Paying Attention

"Most of us move so quickly that our surroundings become no more than the blurred scenery we fly past on our way to somewhere else. We pay attention to the speedometer, the wristwatch, the cell phone, the list of things to do, all of which feed our illusion that life is manageable. Meanwhile, none of them meets the first criterion for reverence, which is to remind us that we are not gods. If anything, these devices sustain the illusion that we might yet be gods -- if only we could find some way to do more faster."

-- Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World

Access to the Divine

"To be a mystic is to have direct access to the divine, an access that requires no middleman or woman. Mysticism is to have direct knowledge through insight and intuition of God or ultimate truth. In this state of overwhelming awe and connection to all things, meaning and purpose are a given. And here's what is truly surprising: the whole 'mystic' thing is actually not as mysterious as it's been cracked up to be.

The Buddha, the 'Awakened One,' said that Buddha nature is in each one of us and that nothing special is required to have it. It's just a matter of allowing it. It is the same for the mystic in each one of us. Though the part of each of us that is capable of a higher consciousness and therefore connection to all things may be dormant, it is always accessible. Search your mind and heart for it, and it is there. And once awakened, the ultimate clarity and meaning result."

from The Little Book on Meaning by Laura Berman Fortgang (pp. 183-4).

The Immense Cosmos

Given the overwhelming vastness and miraculous nature of our universe, a natural tendency is to retreat into our socially constructed existence here on earth -- a thin slice of reality that we can more readily comprehend because we are the primary architects of the cities and factories that now dominate our lives. Yet by ignoring the larger universe in which we are immersed -- by concentrating our attention on the engaging and demanding social reality -- we easily forget that it is the immense cosmos that is our true home. We live almost completely immersed in a socially constructed reality that so fully absorbs our energy and attention that virtually none remains to experience the wonder of our existence. The tragedy of modern industrial societies is the superficiality that they project (and that we accept) as the norm for human affairs. We unconsciously trivialize the human experiment with shallow pursuits of money and social status that mask the magnificence of what it means to be a human being.

-- Duane Elgin, Voluntary Simplicity, pp. 115-16 (revised edition, c1993).

The Mystery of the Visible

A response to Will Buckingham's post, Dragons and Levitating Monks.

The first point about Will's post is that his examples are asymmetrical.

Presumably, the Indian restaurant owner and his wife actually believed the monk could levitate. The example provided by Sagan, an atheist and debunker of irrational belief, was created to demonstrate such beliefs can always be placed beyond the reach of empirical proof. The true parallel of the levitating monk, for Western religions such as Christianity, would be things like belief in the ability of saints to perform miracles, divine intervention by God in medical cases as a result of prayer, possibly even a McCain victory in the upcoming U.S. presidential election (surely a subject of much prayer among a certain segment of U.S. Christians).

The second point is that what these examples illustrate is a wide-spread desire for the miraculous, however that might manifest itself. A significant component of such desires is the validation of religious beliefs. This demonstrates a lack of faith, rather than what one might suppose to be a demonstration of it. Faith, after all, requires no proof.

A final point is that we are surrounded by the miraculous. Our very existence is itself a miracle. It is human nature, I suppose, to become accustomed to what we experience constantly and to lose sight of the wonder plainly manifested to us. As Oscar Wilde expressed it: "The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."

A deeper, more enriched spirituality is available to anyone who wishes to pursue it by rousing themselves from the illusion that our common, every day experiences are nothing special.

Finding God Through Atheism

I’ve promised myself, and a few friends, to do a better job of writing posts for my blog. Especially, light-hearted, entertaining stuff like vegetarian barbeque, backyard nature watching, progress on our 20-year home remodeling project, my rampant bibliomania. Stuff like that. In case you haven’t already guessed from the title of this post, it does not fall into the light-hearted category. If you are uncomfortable reading unambiguous statements about religious concerns, this would be a good post to skip.

Still here? :-)

I got an email last night from a friend who had come across some of my pages about telescope making. He had noticed a statement from me on a previous website that I was an atheist, but could find no comment about it on my current site and wondered if I had changed my mind or simply avoided discussing the matter because it was a hassle. I responded with a longish answer to his question — probably a lot more than he wanted to know. After reflecting on my response, I decided to post it on my site. Why not be open about my thoughts on the subject, my progress even, for people like my friend who are curious, possibly following their own path and trying to decide what they believe?

So, here is how I answered his question whether I had changed my mind about atheism.

I gave up atheism. :-) You know, this is something that I have thought about a lot. One of the experiences that really put me off atheism was discussing Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion, with a group of atheists on an Internet forum. They were all just so cocksure there is no God. They were the mirror image of fundamentalist Christians. Fundamentalist atheists, I guess. And they were so dismissive concerning the Bible. So contemptuous of it, even. While, for me, the Bible does not reveal God, it profoundly reveals the longing for God felt by many people in Western civilization. I was raised in the Christian church, so the Bible has more meaning for me than other religious texts like the Koran, Upanishads, etc., though I don’t for a moment believe it has any superior claim to legitimacy. Of course, it is also a cornerstone of Western civilization, much of which doesn’t make sense without it.

I’ve realized one of the things that kept me from believing in God for the longest time was Christianity, odd as that sounds. I simply can’t accept Christian concepts of God. I think some atheists, maybe a lot of atheists, reject God for the same reason. And, of course, in Western civilization, at least, Christian concepts of God are pretty much a monopoly. Perhaps I should say Abrahamic concepts of God, to include Hebrews.

After thinking of myself as an atheist for a few years (prior to that I described myself as an agnostic), I was startled one day to realize I believe, devoutly believe I have to say, in God. I came to this, I think, as a result of considering that life and the existence of the cosmos is miraculous — a mystery within which we exist and beyond which we can never perceive. Accepting the essential mystery of our very existence, an impenetrable mystery, freed me to accept the existence of God as our creator. I can offer no proof for the existence of God, but neither have I heard any convincing proof that God does not exist. I simply have no choice but to believe. I can’t not believe. I make no attempt to convince others of the existence of God, but for myself, I simply have no doubt. I guess that is faith. :-) I have to smile reading that statement. Did it really come from me?

The existence of God is a matter beyond proof because God is beyond human comprehension. I think this is where I started having problems with Christianity. I don’t believe it is possible for finite beings to understand the intentions of God, or to reach conclusions concerning God’s judgment. When I hear people speak of God’s love, their assertions are meaningless to me. Love is a human emotion. Does God love us? I don’t believe that is a coherent question, even. Maimonides said something to the effect that the highest knowledge concerning God is that God is beyond human comprehension. I accept that. I also accept, as Einstein asserted, that to know God, in whatever trivial capacity we are capable of doing so, we must study God’s creation, that is, the natural world. Of course, the natural world includes the human race. Not that we are the pinnacle of creation — that’s absurd. But we must, in some way, reflect the providence of our Creator.

A second irony in all this is that until I embraced atheism, I could not believe in God. It was only through becoming an atheist, that I found my faith.

The fact that I believe in God does not mean I believe in life after death (in the sense of our conscious awareness surviving our death), that humans have souls, or any of the other trappings of major religions. In that sense, my worldview is utterly naturalistic. Where I part with naturalism is the assertion that nothing exists beyond the natural world. That God, in fact, does not exist. You can see this sort of thing on the naturalism.org website. The simple truth is such assertions can have no rational basis because we have no way to support claims concerning anything beyond the cosmos in which we exist. The statement that God does not exist is a faith position in the same way that my earlier statement of belief in God is a faith position. We must each search our own hearts and decide for ourselves.

Oceanic Feeling, Part 2

I started discussing Oceanic Feeling in a previous post. The term, used by Romain Rolland to represent his ideas about nature mysticism, appeared in some correspondence between Rolland and Sigmund Freud which was mentioned in André Comte-Sponville’s The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality.

I was surprised to find that quite a lot has been made of this material over the years, presumably because Freud took the subject up in Civilization and Its Discontents. At least one book has been written about it, The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling by William Parsons. A related reference also mentions the Freud/Rolland correspondence, albeit more briefly, Mystical Encounters with the Natural World by Paul Marshall. I requested both titles through inter library loan and have read significant portions of them over the last few weeks. I have not, unfortunately, found much of interest in either.

Parsons attempts to develop a more accurate understanding of Rolland’s ideas about mysticism, after concluding (with some justification) that Freud and Rolland were speaking at cross-purposes. He argues that what Rolland intended by the phrase was a mature and persistent mystical connection with the absolute, rather than a transient, mystical feeling he experienced several times in his youth (between the ages of 15 and 20), which is how Freud apparently interpreted the phrase. Freud decided Rolland’s experiences, and mystical experiences in general, result from a regression to a post-natal state prior to ego differentiation from one’s environment and categorized it as a component of the “common man’s religion.” In other words, a set of illusory and naive beliefs from which people often derive comfort when faced with life’s trials and tribulations.

Parsons, an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University, is interested in pastoral psychology, and is understandably concerned to show that Freud misinterpreted Rolland and failed to do justice to mystical experiences in general. A significant problem with his analysis, however, is that Rolland’s comments about his own mystical experiences are not profound. They are somewhat ambiguous, were written 40 or more years after the fact, and ultimately provide a weak foundation for the considerable weight of theorizing and interpretation Parsons subjects them to as he attempts to "unpack" (a favorite term) their hidden meaning.

Marshall’s Mystical Encounters with the Natural World, based on doctoral thesis work, again, in religious studies, appears to be more directly concerned with mystical experiences. These are differentiated as “extrovertive mystical experiences,” which are oriented to the world, and “introvertive mystical experiences,” which are not. Marshall concentrates on EMEs. Surprisingly, only a few reports of these are provided, and they occur in the early pages of the book.

In his introduction Marshall makes the disingenuous observation that “Some theorists, particularly in the early years, gave credence to transpersonal factors by allowing persons to reach beyond themselves in ways that are not covered by the perceptual, biological, psychological, and social processes admitted by naturalistic science.” Transpersonal explanations are counter-poised against intrapersonal explanations, which include what is commonly understood as neurological science. Predictably, Marshall proceeds with a strenuous transpersonal argument. Although he promises to evaluate current science, the subject is almost entirely disregarded. In fact, the section presumably intended to cover contemporary science, "The Mystical Brain," largely concerns itself with Aldous Huxley’s filtration theory, a hypothesis that the brain functions like a valve to filter ideas from “Mind at Large” (a sort of consciousness in nature). One is left wondering if Marshall actually believes such ideas represent neurological science.

In his conclusion Marshall states: “When brain function is understood in greater detail, it may be possible to say with confidence that intrapersonal factors are primary. Alternatively, neuroscientific advances may help confirm the view that the nervous system acts as a filter in its perceptual operations, as Bergson and Huxley had supposed, in which case transpersonal explanation would be favored.” This is an appeal to ignorance pure and simple — we don’t know that transpersonal factors are not involved in mystical experiences, therefore we must keep an “open mind” on the subject. The obvious retort, of course, is considering that all empirical evidence supports the idea that mental states are entirely the result of brain (and body) physiology, and no verifiable evidence supports any sort of cosmic consciousness, telepathy, clairvoyance, or indication that near-death experiences relate to higher states of being (topics frequently mentioned in the text), the only reasonably objective position is to reject transpersonal explanations of mystical experiences.

So what does that leave?

Well, not to be disingenuous myself, I should say I became interested in André’s description of his mystical experiences because they are similar to experiences of my own (though I have never thought of myself as a mystic). André writes that his oceanic experiences occurred when he was younger, and as he has grown older they have occurred less frequently. He, like Rolland, is writing at some remove from the actual events. My experience has been somewhat the opposite. As I have grown older these experiences have occurred more frequently. In all honesty I have not written about it before, which probably seems odd because to some people it is such a startling experience. Although, come to think of it, neither Rolland nor Comte-Sponville wrote about their experiences at the time they occurred.

I have always had a sort of intuitive thought pattern. That is, when I work on a problem, and initially this sort of thing typically happened when I was writing papers in high school and then college, I assemble lots of information about a topic (everything I can get my hands on), read through it, start mulling it over, and then start writing down my thoughts and ideas. Sometimes, in doing this, I would get stuck at one point or another, and not be able to fit an idea into the structure of whatever I was working on. Rather than getting frustrated by this, I would just keep working around it, or mucking about with bits of information, ponder it while doing other activities ( a good way to get hit in the head with a basketball, incidentally). Often, the answer would come to me in a flash, a moment of insight that transformed everything I had thought and written on the topic. The old joke is a light bulb turning on, which is humorous, but the experience is one of sudden illumination. When it occurs, it is accompanied by surprisingly intense feelings of elation and euphoria. It takes one out of oneself in an odd way, as though nothing else exists or matters. I don't know if it would be correct to say that time stands still, but the passage of time stops being a consideration for a while. This sort of thing might last for a few minutes, but the afterglow often lasts for an hour or more.

My writing rate during such times increases dramatically, as words tumble out, and I almost have trouble writing (now typing) fast enough to keep up. I even find myself wondering where the words are coming from, or marveling at how precisely ideas fit together. It isn’t all perfect. Later, bits and pieces have to be edited or revised, but the gist of everything, the part that really matters, is seen in a flash. And when it appears, it is instantly recognized as correct. I mean with absolute confidence.

I suppose this would be categorized as an introvertive experience, because it is focused inwardly on some topic or idea I have been contemplating rather than on external objects. I also don’t believe this sort of experience is that unusual. And it is not limited just to writing. I suspect almost any activity can be the source of such experiences. People experiencing this may not perceive it as unusual because they are accustomed to it.

Here is an example. I am not a good golfer but my younger brother is. Considerably better than the average golfer. Although Jim lives in Florida, we play together when he visits Missouri. We enjoy each other’s company, and Jim enjoys outdoing his older brother. Sometimes, like when we are coming up to the first tee, other people will be present. A situation which makes most golfers nervous and often results in mistakes. (Something familiar to me.)

The result with Jim is usually the opposite. In fact, if a stranger makes a comment about the difficulty of a shot, the result is predictable. Jim will make the shot. If a starter, for example, says, “You can go ahead and tee off,” when a group is ahead of us on the fairway by about 300 yards, Jim will say, “I think I’ll wait.” “Oh, they are well out of range,” the starter responds. Jim just smiles. I know what is coming next just as sure as I’m standing there. A crashing 300 yard drive down the middle of the fairway and a look of stunned disbelief on the starter’s face. The thing is, Jim can’t always do that. When no one is watching, when he isn’t under a lot of pressure to prove himself, he can miss-hit terribly. (He still makes plenty of good shots, whether anyone is watching or not.) But he almost invariably hits an excellent shot in the former situation.

Jim couldn’t tell you how he does that. I’m not sure he even recognizes what sets the thing up, though it always puts him in a confident mood because he knows from experience how it is going to turn out. He becomes so focused on making the shot he forgets about everything else. He is so determined to prove himself. Afterwards, though he has never described this, it is easy to see the peace and elation. The glow can last for half a round or more. He would probably laugh if he heard this described as a mystical experience, but it has all the key ingredients. And if you don’t think time stands still after hitting a great drive on the golf course, you just don’t understand golf. :-) I also find it ironic that Jim’s ego, his intense determination to prove himself, becomes a means for controlling his ego, that is, silencing its internal monologue so he can hit a magnificent drive. But little ironies like this are what add piquancy to one’s experiences. (More on managing the ego below.)

At this point you might be thinking “Now, wait a minute, I have experiences like that.” Probably when doing something you’re really good at. But can those really be described as mystical? It may be, probably is, that the level of intensity in such experiences varies. I’m not sure how this could be objectively measured. It seems reasonable to suppose, however, that the physiological processes involved in the most intense mystical experiences are not different in kind from the milder occurrences encountered more frequently. They are just stronger. From your own experience, you can probably recall episodes when you were particularly successful in whatever activity (activities?) at which you excel and, comparing these with other similar experiences, can get an idea of comparative the intensity levels.

So, on to nature mysticism. While similar in some respects to experiences previously discussed, which I take to be more introvertive, extrovertive experiences include items not found in the former. Here are some included in table 1.1 “Feature list of extrovertive mystical experience” (Marshall, p. 27):

• Unity: Feeling part of the whole; the world contained within; everything intimately connected; community


• Self: Relaxation of individual identity; identification with persons, animals, plants, objects, even the entire cosmos; discovery of deeper self


• Knowledge: Intuitive, all-encompassing knowledge...insights into order, harmony, and perfection of the world...


• Love: All-embracing love; sense of being deeply loved


• Beauty: Extraordinary beauty; everything equally beautiful


• Miscellaneous feelings: Bliss, joy, elation, uplift, peace, relief, gratitude, wonder, power, fearlessness, humor, surprise


• Time: Time ‘stops’; past, present, future coexist; harmonious flow


• Reality: Sense of contact with normally hidden depths of reality


• Realness: ‘Very real’ — ordinary experience seems less real


• Life: Everything animated with ‘life’, ‘consciousness’, ‘energy’; things once thought living are lifeless in comparison

Descriptions of extrovertive mystical experiences vary from person to person. The preceding list includes items common to such reports, though it is not necessary for an experience to include all (or even most) of these features to be categorized as an EME. It should also be understood that the experience does not have to involve the natural world per se, that is it does not have to take place in a natural setting like a woodland, ocean shore, etc. It is only necessary for the experience to be centered in the external world, which might be some room in one's home, at the office, etc.

My own experiences of this kind do occur in natural settings: typically while I am hiking in the woods or during an astronomy session under the night sky. They are most intense when I am by myself. A few years ago Elly and I purchased a small RV from neighbors and since then have been able to regularly visit Missouri state parks. (Elly and tents have never been a successful combination.) Although we live happy lives, the time we spend surrounded by nature is probably our happiest. We find it relaxing, enjoy seeing all sorts of birds, animals, and plants that don’t frequent urban areas, and enjoy being away from all the noise and hustle of city life. Elly likes hiking in the woods, but not to the extent I do, so it often happens that she stays at the RV and reads, in the company of our dog Samba (who is not friendly to strangers), while I have a ramble in the woods. At these times, with nothing on my mind but exploring the woods, viewing birds I come across, photographing wild flowers and other interesting plants, it is not unusual, after a few hours, to slip into a blissful state. The feeling is one of total unity with the natural world, of being where one belongs, accepting one’s role in the cosmos, intuitively understanding the harmony of nature. Time stands still. Only the present matters. The past and future seem unimportant. Unreal, even.

A similar thing happens after hours spent in solitude with a telescope under the night sky, listening to owls and coyotes, the rustling of trees, watching the heavens wheel overhead. I have heard people comment that the night sky makes them feel puny and unimportant. André Comte-Sponville himself refers to this. I have never felt that. Instead, I feel intensely alive, part of everything before me. I feel serenity, elation, bliss, joy. Again, the deep sense of belonging. A total absence of care and concern. And, most especially, a deep awe and reverence for the miracle of the universe of which we are a part. As much as I enjoy getting together with friends to observe, the experience is never as intense. Part of it has to do, I think, with the silence: not speaking for hours at a time, not devoting any energy or thought to conversation.

During these times I do not experience, as some report, deep feelings of love or of being loved, or of a divine presence. Nor do I have a sense that hidden wisdom is somehow being revealed or about to be revealed. Through science, we have learned an extraordinary amount about the natural world, one of our greatest achievement as a species. Undoubtedly, we will learn much more. But the ultimate mysteries of why the cosmos exists, why there is order in it, why there is life in it, and what its ultimate fate might be, lie forever beyond our reach. Accepting that this is so, accepting that the only characteristic of the Absolute we can truly experience is its ineffability and mystery, seems to me an appropriate, and profoundly spiritual response.

Others, however, report deep feelings of love, and/or of a divine presence. Of God, in fact. Are they mistaken? It may be the answer to that question, or, at least, a way forward to understanding it, lies in understanding what causes mystical experiences themselves. What brings them about?

A widespread belief is that mystical experiences represent union with ultimate reality. All major religions feature this idea in one form or another. In achieving the state, mystics are said to access knowledge which surpasses that available through normal use of the human senses and intellect. A key element of this belief is that mystical experiences represent “transpersonal” communication in one form or another. The problem, of course, is that mystical experiences are entirely subjective, as is the resulting knowledge or wisdom they are purported to convey. Simply put, no empirical or objective evidence has been found to support the claim that these experiences are transpersonal. The obvious alternative, and one that does not conflict with current neurological science, is that mystical experiences are intrapersonal. That is, they represent comprehensible (albeit somewhat unusual) brain states.

Consider the enormous complexity of the human mind, which, by conservative estimates, incorporates something like 100 trillion synaptic connections. Consider what a small part of brain functionality is represented by our conscious awareness. Is it so hard to believe that some people, whether through design (practices and exercises intended to invoke mystical states) or happenstance (some neurological quirk), are able to quiet their conscious awareness and experience their subconscious more directly than normal?

We all do this while dreaming, perhaps mystics have the ability to do it while awake. In such a state, a common experience is one of unity with reality. Well, why not? Subconsciously our minds are aware of and track many times the amount of sensory data we consciously notice. Mystical experiences are accompanied by intense, usually pleasurable, emotions. This too makes sense. Literally. Our emotions are intimately connected with sensory experience. If the intensity of those experiences, or, our awareness of them, is heightened, our emotional responses would surely be heightened as well. Feelings of love, or of being loved, are surely consonant with this.

So what about feeling a divine presence? It would not be surprising to find these feelings consistent with the religious system in which an individual has been raised or trained. In other words, they could easily be interpretations based on the intellectual and emotional content of one’s religious and social context, which is a significant contributor to our thought processes. This is not to say a presence is not felt. Or, even that something corresponding to that presence does not exist. Only that the feelings themselves do not constitute proof of anything external to the person having the experience.

None of this is meant to be reductionist. Concluding that mystical states, like other mental states, result from our physiology and brain chemistry, does not diminish their value or desirability from my point of view. Those who accept such experiences as proof of something beyond their own intimate connection with the cosmos will doubtless disagree. I can only point out that a naturalistic explanation is consistent with the verifiable evidence so far uncovered, and does not rely on complicated hypothetical constructions involving a “cosmic consciousness” or similar unproven (improvable?) things. It therefore has the advantage of simplicity and intellectual economy.

Mystical experiences are not less wonderful, not less beautiful in the light of a naturalistic explanation, any more than a knowledge of sound waves makes a symphony by Mozart any less wonderful or beautiful. These experiences have enriched my life, and, like André Comte-Sponville, I find them to be a source of solace and comfort. I encourage others to be receptive to mystical experiences wherever they might be encountered. Perhaps, fans of the movie Tin Men are thinking of a smorgesboard...

Oceanic Feeling

The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality by André Comte-Sponville. I spent a good deal of time with this book in the first week of 2008, yet have hesitated to post an entry about it and the reason why gets at the difference between a blog and a personal journal. Or at least the difference to me.

I keep a personal journal, a habit I picked up when I started in seriously with astronomy. This at first was simply a means to record the objects I found and observed with my telescope, but from the beginning also included bits of this and that, like who my observing companions were and what antics they displayed. From there it was a natural step to record observations about birds, trips to state parks, our Grand Canyon vacation, and the like. I have occasionally included illustrations, at first astronomical sketches, which seems an unlikely thing to do at the telescope, in the dark, but is surprisingly rewarding and encourages one to look more carefully and enables one to recall specific detail even years afterward. But these journals are for myself. “I to Myself” as Thoreau said it, and while a few others have glanced at them, I never felt self-conscious about the contents, or felt inhibited about my expressions. And, to be honest, as time has passed, I have become reserved about permitting anyone, other than Elly, to look through them. Not that they contain anything to hide, but simply because they have become a private preserve to pursue my own thoughts, feelings, and ideas.

Blogs, on the other hand, are anything but private. Their intent is to immediately share the content with anyone on the planet who cares to take a peek. One puts oneself on display, which also puts one on guard, sacrificing a certain amount of spontenaity and freedom easily exercised in solitude.

Posts about books often read like reviews, rather than journal entries. It’s easy to adopt this style of writing, considering that your audience is likely to include your circle of friends and anyone else with similar interests and a slight knowledge of search engines. It seems necessary to include an overview of the book’s contents, an assessment of its strengths and weaknesses, and finally a recommendation whether to pick it up or pass it by.

After considering the matter for some days, it has occurred to me that I don’t want to review André Comte-Sponville’s book, but rather explore some of the ideas he presents and my own response to them, to delve into particular points that resonate with me.

Before continuing, I'll add that this is not the sort of book I read once and set aside. Instead, I find myself rereading passages and pondering them, dipping into a page or two here and there, being reminded of something in another book and digging that up, having some experience or fleeting thought or idea that brings me back to the book later for more reflection. In short, Comte-Sponville has joined a small group of writers whose ideas I value and respect and find inspiring. Having said that, I might as well refer to the author as André.

André discusses what he calls “oceanic feeling” in a topic of that name which is included in the book’s third section, “Can There Be an Atheist Spirituality?”. It follows a closely related topic, “Immanensity.” Throughout his book, André engages in word play, intended one supposes to be amusing and thought-provoking, which often takes the form of combining several words, as, in this case, "immensity" and "immanence." (I do find it amusing and thought-provoking.)

Spirituality has more to do with experience than thought; this is what distinguishes it from metaphysics. And whereas we have a conception of the infinite, we have no experience of it. We have an experience of the unknown (knowing we do not know), which itself is part of spirituality (the part I have chosen to call mystery). However, we also — and first, and especially — have an experience of immanence and immensity, which, following the poet Jules Laforgue, we can call immanensity. We are in the All, and whether it is finite or not, it surpasses us (goes beyond us) in every direction; its limits, if it has any, are permanently beyond our reach. It envelops, contains and exceeds us. Is it a transcendence? Not at all, since we are inside of it. It is an inexhaustible, indefinite immanence, whose limits are both undefined and inaccessible. We are inside it — we live within the unfathomable.

“We live within the unfathomable.” What an evocative and brilliant statement, acknowledging at once that the limits of the universe, which may or may not be infinite, nevertheless lie forever beyond our reach, and that experiencing the All and accepting its essential mystery without attempting to explain it, without, that is, God and religion, is a profound basis for spirituality.

I started this post intending to discuss André’s notion of “oceanic feeling,” but find now that I have said all I care to at present, so I’ll have to pick the subject up in a later post, which is something I never hesitate to do in my personal journal.