The Institute for the Advancement of Psychedelic Christianity

Does life end in nothingness? No, it does not, neither objectively nor subjectively.

Consider a leaf on a tree. The leaf dies and falls off, dries up, disintegrates, is consumed. Is it as if that leaf never was? No, because if the death of each leaf were to mean that it made no difference whether that leaf had ever existed, then it would have to be as if the tree itself had never existed, since the tree could not have lived and grown without its leaves. Each leaf made its own contribution to the life of the tree. And if the tree had never existed, then the objective truth about the world and its history would have been different. Similarly, each person’s existence goes on making an objective difference whether he or she is alive or dead.

And there is no reason to believe a subject of experience can ever permanently lose consciousness. From one’s own first-person point of view, nothingness is inconceivable. And there is certainly no argument based on experience that makes it probable that one will lose consciousness never to regain it.

Here is a link to the performance of the Christmas pageant Mary Jo composed and wrote, The Message Is Love, at St. Matthias Episcopal Church, Whittier, California. It begins at about 10 minutes in.

https://www.facebook.com/stmatthiaswhittier/videos/905255536322919/

Early in the article linked here, the author and self-professed ayahuasca skeptic, Dalston Playfair, uses the well-worn analogy that compares a psychedelic-induced mystical experience to a helicopter ride to the summit of a mountain, and a mystical experience achieved through some other spiritual discipline to climbing up the mountain on foot. “The view is the same, but at the end of the helicopter ride you know less about the mountain.”

Given the beautiful description, in the next-to-last paragraph of the article, under the heading “Recalled to Life,” of the feeling of involvement in mankind that he felt after the experience, I wonder if he would now agree with me that the helicopter-ride putdown, of psychedelic means, shows a lack of understanding?

The feelings and thoughts expressed so beautifully in that last paragraph and in John Donne’s meditation remind me of the love of God and of one’s neighbor as oneself that are the heart of the Christian religion.

Ayahuasca: A Skeptic’s Notes

With very frequent searching in my heavy, thick Oxford Spanish Dictionary, I am reading, in Spanish, Miguel de Unamuno’s Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho. Reading it in Spanish gives me a chance to use and improve my Spanish, a feeling of accomplishment, and pleasant memories of living in Salamanca while I was teaching in a study abroad program there. Also, there are only fairly expensive editions available in English translation. A quick search of Amazon reveals that one hardcover edition of Anthony Kerrigan’s translation is priced at $859.82, and another one, a used hardcover, priced at only $60.46, is ranked #9,470,737 in Amazon’s Best Sellers Rank. Suffice it to say, this is not a book likely to be the book of the month in a book club these days. And if you were to propose it, you might be met with an awkward pause followed by someone changing the subject. Nevertheless, nevertheless, dear reader, I am recommending to you that you buy that $60.46 edition and do your bit to bump up that ranking, but also that you read it, because it is a very great work of literature.

Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentinian writer, wrote that he regarded The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations as Unamuno’s greatest work, and that he didn’t think Cervantes’s Don Quixote needed to be retold, as Unamuno had done. I only finally read the whole Don Quixote while I was in Salamanca, a year and a half ago, and I am only about halfway through Unamuno’s retelling of it, and it is slow going and I am taking my time; but already I can tell that I think it is at least as wonderful as The Tragic Sense of Life, has the same message, and tells that message in a way that is no less profoundly moving than it is delightfully entertaining. What is that message? Here, finally, is the passage I want to share with you, in my own inelegant translation:

“If inspirations of the heart and faith in the eternal release us from the anguishes of the night of superstition and fear of the unknown, why when the light of experience shines do we have to make fun of those inspirations and of that faith? And so much more as we will once again need them, since as night follows day, a new night will return after this new day, and thus between light and darkness we go on living and going to an end that is neither darkness nor light, but something in which both are combined and confounded, something in which heart and head are merged, and in which Don Quijote and Sancho are one.”

Assume reductionistic physicalism: that all our thoughts, perceptions, emotions, volitions are nothing more than brain processes. Then all that we are conceiving of when we conceive of the brain are nothing more than brain processes. In other words, the brain is in the brain. But that brain must also be in another brain, and so on in a vicious infinite regress. This is just the problem of the homunculus turned inside out. Such is the philosophical “progress” of Daniel Dennett, who was so impressed by his teacher Gilbert Ryle’s “ghost in the machine” argument.

The assumption, that an objective world completely free of subjects of experience is the ultimate explanation for our world that includes subjects of experience, gives rise to the so-called “hard problem of consciousness,” that is, the problem of explaining what it’s like to be the subject of an experience entirely in terms of the functioning of the brain. But the solution to this problem is not just hard, it’s logically impossible. One’s own brain is something of which one can be aware, either as a concept or a mental image or series of perceptions of an organ with extremely complex interconnections of parts. But no matter how complex it is, it is still only a small part of the greater complexity of the entire field of things and events of which one can be aware.  My brain is here in this room where I am typing this. There are other brains in other parts of the house, just as complex as mine, I suppose. This house is but one of many buildings on the earth, which is itself very complex, and but one planet orbiting one of many billions of stars, etc. I can think about any or all of those things as well as think about my brain, and all my thoughts are supposed, by reductionist philosophers like Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris, to be nothing more than something going on in my brain.  So, the solution to the hard problem is logically impossible, for it would consist in explaining a thing, the entire field of what I can be aware of, as being nothing more than a part of that very thing, the part that consists of the empirical evidence and theories about the functioning of my brain.

An objective world, completely free of subjects of experience, cannot be the ultimate explanation of our world which includes subjects of experience.

Here is a sneak peek of the cover of my new book, Psychedelic Christianity, due in about 9 months.

Here is an excellent essay on the case for psychedelics from Quillette:

http://quillette.com/2017/09/04/the-case-for-psychedelics/

Midwest Book Review:

As informed and informative as it is thoughtful and thought-provoking, Dreams and Resurrection: On Immortal Selves, Psychedelics, and Christianity is especially recommended to the attention of non-specialist general readers with an interest in the nature of death, the concept of an afterlife, the human psyche, and metaphysics. Exceptionally well written, organized and presented.

 

Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M., Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque, New Mexico:

Because most of us do not think too seriously about such things as eternal life, nor do we think in a dispassionate way, I cannot imagine that anyone would not profit from reading this well-reasoned, but also ‘faith-filled’ study about our life beyond this life. Read and be energized!

 

Rev. Dr. R. Scott Colglazier, Senior Minister, First Congregational Church of Los Angeles:

. . . wonderfully, exhilaratingly, and convincingly interesting . . . . I’m so glad I spent time with this book. Not only was it intellectually engaging, it shifted some of my own thinking regarding life after death, and more to the point, about what it means to be a human being. And so I say to my friends and colleagues: Buckle up. Enjoy the ride. Prepare to see yourself (and everyone around you) in a new way!

 

Dr. Kurt Smith, Philosophy Professor, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania:

Dreams and Resurrection joins a celebrated history of important philosophical works dedicated to exploring the concepts of death and immortality. In the tradition of great public intellectuals such as Alan Watts and Jiddu Krishnamurti, Jack Call makes a very difficult topic accessible to the non-academic reader without sacrificing the standards of academic intellectual rigor.

 

Simon Small, Priest and author:

A fascinating personal argument for the reality of eternal life and its relationship with Christianity, using the rigorous approach of the western philosophical tradition, spiced with the author’s psychedelic experiences as a young man. Highly recommended.

Continue reading “What they’re saying about Dreams and Resurrection”

https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Christianity-Ultimate-Goal-Living/dp/1785357476/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536523911&sr=1-1&keywords=psychedelic+christianityOrder your copy today! (That’s not really an order but just what I would like for you to do if you please.)

From Psychedelic Christianity: on the ultimate goal of living

I want absolutely fresh newness, as on the day of Creation, with solids that look like they have just gelled from liquid, and liquids that look like shining solids, and everything breathing and squirming with life.

If life is ultimately meaningless suffering or pleasure – I don’t believe there is such a thing as meaningless joy – for even one person, then it is for me too, and I have missed the ultimate goal.

And here is the flaw of utilitarian ethics: the assumption that there can be an impersonal, objective summing up of the values or disvalues of many subjective experiences.

The ultimate goal from my point of view is deep contentment from every possible or actual point of view.

The truth has already been revealed. It can be forgotten, ignored, seem to be hidden. But it is not hidden. It will be revealed again when it seems most hidden. That is the message of psychedelic experience, and it is the message of Christianity.

A psychedelic Christian is just a Christian who acknowledges that psychedelic experience is a way of learning how to be in the right relationship to God.

What makes the world the way it is, is a person and not a thing or an impersonal force; because if it were a thing or a force, then you and I and everybody else would just be parts of that thing or masses of stuff subject to an external force, like dead leaves blown along by the wind. And we aren’t like that.

As a result of our envy, we think of ourselves as things that can be destroyed and lose consciousness forever. Jesus represents seeing ourselves as loving children of a loving parent, so that even when that which we most feared is actually happening, we are not destroyed but rise again. And all of this is consistent with psychedelic experience.

The more we treat politics like a sport and the less we treat it like a religion, the better off we are.

Are we to say that God can’t bring about his kingdom by a just use of force, but that we can? That hardly seems like piety. Surely it is more accurate to think that God can’t do the logically impossible thing of bringing about love by using force and neither can we.

What can be seen is the outside. What can’t be seen is the inside. But the inside is experienced, directly, by each one of us.

Ironically all too often people who think of themselves as believers in science betray empiricism by accepting unquestioningly the pronouncements of authority figures who claim to speak for science.

Psychedelic Christianity is not an appeal to the Bible as “the inerrant word of God.” The appeal is always and only to what rings true in the light of one’s own experience.

We know our usefulness to others in this life is limited, so we want others to consider us not just as useful, but lovable whether we are useful or not.