Does Mystical Experience Give Access to Reality?

Mystical experiences often involve a profound sense of contacting deeper realities or seeing the everyday world as it truly is, yet philosophy has largely neglected their metaphysical significance, especially insights into reality, self, consciousness, and time. This article identifies two major obstacles to finding metaphysical significance in such experiences: radical contextualism and reductionist neuroscience. After addressing these obstacles, the author argues that dialogue between mystical experience and metaphysics is now possible, aided by growing interest in alternatives to materialist metaphysics and renewed attention to mystical experiences from psychedelic research.

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Abstract

Mystical experiences can bring an overwhelming sense that deeper realities have been contacted or that the everyday world has been apprehended as it truly is. Philosophical study of the experiences has not given much attention to their metaphysical significance, especially to the insights they may offer on fundamental issues such as the nature of reality, self, consciousness, and time. There are reasons for the neglect, and in the present article I consider two major theoretical obstacles to finding metaphysical significance in the experiences: a radical form of contextualism and a reductionist approach to neuroscience. With these obstacles addressed, there is room to consider how mystical experience and metaphysics can be brought into dialogue, a task facilitated by the contemporary resurgence of interest in alternatives to materialist metaphysics and a renewed interest in mystical experience encouraged by psychedelic research.