Mystical Love: The Universal Solvent

Mystical experiences are altered states of consciousness opposite to everyday ego-centered awareness, and a key factor in them is what the authors term 'mystical love.' Humans appear to have a need to alter consciousness away from ordinary waking states. Ritual practices across cultures—such as ingesting psychotropic substances, daily activities that devalue ego-centeredness and promote love and selfless service, and meditation on loving kindness and compassion—are used to incubate intense feelings of non-romantic love, empathy, and compassion, preparing individuals for mystical experiences whose results are interpreted within each person's cycle of meaning.

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Abstract

AbstractThe authors, both anthropologists who study alternative states of consciousness (ASC), explore the psychodynamics of mystical experience (ME). An affect that is a key factor for and integral to the phenomenology of ME is what they term “mystical love.” In many respects, ME refers to ASC that is diametrically opposite to everyday ego‐centered, materialist consciousness. In this article we examine several questions, including: (1) Why do humans experience ME, (2) why does there seems to be a need to alter consciousness away from ordinary waking states, (3) what is the relationship between mystical love and other affective states such as anger, greed, and anxiety, and (3) what are the necessary conditions for ME‐type, transpersonal experiences? We demonstrate that ritual practices are recurrently used across cultures to incubate and evoke intense feelings of non‐romantic love, empathy, and compassion. Some of these practices include ritual drivers such as ingesting psychotropic substances (entheogens and empathogens), daily activities that devalue ego centeredness and promote love, empathy and selfless service, meditation upon loving kindness, and compassion. All of these practices are preparations for entering ME, the results of which are interpreted within people's cycle of meaning.