Being a practicing Christian who has had several verifiable paranormal, if not supernatural, direct experiences I'm pretty comfortable with mysticism, but I read through that and it just looks like bafflegab. I realize that might be misunderstanding on my part, but I'm the kind of person who thinks C.S. Peirce's semiotic is sensible, and Leibniz's monadology is fascinating, so it's not like I'm unfamiliar with dense philosophy.
> ...several verifiable paranormal, if not supernatural, direct experiences...
As someone who once thought this was true of my experience, yet have since learned they were just common phenomenon, I'm curious what these experiences were. And how do you think they have effected your perspective?
Not OP, but I can identify with mystical experiences like what's hinted at in that post.
I don't have any experiences I would call "verifiably paranormal", but I've had a few I've not been able to fully account for to my own satisfaction from a purely materialist perspective (despite a total collapse of my childhood evangelical Christian beliefs).
One was sudden, total cessation of a destructive habit I'd struggled to stop for decades, after a single prayer I hadn't realized was related to that struggle ("I don't care what it costs - make me more like You"), a very unexpected turn of improbable events immediately following the prayer, and an intense spiritual experience following the unexpected events.
I have devised pure materialist accountings for it, but they aren't rigorous and haven't persuaded me.
...all that said, I actually found the GP post very understandable and thought it made tremendous amounts of sense - perhaps even was "wise." I certainly wouldn't call it "bafflegab".
> despite a total collapse of my childhood evangelical Christian beliefs
I should perhaps clarify that while I had the total collapse and found myself staring nihilism in the face, I currently am drifting towards a very heretical, Bible-is-flawed-and-maybe-not-divine-at-all form of faith in Jesus (in part due to the above-mentioned experience).
The most striking one was an injury transference. I had a severe medically diagnosed intercostal rib strain from a botched deadlift. Someone took it from me by touch. Literal laying on of hands. I mean going from so much pain that rolling over in bed is agony to completely fine. Punchline is she got to have a severe rib injury for a few weeks. I’ve still got no idea how that worked.
I’ve also experienced telepathy, seen a ghost (with multiple corroborating witnesses) and witnessed poltergeist activity. The last of those I can kind of doubt though. The mirror falling off the wall could maybe have been some kind of microquake.
Yeah, what you're describing with the injury is a skill I'd call empathic absorption. A rib injury is fairly dramatic and eye-opening. I know someone who did something similar with scarlet fever.
It's good to see this surface up here, though it's the kind of stuff I discuss in other communities.
I wrote a bunch of stuff, but then I deleted it and decided to just copy someone better at wording than me:
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy
I view materialism much like Newtonian physics. It's a fine approximation for the situations you'll face almost all the time. I just choose not to wear it like a set of blinders, because I don't want to deny the evidence of my senses when they don't fit it.
I'd have my own share of experiences, so I'll take what you say here at face value. (Though there are a wide variety of experiences).
Given your background, I think you might find Christopher Wallis's Tantra Illuminated -- in particular, the chapter on the View of Tantra -- more sensible. Although it does not talk about wholes, centers, and unfoldings in those terms that Christopher Alexander does.
I think the key is in the non-duality of creator and creation. That within all parts are the Whole. I can't tell from the wikipedia page on Leibniz's monadology if monads are distinct from each other, whereas that stuff about wholes and centers point to apparent distinctions on a continuum that is the Whole.
