001: 32-47; Dunn, Hartigan, and Mikulas 1999) and can distinguish the neurological effects of concentrative and mindfulness meditation (Valentine and Sweet 1999). So too, neuroscience suggests that “cosmic consciousness” is a different state of consciousness than the state of LSD-enabled visions (Smith and Tart 1998).
However, by “real” neuroscientists mean only that mystical experiences relate to distinct neurological events—i.e., they are not products of imagination or simply interpretations of ordinary experiences in the baseline state of consciousness or necessarily the product of a damaged brain. Rather, they involve unique configurations of neural activity of healthy brains functioning properly. This is as far as neuroscience can go toward establishing that distinctive mystical experiences occur. Meditation and psychedelic drugs enable different types of mystical experiences. Scientists may remain neutral on whether some mystical experiences are authentic encounters with a non-natural reality, insights into the natural world or oneself, or are delusions. Only what is going on in the brain is of interest to neuroscientists qua scientists. So too with mindfulness: scientists may confirm that, say, Buddhist meditative techniques calm the mind and quell desires, but this does not confirm Buddhism’s theories of rebirth and liberation. Learning more about the necessary neural or physiological bases to these experiences may help in reproducing them, but that does not relate to the doctrines that mystics espouse.
In addition to aiding in establishing the uniqueness of mystical experiences, the beneficial effects of meditation and psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD in aiding such psychological problems as depression and addiction are now being demonstrated (see chapter 7). The reported benefits from meditation to date have been small but measurable. Thus, neuroscience appears to validate the positive effects of meditation and psychedelic therapy on our well-being. All of this leads many people to the belief that science is now giving credence to mystical experiences. But again, it is now a secular understanding of the nature of mystical experiences and natural effects that is gaining attention. It is simply applying mysticism to our everyday well-being, not traditional religious goals.
To naturalists, the studies to date are taken only as reinforcing the view that the only value in mystical experiences is in their effect on the body. The experiences are “real” neurologically, and to naturalists the significance and value of the experiences are exhaustively explained by scientific accounts. Any non-natural explanation is obsolete and superfluous and in the future will become seen to be a fantasy and a delusion. The possibility that the brain states that scientists observe are merely the base-conditions that permit non-natural input into our mind may not even be seen as an issue. If mystical experiences are considered cognitive, they are given naturalist understandings; otherwise, the alleged insights into transcendent realities are dismissed entirely on naturalist grounds. Only the effect on the body matters: if drugs could be devised that had the beneficial psycho-physiological effects without any mystical experiences appearing, secularists would be content since this would show that the experiences are only epiphenomenal side-effects. So too, if these results can be shown to be achievable by means other than hours of meditation, interest in meditation may fade quickly. In short, to naturalists mystical experiences are merely events produced by the brain even if they have positive effects on our health and well-being, and that is the only value that the experiences and practices have.
Secular Mysticism
Of course, scientific interest in mystical experiences and states of mind is not itself a form of mysticism. So too if one is interested only in the experiences themselves or what they may tell us about our mind, not in transforming one’s character in a fundamental way. Similarly, if one participates in meditation or psychedelic therapy only for their limited psycho-physiological effects, it is hard to consider this mysticism. But if the resulting mystical experiences affect one’s life more generally, then this is mysticism—a “secular mysticism” integrating mystical experiences into one’s life in a naturalist framework. Such a secular mysticism need not be a full-blown secular religion with rituals and doctrines built around naturalism and mystical experiences to be rightfully called “mysticism.” Nor need practices such as meditation and drug sessions approach the more extreme and arduous training of classical mystical traditions. The secular emphasis is usually in immediate results rather than long-term changes. But if mystical experiences or practices profoundly alter how one lives, this is a form of mystical spirituality.
Mystical experiences enabled through psychedelics or meditation or occurring spontaneously disrupt the mechanisms in brain activity underlying a sense of a self-contained “self'” separate from the rest of the natural realm and make one feel connected to others and the rest of the world, and secularists see this in terms of the natural world alone. The effect of mystical experiences on beliefs may last for years and can lead to lasting increases in altruistic and pro-social behavior (Griffiths et al. 2006, 2008, 2011), all without transcendent beliefs. This natural spirituality appears more tied to mystical experiences than to other types of psychedelic-enabled ASC experiences (Letheby 2021: 200). It is not a matter of “cosmic consciousness” or anything leading to a belief in non-natural realities, or of aesthetic experiences as possible triggers of mystical experiences. Since naturalists see mystical experiences only in terms of a natural consciousness and nothing transcendent, secular mystical accounts may in general be less “ramified” with theoretical terms since naturalism’s ontology is simpler than non-naturalist ones. In addition, naturalists may be less interested in ontological accounts of these experiences. Some philosophers today, however, are speculating on the relation of consciousness to matter. Naturalists could endorse a panpsychism in which consciousness is as fundamental a property of matter as physical properties such as mass and electromagnetism (see Skrbina 2017). Panpsychism is a naturalist philosophy that attempts to overcome the problem of how something subjective in nature (consciousness) could arise from something not conscious in any sense (matter). Sarah Lane Ritchie (2021) connects panpsychism to psychedelic states and spiritual flourishing. It does not involve a non-natural “Mind at Large” or consciousness as an emergent property of matter but treats consciousness as purely natural. Naturalists could also accept a cosmopsychism that makes consciousness to be more fundamental than matter.
Naturalists may be hesitant to use the term “mystical” or even the more general “spiritual.” Mystical experiences involve altered states of consciousness, but the post-experiential state of consciousness may or may not be altered. However, when a mystical experience has a transformative effect on one’s inner life and how one lives and acts toward others, it is a mystically informed life and thus use of the term “mystical” is appropriate. Mystical experiences engage spirituality if they are attached to seeking a meaning or purpose to one’s life. The sense of “self” may persist in one’s consciousness, but it may now be seen to be merely a useful fiction that our brain devised for its evolutionary benefit and that in fact has no basis in reality. The nonexistence of an enclosed entity is realized directly in an experience. Emotions may change, with increases in joy at just being alive, awe and wonder at the vastness, intricacy, and beauty of the world, and empathy with others, even though naturalists do not take the experiences as “seeing the face of God.” Indeed, that the secularists’ lives are transformed without their adopting a belief in God neutralizes a changed life as evidence of the existence of God.
But this mysticism may affect naturalists’ beliefs and attitudes. It may be that the experiences do not introduce new beliefs but only alter a person’s existing beliefs and their impact (McGovern et al. 2021). Under the recently proposed REBUS (RElaxed Beliefs under pSychedelics) model (Carhart-Harris and Friston 2019), psychedelics weaken the control of one’s beliefs, thereby permitting more influence from experiential input and making experiencers more flexible in their resulting beliefs. Psychedelics do not necessarily make an atheist into a theist (Glausser 2021), but there may be “significant decreases in identification as atheist and agnostic and significant increases in belief in ultimate reality, higher power, God, or universal divinity” (Davis et al. 2020: 1018). It does appear that psychedelic experiences tend to cause a shift in the experiencers’ metaphysics away from “hard” materialism to panpsychism or to accepting non-natural realities (Timmermann et al. 2021; Letheby 2021: 206). One may become more open about the nature of consciousness and accept that it exists independently of the brain. A single psychedelic experience may have an effect on how the person views the basic nature of consciousness that lasts for years (Nayak and Griffiths 2022). Meditation too may have an “implicit spiritual nature” even if not all participants in an experiment have spiritual experiences or see the spiritual effects in non-naturalist terms (Wachholtz and Pargament 2005: 382). Strong but short-term and reversible disruptions of self-consciousness can be occasioned by psychedelics, but any long-lasting effects of meditation on well-being do not appear to be necessarily mediated by intense experiences but by training of different cognitive mechanisms (Millière et al. 2018: 20-21). Such effects on beliefs are correlated with positive mental health changes and a sense of well-being, and the metaphysical changes may be long lasting (Timmermann et al. 2021).
Thus, a reductive materialism may be rejected—an expanded framework that is still naturalist may be adopted. In any case, a secularized understanding of mystical experiences has been adopted by many today, including some who endorse mystical experiences for our worldly well-being (e.g., Kornfield 2001; Forman 2011; Harris 2014; also see Langlitz 2012 on “mystic materialism”). The value of mystical experiences thus is cut off from traditional mysticism. Consciousness or the natural universe is taken to be the fundamental reality that is experienced. Transcending our baseline state of consciousness in experiences still attracts many, even when the resulting experiences are not deemed cognitive of a non-natural reality. There is a loss of a sense of a “self” even though it is not taken to be exposure to a non-natural reality but instead to be an expanded natural consciousness only—self-transcendence remains naturalized. A sense of selflessness may lessen desires and fears (including fear of death) and self-centered concerns, and increase a sense of being connected to others and to nature, but it is not taken as indicating a reality transcending the natural world or as having any further ontological significance. Moreover, the negative mystical experiences—the proverbial “bad trips” (see Schlag et al. 2022: 5)—are readily explained as cases of disturbing subconscious traits entering consciousness when the destabilization of the baseline state of consciousness permits such psychological conditions to manifest themselves.
Nature plays a major role in secular mysticism, as it also does for nonmystical religious naturalists. The metaphysical oneness of the common being of the natural realm, the connection of things, and the unifying lawful order of things become important. In extrovertive mystical experiences, nature may seem alive or to have a consciousness. But nature is not “re-enchanted” as the creation or body of a god—nature remains “profane” in not having a relation to a non-natural reality, but the world can be treated, along with human beings, as “sacred” since it is all that actually exists and deserves reverence. Scientific research into the features and structures of reality takes on a spiritual significance. But many naturalists, even spiritual ones, may simply accept why there is anything rather than nothing and why the universe has the particular basic structures it has as mysteries that we are incapable of answering with our evolved cognitive skills. Natural suffering is accepted as what it is: there is no need for a theodicy to explain suffering since it is simply a natural result of what is real—the works of nature are, in the words of Charles Darwin, “clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel.” So too, life and consciousness are naturally evolved, and for naturalists such evolution is unguided by a higher hand. Naturalists need not feel compelled to support Neo-Darwinism in which the evolution of life is unguided. They could endorse evolutionary, emergent, or biological principles that lead to greater complexity that may guide the course of life and even nonorganic evolution. But for naturalists, such laws would be as natural as gravity and electromagnetism—no guidance by a non-natural reality would be necessary. No all-powerful non-natural reality creates or controls nature, but we are to trust nature and its laws in a way that theists are to trust the will of God. Mindfulness and psychedelics may expand some people’s moral concern to all human beings and also to animals if one already has a moral concern for others. A moral concern for all living things can also lead to a concern for the environment, not only to preserve human life, but because the natural realm is all that is real. Ursula Goodenough (1998) suggests that life should be greeted with gratitude and reverence and that the natural order and the epic of evolution may be reworked into a naturalist analog to the biblical creation story.
Meditation is removed from any religious setting and “naturalized”: it is repurposed in secular forms for limited worldly psycho-physiological benefits rather than transforming one’s character for a transcendent goal. Books on how to lead a mindful secular life are becoming popular (e.g., Tart 1994). The means for facilitating mystical experiences have also been secularized (see Heller 2015)—in particular, psychedelics, mindfulness, and some concentrative meditation for focusing attention upon one object. Susan Blackmore (2009) and Sam Harris (2014) advocate jettisoning traditional Buddhist transcendent elements (beliefs in afterlife, rebirth, and non-natural realities) while still retaining Buddhist meditative practices for purposes other than cultivating insight (also see Batchelor 2015 on “secular Buddhism”). Yoga becomes a matter of enhancing only psycho-physiological well-being. Indeed, in the West, yoga is often reduced to a stretching exercise for physical fitness, but even that may relieve stress. Herbert Benson’s concentrative “relaxation response” (Benson and Klipper 2000) and Jon Kabat-Zinn’s (2005) mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) are popular. Meditation helps with psychological and physiological problems whether one’s understanding of it is secular or religious. Today the government, corporations, hospitals, prisons, and schools are experimenting with secular forms of mindfulness meditation that were adapted from modern versions of Buddhism to see if attentiveness and positive psycho-physiological effects accrue (see Csikszentmihalyi 1990). Compassion meditation is also beginning to be practiced in schools. But meditation also is being “weaponized” as part of a program to produce “super soldiers” (Komjathy 2018: 194), without the spiritual dimension of classical samurai training.
Secularists may accept religious texts as useful today for outlining practices and delineating states of consciousness, but eventually these texts will be discarded as no more helpful here than in astronomy. Traditional religious metaphysics and postmortem goals will become ignored as anachronisms even as the experiences have a profound personal impact. The goal of a total inner transformation is not needed for secular spirituality to be mystical, but an inner change is necessary. Thus, meditation guides are still necessary, but teachers of metaphysical doctrines are no longer needed, nor is adherence to difficult monastic labor and conduct. Meditating for overall well-being means well-being within a naturalist framework—improved moods, higher self-esteem, and the overall satisfaction with one’s life. Naturalists may see mysticism, not in terms of cognition, but in terms of emotion, as Bertrand Russell did (1981: 11), and still conclude it is valuable. Russell believed that there is “an element of wisdom to be learned from the mystical way of feeling, which does not seem to be attainable in any other manner” and thus that mysticism can be “commended as an attitude towards life” but not as a “creed about the world” because “this emotion, as colouring and informing all other thoughts and feelings, is the inspirer of whatever is best in Man” and even science “may be fostered and nourished by that very spirit of reverence in which mysticism lives and moves” (ibid.: 11-12).
However, mystical experiences and their cultivation have been absorbed into modern culture without much interest in understanding what has been experienced. With the loss of interest in classical mystical ways of life, any claim that mystical experiences provide possible cognitive insights into a non-natural reality is not so much denied as simply ignored or not even noticed. Any cognitive component to mystical experiences is reduced to an awareness of aspects of the natural realm. All that matters is the natural realm—here, the psycho-physiological well-being that mystical experiences, meditation, or psychedelics may foster. One need not consider a non-naturalist worldview to provide an explanation when neurological theories of the brain explain all that is of value. That is, when the only interest is a pragmatic one of whether meditation or psychedelics work for better psycho-physiological conditions, doctrines on the relation between the states of consciousness attained and reality or whether one gains an insight into reality or participates in a non-natural reality do not matter. Only such practical worldly effects of a mystical experience are of interest. William Richards tells of a successful business leader who had a spontaneous experience that met all the criteria of mystical consciousness—the man’s reaction was “That was nice. What is it good for?” (2016: 124). And mystical experiences may be generally useful for (or at least a useful indicator of) increases in a sense of well-being: one study of a decade and a half of research reported that increased well-being “is one of the most reliable psychological changes following a psychedelic experience” (Peill et al. 2022: 12).
Since for naturalists only the natural world matters, mystical experiences in a naturalist framework can still be seen as aligning experiencers with how things really are if they enable experiencers to have greater personal well-being and to function better in the world. Consciousness can be seen as a purely evolved natural phenomenon. Losing a sense of a “self” is consistent with naturalism (e.g., Austin 1998). Even if the sense of a “self” evolved because it has advantages for survival, it appears that it can be overcome in the “pure consciousness” type of mystical experience. And incorporating such selflessness into one’s life makes one a mystic. This is consistent with the causal closure of the natural realm and the completeness of physical causes if consciousness is treated as a powerless epiphenomenon that we can bring into our direct awareness (Angel 2002, 2004).
Thus, mystical experiences can be taken as making us more at home here: with no non-natural realities such as a “soul” to worry about, such experiences make us feel more connected to reality (as defined by naturalists) and thus help us overcome any emotional alienation from the natural world and from other people that our false sense of a separate “self” has generated. Secularists do not believe that they are being deluded by the material world and are out of step with reality—it is the traditional mystics with ideas of two realms who are deluded and need their beliefs corrected. This is our home—we are not “strangers in a strange land” exiled from our true home.
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© Richard H. Jones 2024
and Psychedelics in Secular Contexts
Secular Mysticism, Part 2
The Scientific Study of Mystical Experiences
Studying the effects of meditation and psychedelics on people has been a prominent part of the resurgence in the interest in consciousness and the workings of the brain since the 1990s. Theories have been advanced on the neurology underlying mystical experiences (see, e.g., Lutz, Dunne, and Davidson 2007; Barrett and Griffiths 2018; Schmidt and Walach 2014; Tang, Hölzel, and Posner 2015). For example, neuroscanning of brain activity shows how meditation and drugs disrupt the neural mechanisms underpinning our sense of a “self” distinct from the rest of reality, permitting a different level or type of consciousness to emerge. Triggers of mystical experiences besides meditation and psychedelics are also being studied. Many naturalists may not be particularly interested in these studies since they already assume that the experiences and states of consciousness are purely natural, and so discovering the actual mechanics underlying them need not concern them—even if none are found, this would not upset their assumption but only show the limits of science. However, the studies do show how mystical experiences can fit into the naturalist picture of a person.
Whether mystical experiences involve real insights into the nature of reality or are delusional, today it is increasingly becoming apparent that the experiences themselves are real and their occurrence can be observed and measured through the accompanying neural activity (e.g., Yaden et al. 2017: 60). There may be no one area of the brain devoted to mystical experiences, but there is evidence of distinctive configurations of brain activity uniquely associated with each category of mystical experiences—scans indicate that electrochemical activity increases or decreases in certain areas when a mystical or another ASC experience is occurring even if the experience is not produced by the brain. So too, scientists have found different neurophysiological effects from extrovertive and introvertive meditation (Hood 2001: 32-47; Dunn, Hartigan, and Mikulas 1999) and can distinguish the neurological effects of concentrative and mindfulness meditation (Valentine and Sweet 1999). So too, neuroscience suggests that “cosmic consciousness” is a different state of consciousness than the state of LSD-enabled visions (Smith and Tart 1998).
However, by “real” neuroscientists mean only that mystical experiences relate to distinct neurological events—i.e., they are not products of imagination or simply interpretations of ordinary experiences in the baseline state of consciousness or necessarily the product of a damaged brain. Rather, they involve unique configurations of neural activity of healthy brains functioning properly. This is as far as neuroscience can go toward establishing that distinctive mystical experiences occur. Meditation and psychedelic drugs enable different types of mystical experiences. Scientists may remain neutral on whether some mystical experiences are authentic encounters with a non-natural reality, insights into the natural world or oneself, or are delusions. Only what is going on in the brain is of interest to neuroscientists qua scientists. So too with mindfulness: scientists may confirm that, say, Buddhist meditative techniques calm the mind and quell desires, but this does not confirm Buddhism’s theories of rebirth and liberation. Learning more about the necessary neural or physiological bases to these experiences may help in reproducing them, but that does not relate to the doctrines that mystics espouse.
In addition to aiding in establishing the uniqueness of mystical experiences, the beneficial effects of meditation and psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD in aiding such psychological problems as depression and addiction are now being demonstrated (see chapter 7). The reported benefits from meditation to date have been small but measurable. Thus, neuroscience appears to validate the positive effects of meditation and psychedelic therapy on our well-being. All of this leads many people to the belief that science is now giving credence to mystical experiences. But again, it is now a secular understanding of the nature of mystical experiences and natural effects that is gaining attention. It is simply applying mysticism to our everyday well-being, not traditional religious goals.
To naturalists, the studies to date are taken only as reinforcing the view that the only value in mystical experiences is in their effect on the body. The experiences are “real” neurologically, and to naturalists the significance and value of the experiences are exhaustively explained by scientific accounts. Any non-natural explanation is obsolete and superfluous and in the future will become seen to be a fantasy and a delusion. The possibility that the brain states that scientists observe are merely the base-conditions that permit non-natural input into our mind may not even be seen as an issue. If mystical experiences are considered cognitive, they are given naturalist understandings; otherwise, the alleged insights into transcendent realities are dismissed entirely on naturalist grounds. Only the effect on the body matters: if drugs could be devised that had the beneficial psycho-physiological effects without any mystical experiences appearing, secularists would be content since this would show that the experiences are only epiphenomenal side-effects. So too, if these results can be shown to be achievable by means other than hours of meditation, interest in meditation may fade quickly. In short, to naturalists mystical experiences are merely events produced by the brain even if they have positive effects on our health and well-being, and that is the only value that the experiences and practices have.
Secular Mysticism
Of course, scientific interest in mystical experiences and states of mind is not itself a form of mysticism. So too if one is interested only in the experiences themselves or what they may tell us about our mind, not in transforming one’s character in a fundamental way. Similarly, if one participates in meditation or psychedelic therapy only for their limited psycho-physiological effects, it is hard to consider this mysticism. But if the resulting mystical experiences affect one’s life more generally, then this is mysticism—a “secular mysticism” integrating mystical experiences into one’s life in a naturalist framework. Such a secular mysticism need not be a full-blown secular religion with rituals and doctrines built around naturalism and mystical experiences to be rightfully called “mysticism.” Nor need practices such as meditation and drug sessions approach the more extreme and arduous training of classical mystical traditions. The secular emphasis is usually in immediate results rather than long-term changes. But if mystical experiences or practices profoundly alter how one lives, this is a form of mystical spirituality.
Mystical experiences enabled through psychedelics or meditation or occurring spontaneously disrupt the mechanisms in brain activity underlying a sense of a self-contained “self'” separate from the rest of the natural realm and make one feel connected to others and the rest of the world, and secularists see this in terms of the natural world alone. The effect of mystical experiences on beliefs may last for years and can lead to lasting increases in altruistic and pro-social behavior (Griffiths et al. 2006, 2008, 2011), all without transcendent beliefs. This natural spirituality appears more tied to mystical experiences than to other types of psychedelic-enabled ASC experiences (Letheby 2021: 200). It is not a matter of “cosmic consciousness” or anything leading to a belief in non-natural realities, or of aesthetic experiences as possible triggers of mystical experiences. Since naturalists see mystical experiences only in terms of a natural consciousness and nothing transcendent, secular mystical accounts may in general be less “ramified” with theoretical terms since naturalism’s ontology is simpler than non-naturalist ones. In addition, naturalists may be less interested in ontological accounts of these experiences. Some philosophers today, however, are speculating on the relation of consciousness to matter. Naturalists could endorse a panpsychism in which consciousness is as fundamental a property of matter as physical properties such as mass and electromagnetism (see Skrbina 2017). Panpsychism is a naturalist philosophy that attempts to overcome the problem of how something subjective in nature (consciousness) could arise from something not conscious in any sense (matter). Sarah Lane Ritchie (2021) connects panpsychism to psychedelic states and spiritual flourishing. It does not involve a non-natural “Mind at Large” or consciousness as an emergent property of matter but treats consciousness as purely natural. Naturalists could also accept a cosmopsychism that makes consciousness to be more fundamental than matter.
Naturalists may be hesitant to use the term “mystical” or even the more general “spiritual.” Mystical experiences involve altered states of consciousness, but the post-experiential state of consciousness may or may not be altered. However, when a mystical experience has a transformative effect on one’s inner life and how one lives and acts toward others, it is a mystically informed life and thus use of the term “mystical” is appropriate. Mystical experiences engage spirituality if they are attached to seeking a meaning or purpose to one’s life. The sense of “self” may persist in one’s consciousness, but it may now be seen to be merely a useful fiction that our brain devised for its evolutionary benefit and that in fact has no basis in reality. The nonexistence of an enclosed entity is realized directly in an experience. Emotions may change, with increases in joy at just being alive, awe and wonder at the vastness, intricacy, and beauty of the world, and empathy with others, even though naturalists do not take the experiences as “seeing the face of God.” Indeed, that the secularists’ lives are transformed without their adopting a belief in God neutralizes a changed life as evidence of the existence of God.
But this mysticism may affect naturalists’ beliefs and attitudes. It may be that the experiences do not introduce new beliefs but only alter a person’s existing beliefs and their impact (McGovern et al. 2021). Under the recently proposed REBUS (RElaxed Beliefs under pSychedelics) model (Carhart-Harris and Friston 2019), psychedelics weaken the control of one’s beliefs, thereby permitting more influence from experiential input and making experiencers more flexible in their resulting beliefs. Psychedelics do not necessarily make an atheist into a theist (Glausser 2021), but there may be “significant decreases in identification as atheist and agnostic and significant increases in belief in ultimate reality, higher power, God, or universal divinity” (Davis et al. 2020: 1018). It does appear that psychedelic experiences tend to cause a shift in the experiencers’ metaphysics away from “hard” materialism to panpsychism or to accepting non-natural realities (Timmermann et al. 2021; Letheby 2021: 206). One may become more open about the nature of consciousness and accept that it exists independently of the brain. A single psychedelic experience may have an effect on how the person views the basic nature of consciousness that lasts for years (Nayak and Griffiths 2022). Meditation too may have an “implicit spiritual nature” even if not all participants in an experiment have spiritual experiences or see the spiritual effects in non-naturalist terms (Wachholtz and Pargament 2005: 382). Strong but short-term and reversible disruptions of self-consciousness can be occasioned by psychedelics, but any long-lasting effects of meditation on well-being do not appear to be necessarily mediated by intense experiences but by training of different cognitive mechanisms (Millière et al. 2018: 20-21). Such effects on beliefs are correlated with positive mental health changes and a sense of well-being, and the metaphysical changes may be long lasting (Timmermann et al. 2021).
Thus, a reductive materialism may be rejected—an expanded framework that is still naturalist may be adopted. In any case, a secularized understanding of mystical experiences has been adopted by many today, including some who endorse mystical experiences for our worldly well-being (e.g., Kornfield 2001; Forman 2011; Harris 2014; also see Langlitz 2012 on “mystic materialism”). The value of mystical experiences thus is cut off from traditional mysticism. Consciousness or the natural universe is taken to be the fundamental reality that is experienced. Transcending our baseline state of consciousness in experiences still attracts many, even when the resulting experiences are not deemed cognitive of a non-natural reality. There is a loss of a sense of a “self” even though it is not taken to be exposure to a non-natural reality but instead to be an expanded natural consciousness only—self-transcendence remains naturalized. A sense of selflessness may lessen desires and fears (including fear of death) and self-centered concerns, and increase a sense of being connected to others and to nature, but it is not taken as indicating a reality transcending the natural world or as having any further ontological significance. Moreover, the negative mystical experiences—the proverbial “bad trips” (see Schlag et al. 2022: 5)—are readily explained as cases of disturbing subconscious traits entering consciousness when the destabilization of the baseline state of consciousness permits such psychological conditions to manifest themselves.
Nature plays a major role in secular mysticism, as it also does for nonmystical religious naturalists. The metaphysical oneness of the common being of the natural realm, the connection of things, and the unifying lawful order of things become important. In extrovertive mystical experiences, nature may seem alive or to have a consciousness. But nature is not “re-enchanted” as the creation or body of a god—nature remains “profane” in not having a relation to a non-natural reality, but the world can be treated, along with human beings, as “sacred” since it is all that actually exists and deserves reverence. Scientific research into the features and structures of reality takes on a spiritual significance. But many naturalists, even spiritual ones, may simply accept why there is anything rather than nothing and why the universe has the particular basic structures it has as mysteries that we are incapable of answering with our evolved cognitive skills. Natural suffering is accepted as what it is: there is no need for a theodicy to explain suffering since it is simply a natural result of what is real—the works of nature are, in the words of Charles Darwin, “clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel.” So too, life and consciousness are naturally evolved, and for naturalists such evolution is unguided by a higher hand. Naturalists need not feel compelled to support Neo-Darwinism in which the evolution of life is unguided. They could endorse evolutionary, emergent, or biological principles that lead to greater complexity that may guide the course of life and even nonorganic evolution. But for naturalists, such laws would be as natural as gravity and electromagnetism—no guidance by a non-natural reality would be necessary. No all-powerful non-natural reality creates or controls nature, but we are to trust nature and its laws in a way that theists are to trust the will of God. Mindfulness and psychedelics may expand some people’s moral concern to all human beings and also to animals if one already has a moral concern for others. A moral concern for all living things can also lead to a concern for the environment, not only to preserve human life, but because the natural realm is all that is real. Ursula Goodenough (1998) suggests that life should be greeted with gratitude and reverence and that the natural order and the epic of evolution may be reworked into a naturalist analog to the biblical creation story.
Meditation is removed from any religious setting and “naturalized”: it is repurposed in secular forms for limited worldly psycho-physiological benefits rather than transforming one’s character for a transcendent goal. Books on how to lead a mindful secular life are becoming popular (e.g., Tart 1994). The means for facilitating mystical experiences have also been secularized (see Heller 2015)—in particular, psychedelics, mindfulness, and some concentrative meditation for focusing attention upon one object. Susan Blackmore (2009) and Sam Harris (2014) advocate jettisoning traditional Buddhist transcendent elements (beliefs in afterlife, rebirth, and non-natural realities) while still retaining Buddhist meditative practices for purposes other than cultivating insight (also see Batchelor 2015 on “secular Buddhism”). Yoga becomes a matter of enhancing only psycho-physiological well-being. Indeed, in the West, yoga is often reduced to a stretching exercise for physical fitness, but even that may relieve stress. Herbert Benson’s concentrative “relaxation response” (Benson and Klipper 2000) and Jon Kabat-Zinn’s (2005) mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) are popular. Meditation helps with psychological and physiological problems whether one’s understanding of it is secular or religious. Today the government, corporations, hospitals, prisons, and schools are experimenting with secular forms of mindfulness meditation that were adapted from modern versions of Buddhism to see if attentiveness and positive psycho-physiological effects accrue (see Csikszentmihalyi 1990). Compassion meditation is also beginning to be practiced in schools. But meditation also is being “weaponized” as part of a program to produce “super soldiers” (Komjathy 2018: 194), without the spiritual dimension of classical samurai training.
Secularists may accept religious texts as useful today for outlining practices and delineating states of consciousness, but eventually these texts will be discarded as no more helpful here than in astronomy. Traditional religious metaphysics and postmortem goals will become ignored as anachronisms even as the experiences have a profound personal impact. The goal of a total inner transformation is not needed for secular spirituality to be mystical, but an inner change is necessary. Thus, meditation guides are still necessary, but teachers of metaphysical doctrines are no longer needed, nor is adherence to difficult monastic labor and conduct. Meditating for overall well-being means well-being within a naturalist framework—improved moods, higher self-esteem, and the overall satisfaction with one’s life. Naturalists may see mysticism, not in terms of cognition, but in terms of emotion, as Bertrand Russell did (1981: 11), and still conclude it is valuable. Russell believed that there is “an element of wisdom to be learned from the mystical way of feeling, which does not seem to be attainable in any other manner” and thus that mysticism can be “commended as an attitude towards life” but not as a “creed about the world” because “this emotion, as colouring and informing all other thoughts and feelings, is the inspirer of whatever is best in Man” and even science “may be fostered and nourished by that very spirit of reverence in which mysticism lives and moves” (ibid.: 11-12).
However, mystical experiences and their cultivation have been absorbed into modern culture without much interest in understanding what has been experienced. With the loss of interest in classical mystical ways of life, any claim that mystical experiences provide possible cognitive insights into a non-natural reality is not so much denied as simply ignored or not even noticed. Any cognitive component to mystical experiences is reduced to an awareness of aspects of the natural realm. All that matters is the natural realm—here, the psycho-physiological well-being that mystical experiences, meditation, or psychedelics may foster. One need not consider a non-naturalist worldview to provide an explanation when neurological theories of the brain explain all that is of value. That is, when the only interest is a pragmatic one of whether meditation or psychedelics work for better psycho-physiological conditions, doctrines on the relation between the states of consciousness attained and reality or whether one gains an insight into reality or participates in a non-natural reality do not matter. Only such practical worldly effects of a mystical experience are of interest. William Richards tells of a successful business leader who had a spontaneous experience that met all the criteria of mystical consciousness—the man’s reaction was “That was nice. What is it good for?” (2016: 124). And mystical experiences may be generally useful for (or at least a useful indicator of) increases in a sense of well-being: one study of a decade and a half of research reported that increased well-being “is one of the most reliable psychological changes following a psychedelic experience” (Peill et al. 2022: 12).
Since for naturalists only the natural world matters, mystical experiences in a naturalist framework can still be seen as aligning experiencers with how things really are if they enable experiencers to have greater personal well-being and to function better in the world. Consciousness can be seen as a purely evolved natural phenomenon. Losing a sense of a “self” is consistent with naturalism (e.g., Austin 1998). Even if the sense of a “self” evolved because it has advantages for survival, it appears that it can be overcome in the “pure consciousness” type of mystical experience. And incorporating such selflessness into one’s life makes one a mystic. This is consistent with the causal closure of the natural realm and the completeness of physical causes if consciousness is treated as a powerless epiphenomenon that we can bring into our direct awareness (Angel 2002, 2004).
Thus, mystical experiences can be taken as making us more at home here: with no non-natural realities such as a “soul” to worry about, such experiences make us feel more connected to reality (as defined by naturalists) and thus help us overcome any emotional alienation from the natural world and from other people that our false sense of a separate “self” has generated. Secularists do not believe that they are being deluded by the material world and are out of step with reality—it is the traditional mystics with ideas of two realms who are deluded and need their beliefs corrected. This is our home—we are not “strangers in a strange land” exiled from our true home.
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© Richard H. Jones 2024