Mystical Encounters with the Natural World: Experiences and Explanations

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Some experiences of the natural world bring a sense of unity, knowledge, self-transcendence, eternity, light, and love. This is the first detailed study of these intriguing phenomena. Paul Marshall explores the circumstances, characteristics, and after-effects of this important but relatively neglected type of mystical experience, and critiques explanations that range from the spiritual and metaphysical to the psychoanalytic, contextual, and neuropsychological. The theorists discussed include R. M. Bucke, Edward Carpenter, W. R. Inge, Evelyn Underhill, Rudolf Otto, Sigmund Freud, Aldous Huxley, R. C. Zaehner, W. T. Stace, Steven Katz, and Robert Forman, as well as contemporary neuroscientists. The book makes a significant contribution to current debates about the nature of mystical experience.

Mystical Encounters with the Natural World: Experiences and Explanations Review

First a caveat. Because of the price of this book I have only read the free introduction and some selected preview pages on google books. What I have read has given me a flavor of what the author conveys regarding extrovertive mystical experience.

My first observation would be to agree that the term 'natural mysticism' may best describe this state of consciousness. By natural I mean, not sought after: it just happens.

Secondly, my researches on the subject has led me to believe that only those who have had experiences of this type can begin to understand them. Experience is experience and must be experienced to be known. I think this applies to most, if not all, mental phenomena. For example, if one has not experienced romantic love oneself, one can read everything ever written on the subject, watch every movie or film ever created on the subject, write volumes on the subject--and yet this non-experiencer will never know what 'romantic love' is.

Next, I think that full-blown natural mysticism experiences (such as the cosmic consciousness of Bucke)are relatively rare. People who have these powerful experiences generally want to share them, and the internet is a logical place to go to locate and share experiences with others. Several years of internet searches have produced only one 'possible' case of full-blown CC and only one case of nature mysticism a notch or two below. Many claim cosmic consciousness experiences (CC) but these almost always are copies of Eastern versions of this concept. They are almost always associated with people trying to sell something and they almost always read, hollow.

I would also agree that just having one of these experiences does not qualify one to be an objective interpreter and explainer of and writer of just what these experiences are. Richard Bucke is a perfect example of one who probably distorted the true phenomenology of his CC experience over the decades between his experience and his publication of his book on the subject. Meanwhile he became a disciple of Whitman, who he thought was a God or a demi-God. Whitman's persona and poetry became a model upon which Bucke embellished his primary experience. Bucke's studies of Eastern religions, his association with Carpenter and Caleb Pink and others also fleshed out his story. Plus, Bucke had a huge ego which, I believe, drove him to create an evolutionary theory of CC that has no basis in fact nor empirical observation. Quite frankly, I have to read Bucke closely for the underlying phenomenology of his experience, which is usually covered up by his thinking.

On the subject of the phenomenology of natural mystical experiences themselves, I believe I have a theory, or rather a hypothesis, that may explain them in natural terms. Should I be able to locate Paul Marshall, I would like to discuss some of these items with him.

In summary, I can say without reservation, that Paul's book on this type of mystical experience is, by far, the best out there. I hope it becomes available in a less expensive form so that I and many others might study it fully and deeply.

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