Relations between the Phenomena of Religious Mysticism (Altered States of Consciousness) and the Psychology of Thought: A Cognitive Psychology of States of Consciousness and the Necessity of Subjective States for Cognitive Theory

A previously developed cognitive theory of mystical and altered states is extended. The theory holds that these states directly exteriorize normally hidden processes of semantics or 'felt meaning.' The human ability to 'turn around on the schemata' for symbolic recombination is based on cross-modal or synaesthetic embodiment of geometric and luminosity patterns afforded by disassembling visual-spatial perception. Orthodox accounts that treat synaesthesias and geometric imagery as primitive or nonsymbolic are rejected. This reinterpretation offers new understanding of ordinary insight, body-percept changes in schizophrenia, yoga chakra experience, and the mystical void. The psychology of thought and of altered states mutually illuminate each other.

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Abstract

Various apparent drawbacks and extensions are considered of a previously developed cognitive approach to mystical and altered-state experience as directly exteriorizing the normally masked processes of semantics or “felt meaning.” The humanly criterial “turning around on the schemata” as the basis for recombinatory symbolic operations would be based on the cross-modal or synaesthetic embodiment of the geometric and luminosity patterns “afforded” by the imaginal disassembling and reuse of visual-spatial perceptual microgenesis. Accordingly the more orthodox accounts of synaesthesias and geometric imagery as “primitive” or “nonsymbolic” are addressed and rejected. The cognitive-introspectionist reinterpretation of the phenomena of altered states in turn leads to a new understanding of ordinary insight, body-percept transformations in schizophrenia and yoga chakra experience, and the ‘void’ experience of classical mysticism. It appears that the juxtaposition of the psychology of thought and of altered states of consciousness is mutually and uniquely illuminating to both concerns.