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Michael Millerman - 2004

Introduction

In an essay entitled

The Mystical Self: Lost and Found,

Ralph Hood explores thequestion of the unity of selfhood, drawing heavily on William James’

Varieties of Religious Experience.

Hood argues that, empirically, the unity of selfhood is assured andnon-problematic. However, the phenomenon of mysticism reveals a transcendent I,whose unity is not that of empirically studied selfhood, but rather a unity with Reality, or God. The concern, then, is to suggest that “William James’ psychology and philosophyhas contemporary relevance in linking the empirical literature on self with the conceptualliterature on self-loss,” that is, the mystic experience. First let us look at the twoconceptions of self.

Two Conceptions of Self

A conceptual confusion that arises in empirical studies of the self is the failure todistinguish between the being of the self and its attributes (Hood, 2002). “I think, perceive, feel, but I

not those various acts in time,” writes philosopher William Earle,“rather I am that ego which now thinks, now perceives, now remembers or dreams”(1981). The two conceptions that emerge, then, are the unity of self found in reflection,usually identified as

, and influenced by social construction insofar as we identify it byvarious attributes, and the unity of the being devoid of attributes, the I, which is lesslikely a product of social influence (Hood, 2002); the

psychological

self and the

soulful

self.The Spiritual RevolutionIt is well established that the experience of unity is a defining feature of the

soulful

self that emerges upon the loss of the reflexive, psychological self (Stace, 1960;Hood, 1989). In his essay, Hood suggests that a spiritual revolution is now in progress; arevolution made possible by a return to serious discussion of the soul (Hood, 2002.)Although such a concept may worry some psychologists who, perhaps like the behaviourists, wish to abstract themselves from the whole of what it means to be humanand keep their discipline “empirical,” it seems that William James was correct in notingthat, “no conventional restrictions can keep metaphysical or even epistemologicalinquiries out of the psychology books” (Hood, 2002), for indeed, psychological and philosophical conceptions of self rapidly give way to mystical ones when they are carriedto their conclusion. To study such a concept, however, requires the proper methodological tools; for psychology, regardless of its scope, must still proceed as ascience.

The Method

Michael Millerman - 2004

James insisted that “first and foremost and always,” the primary method of psychology is introspective observation (Hood, 2002). He demanded careful observationand description of internal states, in a way anticipating the school of phenomenology.Husserl, founder of phenomenology, stressed that psychology should be the first scienceto emerge with the “transcendental perspective;” that is, upon the realization that the I,the soulful self, is at the root of our experience of reality, and indeed

constitutes

all reality(Smith, 2003). According to James and Husserl, then, the methodological tool for studyof the I is

introspection,

which provides us with

self-knowledge. James suggests we must be

radically

empirical with introspection, allowing metaphysics to illuminate the phenomena discovered thereby (Hood, 2002). James’ empiricism is

experience

. Again,quoting from Hood’s essay, we have James’ empirical postulate, “Everything real must be experiencable somewhere, and every kind of thing experienced must somewhere bereal” (2002). Let us now turn to the mystic experience itself.

Unio Mystico

“We have everywhere found that the mystic having suppressed the empirical factorsof the stream of consciousness, arrives at a pure ego or pure consciousness, and that theemergence of this pure ego

the introvertive experience,” writes Stace (1960). The self,in recuperating itself, achieves an “ontological and epistemological rock-bottom,” (Earle,1981). What we have is the synthesis or union of subjective absolute reality (the I) andobjective absolute reality, or God. Perhaps at this point it would be wise to quote directlyfrom one of the most important figures of philosophy and mysticism, Plotinus:

In the vision, that which sees is not reason but something greater thanand prior to reason, something presupposed by reason, as is the objectof vision. He who then sees himself when he sees will see himself as asimple being [the undifferentiated unity of the I and God], will beunited to himself as such, will feel himself become such. We ought noteven to say that he will ‘see’, but that he will ‘be’ that which he sees, if indeed it is possible any longer to distinguish seer and seen, and notboldly to affirm that the two are one. In this state the seer does notsee or distinguish or imagine two things; he becomes another, heceases to be himself and to belong to himself [that is, thepsychological self is lost and the I, devoid of all attributes, no longerhas anything by which to distinguish itself from Absolute Reality]. Hebelongs to Him and is one with Him, like two concentric circles; theyare one when they coincide, and two only when they are separated. Itis only in this sense that the soul is other. Therefore the vision is hardto describe. For how can one describe, as other than oneself, thatwhich, when one saw it, seemed to be one with oneself? (Stace, 1960)

Conclusion