Rational Mysticism Tice
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FI Oct-Nov 2005 Pages 8/24/05 2:12 PM Page 14 OP-ED SAM HARRIS simply because they have been tradi- tionally associated with religious prac- Rational Mysticism tice. The final chapter of my book, which gave Flynn the most trouble, is devoted to the subject of meditation. Medita- om Flynn, the editor of FREE tion, in the sense that I use the term, is INQUIRY, has invited me to con- nothing more than a method of paying Ttribute four essays to this maga- extraordinarily close attention to one’s zine over the course of the next year. moment-to-moment experience of the This invitation comes after he wrote a world. There is nothing irrational about mixed, misleading, and ultimately exas- doing this (and Flynn admits as much). perating review of my book, The End of In fact, such a practice constitutes the Faith, in these very pages.1 Having only rational basis for making detailed accepted his invitation, I now feel a mix- (first-person) claims about the nature of ture of emotions about which psycholog- human subjectivity. Difficulties arise for ical science has precious little to say. In secularists like Flynn, however, once we this first essay, I will resist the tempta- begin speaking about the kinds of expe- tion to rise heroically to the defense of riences that diligent practitioners of my own book—but I will fail. meditation are apt to have. It is an empirical fact that sustained meditation Flynn had with this enterprise is not a can result in a variety of insights that problem with my book, or merely with intelligent people regularly find intellec- “. if we ever develop a Flynn, but a larger problem with secu- tually credible and personally transfor- larism itself. mative. The problem, however, is that mature science of the mind, As a worldview, secularism has these insights are almost always sought defined itself in opposition to the and expressed in a religious context. most of our religious texts will whirling absurdity of religion. Like athe- One such insight is that the feeling we be no more useful to mystics ism (with which it is more or less inter- call “I”—the sense that there is a changeable), secularism is a negative thinker giving rise to our thoughts, an than they now are to dispensation. Being secular is not a pos- experiencer distinct from the mere flow itive virtue like being reasonable, wise, of experience—can disappear when astronomers.” or loving. To be secular, one need do looked for in a rigorous way. Our con- nothing more than live in perpetual ventional sense of “self” is, in fact, noth- opposition to the unsubstantiated ing more than a cognitive illusion, and claims of religious dogmatists. Conse- dispelling this illusion opens the mind to If anyone has written a book more quently, secularism has negligible extraordinary experiences of happi- critical of religious faith than I have, I’m appeal to the culture at large (a practi- ness. This is not a proposition to be not aware of it. This is not to say that cal concern) and negligible content (an accepted on faith; it is an empirical The End of Faith does not have many intellectual concern). There is, in fact, observation, analogous to the discovery shortcomings—but appeasing religious not much to secularism that should be of of one’s optic blind spots. Most people irrationality is not among them. These interest to anyone, apart from the fact never notice their blind spots (caused by claims are not as self-serving in this that it is all that stands between sensi- the transit of the optic nerve through the context as they might first appear. While ble people like ourselves and the mad retina of each eye), but they can be Flynn is guilty of some surprising misin- hordes of religious imbeciles who have pointed out with a little effort. The terpretations of my argument,2 his sup- balkanized our world, impeded the absence of a reified self can also be port for my book was fundamentally progress of science, and now place civi- pointed out, though this tends to require eroded by something I did, in fact, do: I lization itself in jeopardy. Criticizing considerably more training on the part used the words spirituality and mys- religious irrationality is absolutely of both teacher and student. The only ticism affirmatively, in an attempt to essential. But secularism, being nothing “faith” required to get such a project off put the range of human experience sig- more than the totality of such criticism, the ground is the faith of scientific nified by these terms on a rational foot- can lead its practitioners to reject hypothesis. The hypothesis is this: if I ing. It seems to me that the difficulty important features of human experience use my attention in the prescribed way, free inquiry http://www.secularhumanism.org 14 FI Oct-Nov 2005 Pages 8/24/05 2:13 PM Page 15 OP-ED it may have a specific, reproducible string theory makes any sense (and still effect. Needless to say, what happens (or fail); this is not a measure of whether fails to happen) along any path of “spir- string theory is mumbo jumbo. As any itual” practice has to be interpreted in serious practitioner of meditation light of some conceptual scheme, and knows, there is something to the claims “. .there is a kernel of truth everything must remain open to rational that have been made by mystics over the discussion. How this discussion pro- ages. And yet, the fact that such claims in the grandiosity and ceeds will ultimately be decided by con- have always been advanced in the lan- templative scientists. As I said in my guage of one or another religious ideol- otherworldly language book, if we ever develop a mature sci- ogy continues to confound secularists. of religion. ” ence of the mind, most of our religious Flynn condemns my book simply texts will be no more useful to mystics because I have found no better words than they now are to astronomers. than spiritual or mystical to denote What words should we use to this rarefied terrain.3 As Flynn con- acknowledge the fact that the happiest cedes, I took great pains to distance However, any reader who consults the text person on this earth at this moment myself from the unfortunate associa- will see that I am talking about the false con- might have spent the last twenty years tions these terms carry in our culture, solations of religious faith. The passage ends with the following: living alone in a cave? Any experienced deluded as it is by absurd religious cer- But the fact that religious beliefs have a tainties. Still, Flynn felt that my caveats great influence on human life says nothing were insufficient, and he would have at all about their validity. For the paranoid, had me employ words like “meditative” pursued by persecutory delusions, terror of the CIA may have great influence, but this or “attentional” to describe the experi- does not mean that his phones are tapped. ence of human consciousness shorn of 3. I also took considerable heat from Flynn “To be secular, one need do the illusion of the human ego. The prob- for a few remarks I made about the nature of lem, however, is that there is a kernel of consciousness. Most atheists appear to be nothing more than live in truth in the grandiosity and otherworld- certain that consciousness is entirely depen- ly language of religion. It really is possi- dent upon (and reducible to) the workings of perpetual opposition to the the brain. In the last chapter of the book, I ble to have one’s moment-to-moment briefly argue that this certainty is unwarrant- unsubstantiated claims of perception of the world radically trans- ed. I say this as one who is deeply immersed figured by “attentional” discipline. Such in the neuroscientific and philosophical liter- religious dogmatists. a transfiguration, being both rare and ature on consciousness: the truth is that sci- profoundly positive, may occasionally entists still do not know what the relationship Consequently, secularism has between consciousness and matter is. I am merit a little poetry. not in the least suggesting that we make a negligible appeal to the religion out of this uncertainty, or do anything Notes else with it. Needless to say, the mysterious- culture at large. .” 1. Tom Flynn, “Glimpses of Nirvana,” ness of consciousness does nothing to make FREE INQUIRY 25, no. 2 (February/March 2005). conventional religious notions about God and 2. Flynn accuses me of “implicit Zionism” paradise any more plausible. Still, conscious- when what I explicitly say is this: ness remains a genuine mystery, and anyone who attempts to study it is confronted by seri- Judaism is as intrinsically divisive, as ous conceptual and empirical problems. ridiculous in its literalism, and as at odds meditator knows that this is a serious with the civilizing insights of modernity as possibility. (Indeed, I consider it not only any other religion. Jewish settlers, by exer- Sam Harris is the author of the inter- cising their “freedom of belief” on contested national bestseller The End of Faith: possible, but likely.) What can we say land, are now one of the principal obstacles about the fact that the conventional to peace in the Middle East. They will be a Religion, Terror, and the Future of sources of human happiness—associa- direct cause of war between Islam and the Reason. He is a graduate in philoso- West should one ever erupt over the Israeli- phy from Stanford University and is tion with family and friends, positive Palestinian conflict.