Religions Affects on Altered States on Consciousness

I have been studying religions and mystical experiences for years seeking “truth”.

The pinnacle of what I have come across so far is Ken Wilber’s Integral Spirituality. Although I don’t yet fully “grok” his stuff on metaphysics, his ideas on religions, science and states of consciousness are GROUND BREAKING!

For one thing he has what is known as the Wilber-Combs Lattice

The Wilber-Combs Lattice is a matrix that maps states of consciousness with types of religious belief.

I’ve written a little blurb about this on my post “What is an Empirical Spiritualist”
I have been in several religions, faiths and/or societies (but currently hold no allegiance to any one organization). I have had experiences with almost all. Each of these experiences have been colored by the culture, beliefs, dogma of the organization I was in at the time.

Here are some examples of religions that influenced by spiritual experience:

Christian - as a penecostal I was worshiping Jesus surrounded by some of the praising, shouting congregation and I felt an energy bolt going through my body. A penecostal might call this the holy ghost (aka Holy Spirit).

Eckankar - I was in a state of great peace and saw/felt a blue light shine down on me. Eckist call this one part of the “Light and Sound of God” (aka Holy Spirit)

Integral Spirituality - After a session with a Zen Buddhist Genpo Roshi conducting what is called a Big Mind exercise I felt a profound (overwhelming) oneness with anything I looked at.

Each experience has been shaped and interpreted by the culture/religion/faith I was apart of at the time. This in NO WAY INVALIDATES the phenomenon. It did happen. They were very real and in some cases have changed the course of my life.

The religion/culture/society in which I live gives me the language to explain what has happened and simultaneously shapes the experience.  Sometimes the language is to crude to give an effective account.  I believe that many times the original message gets “lost in translation”.  Many religions have been founded and shaped on these crude interpretations of real experiences.

The source of the phenomenon is a different kind of discussion. While we might agree that the phenomenon happend in the brain (or perhaps merely recorded there) from the ‘mind’ we may disagree on whether the source was from subtle energies and/or spirit. We can only theorize and assume what the source of my phenomenon is.  And we can only prove the orgins to ourselves as we can not share PHYSICAL evidence of anything happening with electroencophalographs and other tools used to measure the activity of the brain. Those tools are too crude to tell us anything beyond the brain. Whatever we believe the hows and whys are, it is very important to realize the context to which these phenomenon occur. For example, if I was scitzoprenic and my dog was telling me to kill my landlord, that experience may be real to me, but the phenomenon occuring is dangerous and more than likely pathological.  The best way to make a clear judgment  on  any interpretation is to look at all (or as many as possible) sides: physical history, cultural background, stage and state of consciousness.  All are important factors in examining an inner experience.  AQAL is a perfect map for such an examination.
Language/Semantics/culture/religion and their contextual meaning shape not only altered states of consciousness but “normal” states as well. As in a dream, we construct the meaning as well as the happenings of the experience consciously, subconsciously and/or unconsciously.

I suspect that our perspective is completely relative to our constantly shifting meaning. Ego, states of consciousness, and stages of conscious experiences do have some level of reality and so they do deserve our attetion and management but the only *absolute is Being, Here, NOW. All else is real ONLY relative to something else. The “suchness” of the moment is really all there is.

*The only absolute is being, here now (nowness, the suchness of this single moment - or perhaps the only absolute is NO-absolute or as Wilber says the combination of Form & Emptiness - nondual).