Spiritual Journal, 11/23/02
Nov. 23rd, 2002 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
novapsychePigface expressed it best: "Mental illness is the road to freedom."
So what if my most conscious moment of God resembled objectively a panic attack, and technically a psychotic episode? What matters is that subjectively it was a mystical experience--a highly mystical experience--one that has irrevocably altered the way in which I view the world.
Before any of this happened, I'd already recognized myself as an existentialist. The funny thing is, this experience has been so hard to integrate with the blessing of my logical side that I find I'm in danger of becoming an apostate of my philosophical views. And to me, that is as shocking and as morally horrifying as any religious or spiritual apostasy. Because what happened did happen to me. No matter how much F may doubt otherwise. This doubt is not contagious! His doubt cannot deny the reality of my lived experience! What happened happened. I was lucid; I was taking notes at the time. [Translation: I was not hysterical.]
I feel I am in the dark night of my soul. This is when and where I figure out what exactly is happening to me and has happened, and try to ascertain why; who I am and how I came to be; what being is; ... all these ultimate questions about the relationship of the self and the Rest of the Universe. I'm still figuring things out.
So what if my most conscious moment of God resembled objectively a panic attack, and technically a psychotic episode? What matters is that subjectively it was a mystical experience--a highly mystical experience--one that has irrevocably altered the way in which I view the world.
Before any of this happened, I'd already recognized myself as an existentialist. The funny thing is, this experience has been so hard to integrate with the blessing of my logical side that I find I'm in danger of becoming an apostate of my philosophical views. And to me, that is as shocking and as morally horrifying as any religious or spiritual apostasy. Because what happened did happen to me. No matter how much F may doubt otherwise. This doubt is not contagious! His doubt cannot deny the reality of my lived experience! What happened happened. I was lucid; I was taking notes at the time. [Translation: I was not hysterical.]
I feel I am in the dark night of my soul. This is when and where I figure out what exactly is happening to me and has happened, and try to ascertain why; who I am and how I came to be; what being is; ... all these ultimate questions about the relationship of the self and the Rest of the Universe. I'm still figuring things out.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-23 09:08 pm (UTC)http://www.philipkdick.com/
(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-24 01:15 am (UTC)who doesn't love dick?
Date: 2005-07-19 05:12 am (UTC)Philip K. Dick's a swell author, and--while a little troubling--the trilogy that comprises his exegesis is really engaging. His other work's a little easier to swallow, but his autoexegetical work has, well, the drive of conviction.
That's why, I think, people like Blake. Not necessarily *just* for the verse itself, nor for the super woodcuts, but for the fact that he honest-to-Jesus thought he was getting right at The Big Issues--whether or not you agree with him. Dick, I feel, is often the same way: amazing author, and the revelatory tinges add a certain oomph to it.
Hey, I wasn't around your livejournal three years ago--and I just did a Dick immersion early this summer. Don't blame me for belatedness; I'm just always fashionably late.