Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people? Daniel M. Ingram 7/1/19 2:17 PM
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 4 Years ago at 7/1/19 2:17 PM
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Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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Dear All,

I am going to be doing some research related to historical accounts of obvious A&P events from famous people.

I know about some of the classic ones (Descartes, St. Ignatius, etc.), but, if you know of more, please let me know here.

Thanks!

Daniel
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Phantom of the Opera, modified 4 Years ago at 7/1/19 3:17 PM
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Possibly Jean Jacques Rousseau's "illumination de Vincennes". He was struck by a maelstrom of ideas, which gave birth to a couple of books and started his career, or so the story says. He depicted the experience in "Les confessions", book 8: http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Rousseau/conf08.html (an English translation)

Excerpt:
The heat of the summer was this year (1749) excessive. Vincennes is two leagues from Paris. The state of my finances not permitting me to pay for hackney coaches, at two o'clock in the afternoon, I went on foot, when alone, and walked as fast as possible, that I might arrive the sooner. The trees by the side of the road, always lopped, according to the custom of the country, afforded but little shade, and, exhausted by fatigue, I frequently threw myself on the ground, being unable to proceed any further. I thought a book in my hand might make me moderate my pace. One day I took the Mercure de France, and as I walked and read, I came to the following question proposed by the academy of Dijon, for the premium of the ensuing year, Has the progress of sciences and arts contributed to corrupt or purify morals?

The moment I had read this, I seemed to behold another world, and became a different man.

Although I have a lively remembrance of the impression it made upon me, the detail has escaped my mind, since I communicated it to M. de Malesherbes in one of my four letters to him. This is one of the singularities of my memory which merits to be remarked. It serves me in proportion to my dependence upon it; the moment I have committed to paper that with which it was charged, it forsakes me, and I have no sooner written a thing than I have forgotten it entirely. This singularity is the same with respect to music. Before I learned the use of notes I knew a great number of songs; the moment I had made a sufficient progress to sing an air set to music, I could not recollect any one of them; and, at present, I much doubt whether I should be able entirely to go through one of those of which I was the most fond. All I distinctly recollect upon this occasion is, that on my arrival at Vincennes, I was in an agitation which approached a delirium. Diderot perceived it; I told him the cause, and read to him the Prosopopoeia of Fabricius, written with a pencil under a tree. He encouraged me to pursue my ideas, and to become a competitor for the premium. I did so, and from that moment I was ruined.
All the rest of my misfortunes during my life were the inevitable effect of this moment of error.

My sentiments became elevated with the most inconceivable rapidity to the level of my ideas. All my little passions were stifled by the enthusiasm of truth, liberty, and virtue; and, what is most astonishing, this effervescence continued in my mind upwards of five years, to as great a degree perhaps as it has ever done in that of any other man. I composed the discourse in a very singular manner, and in that which I have always followed in all my other works. I dedicated to it the hours of the night in which sleep deserted me, I meditated in my bed with my eyes closed, and in my mind turned over and over again my periods with incredible labor and care; the moment they were finished to my satisfaction, I deposited them in my memory, until I had an opportunity of committing them to paper; but the time of rising and putting on my clothes made me lose everything, and when I took up my pen I recollected but little of what I had composed. I made Madam le Vasseur my secretary; I had lodged her with her daughter, and husband, nearer to myself; and she, to save me the expense of a servant, came every morning to make my fire, and to do such other little things as were necessary. As soon as she arrived I dictated to her while in bed what I had composed in the night, and this method, which for a long time I observed, preserved me many things I should otherwise have forgotten.

I don't know if the letters he mentions have survived.

 (original French)
Dan Jones, modified 4 Years ago at 7/2/19 1:23 AM
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RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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Blake on Jhana?

To see the world in a grain of sand,
and to see heaven in a wild flower,
hold infinity in the palm of your hands,
and eternity in an hour.
Dan Jones, modified 4 Years ago at 7/2/19 1:25 AM
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"Love Itself" - Leonard Cohen
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Stickman2, modified 4 Years ago at 7/2/19 2:50 AM
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RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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Oh aye. Jane Goodall's is part of an online database that has a few famosas.

On teh road to fame, one of the founder's of extinction rebellion, Gail Bradbrook, had an A&P on ayahuasca. That's not quite FAME fame, I suppose time will tell.

Michel Foucault on acid in the desert deanatomising the location of pleasure.

Given what's written in in Long Day's Journey into Night very probably Eugene O' Neill, but not so easy to find in biography - I tried.

Beethoven and Goethe - for a great book on music and mysticism Jocelyn Godwin's Music, Mysticism and Magic- A&P galore from ancient to modern including, I believe, Stockhausen.

FAUST

O yes, up to the stars at last!
Listen, my friend: the ages that are past
Are now a book with seven seals protected:
What you the Spirit of the Ages call
Is nothing but the spirit of you all,
Wherein the Ages are reflected.


cheers Dan.
S, modified 4 Years ago at 7/2/19 9:39 AM
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For Goethe, look at this passage in the sixth book of his autobiography.

We had driven out through the Allerheiligen (All Saints) gate, and had soon left Hanau behind us, after which we reached scenes which aroused my attention by their novelty, if, at this season of the year, they offered little that was pleasing. A continual rain had completely spoiled the roads, which, generally speaking, were not then in such good order as we find them now; and our journey "was thus neither pleasant nor happy. Yet I was indebted to this damp weather for the sight of a natural phenomenon which must be exceedingly rare, for I have seen nothing like it since, nor have I heard of its being observed by others. At night, namely, we were driving up a rising ground between Hanau and Gelhausen, and, although it was dark, we preferred walking to exposing ourselves to the danger and difficulty of that part of the road. All at once, in a ravine on the right-hand side of the way, I saw a sort of amphitheatre, wonderfully illuminated. In a funnel-shaped space there were innumerable little lights gleaming, ranged step-fashion over one another, and they shone so brilliantly that the eye was dazzled. But what stiff more confused the sight was, that they did not keep still, but jumped about here and there, as well downwards from above as vice versâ, and in every direction. The most of them, however, remained stationary, and beamed on. It was only with the greatest reluctance that I suffered myself to be called away from this spectacle, which I could have wished to examine more closely. On interrogating the postillion, he indeed knew nothing about such a phenomenon, but said that there was in the neighbourhood an old stone-quarry, the excavation of which was filled with water. Now whether this was a pandemonium of will-o'-the-wisps, or a company of shining creatures, I will not decide.

A luminous adolescent encounter is interesting for Goethe given that his teen years also saw him experience a mysterious illness before setting up an alchemist's lab in his parents' house and starting to study magical literature with his friend Susannah von Klettenberg.
S, modified 4 Years ago at 7/2/19 11:07 AM
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Much work has been done recently on the fascinating parallels between the visions, writings, and hand-drawn illustrations of both Carl Jung and J.R.R. Tolkien. Dr. Becca Tarnas seems to be the modern expert on this.

The Back of Beyond: The Red Books of C.G. Jung and J.R.R. Tolkien (video)

They each had a "red book," and concerned themselves with such things as the 'eye of evil,' trees of life, and other visionary experiences and dreams.

Both of their journeys started with odd "flood" experiences that might fit the bill here. Tarnas writes:

One of the earliest visions that came to both Jung and Tolkien was of major significance to each of them: an overpowering Flood, or as Tolkien sometimes called it, the Great Wave. The first of Jung’s Flood visions came to him while awake, on October 17, 1913:

In October, while I was alone on a journey, I was suddenly seized by an overpowering vision: I saw a monstrous flood covering all the northern and low-lying lands between the North Sea and the Alps. . . . I saw the mighty yellow waves, the floating rubble of civilization, and the drowned bodies of uncounted thousands. Then the whole sea turned to blood.[33]

Two weeks later Jung had the vision again, this time accompanied by a voice saying, “Look at it well; it is wholly real and it will be so. You cannot doubt it.”[34]
An uncannily similar vision came also to Tolkien, both while awake and while sleeping, beginning when he was about seven years old and continuing throughout much of his adult life.[35] He called the vision his “Atlantis-haunting”:

This legend or myth or dim memory of some ancient history has always troubled me. In sleep I had the dreadful dream of the ineluctable Wave, either coming out of the quiet sea, or coming in towering over the green inlands. It still occurs occasionally, though now exorcized by writing about it. It always ends by surrender, and I wake gasping out of deep water.[36]

When World War I broke out in August 1914 Jung recognized that his vision of the destructive Flood was prophetic of the war; his interior images were reflective of the external political and cultural situation occurring in Europe. The outbreak of the war indicated to Jung that he was not, as he had been afraid, going mad, but was rather a mirror of the madness unfolding in the external world. Tolkien, being an Englishman and of a younger generation than Jung, fought in that very war that Jung’s vision had prophesied. Needless to say, the war had a tremendous effect upon Tolkien, particularly the Battle of the Somme in which two of his most beloved friends were killed.[37] Later in his life, as Tolkien was creating The Lord of the Rings, world events began to reflect what he had already written in his narrative. As his close friend, and fellow Oxford don, C.S. Lewis wrote, “These things were not devised to reflect any particular situation in the real world. It was the other way round; real events began, horribly, to conform to the pattern he had freely invented.”


The many parallels between them continue and are uncanny. One of Jung's drawings:



Tolkien's: 



Jung's dragon:



Tolkien's drawing of Smaug:



The intensity of Carl Jung's shamanism or concentration is easy to underestimate given his popular image as boring-clothed therapist and intellectual. He often spent hours alone in his study in states of reverie where he was subject to full on psychedelic phantasmagoria that would leave him exhausted, shaken, and deeply disturbed (such as meeting all kinds of entities who would tell him about the value of loosening up his logic and adding a little madness). Here is a brief description of this in the New York Times: Carl Jung and the Holy Grail of the Unconscious.
S, modified 4 Years ago at 7/2/19 10:42 AM
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Winston Churchill had numerous weird experiences and supernatural encounters.

I don't have the book to verify on hand, but supposedly in one of his memoir volumes Winston Churchill's semi-miraculous escape during the Boer War he attributes to being "guided by some form of mental planchette" that pointed him to a safe haven. This was importantly early in his life.

BBC reports that he met the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.

In fact a number of people have reported weird experiences in the White House that are often attributed to "Lincoln's ghost" (wiki) even if there was not a particular appearance suggesting that. This seems to include multiple presidents having weird experiences in the White House (Teddy Roosevelt seeing a specter, Truman hearing rapping, etc), and this is also described in the memoir of Reagan's daughter.
S, modified 4 Years ago at 7/2/19 11:01 AM
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Focusing on dreams, there is almost too much, and some of them might fit. Yahoo Finance

When Larry Page was a 22-year-old graduate student at Stanford in the 90s, he was struck in the middle of the night with a vision: He had somehow managed to download the entire Web and just keep the links.

During a 2009 University of Michigan commencement speech, he said he immediately grabbed a pen when he awoke and wrote down what became the basis for an algorithm. He used this algorithm to power a new Web search engine now known as Google.

"When a really great dream shows up, grab it!" the Google cofounder and now Alphabet CEO advised.

List of famous dreams
(wiki), list of 10/25 important dreams.
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Griffin, modified 4 Years ago at 7/2/19 2:48 PM
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Not a classic historical figure, but let's add this contemporary famous person just as a curiosity:

Jordan Peterson's mystical experience - https://youtu.be/MU7CBUk6k04?t=307
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Dada Kind, modified 4 Years ago at 7/2/19 4:14 PM
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Arthur Koestler. Author, journalist

http://www.bodysoulandspirit.net/mystical_experiences/read/notables/koestler.shtml

    "I was standing at the recessed window of cell No. 40 and with a piece of iron-spring that I had extracted from the wire mattress, was scratching mathematical formulae on the wall. Mathematics, in particular analytical geometry, had been the favorite hobby of my youth, neglected later on for many years. I was trying to remember how to derive the formula of the hyperbola, and was stumped; then I tried the ellipse and parabola, and to my delight succeeded. Next I went on to recall Euclid's proof that the number of primes is infinite...
      
    Since I had become acquainted with Euclid's proof at school, it had always filled me with a deep satisfaction that was aesthetic rather than intellectual. Now, as I recalled the method and scratched the symbols on the wall, I felt the same enchantment.
      
    And then, for the first time, I suddenly understood the reason for this enchantment: the scribbled symbols on the wall represented one of the rare cases where a meaningful and comprehensive statement about the infinite is arrived at by precise and finite means. The infinite is a mystical mass shrouded in a haze; and yet it was possible to gain some knowledge of it without losing oneself in treacly ambiguities. The significance of this swept over me like a wave. The wave had originated in an articulate verbal insight; but this evaporated at once, leaving in its wake only a wordless essence, a fragrance of eternity, a quiver of the arrow in the blue. I must have stood there for some minutes, entranced, with a wordless awareness that "this is perfect---perfect"; until I noticed some slight mental discomfort nagging at the back of my mind---some trivial circumstance that marred the perfection of the moment. Then I remembered the nature of that irrelevant annoyance: I was, of course, in prison and might be shot. But this was immediately answered by a feeling whose verbal translation would be: "So what? is that all? have you got nothing more serious to worry about?"---an answer so spontaneous, fresh and amused as if the intruding annoyance had been the loss of a collar-stud. Then I was floating on my back in a river of peace, under bridges of silence. It came from nowhere and flowed nowhere. Then there was no river and no I. The I had ceased to exist.
      
    When I say "the I had ceased to exist," I refer to a concrete experience that is verbally as incommunicable as the feeling aroused by a piano concerto, yet just as real---only much more real. In fact, its primary mark is the sensation that this state is more real than any other one has experienced before---that for the first time the veil has fallen and one is in touch with "real reality," the hidden order of things, the X-ray texture of the world, normally obscured by layers of irrelevancy.

    What distinguishes this type of experience from the emotional entrancements of music, landscapes or love is that the former has a definitely intellectual, or rather noumenal, content. It is meaningful, though not in verbal terms. Verbal transcriptions that come nearest to it are: the unity and interlocking of everything that exists, an interdependence like that of gravitational fields or communicating vessels. The "I" ceases to exist because it has, by a kind of mental osmosis, established communication with, and been dissolved in, the universal pool. It is the process of dissolution and limitless expansion which is sensed as the "oceanic feeling," as the draining of all tension, the absolute catharsis, the peace that passeth all understanding.

    The coming-back to the lower order of reality I found to be gradual, like waking up from anaesthesia. There was the equation of the parabola scratched on the dirty wall, the iron bed and the iron table and the strip of blue Andalusian sky. But there was no unpleasant hangover as from other modes of intoxication. On the contrary: there remained a sustained and invigorating, serene and fear-dispelling after-effect that lasted for hours and days. It was as if a massive dose of vitamins had been injected into the veins. Or, to change the metaphor, I resumed my travels through my cell like an old car with its batteries freshly recharged.
      
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Noah D, modified 4 Years ago at 7/2/19 9:58 PM
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Jim Carrey - https://youtu.be/pI1KKveHFGA

Russell Brand - [url=https://youtu.be/_bKQXmvdr<img src=]">https://youtu.be/_bKQXmvdremoticon
T DC, modified 4 Years ago at 7/3/19 12:17 AM
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Everyone is posting interesting examples of spiritual experiences that have happened to famous people, but that doesn't mean they're all A/P events. Some spiritual experiences are probably A/P events, but many spiritual experiences are just that - experiences of realms beyond our standard material classifications.  I think using the A/P as a catchall for any kind of extra-normal spiritual type experience does both a disservice.  

The A/P idea has in someways become a convenient hammer, and any random spiritual experience looks like a nail, which both under-appreciates the breadth and profundity of many spiritual experiences and dramatically muddies the water when it comes to identifying what really qualifies as an A/P event.

Reading through what's been posted I would argue most of these fall into the 'glimpse of enlightenment' type experience category vs the A/P.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 4 Years ago at 7/3/19 5:12 AM
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Thanks very much for everything everyone has contribuated so far! Great stuff.

Being a somewhat obsessive phenomenologist with some sort of strange apparently inborn skill for remembering weird events in detail, and, being prone to odd experiences since I was a kid, and reading literally hundreds if not thousands of written reports of experiences on this website and its sisters as well as in emails sent to me over more than two decades, I actually think that many of what you would call "glimpses of enlightenment" are the A&P functionally and convey the effects that crossing the A&P does.

Here, phenomenologists may disagree, and that's ok. Still, I think there is great functional, mapping, and even clinical utility from being aware of this line, the A&P crossing, and knowing about its various ways it can manifest.

For this project, I care about that line like a pediatrician or child psychologist might care about the onset of adolescence. Children below adolescence are functionally different in many ways than those who have entered adolescence. This is my line of clinical utility in this case, and the focus of my current research work. I wish to make the world aware of this line, this developmental milestone, as meditation is becoming very mainstream, and those teaching it and caring for people who are doing it need to know what can occur after the A&P crossing, and so the question, "Is this person above the A&P or not?" becomes of great functional and explanatory relevance.
shargrol, modified 4 Years ago at 7/3/19 8:44 AM
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Daniel M. Ingram:
... and so the question, "Is this person above the A&P or not?" becomes of great functional and explanatory relevance.

Daniel, out of curiousity, what % of U.S. adults over age 30 do you think have crossed the A&P?

Just to put my own guess out there. My best guess is %65.4  emoticon  But more seriously, my current guess is around 2/3rds.

But I admit that it's hard to know what to call trauma-induced spirtual experiences, which I think is about 1/3 of population -- illness, physical trauma, military service/war, giving birth, etc. Are these experience "pure" enough to really be A&P or are they a kind of proto-A&P?




 
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Chris M, modified 4 Years ago at 7/3/19 4:43 PM
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But I admit that it's hard to know what to call trauma-induced spirtual experiences, which I think is about 1/3 of population -- illness, physical trauma, military service/war, giving birth, etc. Are these experience "pure" enough to really be A&P or are they a kind of proto-A&P?

This is a fascinating area of study - or should be, somehow. I see in my friends and relatives the propensity to have A&P-like experiences borne of stress, anxiety and other "peak" type experiences, both positive and negative. I don't how to classify these things other than to say that they seem to have lasting effects. It seems to be a pretty common part of human life. Hard to judge, diagnose and quantify as it may be.

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Stickman2, modified 4 Years ago at 7/4/19 6:52 AM
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Chris Marti:
But I admit that it's hard to know what to call trauma-induced spirtual experiences, which I think is about 1/3 of population -- illness, physical trauma, military service/war, giving birth, etc. Are these experience "pure" enough to really be A&P or are they a kind of proto-A&P?

This is a fascinating area of study - or should be, somehow. I see in my friends and relatives the propensity to have A&P-like experiences in borne of stress, anxiety and other "peak" type experiences, both positive and negative. I don't how to classify these things other than to say that they seem to have lasting effects. It seems to be a pretty common part of human life. Hard to judge, diagnose and quantify as it may be.

... happens to be subject of my current reading matter.

Table 1. The Apparent Triggers of Awakening Experiences
(N = 161, one report per individual)

Trigger/Cause                                                                                                          Numberof Occurrences
Psychological turmoil (e.g stress, depression, loss, bereavement)                                 38 (23.6%)
Nature                                                                                                                                 29 (18%)
Meditation                                                                                                                           21 (13%)
Watching or listening to an arts performance (e.g. a dance performance, music, play)  21 (13%)
States ofhomeostasis disruption (pronounced physiological changes)                           17 (10.6%)
Participating increative performance (e.g. playing music, dancing)                                  7 (4.3%)
Athletic activity(e.g. running, swimming)                                                                           7 (4.3%)
Reading spiritualliterature                                                                                                   4 (2.5%)
Sex                                                                                                                                     3 (1.9%)
Prayer                                                                                                                                 3 (1.9%)
No discernable trigger                                                                                                       11 (6.8%)

Source: Taylor(2012b)

(just tidied up the links)
J C, modified 4 Years ago at 7/3/19 3:27 PM
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I'm surprised psychedelics/cannabis aren't listed on there, Stickman, unless they're counted as homeostatic disruption.
neko, modified 4 Years ago at 7/3/19 3:35 PM
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Dan Jones:
"Love Itself" - Leonard Cohen


That one is on Stream Entry.
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Chris M, modified 4 Years ago at 7/3/19 4:58 PM
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Yes, lots of people, famous people, have had spiritual openings when taking psychedelics. Reference Michael Pollan's book "How to Change Your Mind."
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Stickman2, modified 4 Years ago at 7/3/19 5:40 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/3/19 5:35 PM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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I think they might be. Probbly belongs in another thread, really, because the study includes long term changes. But as the subject was raised.. the subject of erasing the subject, I hope nobody objects if I subject you to an objective study of 161 subjects who lost the subject/object distinction.
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Stickman2, modified 4 Years ago at 7/4/19 6:35 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/4/19 6:32 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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J C:
I'm surprised psychedelics/cannabis aren't listed on there, Stickman, unless they're counted as homeostatic disruption.
"Less significant triggers were found to be homeostasis disruption (i.e.physiological changes due to ingesting psychoactive substances, sleep deprivationor fasting)"
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Eric G, modified 4 Years ago at 7/4/19 10:26 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/4/19 10:26 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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William James, Varieties of Religious Experience
pieva, modified 4 Years ago at 7/4/19 2:57 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/4/19 2:57 PM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

Posts: 36 Join Date: 3/15/19 Recent Posts
Inventor Tesla?

From wikipedia:
During his early life, Tesla was repeatedly stricken with illness. He suffered a peculiar affliction in which blinding flashes of light would appear before his eyes, often accompanied by visions. Often, the visions were linked to a word or idea he might have come across; at other times they would provide the solution to a particular problem he had encountered.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 7/4/19 3:37 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/4/19 3:37 PM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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The Swedish eighteenth century poet Bengt Lidner had a snap sound in his head as a kid and his cognitive function improved radically from that point on.
Mateusz, modified 4 Years ago at 7/5/19 5:12 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/5/19 5:12 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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What TMI stage A&P occurs? Is this the acquired appearance of the breath that happens around stage 6? At what moment A&P ends? stage 8?
J C, modified 4 Years ago at 7/5/19 6:57 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/5/19 6:57 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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Mateusz:
What TMI stage A&P occurs? Is this the acquired appearance of the breath that happens around stage 6? At what moment A&P ends? stage 8?


They don't perfectly correlate. Like I've been through many cycles but the TMI stages are unrecognizable to me and I don't think I've ever been in them. I suspect you could be in the A&P in any of the TMI stages.
Gus Castellanos, modified 4 Years ago at 7/5/19 7:40 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/5/19 7:40 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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Wondering if Bill Wilson's, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous "white light experience" that led to his sobriety could be an A&P event:

 In December of 1934 Bill Wilson was in Towns Hospital off Central Park in NYC for what would be his last detoxification.  During this hospitalization Bill had a dramatic “spiritual experience.”  Bill describes this dramatic experience in his history of A.A. (1957, p.63).
“My depression deepened unbearably and finally it seemed to me as though I were at the bottom of the pit.  I still gagged badly on the notion of a Power greater than myself, but finally, just for the moment, the last vestige of my proud obstinacy was crushed.  All at once I found myself crying out, ‘If there is a God, let Him show Himself!  I am ready to do anything, anything!’ Suddenly the room lit up with a great white light.  I was caught up into an ecstasy which there are no words to describe.  It seemed to me, in my mind’s eye, that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit was blowing.  And then it burst upon me that I was a free man.  Slowly the ecstasy subsided.  I lay on the bed, but now for a time I was in another world, a new world of consciousness.  All about me and through me there was a wonderful feeling of Presence, and I thought to myself, ‘So this is the God of the preachers!’  A great peace stole over me and I thought, ‘No matter how wrong things seem to be, they are still all right.  Things are all right with God and His world.’”
T DC, modified 4 Years ago at 7/5/19 1:26 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/5/19 11:42 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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Daniel M. Ingram:

Being a somewhat obsessive phenomenologist with some sort of strange apparently inborn skill for remembering weird events in detail, and, being prone to odd experiences since I was a kid, and reading literally hundreds if not thousands of written reports of experiences on this website and its sisters as well as in emails sent to me over more than two decades, I actually think that many of what you would call "glimpses of enlightenment" are the A&P functionally and convey the effects that crossing the A&P does.

Here, phenomenologists may disagree, and that's ok. Still, I think there is great functional, mapping, and even clinical utility from being aware of this line, the A&P crossing, and knowing about its various ways it can manifest.


As someone whose spiritual journey began with a profound glimpse of enlightenment experience, and who later experienced a clear A&P I have to disagree.  Yes, assorted spiritual experiences can help to propel us on the path, as can crossing the A&P, but anything with wheels is not a car, and to fail to account for diversity in the area of spiritual experiences would be a mistake.


shargrol:

But I admit that it's hard to know what to call trauma-induced spirtual experiences, which I think is about 1/3 of population -- illness, physical trauma, military service/war, giving birth, etc. Are these experience "pure" enough to really be A&P or are they a kind of proto-A&P?
 

Gus Castellanos:
Bill Wilson - Suddenly the room lit up with a great white light.  I was caught up into an ecstasy which there are no words to describe.  It seemed to me, in my mind’s eye, that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit was blowing.  And then it burst upon me that I was a free man.  Slowly the ecstasy subsided.  I lay on the bed, but now for a time I was in another world, a new world of consciousness.  All about me and through me there was a wonderful feeling of Presence, and I thought to myself, ‘So this is the God of the preachers!’  

I mean I can appreciate the thought, but not literally everything is the A+P.  Mohamed sees the light of God fill the world, and goes on to found Islam - A&P?  The 12 disciples witness the spirit of Christ following his crucifixion - group A&P?  I almost drowned when I was 18 in a float plane accident - A&P or proto A&P?  (Hint - probably none of these are the A&P.)

At a certain point we might start to wonder if we're taking the teachings on the A&P out of context.  Can literally anything vauguely out of the ordinary that happens to us in life be encompassed by a single classification?  How about everything very out of the ordinary that happens to us in life?  Maybe we should expand our classification system?  ;)
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Travis McKinstry, modified 4 Years ago at 7/5/19 8:12 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/5/19 8:12 PM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

Posts: 130 Join Date: 7/1/19 Recent Posts
Gus Castellanos:
Wondering if Bill Wilson's, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous "white light experience" that led to his sobriety could be an A&P event:

 In December of 1934 Bill Wilson was in Towns Hospital off Central Park in NYC for what would be his last detoxification.  During this hospitalization Bill had a dramatic “spiritual experience.”  Bill describes this dramatic experience in his history of A.A. (1957, p.63).
“My depression deepened unbearably and finally it seemed to me as though I were at the bottom of the pit.  I still gagged badly on the notion of a Power greater than myself, but finally, just for the moment, the last vestige of my proud obstinacy was crushed.  All at once I found myself crying out, ‘If there is a God, let Him show Himself!  I am ready to do anything, anything!’ Suddenly the room lit up with a great white light.  I was caught up into an ecstasy which there are no words to describe.  It seemed to me, in my mind’s eye, that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit was blowing.  And then it burst upon me that I was a free man.  Slowly the ecstasy subsided.  I lay on the bed, but now for a time I was in another world, a new world of consciousness.  All about me and through me there was a wonderful feeling of Presence, and I thought to myself, ‘So this is the God of the preachers!’  A great peace stole over me and I thought, ‘No matter how wrong things seem to be, they are still all right.  Things are all right with God and His world.’”


Wow this one is definitely an A&P description... I had no idea.
Conal, modified 4 Years ago at 7/6/19 3:14 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/6/19 3:13 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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I tend to think that children are at a high level of spiritual awareness and this is gradually lowered by the physical and emotional traumas that we all endure when growing up.  There is also an indoctrination aspect of growing up where spiritual  experiences are seen as weird and the materialistic norms are the safer option.  These result in a diminution of self and a straight-jacket of conformity is gradually adopted, if an efficient spiritual practice (such as meditation) is not used to counter that tendency.

My own memory of an A & P experience at about 12 years old had a kind of losing the garden of Eden feel to it because I wasn't able to retain the level of awareness that I had then.  This may have been the beginning of the dark night but I think it's more likely that I sank lower than A & P and have only been able to get back to that level though meditation decades later.  I think it is hard to assess whether someone is operating from a general level of above or below A & P due to the cyclical nature of the nanas.

Just from memory, Leo Tolstoy gave many accounts that had an A & P feel to them.  His experience was something similar to that of his most famous charachter Pierre Bezukhov where he indulged in debauched behaviour and later had mystical experiences which brought him back to the straight and narrow.

Of couse one of the most famous accounts of an A & P experience has to be that of St Paul on the road to Damascus.

Conal
Edward, modified 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 1:19 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 1:18 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

Posts: 129 Join Date: 6/10/19 Recent Posts
Wittgenstein?

https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-mystical-in-wittgenstein-s-early-writings/

https://www.britishwittgensteinsociety.org/wittgensteins-grave
Edward, modified 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 7:07 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 7/14/19 7:07 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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Mother Teresa's DN:

https://blog.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-spirit/mother-teresa-a-saint-who-conquered-darkness
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Niels Lyngsø, modified 3 Years ago at 1/4/21 9:41 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/4/21 9:41 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

Posts: 413 Join Date: 11/15/19 Recent Posts
If you don't already know her, definitely check out the amazing Hildegard von Bingen. I am not sure if she is considered one of the great mystics, and so you all here on DhO know her much better than I do, but two decades before I stumbled into buddhism, I came across her music and then her images an writings as well. And it all, including her life story, completely blew my lid off. I am pretty sure you could find both A&P and Dark Night-descriptions in her writings. A pretty random google search gave this bunch of quotations, just to give an impression:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/44326.Hildegard_von_Bingen

And please keep us posted about the project, it is a great idea!
lip bridge, modified 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 12:29 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/13/21 12:29 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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Albert Camus. His book ‘Lyrical and Critical Essays’ has a lot of such accounts, and they are beautifully written, as this one from the chapter ‘The Wrong Side and the Right Side”:
“And now I think about these things again. I can see only the walls of the garden on the other side of my window. And a few branches flowing with light. Higher still, more foliage and, higher still, the sun. But all I can perceive of the air rejoicing outside, of all the joy spread across the world, are the shadows of branches playing on my white curtains. Also five rays of sunlight patiently pouring the scent of dried grass into the room. A breeze, and the shadows on the curtains come to life. If a cloud passes over the sun, the bright yellow of a vase of mimosas leaps from the shadow. This is enough: when a single gleam begins, I’m filled with a confused and whirling joy. It is a January afternoon that puts me this way, face to face with the wrong side of the world. But the cold remains at the bottom of the air. Covering everything a film of sunlight that would crack beneath your finger, but which clothes everything in an eternal smile. Who am I and what can I do but enter into this play of foliage and light? Be this ray of sunlight in which my cigarette burns away, this softness and discreet passion breathing in the air. If I try to reach myself, it is at the bottom of this light. And if I try to understand and savor this delicate taste which reveals the secret of the world, it is myself that I find at the depth of the universe. Myself, that is to say, this extreme emotion which frees me from my surroundings.”
Ben Sulsky, modified 3 Years ago at 2/13/21 6:55 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 2/13/21 6:55 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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Fiona Apple, https://www.vulture.com/amp/2020/04/fiona-apple-fetch-the-bolt-cutters-songs.html

Re 'I want you to love me,' from Fetch the Bolt Cutters.

Song lyrics: "Verse 1]
I've waited many years
Every print I left upon the track
Has led me here
And next year, it'll be clear
This was only leading me to that

And by that time, I hope that

[Chorus]
You love me
You love me

[Verse 2]
I move with the trees in the breeze
I know that time is elastic

And I know when I go
All my particles disband and disperse
And I'll be back in the pulse

And I know none of this will matter in the long run
But I know a sound is still a sound around no one

And while I'm in this body
I want somebody to want
And I want what I want and I want


[Chorus]
You to love me
You"

Fiona Apple interview re writing the song:
"It came out of the time I’d spent doing a lot of meditation, thinking about the nature of things. That whole thing of, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Yes, it does. Because a vibration happens. Whether or not you’re there to hear it. I exist whether or not you see me. These things about me are true whether or not you acknowledge them. That’s at least the second verse.The line about the pulse — that was the experience I’d had this one day after six days straight of meditating at Spirit Rock in Woodacre, California, in a group of about 75 women in 2010. I had this throbbing in my head. Then I remembered this advice someone had given me, which was to just surrender — allow yourself to fall through water, stop trying to do anything. And for some reason, I was able to do that, and the throbbing in my head left. But then everybody was throbbing — everything. I’d never had an experience like that, and it’s hard for me to remember what it felt like now, but it’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me in my life.I knew then what life and death was. It’s this pulse. And we all share it, and it sounds so cheesy. But it wasn’t in my head; it was out of it. It was among us all. It was something we were all in together. It was like this place of home, this pulse we would all be in. I felt like I had found it and everything felt so beautiful. I felt like if I opened my eyes, maybe it would disappear. But I opened my eyes and it was still happening. I left the meditation hall, and it was still happening. I walked down the hill, and there were these horses that never paid attention to me. But I felt there was this understanding between us. I felt all of this. And after a while it went away. But I remember that that was there. It changed everything for me. Just knowing, “Okay, no matter what happens, that’s where home is. That’s what the reality is. I know it’s there.”"
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Brandon Dayton, modified 3 Years ago at 2/13/21 11:53 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 2/13/21 11:53 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

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I think many religious movements are the result of A&P experiences. The "First Vision" of Joseph Smith was one of the first things I thought about when I first read about the A&P:

15 After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was aseized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick bdarkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.16 But, exerting all my powers to acall upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into bdespair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of clight exactly over my head, above the brightness of the dsun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.17 It no sooner appeared than I found myself adelivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I bsaw two cPersonages, whose brightness and dglory defy all description, estanding above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My fBeloved gSon. Hear Him!

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/site/accounts-of-the-first-vision
genaro, modified 3 Years ago at 3/13/21 11:55 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 3/13/21 11:55 AM

RE: Know of obvious A&P Event reports from famous people?

Posts: 126 Join Date: 11/23/19 Recent Posts
just remembered, it floated up out of nowhere. 

A book 'Power vs Force' by David R Hawkins MD PhD

AFAICR it starts off with an experience of nearly freezing to death as a child on a paper round in Canada, and then he carries on ascending up the chain of being, becoming a god like figure in the background, does not mention himself by name but reports that 'one individual' achieving greater levels of realisation (whatever) was lifting the averages of the entire human race .... each level is x10 kind of thing.

There's other books to follow but they continue in the same vein and it starts to get a bit boring.

It's all written in the framework of 'perrenial philosophy': you can have a great intellect (eg einstein) and get a score of 599, but only if you ascend to the heart can you reach 600+.   So it looks a bit chakra based.

"1 individual at level 700 counterbalances 200 million below level 200" (out of 1000 on an exponential scale)
"there are currently 12 persons on the planet who calibrate at 700" (published 1995)

On the back Mother Teresa says " A beautiful gift of writing ..."

And each chapter has been calibrated for truth, they're in in the range 700, 800+ out of 1000 !

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