A Defense of Mysticism

I intend to argue that the argument from religious experience, particularly of the mystical sort, provides a valid reason for belief in some type of God, for the mystic at a minimum and hopefully for others as well. I will primarily follow the analysis written by Wallace Matson as it seems to encompass and surpass other readings I have encountered on the subject. I will attempt to carry each of his lines of argument through at least one more round of rebuttals, and particularly to overturn his final conclusion that mystical experience does not provide a rational basis for belief.

I begin this argument with a position advanced by C.D. Broad which I will attempt to support through the discussion. Each proceeding argument can be seen as some sort of attack on this position and what I see as a successful rebuttal of the attack and its various extensions. The assertion: Religious experience bears a strong analogy to perceptual experience, and in as much as we are justified in accepting perceptual experience as a basis for rational belief, so we ought to accept religious experience as a basis for rational belief, assuming that the rationale behind trusting perceptual evidence is in the form Broad described as, "If it seems so, trust it unless there is evidence to the contrary." As the assertion is in the form of analogy the method of attack will be to invoke a disanalogy, that is, no attempt will be made to discredit perceptual experience as a basis of rational belief.

I ask the reader to grant a basic assumption which Matson grants in his argument: that a significant number of mystics across cultures and time periods are unanimous in their assertion that a God, or at least a supernatural power or order that may be labeled God by some, exists. Also, that their experiences share certain fundamental qualities and conclusions. These qualities and conclusions are discussed by James and Matson, but I feel their particulars are irrelevant, it is only the existence of commonalities and the one particular named above that seem important. I will now proceed to the objections, following Matson's structure.

One may object, with good reason, that mystics seem to be insane. In defense of mystics it should be noted that many well known mystics were proficient, and even excellent, at countless other difficult vocations, particularly of an intellectual bent. It would be ludicrous to claim that these geniuses were all delusional. The skeptic responds that the distinction between genius and madness is fine and that genius is perhaps more reason to suspect insanity, and certainly not strong evidence against it.

Matson closes this line of argument with the idea that the entire notion of sanity centers around a proper relation to reality. Because we are discussing whether mystical experience can be considered a proper relation to reality, claiming sanity or insanity would be begging the question. The resolution of this argument lies in our conclusion, not in the premises.

The skeptic still has a line of argument in that while the mystics may see more of reality than others, no one is proposing that the reality the rest of us see on a day to day basis is completely illusory. To do so would be to deny the validity of perception and destroy this entire discussion. Therefore, if the mystic does not hold a proper relation to observable reality, he must be judged insane, regardless of his relationship to some super reality we know nothing about. The mystic can be defended so long as the super reality in question is taken to encompass ordinary reality in a way that does not invalidate our current view of reality, yet still accounts for their differences in belief. This is a draft, so I guess I'll come out and say it: this seems weak. I can't think of a way to support the mystics' sanity without attacking the sanity of the rest of the world to some degree. This discredits perception, and so by defeating the disanalogy makes the analogy useless. I could use some help here.

The mystic may be likened to one claiming absolute authority, a position that is philosophically untenable. The mystic argues that he does not claim authority. He claims that he has real evidence, only that he is currently unable to share it with you. A strong analogy is made to physics (and holds for any other discipline which requires advanced study for its understanding). The evidence is extant and accessible, but only through a rigorous program of study and not necessarily to everyone. This analogy can be attacked on several grounds.

Methods of becoming a mystic vary across disciplines whereas methods of becoming a physicist do not seem to have such diversity. Matson never really answers this objection. I have two responses. Perhaps mysticism is a broader field than physics. Methods of becoming a mystic may not vary any more than do methods of becoming a scientist. Many will argue that physics, which studies the underlying order and nature of reality has a scope that is not only equal in size, but is in fact identical to that of mysticism. Mysticism still seems to have a greater scope as it encompasses physics and adds to it another dimension, whether it be called spiritual, immaterial, or conscious, that physics ignores. The physicist rebuts this, saying that physics posits wholly physical explanations for spiritual, immaterial, and conscious phenomenon, but does not ignore them or deny their existence. Many atheist scientists today hold that consciousness is an epiphenomena produced by physical activity in the brain. They do not hold consciousness and spirituality as nonexistent, but as subsumed by physical reality. Conceding this, I move to the next response.

Mysticism must be viewed as a science in its infancy. Certainly it has been studied for millennia, but for whatever reason, perhaps because of the difficulty of studying the imperceptible and indescribable, it has not gained the refinement that physics and some other areas of study have obtained. There are certainly many ways of becoming a psychologist, with some methods of study wholly incompatible with others. This does not discredit psychology as a science. We only expect that certain methods will be proven faulty and others validated, perhaps even that none of the present methods are wholly correct, but certainly that some correct method is possible and that the conclusions drawn from our current imperfect methods retain some validity.

Students of mysticism are advised to have faith, whereas students of physics are not. If one has to believe before evidence can be presented, the entire notion of rationality has been thrown out the window. Mystics may respond that faith is not always a requirement. This argument seems weak, as necessity of faith seems prevalent enough to be listed as characteristic of the field. As a second response Matson offers the idea that some rational explanation can be given for why faith is necessary and draws an analogy to the shyness of fairies. I find this ridiculous, as does Matson. Here he abandons his argument to some degree and switches instead to an argument from pragmatics that those without an ability to discern something should always trust those with the ability. This too seems weak to me. A pragmatic argument does not seem to me to be an argument for rationality of belief, only for rationality of action. As Freud told us, ignorance is ignorance.

I think Matson would do well to stick to a variation of his argument that some degree of required faith is necessary for study. This does not seem to break the analogy with physics. To study physics it is not necessary to accept on faith that gravity exists. It is, however, necessary to accept on faith that an underlying physical order exists, and even necessary to believe much more complex and less intuitive principles such as the invariance of physical law across time and space. It is not acceptable in physics to answer that nature is all random and follows no laws, nor is it possible to disprove this idea. It is only more pleasing and more useful to assume the opposite. The assumption of the opposite is also necessary for the study of physics. The skeptic can argue that while the denial of order in nature cannot be disproven, evidence can be levied against it. Patterns can be shown to the disbeliever that may influence and justify a change of heart. I have two responses.

First, the analogy still does not break down. Just as inconclusive but plausible evidence can be given for the existence of physical law, so can it be for the existence of God. The disbeliever can be shown things of great beauty that seem just as compelling as the motions of the planets. Some will argue that the mystics' evidence is nowhere near as compelling as the physicists'. Alternate explanations for the mystics' observed facts seem plentiful and plausible. I feel that the physicist suffers from the same problems, if not to the same extent. Granted the mystics' evidence may not be as compelling as the physicists', but compelling none the less. Some extremists will argue that the evidence is not compelling at all. I disagree as to their evaluation of the evidence, but the fact that they can make and appear to believe the statement shows that the evidence at least is not compelling to them. This asks for an alternative response.

The evidence of mysticism is not so easily communicable as the evidence of physics. Perhaps it is not even communicable at all. If a mystic could show his mystical experience to the unfaithful, it would serve as compelling evidence. Imagine trying to show the order of the motion of the planets to someone who simply did not have the mental capacity to grasp the pattern or even see clearly that a pattern existed. It would be frustrating indeed and one would probably ask the student to accept on faith that there was a pattern, at least for the time it took to instruct the student in the necessary mathematics to understand it. The fundamental inability of mystics to convey their experiences has been mentioned earlier, and seems to be the prime stumbling block for the mystic. This problem is addressed in the next objection.

While neither advanced discipline (physics or mysticism) can communicate adequately with lay people, physics experts seem to be able to communicate effectively to each other whereas mystics cannot. A strong response is found in the idea that communication can only carry structural relations, and cannot actually describe the content of an experience in and of itself. If all communication only deals with relationships between objects, a unitary object is inherently ineffable. This fits perfectly into my own view of God. I carry the argument farther to say that a unitary object is inherently impossible to analyze, as the means of communication and analysis are parallel (structural relations). I posit a single consciousness that is the sum total of what we see as a universe made of diverse objects and that has so divided itself for the purpose of self-analysis.

Matson constructs a rather beautiful closing argument to put to rest mysticism as a basis for rational belief. I will state it and attempt to refute it. He makes an analogy in which mystics among ordinary people are analogous to seeing men among the blind. He argues that the blind should trust the seers only to the extent that the seers make predictions that are somehow verifiable, albeit indirectly, by non-seeing methods. Once the seers credibility is established in this manner, he can be trusted for further information that may not be testable by non-seeing methods. It also seems implied that the credibility would be strongest were it established in a field or manner that seemed to bear some relationship to the mystics' mystical claims. This position can be attacked. If the mystics perception is so fundamentally different or otherworldly that it cannot be tested by any worldly methods, there seems to exist some basis for believing it, at least inasmuch as we believe in the validity of perception. Untestable perceptions are regarded as valid so long as there is no positive reason to reject them. So long as the mystics untestable claims do not give us some positive reason to reject them, such as contradicting other testable claims, we ought to believe them.

A difficult case arises when two untestable claims which come from different mystics, both of whom claim religious experience, are in contradiction. We have no way of choosing one over the other. It could be argued that the very possibility of this dilemma destroys the validity of untestable claims. I think there exists an alternate method to differentiate the opposing claims, namely, an investigation of the sources. If mystics cannot establish credibility by offering mystic views that testable by non-mystic methods, at least they can establish credibility in other fields. This may seem subjective and ad hominem in a fashion that does not mix well with the formalism of much of philosophy, but I feel it holds some validity. A mystic who has shown every sign of rationality in his perception of the material world, has shown every sign of honesty, fairness, and goodwill in his material dealings, and offers no positive reason for disbelief seems like valid source of mystical information no matter how far removed from our experience. A strong argument can be levied against the subjectivity of this stance. It may be taken to state that the only way to believe in a mystic is to choose the one you like best. There are some tests for reliability that seem to help the issue, but perhaps not enough to justify belief. I will grant this point now, for the sake of argument.

That concession leads to Matson's final point, that a mystic who can offer no testable evidence offers no valid reason for belief. He never seems to prove that mystics offer no testable evidence. I think he assumes this to be true and overlooks the field of ethics. Ethics are certainly addressable by normal humans through purely non-mystical means. Many mystics though, seem to have made advances in ethics without going through the normal means. They seem to have met Matson's criteria for sensing directly something that the rest of us can access only indirectly, the logical inference. The analogy of a person who "hears" radio waves holds. Mystics seem to "see" certain philosophical truths.

To adequately discuss this, it is first necessary to discuss the nature of ethical truth. I come from the stance of moral realism (see Wolff 1999 "Moral Realism and God"), but I believe these arguments concerning mystics can be upheld in either the case of moral realism or relativism. In the case of moral realism the argument is obvious: ethical truths are real things that philosophers seek to discover; the mystics' claims can, at least in principle, be tested against some objective standard of moral truth. In the case of moral relativism the argument has a bit more of a twist to it. If we define ethics as based on the beliefs of people or societies, the mystic makes a correct ethical claim if he or she makes a claim that predicts what his or her society comes to believe on some large basis. This case runs into the difficulty of cause and effect, whereby a mystic's claim could have predicted popular opinion or created it. I am afraid I have to leave the separation of those two instances to social scientists with more training in the field and methods for inquiring into such issues.

In the case of many mystics it may be argued that they arrived at ethical truths in the normal manner and claimed mystical experience for alternative reasons. First, this claim should be made only if there are positive reasons for it. Conceding that in many cases there are, it can still be defeated. I do not have evidence of a specific mystic who came to a conclusion in ethics beyond his or her intellectual means. I do not propose to cite examples to prove my claim here, only to set up a test: If a mystic makes an ethical claim that is new to recorded history and seems to come from means other than intellectual inquiry into the subject of ethics, we have substantial reason to base belief on his claims. To refute this claim it is necessary to describe mystics as philosophical geniuses who were not only unaware of the methods they used in arriving at their conclusions, but strongly deluded into thinking they used different methods than was the case. To posit this combination of genius and ignorance seems less likely than to posit a valid mystical experience. Following the doctrines of economy and plausibility of explanation mystical experience is a valid reason for beliefs, particularly belief in God, or at least some supernatural power or order that may be labeled God by some.