Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the Border Between Science and Spirituality (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "IN APRIL 1999, I traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to attend a meeting named, misleadingly,"Science and Consciousness..." (more)
Key Phrases: meme dream, mystical technologies, mystical expert, New York, Huston Smith, Ken Wilber (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

A former senior writer at Scientific American investigates the physics of mystical experiences like prayer, fasting, and trances.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"[A] great read, full of amusing vignettes and thoughtful reflections." --Stephen Mihm -- Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 292 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Printing edition (January 22, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618060278
• ISBN-13: 978-0618060276
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #402,906 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

98 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Refreshingly honest look, but no final answers, January 29, 2003

By	Mark Meyer (Kenmore, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have read lots of Buddhist books that praise Buddha above all else or make it sound like enlightenment is good and great, etc. John Horgan does a most amazing thing...... he doesn't take any of that on faith. Instead, he uses the tools of science, which include honest skepticism and inquiry, to find out for himself. What he came up with is a *WONDERFUL* book! It investigated psychedelic drugs, shamans, ideas of heaven and hell and God, and especially enlightenment. I can imagine many "true believers" will label him a heretic since he dared ask, "Maybe enlightenment isn't all its cracked up to be? Maybe it is not even good for you!!!"

He starts his book with a story about a foundling crow that grows up to be the family's pet, Lena. One day Lena is accidentally killed when the boys hit her while swinging in the backyard. Horgan, his kids and esp. his wife are devastated. He keeps coming back to the question, what is a crow's life worth and why did she impact us so deeply? Almost at the end of the book, he returns to the question of just exactly what are we looking for in life, and concludes that it is love and the companionship of others. He says, Buddha might not have had a very tender heart. AFter all, he left his wife and son to seek his own enlightenment. But my wife's heart was broken by a crow. A crow!?!

If you are a spiritual seeker, you *MUST* read this book, if for no other reason than to shake you up a little bit. If you are on a quest for enlightenment, somebody should ask you, Why? What for? What do you expect to get out of it? Horgan tells of researchers who are honestly trying to seek answers to questions about what is mysticism, who is God, and what do we really want out of life. That he should come round to the rather mundane, maudlin answer, "Love", is surprising but rings quite true.... especially when he mourns the death of one little bird. Wow!

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An important, challenging, and subversive work., January 26, 2003

By	Jim R. "thevulgarian" (Portland, TX) - See all my reviews

This is one of the best nonfiction reads I've encountered in a long time. It's compulsively readable. I love to have my assumptions challenged and this book did that and more. I laughed, cried, rolled my eyes, argued with Mr. Horgan. It's a great ride.

Rational Mysticism was especially meaningful to me because I long ago gave up on organized religion and put my faith in science. I occasionally try to return to religion, but quickly leave in exasperation. Now I understand that either path ends in mystery. We need to respect that mystery and appreciate the reality we have more.

You will meet some fascinating people in these pages, titantic egos, brilliant thinkers, crackpots. The introduction "Lena's Feather" was profoundly moving to me. Mr. Horgan's account of the ayahuasca ceremony is not to be missed. Finally the chapter "The Awe-Ful Truth" will leave you with much to think about.

Anyone who thinks on the "big questions" whether religious or rationalist should read this book.

57 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars valuable overview filled with pointers to further sources, October 2, 2004

By	James J. Lippard "skeptic" (Phoenix, AZ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Rational Mysticism: Spirituality Meets Science in the Search for Enlightenment (Paperback)

John Horgan has written a wonderfully entertaining and informative account of his attempt to find who is productively applying science to the field of mysticism. One other Amazon.com reviewer said that they do not like this sort of book, which is based on interviewing individuals and commenting on their personalities as well as their ideas, but I personally prefer this approach as an introduction to the lives and works of others. I found the book to be very insightful, as Horgan always seemed to ask the questions and raise the issues that I was interested in hearing about. His open-minded yet skeptical approach is one I find refreshing.

Horgan's subjects--Huston Smith, Steven Katz, Bernard McGinn, Ken Wilber, Andrew Newberg, Michael Persinger, Susan Blackmore, James Austin, Albert Hofmann, Stanislov Grof, Terence McKenna, Alexander "Sasha" and Ann Shulgin--are all quite interesting people. Horgan seemed most sympathetic to Blackmore, Austin, Wilber, McKenna (personality-wise more than idea-wise), and the Shulgins. He was--correctly, I believe--skeptical of Persinger after finding his pro-psi views. My own view of Persinger is that he attempts to fit everything into his temporal lobe epilepsy/tectonic strain theory views, but has often been unskeptical about the data he's pushing into the theory; I've never understood why skeptics like Blackmore and Michael Shermer have thought him to be plausible. (I've authored a critical review of Persinger's Space-Time Transients and Unusual Events for including bogus debunked events as items to be explained by his theory, and The Arizona Skeptic published an extensive bibliography of critiques of his TST assembled by Chris Rutkowski of the University of Manitoba in the July 1992 issue).

In the end, Horgan is skeptical of all of his subjects, and thinks that they've missed out on the importance of a sense of awe and wonder, as well as playfulness and fun (though McKenna seems to have had that down). I'm not sure I agree with Horgan on that--I thought that what most of these people seemed to have in common was being very comfortable (most seem to be wealthy, famous, respected, and living well) and being advocates of a quietistic conservatism that advocates being content with the way the world is. That's an easy position for someone who is comfortable to take. Horgan does touch on this subject briefly a few times, such as when he writes about "the nature does-not-care principle" and the problem of natural evil (pp. 192-194) and when he raises the issue of suffering with Austin (p. 131).

Horgan seemed most at odds with Katz, a view I shared--Katz's views seem sheer unsubstantiated dogmatism, when he insists that drug experiences have absolutely nothing to do with mystical experiences, and in his insistence on a commonality between all forms of mysticism, which reminded me of the Bahai faith--a religion that disagrees with all other religions in arguing for the compatibility of all religions.

In the end, I found myself scrawling notes of other books I'd like to read as a result of the references in this book: Austin's Zen and the Brain, Georg Feuerstein's Holy Madness, V.S. Ramachandran's Phantoms in the Brain, Francisco Varela's Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying, Anthony Storr's Feet of Clay, and Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy, as well as finding numerous references to other works that seem to me to be likely to be "on the right track" (Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism without Beliefs, Ronald Siegel's books on hallucinations and drug experiences). Reading Horgan's book was for me a valuable experience that I recommend.