Examining Paradigms

This post will be a bit stream of consciousness, but who cares, eh?  I finished reading “Timothy Leary” which is now the definitive biography of the once Harvard professor turned self proclaimed acid prophet.  It was a good read.  The book really drove home for me just how much we all crave transcendence.  I feel like that was partly what I was craving during substance experimentation during my teen years and during my religious zealotry during my late teens to twenties.  The problem that I have found with all “transcendent” experiences is that all you are left with is the experience.  The experience is poignant, exquisite and very convincing, but it seems like its use is not very explainable.

Arthur Koestler said the following about one of his trips with Leary: “There’s no wisdom there.  I solved the secret of the universe last night, but this morning I forgot what it was.  There is no quick and easy path to wisdom.  Sweat and toil are the price of knowledge.”

Koestler’s thoughts on his hallucinogenic experience summarize my feelings on psychedelics as well.

However, I feel like the ambiguity of transcendental experience can be applied to religion as well.  I had a very earthshaking “spiritual awakening” in my teens.  The experience was potent, lucid, and pretty damn emotional, yet I am not sure what knowledge I gained from it.  I remember a friend asking me one time, “and what did you learn from that?”  I was left a little confused because even though I had the experience, the experience could not be articulated well.  Any conclusions that I drew from that experience were largely driven by my religious upbringing and not necessarily from the experience itself.

What am I saying?  I am not sure, but I guess I am saying that many of us yearn for transcendence, but that the transcendence, although it feels good, may not really mean anything.  How’s that for cynicism?