Mystical Experiences: Absolute Consciousness Beyond Words.

Theoretical Framework of Mystical Experiences

Various philosophers, theologians, and researchers have proposed several criteria for qualifying an experience as mystical. There are several complementary, overlapping, and mutually expanding definitions. William James (1902) was the first to start, in many ways, the scientific study of mystical experiences. He provided what remains the most famous and influential account of those experiences, establishing four criteria that an experience must meet to be considered mystical. The first is ineffability, which is not so much the impossibility of putting the experience into words than the impossibility of transcribing the essence of it in plain language; it must be directly experienced to be understood. The second criterion is the noetic quality of the experience, i.e., the intuitive and spiritual aspect of a specific experience where knowledge is gained through direct apprehension or inner wisdom rather than logical analysis or empirical observation. When a person has a mystical experience, they feel that they understand profound and essential truths about reality, life, or the divine beyond the ordinary capacity of rational thought. Individuals feel absolute certainty and clarity about profound truths or realities, often without being able to explain this knowledge rationally. During a mystical experience, one usually feels as though they are coming into contact with intuitive knowledge deployed to its extreme essence, where profound truths are unveiled in their purest and most potent form. There is an impression of receiving a revelation or knowledge that seems to come from a source beyond ordinary consciousness. The noetic quality is central because it distinguishes mystical experiences from simple hallucinations or altered states of consciousness without such profound content. This noetic quality lends a sense of validity and meaning to mystical experiences, making them particularly impactful and transformative for those who have them. The third criterion proposed by James is transiency, i.e., the experience is temporary, even if it has lasting effects. The fourth and last criterion is passivity: the individual is not in control of the experience and feels like a passive recipient of a superior force or presence other than himself. Russell (1914) also identifies four different yet overlapping criteria: unity (everything is interconnected and part of a single whole), the illusion of time (time and change are illusions), the illusion of evil (the anthropocentric notion of good and evil does exist in ultimate reality), and the intuition is a means of knowledge (intuitive knowledge surpasses rational knowledge). The latter directly relates to the noetic quality put forward by James. In another fashion, Stace (1960) proposes characteristics similar to those of James and Russel and divides them into two categories: extroverted mysticism, that is, the experience of unity with the external world, and introverted mysticism, that is, the experience of inner unity, often accompanied by silence and peace.

Hegel (1837) describes mystical experience in terms of absolute consciousness as a fusion of the individual with absolute reality or the universal spirit. More recently, in 2008, Glenn Alexander Magee proposed three criteria: (i) transformation of consciousness: The mystical experience profoundly transforms consciousness and the perception of reality; (ii) Access to higher knowledge: The experience provides knowledge that transcends the limits of rational thought, and (iii) Unity with the divine or absolute, i.e., the fusion or union with a supreme reality. These criteria proposed by various scholars highlight the common aspects of mystical experiences: ineffability, a sense of unity, transformation of consciousness, and intuitive knowledge. This latter aspect, the noetic quality, is considered the critical feature qualifying the mystical experience. Beyond that key aspect, the essence of mystical experiences is that they reconcile opposites (James, 1902, p. 388, as cited in Lyon, 2024). Indeed, many reports of mystical experiences echo this coincidence of opposites, combining elements of chaos and order. At the same time, there is a breakdown of the usual egoic structures (chaos), and there is simultaneously a greater sense of connection or unity with the universe (order). These paradoxical experiences are central to what makes them so challenging to describe.

My Mystical Experience Induced by Psychedelics

In 2019, I decided to consume psychedelics for therapeutic purposes. After researching and comparing, I finally booked a spot at a 4-day retreat in the Dutch countryside, an hour away from Amsterdam. I recount my experience in detail, including the entire process of preparation, the ceremony, and integration, in two podcast episodes here and here (in French). Here, I will focus on the part of the experience corresponding to my mystical experience.

It first started with a change in atmosphere; I suddenly felt my body dissolving, and I saw my skin evaporating in pieces all around me. There was no more gravity; I was floating in suspended space-time; I had left the room, my bed, and I was among constellations of shimmering matter and spirit that I joined a little more as I dissolved into this space-time. I felt neither fear nor dread, just the sensation of a significant transition and a crucial moment. And once again, I felt this total surrender, even more potent than at the beginning, a force that surpassed me without controlling me, pulling me into its lair. My body was dissolving like paper in water. Without transition, suddenly but not violently, without knowing how I got there, I was in absolute calm in front of a gigantic sphere. But not just acoustic calm, but cosmic, as if everything was there, united in this sphere as impenetrable as it was familiar, of which I was a part without being able to unravel the mystery of its contents, which nonetheless seemed close to my reach—a purity, a grace, infinite. And suddenly, there was no more beauty or ugliness, no good or evil, no sadness or joy, no feminine or masculine; it was all simultaneously, in the same place, at the same moment, everywhere and here. And there it was very curious because while having this deep sensation of bodily and identity dissolution, I felt myself fall to my knees, moved to tears in the face of such wonder—and this word conveys only 0.01% of the essence of this encounter. I felt a profound respect and reverence toward something that appeared to me as transcending all boundaries of the sacred. It was grand and majestic, but above all, what I had before me, all around me, within me, had no ego, i.e., a tranquil super-consciousness, beyond existential questions, beyond all calculations or concerns, an impersonality of a higher order that nevertheless seemed to gather all personalities into one—infinite tranquillity.

I don’t remember the moment I came out of this state or when I returned to myself, so to speak, in a state more alert to the fluctuations of my consciousness. There were beautiful moments of music that accompanied a gentle descent, a gradual reduction of the effects, and a return to a more usual perception. I felt incredible mental clarity, the purity of my feelings and intentions.

After the ceremony, we each had the opportunity to share our experience with the group by summarising it in one or two words: I remember trying to say that I had encountered the most beautiful and complex simplicity.

The Aftermaths

This experience drastically changed my relationship with suffering and depression. It has restored some mental flexibility I had lost over time. The flexibility to look at suffering differently, to welcome it as an old friend instead of fighting a foe; I have stopped resisting, and it stopped persisting. I believe I have accepted this extreme darkness as part of the natural spectrum of my internal states. I have come to see depression differently, not as something to endure but as the simple expression of a refusal to embrace all the parts that constitute me, especially the darkest ones. This experience has not erased anything except for thought patterns that had become too rigid over time. And today, if I still happen to go through waves of darkness, I do so in a much more agile manner; I know how to navigate them and extract things to move forward. I feel my soul being more « elastic ».

For me, healing is the reconciliation of paradoxes. Thanks to this experience, I have had a bodily experience of extreme darkness and extreme light simultaneously. For me, healing from depression means reconciling the two ends of the spectrum, fully welcoming this tortured part of myself, which will always be there but which I no longer see as an adversary. I would even say that the two extremes of this spectrum are not on a straight line but on a circle that brings these two extremes together: the reconciliation of paradoxes. I am still working on taming the idea that there is pure beauty in the most extreme darkness, how to express it, how to let it breathe, what to do with it, etc. The experience of psychedelics has given me valuable keys to learning to navigate this darkness without getting lost in it.

Neuroscientific insights

Psilocybin, the active compound in certain mushrooms, promotes cortical structural and functional neuroplasticity by activating primarily the brain’s serotonin 2A (5-HT2A) receptors (Vargas et al., 2023). Activating these receptors leads to altered states of consciousness, affecting perception, mood, and cognition. The intense visual and sensory changes described—such as seeing the skin evaporate and floating among constellations—could be manifestations of this altered neurotransmission. The report also mentions a state of "suspended space-time" and being "beyond existential questions." Psilocybin can disrupt the brain's typical processing of temporal and spatial cues, leading to experiences where time feels dilated or nonexistent and space boundless.

Psilocybin has been shown to disrupt the resting state connectivity within the Default Mode Network (DMN), a group of interconnected brain regions associated with self-referential thought and, thus, the sense of ego and a unified self; it also increases functional connectivity between established patterns of brain connectivity (at rest) (for a review, see Gattuso et al., 2023). The suppression of the DMN can explain the experience of the body dissolving, the loss of personal identity, and the blurring between self and external environment or entities.

However, as suggested by (Timmerman, 2024), when people report encountering entities (such as this gigantic sphere made of superconsciousness), measures of disinhibition (increase of entropy, DMN fragmentation, alpha power reduction) seem to quiet down, suggesting that the brain is engaged or involved in something specific (relationality, sociality, etc.).

The profound feelings of reverence, awe, and the encounter with an "infinite tranquillity" align with what researchers term "mystical-type experiences” (Hegel; 1837; James, 1902; Russel, 1918). Psilocybin can induce states characterised by deep emotional significance, a sense of sacredness, and transcendence beyond ordinary consciousness.

Philosophical Reflections

I have been thinking a lot about the nature and implications of my experience and those sudden shifts that seem to define mystical states more generally. Several research questions arise: How do neurophysiological and phenomenological elements interact to produce paradoxical experiences during mystical states? Is paradoxicality in mystical experiences motivated phenomenologically, or is it a deeper cognitive notion inherent in our thought processes? In the context of the consciousness continuum, can coherence and fragmentation be unified under a singular continuum, or do they represent distinct dimensions of consciousness alteration? And finally, are there common grounds of entry and exit dynamics between psychedelic-induced mystical experiences (MEs), practice-induced MEs, and other types, such as space-induced MES or spontaneous mystical states?

References

Gattuso, J. J., Perkins, D., Ruffell, S., Lawrence, A. J., Hoyer, D., Jacobson, L. H., Timmermann, C., Castle, D., Rossell, S. L., Downey, L. A., Pagni, B. A., Galvão-Coelho, N. L., Nutt, D., & Sarris, J. (2023). Default Mode Network Modulation by Psychedelics: A Systematic Review. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol, 26(3), 155-188. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijnp/pyac074

James, W. (1902). The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–1902. Longmans, Green & Co. 

Hegel, G. W. F. (1837). Lectures on the philosophy of world history, translated by H. B. Nisbet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

Lyon, A. (2023). Psychedelic Experience: Revealing the Mind. Oxford University Press. 

Magee, G. A. (2008). Hegel and Mysticism. In F. C. Beiser (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy (pp. 253–280). chapter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Russell, B. (1918). Mysticism and logic (Vol. 15). Dover Publications. 

Stace, W. T. (1960). Mysticism and philosophy (Vol. 13). St. Martin's Press. 

Timmerman, C. (2024, September). Neurophenomenology. [Video interview]. The University of Exeter.

Vargas, M. V., Dunlap, L. E., Dong, C., Carter, S. J., Tombari, R. J., Jami, S. A., Cameron, L. P., Patel, S. D., Hennessey, J. J., Saeger, H. N., McCorvy, J. D., Gray, J. A., Tian, L., & Olson, D. E. (2023). Psychedelics promote neuroplasticity through the activation of intracellular 5-HT2A receptors. Science, 379(6633), 700-706. https://doi.org/doi:10.1126/science.adf0435