Epiphany, Transcendence and Change (L4L, Pt. 1)
The first entry to our "Looking for Logos" series
I’d like to start a series of posts oriented towards understanding how radical transformation can operate in a human being’s life. Have you ever caught up with a friend that had fallen off your radar for a while, only to encounter a completely different person? How do people do a 180° on the views they swore were fundamental to them, and can we reproduce this pattern elsewhere?
Stick around as we try and to go over a mostly unknown subject and see where it takes us.
What we aren’t talking about
Pop psychology: spare me. This isn’t another article about telling yourself “you can do it!” or “keep on chasing your dreams”. We all know the King is naked, as proven by the amount of bullshit self-help manuals lining up bookstore shelves. I couldn’t care less if you want to sleep better or get more excercise. You do you. What we are talking about is profound changes in the perception of our relationship to the world. I’m talking about that feeling of “finally getting it” and revolutionizing your life accordingly. The most famous example is, of course, Saint Paul on the road to Damascus.
Everyone (kind of) knows this, so let’s get through it quickly: Paul -named Saul at the time-, was one of the biggest Jewish zealots. Saul was convinced the followers of Christ were hereteic apostates and took it upon himself to erradicate this deviant group from the face of the earth. Saul was very efficient, torturing and killing every Christian that crossed his path, and even boasting about his achievements.
Following his Conan the Barbarian streak, we find Saul on his way to Damascus, chasing Christians who are fleeing his crude punishments in terror. However, on the way to Damascus, he lives a revelatory experience. Some accounts say he saw Christ himself, others the holy spirit: the point is, whatever he saw turned him into the most devout Christian and founder of the first Church (kind of).
What we are talking about
How and why did Paul change his tune? What kind of experience is strong enough to make him go from being an executionner of Christians, to the most devout Christian of them all? I mean, we’ve all been drunk and seen some weird stuff, but I don’t know anyone who’s changed religion after their fourth whisky.
This will be the focus of upcoming posts. I’ll try to show you the necessary conditions for these transcendent and deeply transformative experiences, and how they impact our worldview.
A caveat: this series is not about religion or christianity, although we will be refering to theology. The different ways Man relates to the divine is a central part of revelatory experiences, so we have to touch this subject. However, the kind of experiences I’ll be talking about are not at all concentrated on religious practices. Quite the opposite: I’m more interested in how normal people live these experiences, than Buddhist monks.
These phenomena are more common than we think: about 40% of people declare having lived some sort of “epiphany/revelation/extasy” in their lifetimes, atheists and believers, alike. The fact that we don’t pay more attention to these experiences is beyond me, especially in a world where meaning is crumbling and people are finding solace in consummerism and drugs.
So stick around while we go on this ride. While I put all this together, you can read my take on Bergson’s cone of memory, where I propose an inversion of his scheme thanks to a transcendent experience via entheogenic substances. Our approach here is going to differ, but that post will help you see where we’ll be heading.
Enjoy the weekend
V.