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In their book The Varieties of Spiritual Experiences, authors David B. Yaden and Andrew Newberg state three fondamental characteristics (p. 168-169) about mystical experiences:
- Spiritual experiences are mental states
- Spiritual experiences are not merely emotions
- Spiritual experiences include some content having to do with some aspect of reality beyond appearances.
The first and second statements are correct. Mystical experiences are mental experiences that cannot be defined only by the emotions they trigger.
The problem lies in the third statement which introduces a concept that is outside science. Here, the authors stepped out from the descriptive characteristics of a mystical experience to enter the interpretation field. As such, they choose to underline the interpretation that mystical experiences show the underlying reality instead of describing the symbol appearing in those experiences. They seem to not understand that there is a difference between the symbol and the interpretation of the symbol.
The human mind produces symbols and images. They occur in everyday life and in dreams. According to C. G. Jung and other psychanalysts, symbols describe mental processes and should not be interpreted otherwise. If one dreams of winning the lottery, for instance, that does not mean that he will win the lottery or that he must buy a ticket. The symbol of winning a large sum of money is only the symbol used by the mind to express the autosymbolic state of the mind. It does not show the future.
In the third statement above, the two authors have crossed the line between description and interpretation. Instead of stating that the mystical experience is centered on a symbol of conjunction of opposites which has nothing to do with an underlying hidden reality, they put the emphasis on the interpretation that mystical experiences open the doors of perception to a metaphysical reality. This is exactly the kind of shortcut that disrupt the scientific analysis of those experiences.
The authors go even deeper by adding:
The unseen aspect is what allows people to have a spiritual experience around other people, and yet other people do not perceive the same thing that the experiencer is perceiving. The reality aspect requires that some underlying, often essence-like component of existence is perceived. Most often, this involves some kind of mind—a god, gods, or other supernatural entities—but it can also involve a perception of an underlying oneness or even beauty in existence. Note that we are not claiming that the unseen reality that is perceived in fact exists, but only that it seems to exist to the one having the experience. Spiritual experiences typically involve deep feelings of connectedness to the unseen order that is perceived.
The quote demonstrates that the authors have not been able to distinguish between the interpretation of the symbol and the symbol itself. Again, the symbol of conjunction of opposites that appears in mystical experiences does not imply that the experiencer perceives a hidden reality. It only means that there is a mental process that is expressed by a symbol of conjunction of opposites.
It was Carl Jung's life goal to study the symbols appearing in transcendent experiences. He had two mystical experiences which contained symbols of conjunction of opposites. His book AION is entirely dedicated to that study. As he searched where his own experiences had previously appeared in history, he found that Gnosticism and alchemy were part of the golden chain (aurea catena) teaching the path to access those experiences. In both systems, Jung found three successive mystical experiences.
The third statement of Yaden and Newberg should have been written differently to avoid stepping outside the scientific field. I propose this sentence instead:
3. Spritual experiences are centered on a symbol of conjunction of opposites.
As Jung taught, the symbol always takes the form of the conjunction of the opposites me-universe, me-nature or me-God in the first mystical experience. It is always a conjunction of the particle and the whole. In the second experience, the symbol merges the opposites inner and outer or spirit and matter. The experiencer sees momentarily the outside world as part of his own psyche. The third experience was not defined by Jung because he never realized it.
Mystical experiences are normal but rare occurrences. Normal is the key word here. If the scientists would stick to that simple definition, they would stop interpreting those experiences through a metaphysical lense.
Yaden, David B., Newberg, Andrew B. The varieties of spiritual experience : 21st century research and perspectives. New York, Oxford University Press, 2022.