Jonathan Bricklin : 自身の神秘体験と William James を語る
前置き
Jonathan Bricklin は、William James の研究者であり、
ジョナサン・ブリックリン氏は、ニューヨーク・オープンセンターの元プログラムディレクターであり、ウィリアム・ジェームズに関する多数の学術論文の著者です。彼の著書『意志、自己、時間の幻想』および『Schistness』は、ジェームズの思想における自由意志、時間、自己といった概念の非実在性に焦点を当てており
という人物。その彼が自身の神秘体験を元にして語っている。
要旨
ウィリアム・ジェームズと神秘体験、非二元論
この資料は、ジェフリー・ミシュラブとジョナサン・ブリックリンとの対談の記録で、主にウィリアム・ジェームズの思想と分離の幻想を探求しています。
ブリックリンは、1989年に経験した個人的な神秘体験からウィリアム・ジェームズの学者になった経緯を語り、自由意志、自己、時間の非実在性といったジェームズの難解な側面を論じています。
対談では、意識の本質や「schistness」（意識から自己意識を除いたもの）、そして非二元論と多元的宇宙の間で葛藤したジェームズの哲学に焦点を当てています。
さらに、予知能力が自由意志にもたらす課題、ブロック宇宙の概念、そして苦しみの意味を宇宙的な遊び（リーラ）として捉える考え方など、超常現象（サイキカル・リサーチ）と哲学の関連性についても議論されています。
コメント
Jonathan Bricklin も「超越願望の罠」に嵌まっている。
つまり、「自身の神秘体験」という罠に嵌まっている。日常の意識状態（＝正常な意識状態）から、瞑想という非日常的な意識状態（＝正常から逸脱した意識状態）に自らを追い込み、神秘体験（＝幻覚）を誘発させた。
その神秘体験によって日常的経験を超越した「幽玄な世界の真理、言語表現が不可能な絶対的真理」を垣間見たのだ…と他の神秘家と同様に彼も錯覚した。真理なんて自身の超越願望が捏造した虚構でしかないのに、その虚構に額づいてしまっている。
目次
- 前置き
- 要旨
- コメント
- 全体俯瞰
- 概念解説
- Jonathan Bricklin の神秘体験（1989年、35歳）
- William James と一元/多元論
- 自由意志、自己、時間の幻想
- James と非二元（一元論的）洞察
- James と神の概念
- 自由意志のパラドックス
- 情報源
- 文字起こし（話者識別）
全体俯瞰
ウィリアム・ジェームズと分離の幻想：ブリーフィング・ドキュメント
エグゼクティブ・サマリー
このブリーフィングは、ジョナサン・ブリックリン氏へのインタビュー「ウィリアム・ジェームズと分離の幻想」の主要なテーマと洞察をまとめたものである。本文書は、ブリックリン氏の人生を変えた1989年の神秘体験を起点とし、その体験が彼を心理学者・哲学者ウィリアム・ジェームズの研究へとどのように導いたかを詳述する。
中心的なテーマは、ジェームズの思想に内在する根源的な対立である。一方には、19世紀の科学的決定論から彼を救い、生涯を通じて擁護し続けた「自由意志」と「多元的宇宙」（多者）の思想がある。もう一方には、自己、意志、時間が幻想であるという、彼自身の神秘的・形而上学的な洞察（一者）が存在する。
ブリックリン氏は、ジェームズの著作の中に、主観と客観の二元性が生じる以前の純粋な意識状態を指す「シストネス（Schistness）」という概念を見出す。これは、 ジェームズが麻酔薬の体験を通じて垣間見た、自己意識が「後から付加されるもの」であるという洞察に基づいている。
さらに、自由意志を脅かすためにジェームズが長年避けてきた「予知」の現象が、彼の思索の核心を突く。ブリックリン氏は、ジェームズが晩年に提起した「意識は、発見されるのを待って、すでにそこにあるのではないか？」という問いが、時間は幻想であり、宇宙全体が予め存在する（ブロック宇宙）という神秘主義的・物理学的見解と共鳴することを論じている。本稿は、この対立と探求を、苦しみの問題や宇宙の根源的性質といった、より広範な哲学的考察へと展開させる。
1. ジョナサン・ブリックリンの変容的体験
ブリックリン氏のウィリアム・ジェームズ研究は、1989年に彼が35歳の時に経験した強烈な神秘体験に端を発している。この体験は、彼のその後の知的探求の方向性を決定づけた。
背景と瞑想リトリート
- 体験前の状態: 俳優から哲学へと転向したものの、人生の方向性を見出せずに「混乱していた」と述べている。
- きっかけ: アレクサンダー・テクニークの教師の勧めで、マサチューセッツ州のインサイト・メディテーション・ソサエティ（IMS）での瞑想リトリートに初めて参加した。
- 初期の洞察: リトリート初日、指導者クリストファー・ティトマスによる対話形式の指導を通じ、「私たちの問題はすべて、もはや真実ではない何かに執着していることから生じる」という洞察をわずか10分で得た。
法悦と「ライフレビュー」
- 痛みを 통한 法悦: リトリート3日目、膝の痛みを避けずに意識を集中させたところ、痛みが消え、「至福の波」に襲われた。これはすべてとつながっているという愛と一体感に満ちた状態であった。
- 教師の問いかけと身体的反応: 至福をどうすべきか教師に尋ねると、「たぶん、何もしないことね（Well, maybe you just do nothing）」とだけ言われ、その場を去られた。その言葉をきっかけに、彼はパニック発作のような激しい震えを経験したが、瞑想で培った「ありのままの気づき」によって、その状態を観察することができた。
- 無意識のムドラーとエネルギー: その後、木の下に座らされていると、無意識のうちに指と指が触れ合い、ムドラー（印相）を形成した。その瞬間、強烈なエネルギーが体を貫いた。
- 「ライフレビュー」: リトリートの最終日の翌朝、ベッドに座っていると、強烈なエクスタシーと共に、窓の外の雲の中に巨大なスクリーンのように人生の場面が映し出された。その特徴は以下の通りである。
- 対の構造: 人生の痛ましい、あるいは混乱した場面が映し出された直後、それを補い、そこから何を学んだかを示す「贖い」の場面が続き、人生全体が意味付けされた。
- 負担からの解放: この体験により、「避けるべきだと思っていたことすべてが、自分に何かをもたらしてくれた」と悟り、すべての重荷から解放された感覚を得た。
「水平線の瞬間」と非個人的な思考
- 現在への圧縮: ライフレビューの後、彼は「過去と未来の風景を失い、まさに水平線の瞬間に押し込められた」。思考と思考の間に「ギャップ」を感じる、一瞬一瞬が新たに生起する体験であり、松尾芭蕉の俳句の世界にたとえている。
- 思考の源泉: この状態では、思考が自分の中から湧き出るという感覚がなく、「これらの思考はどこから来るのか？」という問いが生じた。これは、道教の「語り、黙し、見、聞くものは何か？」という問いや、ジェームズの「私が考える（I think）」のではなく「それが考える（it thinks）」という概念に通じる。
体験から得られた核心的な教え
この一連の体験からブリックリン氏が得た唯一の教えは、「あるがままがある（whatever is, is）」というシンプルなものであった。この洞察が、彼のジェームズ研究の根幹をなすことになる。
2. ウィリアム・ジェームズの思想における核心的対立
ブリックリン氏の分析によれば、ウィリアム・ジェームズの思想の核心には、自由意志を擁護するプラグマティストとしての側面と、自己や時間の非実在性を示唆する神秘主義的洞察との間の緊張関係が存在する。
ジェームズの知的遺産
ジェームズは多岐にわたる分野で巨大な足跡を残した。
- アメリカ心理学の父
- トランスパーソナル心理学の父
- プラグマティズム哲学の父祖の一人
- 宗教学の父
- 心霊研究（現在の超心理学）の創始者の一人
自由意志と多元的宇宙への固執
- 決定論への恐怖と抑うつ: 若き日の ジェームズは、19世紀のニュートン的科学に根差した物質的・科学的決定論に深く囚われ、「私の意志のかすかな動きすら自由ではない」という考えから深刻な抑うつ状態に陥った。
- 自由意志への「信仰」: フランスの哲学者ルヌーヴィエの著作を読み、「私の自由意志による最初の行為は、自由意志を信じることである」と決意することで、この危機を乗り越えた。この出来事以来、自由意志の擁護は彼の哲学の生命線となった。
- 多元主義（The Many）の擁護: 自由意志を確保するため、ジェームズは「すべては一つである」とする絶対的一元論（The One）に強く反対し、多様性と個性を重んじる「多元的宇宙（Pluralistic Universe）」を主張した。彼にとって、「多者（the many）」は「生命線」であった。
3. 自己・意志・時間の幻想
ジェームズは自由意志を公に擁護し続けたが、ブリックリン氏は、彼の著作の深層には、自己、意志、時間が幻想であるという神秘主義的な理解が隠されていると指摘する。
意志の非実在性
- 意志の心理学: ジェームズは「意志決定の心理学」を分析する際、「ベッドから起き上がる」という思考実験を用いた。彼は、快適なベッドに留まりたいという思いと、起きなければならないという思いが対立した後、人が実際に起き上がるのは、どちらかの思考のエネルギーが「神秘的な理由で」消え去り、もう一方の思考だけが残るからだと結論付けた。そこには、意志による積極的な「選択」の感覚はない。
- 努力の感覚の正体: ジェームズは、努力（effort）の感覚は、行為を生み出す根源的な力ではないと論じた。思考は即座に行動に結びつく（遠心性/efferent）。我々が「努力」と感じるのは、予期せぬ抵抗に出会ったときに生じる感覚情報（求心性/afferent）であり、この二つの混同が努力という幻想を生む。彼は「努力が結果のためのエネルギーを生み出すことを示す実験は、これまでもこれからも見つからないだろう」と述べている。
非個人的な思考と「シストネス（Schistness）」
- 「それが考える」: ジェームズは、意識に関する最も基本的な事実は「私が考える（I think）」ではなく、「雨が降る（it rains）」と言うように「それが考える（it thinks）」と表現する方が、憶測を最小限に抑えられると述べた。「過ぎ去る思考そのものが思考者である」という彼の言葉は、思考主体としての「私」の非実在性を示唆している。
- シストネスの概念: ブリックリン氏はこの概念を「シストネス（Schistness）」と名付けた。これは「Consciousness（意識）」から「Con（共に、自己）」を取り除いた造語であり、主観 と客観に二元化される以前の、純粋で単一な意識状態を指す。ジェームズ自身がエーテルや亜酸化窒素などの麻酔薬の体験を通じて、「一般的な存在の感覚」があり、「自己の感覚はそれに付加された何かである」と記述していることに由来する。
予知と「ブロック宇宙」
- ジェームズの予知への抵抗: 予知（Precognition）は、未来が決定されている可能性を示唆し、自由意志の概念を根底から脅かすため、ジェームズは生涯のほとんどでこの現象への言及を避けた。
- フレデリック・ホールの事例: 晩年、エーテルから覚醒する際に未来を予知したというフレデリック・ホールからの手紙を受け取り、ジェームズはこの問題に直面せざるを得なくなった。
- 根源的な問い: この事例に対し、ジェームズは極めて重要な問いを投げかけた。「ホールが経験している意識は、発見されるのを待って、すでにそこにあるのだろうか？そして、それは実在の真実の啓示なのだろうか？」彼はこの問いの解決は「この世代でも次の世代でもないだろう」と述べ、その重要性を強調した。
- ブロック宇宙との共鳴: この問いは、アインシュタインの「ブロック宇宙」の概念（過去・現在・未来の区別は幻想であり、すべての出来事が時空の中に同時に存在する）と深く共鳴する。ジェームズ自身が「ブロック宇宙」という言葉を最初に用いたが、それは自由意志を否定する冷たい「鉄の塊」として、否定的な意味合いであった。
4. 一者と多者：宇宙論的考察
ジェームズの思想における「一者（The One）」と「多者（The Many）」の対立は、宇宙の根源的な構造に関する考察へとつながる。
パルメニデスと「球体」としての宇宙
- シャーマンとしてのパルメニデス: 古代ギリシャの哲学者パルメニデスは、論理によって「存在は一つである」と説いたと一般に解釈されているが、ブリックリン氏はピーター・キングスリーの研究を引用し、彼が論理学者ではなく、神秘的体験を通じてこの洞察を得たシャーマンであった可能性を指摘する。
- 球体の比喩: パルメニデスは存在を「中心からあらゆる方向に等しい、よく丸められた球体」にたとえた。これは静的な「ブロック」ではなく、すべての点が中心と等しい関係性を持つダイナミックな全体像を示唆する。
ジェームズの羅針盤の比喩
ジェームズ自身も、一元論的な宇宙像を説明する際に類似の比喩を用いている。「おそらく我々は、羅針盤の方位盤のように、より中心的な自己の周縁にいるのかもしれない」。この比喩では、円周上の各点は隣接する点との関係ではなく、中心点との関係によってその位置が規定される。これは、すべての瞬間や存在が、超越的な中心点（神、根源）と直接結びついているという神秘主義的な宇宙観と一致する。
ブラフマンの夢とリーラ（遊戯）
ブリックリン氏は、一元論的な現実の中で、なぜ我々は多元的な世界を経験するのかを説明するために、東洋思想の概念を援用する。
- ブラフマンの夢: 我々の経験する現実は、すべてがブラフマン（宇宙の根源）が見ている夢のようなものである可能性がある。夢の中ではすべてがリアルに感じられるが、目覚めればそれが一つの意識の産物であったとわかるように、この世界もまた根源的な一つの意識の現れかもしれない。
- リーラ（Lila）: サンスクリット語で「神の遊戯」を意味する。アラン・ワッツの思考実験を引用し、もし神が永遠に完璧な夢を見続けるとしたら、やがて退屈し、スリルや挑戦、さらには苦しみをスパイスとして加えるようになるかもしれない、と示唆する。我々のいるこの現実こそが、その「遊戯」の極致である可能性がある。
5. 苦しみ の問題と哲学的応答
絶対的一元論に対する最も強力な反論は、ホロコーストのような極限的な悪や苦しみの存在である。
絶対者に対するジェームズの異議
ジェームズは、絶対者（The Absolute）は「すべてを是認するが、何も決定しない」と批判した。絶対一元論の立場では、世界で起こる悲劇や残虐行為もまた神の現れとして是認されることになり、これは倫理的に許容できないと彼は考えた。
神秘主義的観点からの苦しみの再解釈
- ブリックリン氏の体験: 彼自身のライフレビュー体験では、すべての苦しみが最終的に成長と学びにつながる「贖い」の側面を持っていた。この個人的な体験は、苦しみが究極的には無意味ではないという信頼を彼に与えた。
- 宇宙的遊戯としての苦しみ: 「リーラ」の概念に立ち返れば、極限的な苦しみでさえ、宇宙的なドラマの一部であると解釈する余地が生まれる。これは、苦しみを矮小化する危険性 をはらむ非常に難しい視点であることをブリックリン氏自身も認めているが、一元論的宇宙観を徹底するならば、向き合わざるを得ない問いである。
- ウォルト・ホイットマンの視点: ジェームズが敬愛した詩人ホイットマンは、「宇宙は然るべく秩序立っている」と述べつつ、その詩の中で性病の子供や戦争の傷といった悲惨な現実を具体的に列挙している。これは、世界の悲惨さを無視するのではなく、それらすべてを含んだ上で、なお宇宙全体の秩序を肯定する視点である。
6. 重要な引用句
| 話者 | 引用句 | コンテクスト |
|---|---|---|
| ジョナサン・ブリックリン | 「私たちの問題はすべて、執着していることから生じています。もはや真実ではない何かに。」 | 瞑想リトリートでの最初の洞察。 |
| ジョナサン・ブリックリン | 「私の人生が目の前を通り過ぎていきました。しかし、対になって。…私が避けようとしていたことすべてが…何かを成長させてくれたのです。」 | ライフレビュー体験の本質。 |
| ウィリアム・ジェームズ（B氏による） | 「私の自由意志による最初の行為は、自由意志を信じることである。」 | 決定論による抑うつからの脱却。 |
| ウィリア-ム・ジェームズ（B氏による） | 「…もし私たちが『雨が降る』と言うように『それが考える』と言えたなら、最小限の憶測で語ることになるだろう。」 | |
| ウィリアム・ジェームズ（B氏による） | 「その意識は…発見されるのを待って、すでにそこにあるのだろうか？そして、それは実在の真実の啓示なのだろうか？」 | 予知現象に直面した際の根源的な問い。 |
| ジョナサン・ブリックリン | 「私が見つけられた唯一の教えは、『あるがままがある』ということでした。」 | 神秘体験の結論。 |
| ウィリアム・ジェームズ（B氏による） | 「私の多者を取り上げないでくれ。それは私にとって生命線のようなものなのだ。」 | 多元主義への強いこだわりを示す言葉。 |
| ゼノス・クラーク（B氏による） | 「我々は、始まる前に終わっている旅に出る。」 | 麻酔薬による神秘的啓示の一節。非時間的な現実を示唆。 |
概念解説
「心理学の父」ウィリアム・ジェームズの哲学入門：3つのキーワードで読み解く心の探究
はじめに：科学と神秘の間で揺れ動いた思想家
哲学の講義へようこそ。本日は、アメリカ思想史における巨人、ウィリアム・ジェームズ（1842-1910）の思想世界を探検します。彼は「アメリカ心理学の父」として知られていますが、その知的好奇心は一つの学問領域に留まることはありませんでした。哲学、宗教研究、そして当時は「サイキカル・リサーチ（心霊研究）」と呼ばれた分野に至るまで、ジェームズは複数の領域で巨大な足跡を残した、稀有な思想家です。
この講義の目的は、彼の複雑な思想の核心に迫るための3つの鍵――「自由意志」「シストネス」「多元的宇宙」――を、初心者にも分かりやすく解き明かすことです。ジェームズの知的探求は、19世紀の厳格な科学的世界観と、彼自身が深く惹きつけられた神秘的な洞察との間の、いわば「生涯をかけた闘い」でした。彼の思想のドラマは、この緊張関係の中から生まれてきたのです。
1. ジェームズの人生を貫く「中心的対立」とは何か？
ウィリアム・ジェームズの哲学を理解するためには、まず彼の生涯と思想を貫く「中心的な対立」の構造を把握する必要があります。彼は、互いに相容れない二つの世界観の間で、文字通り引き裂かれていました。
- 科学的唯物論の世界 19世紀の科学が主流とした決定論的な世界観です。この見方では、すべての出来事には物質的な原因があり、宇宙は巨大な機械のように法則に従って動いています。当然、人間の「自由意志」のような、物質法則に縛られない力が介入する余地はありません。
- 神秘主義的な世界 直感や深い内的体験から導かれる世界観です。この視点では、私たちが当然視している自己（自我）や時間、そして意志さえもが一種の幻想であり、すべてはより大きな一つのもの（ワンネス）に繋がっているとされます。
この深刻な対立は、若き日のジェームズを精神的な危機へと追い込みました。彼は決定論の思想に深く囚われ、ハンモックに横たわりながら「私の意志のかすかな動き一つも自由ではない」という言葉を強迫的に繰り返すほど、重いうつ病に苦しんだのです。しかし、この苦悩こそが、彼の思想を深め、独自の哲学を築き上げる原動力となりました。
【学習のポイント】
この「科学 vs 神秘」という対立軸は、ジェームズという思想家が格闘した土俵そのものです。これから解説する3つのキーワードは、すべてこの土俵の上で繰り広げられた知的ドラマの重要な登場人物だと考えてください。
2. キーワード①：自由意志 ― 信じることを選んだ希望
自由意志とは何か？
まず基本から確認しましょう。「自由意志」とは、私たち人間には、外部からの強制によらず自らの行動を自由に選択する能力がある、というごく自然な感覚に基づいた考え方です。
なぜジェームズは自由意志にこだわったのか？
ジェームズがこれほどまでに自由意志を強く擁護した背景には、個人的な危機からの脱出と、哲学的な信念の防衛という二つの理由がありました。
- うつ病からの脱出 先ほど述べたように、科学的決定論は彼を精神的に追い詰めました。その暗闇の中で、彼はフランスの哲学者ルヌーヴィエの著作に出会います。そして、一つの決意をするのです。「私の自由意志の最初の行為は、自由意志を信じることである」と。これは、証明できるかどうかを待つのではなく、自らの意志で「 信じる」ことを選ぶという主体的な行為でした。この決断が、彼をうつ病から回復させる力強い一歩となったのです。
- 多元的世界の擁護 ジェームズにとって、すべてが最初から決まっている「一元論（モナニズム）」的な世界観は、息苦しく耐え難いものでした。個人の選択と行動が世界に真の影響を与え、未来を共に創造していくという「多元的宇宙」の思想を守るため、自由意志は絶対に手放すことのできない砦だったのです。
ジェームズ自身の懐疑
しかし、話はそう単純ではありません。哲学者としてのジェームズは自由意志を固く信じようとしましたが、心理学者としての彼の鋭い内省は、その存在自体を根底から揺るがしていました。この劇的な逆説を見てみましょう。
ジェームズの公的な立場（哲学者として） ジェームズの分析（心理学者として） 自由意志は、人生を主体的に生きるために「信じる」べきものである。 「ベッドから起き上がる」という単純な選択でさえ、意志の力が働くのではなく、一方の考えがもう一方の考えに不思議なプロセスで取って代わるだけのことかもしれない。 個人の「努力」が世界を変えるという希望。 私たちが「努力」と呼ぶ感覚は、何かを生み出す力（エファレント情報）ではなく、単に抵抗を感じ取っているだけの受動的な感覚（アファレント情報）に過ぎないかもしれない。
ここで少し 専門的な話をしましょう。ジェームズは、脳から筋肉への「指令（エファレント情報）」と、感覚器官から脳への「入力（アファレント情報）」を区別しました。彼が指摘したのは、私たちが「努力している」と感じる時、それは魔法のような「意志の力」を生み出しているのではなく、単に物事の重さや困難さといった「抵抗」を感覚として受け取っているだけではないか、という驚くべき可能性です。
【学習のポイント】
ジェームズにとって自由意志は、科学的に証明できる真実かどうか以上に、人間が希望を持って生きるための「実践的な選択」でした。しかし、その心理学的分析は、「私」という意思決定の中心地そのものを疑い始めます。この「私」への深い疑いが、次のキーワードへと私たちを導きます。
3. キーワード②：シストネス ― 「私」がいない意識
シストネス（Schistness）とは何か？
これはジェームズの思想の中でも特に独創的な概念です。「意識（Consciousness）」という単語から、自己を意味する接頭辞「con-」を取り除いた造語 であり、「自己を意識しない、純粋な意識」そのものを指します。
この洞察の核心は、彼がエーテルや笑気ガスといった麻酔薬の影響下で人々が体験する「麻酔による啓示（anesthetic revelation）」への深い関心から生まれました。そうした人々は、自我や世界の区別が溶け合った根源的な「存在そのもの」に触れ、普段私たちが感じている「自己」は、その根源的な意識に後から「付け加えられたもの」に過ぎない、という感覚を報告しました。このことが、ジェームズに次のような画期的な着想を与えたのです。
「意識の根本的な事実は、『私が考える』のではなく、『それが考える』ということだ。『雨が降る』と言うように『それが考える』と言えれば、我々は最小限の仮定で語っていることになるだろう。」
この言葉が何を意味するのか、少し整理してみましょう。
- 私たちの思考や意識は、「私」という中心的な主体が生み出しているのではなく、どこかからやってくる非個人的（impersonal）なプロセスかもしれません。
- 「私」という感覚は意識の根源ではなく、純粋な意識に後から「追加されたもの」である可能性があります。
- これは、主観と客観が分かれる前の、より根源的な意識の状態を指しているのです。
【学習のポイント】
自由意志の存在を疑うことから始まった探求は、ついに意思決定の主体である「私」そのものが、後付けの幻想かもしれないという地点にまで到達しました。この視点は、ジェームズが「すべては一つである」という神秘主義的な考えに強く惹かれながらも、 なぜそれに全面的に身を委ねることができなかったのか、という最後のテーマに繋がっていきます。
4. キーワード③：多元的宇宙 ― 「多」と「一」をめぐる葛藤
多元的宇宙（Pluralistic Universe）とは何か？
これは、世界はあらかじめ完成された一つのものではなく、多くの独立した要素（つまり、私たち一人ひとり）から成り立ち、個々の意志や行動によって常に変化し、創造され続けていくという、ダイナミックな世界観です。
ジェームズが「多」を愛した理由
ジェームズはなぜ「一元論（すべては一つである）」を拒絶し、「多元論」を擁護したのでしょうか。それは、彼の信じる「自由意志」や個人の主体性が、すべてが決定済みの静的な一元論的世界では意味を失ってしまうからでした。彼は、個人の努力が世界をより良く変えていくという、未完成で可能性に満ちた世界を信じたかったのです。
「一」への密かな眼差し
しかし、ジェームズは単純な多元論者ではありませんでした。彼の思想の奥深くには、「一なるもの（The One）」、つまり絶対的な存在やワンネスといった考え方への強い憧れと、その可能性への真摯な探求がありました。
- 「病める魂」への慰め 彼は、絶対的な存在を信じることが、人生の苦しみに苛まれる人々にとって「最高の安らぎ」を与えることを率直に認めていました。
- 神秘体験への関心と最後の問い 彼が生涯をかけて探求したサイキカル・リサーチは、個々の存在を超えた、より大きな繋がりの存在を示唆していました。特に彼が最も避けてきた現象は予知（precognition）でした。未来が予知できるなら、自由意志は成り立たないからです。しかし晩年、ある協力者からもたらされた予知体験の報告に直面した彼は、ついにこの問題と向き合わざるを得なくなります。そして、彼の全思想を揺るがす、次のような問いを投げかけたのです。
この問いは、私たちの個別の意識が、あらかじめ存在する広大な意識の領域から汲み上げられているに過ぎない、という可能性を示唆します。これは、自由意志という彼の信念を根底から脅かすものでしたが、同時に、すべてが繋がる根源的な「一」の領域の存在を認めざるを得ないという、彼の知的誠実さの表れでもありました。
【学習のポイント】
結局のところ、ジェームズは「多」という現実世界を主体的に生きながらも、その背後にあるかもしれない「一」という究極的な可能性を探求し続けた思想家でした。彼はどちらか一方を選ぶのではなく、両者の間の緊張関係の中に身を置き続けたのです。
結論：矛盾を抱きしめた探求者
ウィリアム・ジェームズの思想の最大の魅力は、彼が簡単な答えに安住しなかった点にあります。自由意志と決定論、多元的世界と一なる絶対者、科学と神秘――彼はこうした根本的な矛盾から目をそらすことなく、生涯をかけてそれらと真摯に向き合い続けました。
彼が残した「意識とは何か？」「自己とは何か？」という問いは、100年以上が経過した現代においても、私たちにとって最も根源的な問いであり続けています。
ジェームズの哲学に触れることは、確固たる答えを得るための道のりではありません。それはむしろ、人間存在の複雑さや豊かさをありのままに受け入れ、絶えず問い、探求し続ける姿勢そのものを学ぶ、スリリングな知的冒険なのです。
Jonathan Bricklin の神秘体験（1989年、35歳）
これは、ジョナサン・ブリックリン氏が1989年（35歳）に体験した強烈な神秘体験が、彼のウィリアム・ジェームズ研究、特に「分離の幻想」というテーマを追求する上での出発点となったことを示しています。
ブリックリン氏の体験は、自己、自由意志、時間が幻想であるというジェームズの神秘的な洞察を裏付けるものとして機能しており、ジェームズが科学的・実用主義的な側面と、一元論的・神秘的な側面との間で格闘していたというより大きな文脈の中で捉えられています。
1. 神秘体験の詳細（1989年、35歳）
ブリックリン氏の体験は、彼が「初心者運」を期待して参加したマサチューセ ッツ州バリのインサイト・メディテーション・ソサエティ（IMS）での瞑想リトリート中に起こりました。
この体験はいくつかの段階を経ており、特にジェームズの哲学と関連付けられる重要な要素が含まれています。
- 混乱からの脱却と普遍的なつながり: 体験以前、ブリックリン氏は人生の方向性を見失い、「混乱していた」と述べています。体験の3日目、膝の痛みに集中した際、彼自身が「喜びの波」に襲われ、「すべてとの愛とつながりの多幸感」に包まれました。これは、分離の幻想が消え、万物が一つであるという普遍的な意識状態（一元論）を反映しています。
- 人生の回顧と贖罪（トラウマと教訓）: リトリート最後の夜、極度のエクスタシーとエネルギーに包まれた際、彼の人生が目の前を次々と過ぎ去る「人生の回顧」が発生しました。この回顧は白黒で、「苦痛や混乱の場面」と「それに意味を与え、そこから何を学んだかを示す場面」が一対になって現れるという特徴がありました。この経験により、彼が避けようとしていたすべての苦痛が成長の糧となっていたことが示され、「すべての重荷が一気に持ち上げられたかのよう」な喜びと再生の気分になりました。この結果として得られた「信頼」は、「何であれ、あるものは、ある」（whatever is, is）という教えにつながっています。
- 時間と自己の幻想: 体験の最も異例な側面の一つは、「正確な地平線の瞬間（exact horizon moment）」に押し込められ、過去と未来の展望を失ったことです。 これは「この瞬間、間隔、この瞬間」の連続として現れ、「測り知れないエクスタシー」でした。この「間隔（gap）」は、クリシュナムルティが指摘する「思考の間の間隔」と関連付けられています。
2. ウィリアム・ジェームズと「分離の幻想」の文脈
ブリックリン氏の体験は、ウィリアム・ジェームズの著作、特に意識と一元論に関する考察を深く理解する必要性を生み出しました。
- 自由意志の非実在性: この神秘体験の結果、ブリックリン氏は自由意志が非実在であるという見解を深めました。彼は、ジェームズの著作における「自由意志の非現実性」についての論文を発表しています。体験中、思考が「自分自身の内側から来ているようには感じられない」という感覚は、ジェームズが「私が考える（I think）」ではなく「それが考える（it thinks）」と述べた、意識の非人称的な性質を裏付けています。
- スキストネス（Schistness）と純粋意識:
時間、自己、意志の幻想が失われた体験（「間隔」や「地平線の瞬間」の感覚）は、ジェームズが提唱した「スキストネス（Schistness）」の概念と深く結びついています。スキストネスとは、自己意識（consciousness of self）を伴わない純粋意識の状態、あるいは主客（subject-object）の二元性が生まれる以前の状態を指します。
- ブリックリン氏は、この状態を「ダンサーではなく、ダンスそのもの」であると例え、ジェームズの「麻酔的啓示（anesthetic revelation）」（エーテルや亜酸化窒素からの覚醒時に起こる神秘体験）の考察にも通じていると指摘します。ジェームズ自身も、エーテルからの覚醒時に「一般的な存在の感覚」があり、その後に「それに付加的な何かとしての自己の感覚」が生まれると記しています。
- ブリックリン氏の体験による「過去と未来の景観の喪失」は、意識が「すでにそこにあり、発見されるのを待っている」という可能性を示唆しています。
- 一元論 vs. 多元論:
ブリックリン氏は、ジェームズが自由意志を固守するために「絶対的な一元論」に抵抗し、多元的な宇宙を主張したこと（『多元的宇宙論』）を認識しています。しかし、ブリックリン氏の体験は、存在の最も深いレベルでは、すべてが「時間、空間、自己、個人の意志の概念を超えた」一つの中心点で結合しているという一元論的な視点（分離の幻想の打破）を彼に提供しました。
- 彼の人生回顧がすべての苦痛を「贖罪された」ものとして見せたことは、ジェームズが「病める魂」に慰めを与える絶対的な価値を認めていたという点と共鳴します。
要するに、ブリックリン氏の1989年の神秘体験は、彼のその後の学術的キャリアの基礎を築き、自由意志、自己、時間の幻想というジェームズの 葛藤の中心的なテーマを、個人的な悟り（エンライトメント）の観点から解釈し、その隠された神秘主義的な側面を強調する動機となりました。
William James と一元/多元論
ウィリアム・ジェームズ（William James）と「分離の幻想」というより大きな文脈において、提示された情報源は、ジェームズが一元論（Monism）と多元論（Pluralism）の間で生涯にわたって抱えていた深い葛藤について詳しく述べています。
1. ジェームズの立場：多元論の擁護者としての側面
ジェームズは、彼のについて詳しく述べています。
1. ジェームズの立場：多元論の擁護者としての側面
ジェームズは、彼の人生哲学と自由意志の必要性から、絶対的な一元論に強く抵抗しました。
- 自由意志と多元的な宇宙: ジェームズは19世紀の科学的決定論（ニュートン的な決定論や唯物論）の産物であり、若き日に「自分の意志のひとかけらも自由ではない」という考えに囚われ、深い抑うつを経験しました。
- ルヌーヴィエによる救済: フランスの哲学者ルヌーヴィエ（Renuvier）の影響を受け、「自由意志を信じることこそが、自由意志による最初の行為である」と決意しました。この信念が彼を支え続け、彼は自由意志の擁護者と見なされています。
- 「多元的宇宙論（Pluralistic Universe）」の必要性: ジェームズは、自己を抑圧した一元論から彼を救うための「生命線」として、多元的な宇宙の存在を知る必要性を感じていました。彼は、絶対的な一元論者（ブラッドリー、ロイス 、ヘーゲルなどに影響を受けた人々）が主張する、すべてがすでに完璧で一つであり、私たちはその中を歩いているに過ぎないという考えを「完全に嫌悪」しました。
- 「熱意（zest）」の保持: ジェームズは絶対的な一元論について、「すべてを容認するが、何も決定しない」と述べ、この一元論が世界の恐ろしい出来事（悲劇や苦悩）を許容してしまう点を問題視しました。彼は多元論を主張することで、「熱意（zest）」や行動の重要性を保持しようとしました。
2. ジェームズの神秘的な洞察と一元論への傾倒
一方で、ブリックリン氏の分析は、ジェームズが哲学者・科学者・実用主義者としての立場とは裏腹に、より深いレベルで一元論的、神秘的な洞察を持っていたことを強調しています。
- 意識の非人称性（「it thinks」）: ジェームズは、意識の根源的な事実として「私が考える（I think）」ではなく、「それが考える（it thinks）」と述べており、この考えが、私たちを皮膚に囲まれたエゴ（自我）の外側にある、より大きな何か（一元的なもの）に結びつけている可能性を示唆しています。
- 純粋意識（Schistness）: ジェームズが提唱した「スキストネス」（Schistness）は、主客の二元性や自己意識を伴わない純粋意識の状態、つまり、分離が起きる以前の非二元的な状態を指します。ブリックリン氏らは、これが「自我は幻想である」というジェームズの神秘的な洞察を裏付けていると論じています。
- 麻酔的啓示（Anesthetic Revelation）: ジェームズ自身がエーテルや亜酸化窒素の経験から、意識が「存在一般の感覚」として立ち現れ、その後に「それに付加的な何かとしての自己の感覚」が生まれることを知っていました。この根源的な存在（Ground of Being）の感覚は、すべてが一元的に結合しているという考え方を支持しています。
- 予知（Precognition）の問題: ジェームズは、自由意志の存在を脅かす「予知（precognition）」という超常現象を扱うことを避け続けていましたが、晩年になってこの問題に直面せざるを得なくなりました。彼は、予知が示唆する「未来が固定されている」という考えが、一元的な宇宙観につながることを知っていたからです。
- ジェームズが最終的に発した問いは、「ホール氏が経験している意識は、すでにそこにあり、覆われるのを待っているのか、そしてそれは現実の真実の啓示なのか」というものであり、これは意識の究極的な一元性（時間や自由意志を超越した「一なるもの」）を肯定的に問いかけるものでした。
3. 一元論/多元論の調和の試み
情報源は、究極的にはジェームズが一元論と多元論を完全に調和させることに苦闘したことを示しつつも、ブリックリン氏がその調和の枠組みを提示しています。
- 中心点としての「一なるもの」: ブリックリン氏は、ジェームズが提唱した「風配図（wind rose）」のイメージ（コンパスの中心から放射状に伸びる線）や、パルメニデスの「中心点から等しく配置された球体」のイメージを利用し、すべては中心点（源/シンギュラリティ）で結合しているという一元論的な見解を提示しています。
- この「一なるもの」（センターポイント）は、時間と空間の外側、自我や個人的な意志の概念を超えた、私たちの最も深遠な現実であると説明されています。
- この中心点（神）から見れば、すべてが等しい価値を持ち、すべてがこの球体（宇宙）を創り出すために結合しているとされます。
- リーラ（Lila）としての多元論: ジェームズは、一元論（絶対的なもの）が世界の苦悩や悪を容認してしまう点に抵抗しました。ブリックリン氏は、この多元的な世界と苦悩を説明するために、東洋思想の「リーラ（Lila）」、すなわち「宇宙的な遊び」の概念を導入しています。
- 現実の深いレベルでは「すべてが神である」一元的な実在が存在する一方で、夢のリアリティのように、経験的には多元的な世界が展開されているという考えです。神がチェスをするとき、より楽しむためには、相手が本当に「他者」であるように思わせる方が良い（自由意志があると思わせる方が良い）というように、多元性は「遊び」の一部である可能性があります。
したがって、情報源は、ウィリアム・ジェームズが学問的・倫理的な理由から多元論を堅持したのに対し、彼の深い神秘的洞察が、最終的には自己、意志、時間が幻想に過ぎないという、究極的な一元論を示唆していたという二面性を描き出しています。ブリックリン氏は、彼の神秘体験を背景に、ジェームズが抵抗した一元論を、彼自身の「純粋意識（Schistness）」や意識の非人称性に関する初期の洞察に遡って掘り起こしているのです。
自由意志、自己、時間の幻想
これは、ウィリアム・ジェームズ（William James）と「分離の幻想」という文脈において、自由意志、自己（Self）、時間が究極的には幻想（Illusion）であるという概念について、ソースが何を述べているかを包括的に説明します。
この議論は主にが究極的には幻想（Illusion）であるという概念について、ソースが何を述べているかを包括的に説明します。
この議論は主に、ジェームズが哲学的な信念と実用主義的な要請から「多元論」を擁護した一方で、彼の深い「神秘的洞察」がそれらの概念の非実在性（幻想）を示唆していたというジェームズの葛藤を中心に展開されます。
1. 自由意志の幻想（Illusion of Will）
ウィリアム・ジェームズは、彼の人生において自由意志の概念を擁護することに努めましたが、ブリックリン氏はジェームズの著作と自身の神秘体験に基づいて、自由意志は幻想であるという見解を強調しています。
A. ジェ ームズの自由意志に対する葛藤
- 決定論からの脱却: ジェームズは19世紀の科学的唯物論（ニュートン的決定論）に強く影響を受け、若き日に「自分の意志のひとかけらも自由ではない」という考えに囚われ、深い抑うつに苦しみました。
- 自由意志への信念: 彼はフランスの哲学者ルヌーヴィエ（Renuvier）の影響を受け、「自由意志を信じることこそが、自由意志による最初の行為である」と決意し、この信念が彼を支え、彼は自由意志の擁護者と見なされました。
B. 自由意志の非実在性を示すジェームズの洞察
- 意志の心理学の欠陥: ジェームズは、意志の心理学（psychology of volition）のデータ全体が、自由意志の非実在性を示しているとブリックリン氏は指摘します。
- 「努力」の錯覚: 彼は「努力（effort）」の感覚について深く分析し、努力が結果のためのエネルギーを生み出すという証拠となる実験は見つからない、あるいは見つからないだろうと述べまし た。
- ジェームズによれば、思考は即座に衝動的であり、ある思考がブロックされなければ、その思考が実現します。私たちは、行動しようとする「遠心性（efferent）」の思考と、入ってくる情報（抵抗感や困難さ）の「求心性（afferent）」の感覚を混同し、「努力」という錯覚を生み出しています。
- 非人称的な意識（"It thinks"）: ジェームズは、意識の根源的な事実として「私が考える（I think）」ではなく、「それが考える（it thinks）」と述べました。
- この「それが考える」という非人称的なプロセスは、私たちの「皮膚に囲まれたエゴ」の外側にある、より大きな何か（自由意志を超越した何か）から思考が湧き出ている可能性を示唆しています。ブリックリン氏は、自身の神秘体験で、思考が「自分自身の内側から来ているようには感じられない」と感じ、この概念を裏付けました。
- 予知（Precognition）: ジェームズは、予知（未来が固定されていること）が自由意志の存在を脅かすため、その現象に取り組むことを避け続けていましたが、晩年になって予知の経験に直面しました。彼の最終的な問いは、「ホール氏が経験している意識は、すでにそこにあり、発見されるのを待っているのか」というものであり、これは未来が固定された一元的なリアリティ、すなわち自由意志が幻想である世界を示唆しています。
2. 自己の幻想（Illusion of Self）
情報源は、ジェームズの神秘的な自己が、自己（Self）そのものが幻想であると理解していたと示唆しています。
- スキストネス（Schistness）: ブリックリン氏は、ジェームズが提唱した「スキストネス」（Schistness）の概念を、自己の幻想を解明する鍵としています。
- スキストネスとは、「自己意識のない意識」（consciousness without consciousness of self）であり、主客の二元性が生まれる前の純粋意識の状態です。
- これは、ジェームズが経験した麻酔的啓示（Anesthetic Revelation）（エーテルや亜酸化窒素からの覚醒時の神秘体験）の考察から来ており、彼は意識がまず「存在一般の感覚」として立ち現れ、その後に「それに付加的な何かとしての自己の感覚」が生まれると述べています。
- 自己は「追加されたもの」: この洞察は、自己意識や主客の二元性という「枠組みが付け加えられている」のであって、それが経験から蒸留されたものではない、という考え方を支持しています。
- 「ダンサーではなく、ダンスそのもの」: 自己が幻想である状態は、「あなたはもはやダンサーではなく、ダンスそのものである」というフレーズで表現されます。
- 反響（Reverberation）として の自己: ジェームズもアラン・ワッツも、自己の感覚を「反響（reverberation）」、あるいは「2拍目（second beat）」と表現しました。これは、過去と未来の間で響き合うものであり、収縮の感覚（sense of contraction）です。ブリックリン氏の神秘体験では、過去と未来の展望を失ったとき、この「反響としてのI」が失われました。
3. 時間の幻想（Illusion of Time）
ジェームズの神秘的な側面は、時間が究極的な実在ではないという見解も支持しています。
A. 神秘体験における時間の消失
- 「正確な地平線の瞬間」: ブリックリン氏の神秘体験の最も異例な側面の一つは、「正確な地平線の瞬間（exact horizon moment）」に押し込められたことです。
- 過去と未来の景観の喪失: 彼は過去と未来の景観を失い、「この瞬間、間隔（gap）、この瞬間」の連続として生きることを余儀なくされました。
- これは「測り知れないエクスタシー」であり、クリシュナムルティが言う「思考の間の間隔 」、あるいはチベット仏教の「バルド（Bardo）」（死後の状態だけでなく、思考間のギャップ） と関連付けられています。
- この体験は、通常の「意識の流れ（stream of consciousness）」—過去が遠ざかり、未来が近づくという錯覚—が存在しない状態、すなわち純粋意識の状態を示しています。
B. ジェームズの時間の概念とブロック宇宙論
- 意識は「すでにそこにある」: ジェームズが予知の問題に取り組んだ際、彼は「ホール氏が経験している意識は、すでにそこにあり、発見されるのを待っているのか」と問いかけました。これは、意識や世界が時間的な流れの中で創造されているのではなく、時間の外側で全体として存在しているという考え方（ブロック宇宙論）を支持します。
- アインシュタインとパラメニデス: アインシュタインは、一般に「過去、現在、未来の分離は、いかに頑固であっても幻想である」と述べたとされており、この考え方は、ジェームズが「鉄のブロック（iron block）」と名付けたブロック宇宙（Block Universe）の概念につながります。
- ブロック宇宙論とは、「神の視点から見れば、宇宙の始まりから終わりまでの歴史のすべてを一 度に見る」という考え方であり、時間の非実在性を強く示唆しています。
- 中心点としての時間外の自己: 自由意志、自己、時間が幻想であるという究極のリアリティは、時間、空間、自己、個人の意志の概念を超えた「中心点」（シンギュラリティ、ソース、神）として表現されます。ジェームズの「風配図」（wind rose）のイメージのように、すべての瞬間は中心点への関係によって結びついており、この中心点こそが私たちの最も深遠な実在であるとされます。
James と非二元（一元論的）洞察
ウィリアム・ジェームズと「分離の幻想」というより大きな文脈において、提示されたソースは、ジェームズが公的な哲学者・科学者として擁護した多元論的立場の裏側で、彼が非二元（一元論的）洞察、すなわち「分離の幻想」が打破された状態、を深く理解し、それらの洞察を彼の意識研究の中心に据えていたことを説明しています。
ジョナサン・ブリックリン氏は、ジェームズを「啓蒙への不本意なガイド（Reluctant Guide to Enlightenment）」と呼び、ジェームズが自由意志の必要性から一元論に抵抗したものの、彼の意識に関する初期の発見は、非二元的な真実を示唆していたと主張しています。
1. 「分離の幻想」の打破としての非二元（一元論的）洞察
非二元的な洞察とは、主客の二元性、自己、時間、そして自由意志といった概念的な分離が究極的には幻想であると理解される状態です。
- 究極的な自己の認識: ブリックリン氏とミシュラヴ氏は、私たち（人間や他のすべての知覚を持つ生物）が中心点（the center point）で結合しているという究極的な現実に到達すると述べています。これは「時間、空間の外側、自己や個人的な意志の概念を遥かに超えた」レベルであり、私たちの最も深遠な実在です。
- 一元性（The One）: ジェームズ自身が、究極的な達成の普遍的な概念として、神秘家たちが述べる「絶対者と一体であり、その一体性を認識している」という言葉を引用しています。彼はこの東洋の概念を「Tat Tvam Asi（それ、汝なり）」として認識しており、これは信条や気候に左右されない普遍的な考えであるとしています。
2. ジェームズの意識研究における非二元性
ジェームズが公然と一元論を支持しなかったにもかかわらず、彼の心理学における最も重要な概念は非二元的な洞察を指し示していました。
A. スキストネス（Schistness：純粋意識）
ブリックリン氏によれば、ジェームズが『心理学原理』で導入した「スキストネス」の概念は、非二元性の核心を捉えています。
- 自己意識のない意識: スキストネスとは「自己意識を伴わない意識（consciousness without consciousness of self）」を意味し、主客の二元性が生まれる前の状態です。
- フレームワークの付加: これは、主客が経験から「蒸留」されたものではなく、「主観と客観というフレームワークが付け加えられている」という考えを支持します。
- 「付加的な何かとしての自己の感覚」: ジェームズ自身がエーテルや亜酸化窒素の経験（麻酔的啓示）から、意識がまず「存在一般の感覚（sense of existence in general）」として現れ、その後に「それに付加的な何かとしての自己の感覚」が生まれることを述べています。この根源的な存在（Ground of Being）こそが、分離する前の非二元的な状態を示唆しています。
B. 意識の非人称性（「It thinks」）
ジェームズは、意識の根源的な事実として「私が考える（I think）」ではなく、「それが考える（it thinks）」と述べました。
- 最小限の前提: ジェームズは、「雨が降る（it reigns）」と言うのと同じように「それが考える」と言えれば、最小限の前提で話していることになると述べています。
- エゴを超えた源泉: この非人称的なプロセスは、私たちの「皮膚に囲まれたエゴ」を超えた、より大きな何か（一元的な源泉）から思考が湧き出ている可能性 を示唆しています。ブリックリン氏も自身の神秘体験において、思考が「自分自身の内側から来ているようには感じられない」と感じたことを共有しています。
3. 一元論/多元論の葛藤と調和の試み
ジェームズの非二元的な洞察は深かったものの、彼は自由意志と「熱意（zest）」を保持するために、終生にわたり絶対的な一元論に抵抗しました。
- ジェームズの抵抗: ジェームズは、絶対的一元論が「すべてを容認するが、何も決定しない」と述べ、世界の恐ろしい出来事（ホロコーストのような悲劇）までを許容してしまう点に「完全に嫌悪」を感じました。彼は多元論的な宇宙こそが「生命線」だと感じていました。
- 予知の示唆: ジェームズは晩年、自由意志を脅かす予知の現象に取り組まざるを得なくなりました。彼は、予知が示唆する「未来が固定されている」という考えが、すべてがすでに存在する一元的な宇宙観（ブロック宇宙論）につながることを知っていたのです。
- 中心点（センターポイント）のイメージ: ジェームズは『多元的宇宙論』の中で、私たちが「単に中心的な自己の縁（margin of some more merely central self）」である可能性について言及し、「羅針盤の風配図（wind rose in a compass）」のようなイメージを用いています。この中心点（シンギュラリティ/源）は、私たちが究極的には分離しておらず、すべてが「時間、空間、自己、個人の意志の概念を超えた」中心で結合しているという非二元的な構造を提供します。
4. リーラ（Lila）による調和
ブリックリン氏は、ジェームズが一元論に対して抱いていた倫理的な異論（なぜ苦悩が存在するのか）を解決するために、東洋思想の「リーラ（Lila）」、すなわち「宇宙的な遊び（Cosmic Play）」の概念を導入しています。
- ブラフマンの夢: 現実の最も深いレベルではすべてが一つである（一元論）にもかかわらず、なぜ経験的な分離（多元論）が生じるのか。それは、私たちが「ブラフマンの夢」の中にいるからかもしれません。
- 遊びとしての多元性: 夢の中の出来事が現実であるかのように感じられるように、経験的には多様で多元的であり（ジェームズが擁護した「熱意」と「多様性」の領域）、しかし究極的な実在においてはすべてが一つの意識の側面である（非二元性）と考えることで、ジェームズの葛藤を乗り越えることができます。神がチェスをするとき、ゲームをより面白くするために、相手が 本当に「他者」であるかのように（自由意志を持っているかのように）思わせる方が良い、ということが示唆されています。
したがって、ソースは、ジェームズの非二元的な洞察が、彼の深層意識と神秘体験を通じて得られた「自己意識を伴わない純粋意識」の状態（スキストネス）に根ざしており、自由意志、自己、時間が幻想であるという結論に導くものだった、と説明しています。しかし、彼は実用主義的な理由から、その一元論的な結論を公に強く主張することをためらっていたのです。
James と神の概念
ウィリアム・ジェームズと「分離の幻想」というより大きな文脈において、提示されたソースは、ジェームズが神（God）という概念に対して、個人的・宗教的な必要性と哲学的・実用主義的な懐疑の間で複雑な立場をとっていたことを示しています。
ジェームズが公に絶対的な一元論（すべてが神であるという概念）に抵抗した一方で、彼の神秘的な洞察と意識研究は、神が世界の根源（Ground of Being）であり、すべての存在が一つに統合されているという非二元的な概念に深く共鳴していました。
1. 「神」の概念に対するジェームズの葛藤
ジェームズは、自由意志と多元的な宇宙の必要性から、伝統的あるいは哲学的な絶対的な神の概念に抵抗しました。
- 決定論からの救済としての多元論: ジェームズは若き日に、科学的決定論に基づく「一元論」（すべてが物質的に決定されているという考え）に深く抑圧され、苦悩しました。フランスの哲学者ルヌーヴィエの影響で自由意志を信じる決意をした彼は、この決定論的な一元論から彼を救うための「生命線」として多元的な宇宙を必要としました。
- 絶対的な一元論への嫌悪: ジェームズは、ブラッドリーやロイスといった絶対的な一元論者たちが主張する、「すべてがすでに完璧で一つであり、私たちはその中を歩いているに過ぎない」という考えを「完全に嫌悪」しました。
- 世界の悪と苦悩の問題: ジェームズは、絶対的な一元論が「すべてを容認するが、何も決定しない」と述べ、ホロコーストのような世界の悲劇や苦悩を許容してしまうという倫理的な問題点に抵抗しました。彼は、この絶対的なものが「病める魂」に慰めを与える大きな価値は認めていましたが、現実世界における活動の「熱意（zest）」を奪うことを恐れました。
- 世界の中の神（God in the world）: 最終的にジェームズは、「私たちと共に戦う、世界の中の神（God in the world, fighting with us）」という考えを提唱しました。これは、世界の外側にいて関与しない神ではなく、私たちの努力や選択に関わる神の概念です。
2. ジェームズの非二元的な洞察と神の根源（Ground of Being）
ジェームズの意識研究や神秘的な関心は、彼が公的に避けた一元的な神の概念に強く結びついていました。
- 意識の非人称性（"It thinks"）: ジェームズは、意識の根源的な事実として「それが考える（it thinks）」と述べました。これは、「私が考える」という皮膚に囲まれたエゴ（自我）を超えた、「より大きな何か」がアクセスされている可能性を示唆しています。この非人称的な源泉は、自己や自由意志の幻想を超えた、存在の根源（God）に近い概念です。
- 麻酔的啓示と存在の根源（Ground of Being）:
ジェームズは、エーテルや亜酸化窒素からの覚醒時に起こる「麻酔的啓示（anesthetic revelation）」について深く考察しました。彼は、意識がまず「存在一般の感覚（sense of existence in general）」として現れ、その後に「それに付加的な何かとしての自己の感覚」が生まれることを発見しました。
- この「存在一般の感覚」は、パウル・ティリッヒの「神の上にある神（The God Above God）」、すなわち存在の根源（The Ground of Being）と呼ばれるものにアクセスしていると解釈されています。これは、分離（subject-object）が生じる以前の非二元的な統一状態です。
- タット・ヴァム・アシ（Tat Tvam Asi）: ジェームズは、神秘的な達成の究極の概念として、東洋哲学の「Tat Tvam Asi」（それ、汝なり）を引用し、「絶対者と一体であり、その一体性を認識している」という普遍的な考え方を認識していました。この概念は、信条や気候に関係なく見られる「究極的な達成」の普遍性を示すものです。
- 中心点としての神（The Center Point）:
ブリックリン氏は、ジェームズの「風配図（wind rose）」のイメージ を利用し、究極の非二元的な実在を中心点（Center Point）として説明します。
- 神が中心点であると見なす場合、その中心点から見れば、すべてが等しい価値を持ち、すべてがこの宇宙（球体）を創り出すために結合していることになります。
- 古代ギリシャの哲学者クセノファネス（Xenophanes）も、「神は全体である。彼は全体として聞き、全体として考え、全体として見る。そして彼は動かない」と述べており、不動の動者（Unmoved Mover）としての神の概念（すべての源）は、ジェームズの洞察と共鳴します。
3. 神と一元性の調和（リーラ）
ジェームズが抱えた「神（絶対者）がなぜ苦悩を許すのか」という矛盾を説明するために、東洋思想のリーラ（Lila）、すなわち「宇宙的な遊び（Cosmic Play）」の概念が導入されています。
- ブラフマンの夢: 究極的な現実（神）においてはすべてが一つですが、苦悩や多元性がなぜ存在するのか。これは、すべてが「ブラフマンの夢」の中にあるからかもしれません。夢の中では、現実と同じように物事がリアルに感じられ、多様で多元的な世界が経験されますが、究極的にはすべてが一つの意識の側面（神）であるという考え方です。
- チェス の比喩: 神が自分自身とチェスをする場合、「相手が本当に他者であるかのように（自由意志を持っているかのように）思わせる方が、より楽しいゲームになる」かもしれません。したがって、神の「遊び」の一環として、分離の幻想や自由意志の感覚が与えられている可能性があります。
結論として、ソースは、ウィリアム・ジェームズが「神」の概念を、自己や自由意志を脅かす決定論的な一元論として拒否したものの、彼の意識の深奥（スキストネスや麻酔的啓示）から得られた洞察は、自己意識を超越した普遍的な意識（存在の根源、非二元的な一なるもの）としての神の概念に強く傾倒していたことを示唆しています。
自由意志のパラドックス
ウィリアム・ジェームズと「分離の幻想」というより大きな文脈において、提示された情報源は、ジェームズが生涯を通じて取り組んだ自由意志のパラドックス、すなわち、自由意志が必須であるという実用主義的信念と、自由意志が幻想であるという深遠な神秘的洞察との間の根本的な矛盾を説明しています。
ジェームズのキャリアと個人の苦闘は、このパラドックスを理解するための土台となっています。
1. 自由意志を信じることの必要性（実用主義的・倫理的テーゼ）
ジェームズは、自由意志がなければ実生活で行動し、倫理的な「熱意（zest）」を保つことができないと考えていたため、自由意志を強く擁護しました。
- 決定論からの脱却: ジェームズは19世紀の科学的唯物論と決定論の産物でした。若き頃、彼は「私の意志のひとかけらも自由ではない」という考えに囚われ、深い抑うつ状態に陥りました（「彼を病気にさせた」）。
- ルヌーヴィエによる救済: フランスの哲学者ルヌーヴィエ（Renuvier）に導かれ、ジェームズは「私の自由意志による最初の行為 は、自由意志を信じることである」と決意しました。この信念が彼を支え、彼は生涯にわたって自由意志の「擁護者」と見なされました。
- 多元論の「生命線」: 彼は、すべてがすでに完成しているとする絶対的な一元論（ブラッドリーやロイスの影響を受けたもの）を「完全に嫌悪」しました。彼にとって、多元的な宇宙の存在を知ることは、彼を抑圧した一元論から救い出すための「生命線」であり、人生における「熱意」や選択の重要性を維持するために不可欠でした。
2. 自由意志の非実在性を示すジェームズの洞察（神秘的・心理学的アンチテーゼ）
しかし、ブリックリン氏の分析が強調するのは、ジェームズが哲学者・科学者として擁護した自由意志が、彼自身の意識に関する深い研究と神秘的な洞察によって否定されていたという点です。
A. 意志と努力の幻想
ジェームズの意 志の心理学（psychology of volition）のデータは、自由意志の非実在性を裏付けているとされます。
- 努力の錯覚: ジェームズは、人が行動を起こす際の「努力（effort）」の感覚を分析し、努力が実際に結果のためのエネルギーを生み出すことを示す「実験は見つからないだろう」と述べました。彼は、私たちが「努力」として感じるものは、入ってくる情報（抵抗感や困難さ）を示す「求心性（afferent）」の感覚と、行動を起こそうとする思考の「遠心性（efferent）」の感覚を混同していることによって生じる評価の矛盾であると論じました。
- 「それが考える」（It thinks）: ジェームズは、意識の根源的な事実として「私が考える（I think）」ではなく、「それが考える（it thinks）」と述べています。これは、思考や行動の源が、私たちの「皮膚に囲まれたエゴ」を超えた、より大きな非人称的なプロセスであることを示唆しており、個人の自由意志の役割を否定します。
B. 予知現象による決定論の示唆
自由意志のパラドックスを最も明確に突きつけたのが、ジェームズが晩年まで避けていた予知（precognition）という超常現象でした。
- 未来の固定化: 予知は、「未来が固定されている」ことを示唆するため、自由意志の現実性にとって最大の脅威となります。
- 意識の既知性: ジェームズは、通信相手フレデリック・ホールの予知体験を受けて、この問題に最終的に向き合いました。彼は、この現象を、ホールが経験している意識が「すでにそこにあり、発見されるのを待っているのか」という強力な問いかけとしてまとめました。
- ブロック宇宙論: この問いは、時間的な流れの中で創造されているのではなく、過去、現在、未来のすべてが一度に存在するという一元論的な「ブロック宇宙（Block Universe）」の概念と強く共鳴します。この時間外のリアリティが存在するならば、行動の選択の自由意志は幻想となります。
3. パラドックスの調和の試み
このパラドックスに対する解決策として、いくつかの見解が提示されています。
- 時間的なアプローチ: あるグルは、「来る瞬間のことは自由意志があるかのように扱い、過ぎ去った瞬間のことは自由意志がなかったかのように扱え」という方法を提示しました。これは、実用的な行動の必要性（来る瞬間）と、世界の決定的な性質（過ぎ去った瞬間）を両立させる方法です。
- 宇宙的な遊び（ リーラ）: ブリックリン氏は、ジェームズが擁護した多元性（自由意志）と、彼の洞察が示唆した一元性（非実在性）を調和させるために、「リーラ（Lila）」、すなわち「宇宙的な遊び」の概念を導入します。
- 究極的にはすべてが一元的な神（センターポイント）ですが、神が自分自身とチェスをする場合、「相手が本当に他者であるかのように思わせる方が、より楽しいゲームになる」かもしれません。
- したがって、自由意志の感覚や多元的な世界は、「遊び」の一部として経験的に提供されているのであり、究極の実在が非二元的であっても、経験レベルでの自由意志の「幻想」は維持されるという解釈です。
要約すると、自由意志のパラドックスとは、倫理的行動のために自由意志の存在を「信じる」必要性と、意識の根源的な性質が自由意志の非実在性を「示している」という証拠の間で、ウィリアム・ジェームズが陥った、逃れられない対立構造を指しています。
情報源
動画(2:02:33)
The Illusion of Separation with Jonathan Bricklin
文字起こし（話者識別）
展開
（以下は、"The Illusion of Separation with Jonathan Bricklin" と題されたインタビュー動画の文字起こしです。）
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Hello and welcome. I'm Jeffrey Mishlove. Today we'll be exploring the illusion of separation. My guest is Jonathan Bricklin, former program director, a former program director at the New York Open Center. He is the author of many academic papers based on the life and work of the great psychologist and philosopher William James. He is also the author of The Illusion of Will, Self, and Time, William James' Reluctant Guide to Enlightenment, as well as another book about William James' philosophy of consciousness called Schistness. Jonathan lives in New York City, but he's here with me today in Albuquerque. Welcome, Jonathan. (00:02:57)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Thank you, Jeffrey. It's just a joy to be in this enchanting home. (00:03:01)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, it's a real pleasure to have you here as a guest. It's been a special time, I think, for the two of us together. We seem to have things in common that go well beyond the superficial, existential realities of three-dimensional life. (00:03:21)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Well, I would like to say at the outset that your book, Roots of Consciousness, in its 50th year this year, was a lifeline to me when I had an intense experience that I did have that set everything off. (00:03:36)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, let's talk about that experience. As I recall, it was in 1989. You were 35 years old. (00:03:44)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yes, true, which Richard Buck, Cosmic Consciousness, says that's a typical year for a kind of mystical experience, an awakening. So, I wasn't aware of that at the time. So, I had an Alexander teacher, you know, Alexander, and it's kind of like learning how to give a massage to yourself. But at some point she thought, no, I needed more than that. She sent me on a meditation. (00:04:10)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : What kind of a person were you at that time, prior to your experience? How would you define yourself? (00:04:18)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Confused. I had a very erratic trajectory. Didn't know where I was really going. I had started at Northwestern as an acting major. I saw a play by Shaw, Man and Superman, and like overnight, was more interested in what to say than how to say it. Shaw just totally rocked my world. I became a philosophy student. When I graduated, then I had to earn a living, so I went back to acting. Did that for years. (00:04:53)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : I found a temporary job, a weekend job, and a law firm. It allowed me to have five days to myself. But I didn't really know what to do with myself. But what I had a passion for was Greek. Maybe being first an acting major, then a philosophy major, kind of brings Greek culture to mind, right? Because that's vital to the both. But I was drifting, and I had aspirations besides acting. I started to do some screenwriting possibilities with somebody, and we started that. (00:05:28)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And by age 35, I was still not sure where I wanted to go with my life. So I had pretty much general confusion, I would say. So my Alexander teacher recommended that I go on a meditation retreat, and I'd never done meditation before. So I went to Insight Meditation Society in Bari, and they gave me a form that said, what do you expect to get from this retreat? I said, beginner's luck. So, I guess that's what I got, and more. (00:06:04)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So the first night of the retreat, it was run by Christopher Titmuss, an author and one of the organizers of IMS originally, and Henrietta Rogel, now known as Sharda. And Christopher had a distinctive teaching. He would have us sit facing each other in the Dharma Hall, on either side of the hall, and if you had a problem, you just spoke it out, and then Christopher would guide you by inquiry, until you said, thank you, like, okay, that's all I can take, or whatever. So the first question was asked, and the person raised a problem, and Christopher, by inquiry, led her to see that, well, her problem was something she was holding on that was no longer true. (00:06:52)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And I thought, well, that was well done, that was impressive. Then the second person spoke and had a problem that was a little more, it was deeper, and I thought, well, it's going to be harder for him to work his method with that, but sure enough, he did it, and I thought, wow. And by the third one, I thought, oh, I get it. All our problems are what we're holding on to. Something isn't what we think is. (00:07:19)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And basically, it's like 90% of what I've gotten out of Buddhism and meditation, I learned in, like, those 10 minutes. As for meditation itself, my teacher had given me bad, my Alexander teacher had given me bad advice. She said, if you're feeling pain, just move. Yeah, but that doesn't really work. (00:07:43)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Because if you're moving and fidgeting, you're not meditating. The stillness is really important. But by the third day, when I felt a pain in my knee, instead of moving out of it, I concentrated on it, on the pain itself. (00:08:03)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Now, concentration is not a word they use in meditation. They bring your awareness to it. It's a more passive thing. There's something too self and effortful about concentrating. But I did concentrate on the pain. And when I did, after a minute or two, I guess it anchored me. By concentrating on the pain, it anchored the rest of me in the present moment. And these waves of bliss just came over me. Just ecstatic feelings of love and connection with everything. (00:08:42)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : They do a meditation, you know this, right? On these meditation retreats, where you're supposed to send love to people, relatives, people you don't like even. And I was like, with that meditation, I was like, Well, yeah, I'll send it to them, but they've got to tweak this a little bit. Come on, right? But in this state, you just feel love and connection with everything. You're just radiating it. (00:09:09)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So I'm in this sort of blissful state, and it just went on and on. That late afternoon, I had every day, it's not like you have to be silent every day, because every other day, you get to meet, you get to talk about what you're experiencing. So that was my day. I went with my group. I was the last one to speak. And I'm still feeling this blissful. And I don't know, maybe because I'm Jewish, and we have a kind of ethical sense of how we're supposed to be in this world or something. (00:09:42)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : The bliss was a problem for me. Here I am. So I say to the teacher, I say, OK, I'm feeling all this bliss, but what do you do with it? What do you do with it? She looks me right in the eye and she says, Well, maybe you just do nothing. Then she leaves. And I sit there. And I start shaking. I'm shaking like this. (00:10:18)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : I think it's like a panic attack. I've had one in my life before, and it felt like that. But because I'd been doing three days of bare awareness training, I was letting it be. Not trying to shut it down. And that was its own kind of ecstasy. That was kind of cool. And then I noticed, I don't know if I can stand up here, that when I walked, because they also do a walking meditation, instead of watching my foot so carefully come to the ground, like NASA watching a space shuttle land, it was like, boom. Foot there, attention there. (00:10:58)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It's like, so, boom, boom. Right there, right there, right there in the moment. So, that was an experience. Later there was a full eclipse of the moon, which I share because maybe it's the yin, some of that light got into me, I don't know what. But what happened, this would be now on the last night of the retreat, Henrietta gave a talk about opening up to pain. She said, often we hide what we're feeling. (00:11:32)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : We're feeling something, but we don't express it, we just let things go by. Somehow that opened up again something in me. It wasn't my night to talk, but I went up to her and I said, Henrietta, I just started talking and blah, blah, blah, talking about something. And she said, what are you feeling? I said, I feel... (00:11:54)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And she says, no, no, what are you feeling? I said, pain right here, right in this area. And as soon as I said that, I started shaking again. And again, this kind of... And she said, okay, let's go take a walk. So she takes me 50 yards, sits me under a tree, and says, I'll come back. (00:12:20)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : There's three bizarre aspects of what I'm about to share. This is the first. I'm sitting there, shaking a little bit, when suddenly, sort of, this finger meets this. I'm almost putting music to it, like... But it wasn't that. But the point is, I wasn't doing this. And I did not know the word mudra. Okay. So, finger touches finger like this, like I guess a closed circuit. And then, this energy... (00:12:51)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Courses through me. Like I'm burning a hole in the ground. All through this connecting point. Like this. I don't know how long it went on. Minutes for sure. She comes back. First thing I notice is, I can look her right in the eye. I had always been more of... kind of, one of those kind of people. You know, not able to really just be there with somebody. Take their eyes. (00:13:18)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Let your incredible eyes in. (00:13:20)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : But, I did do that. And, you know, just things calmed down. (00:13:29)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : I just went on. That night, an ex-Dharma student had come back. And it's a strange thing. He was showing a slideshow. He showed a picture of like a burned out village in Central America by terrorists. I think there had been a Buddhist school or something. I share this because now comes to the most important part of the story. Or the most dramatic point. The next morning, I had missed my meditation for the first time. I had been very regular about it. (00:13:59)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And I'm sitting in bed, up in bed. (00:14:02)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And suddenly this energy... that energy comes over me, right? And... (00:14:09)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : my arms are out now. And it's like the ecstasy is so extreme, but the energy is so taking me over. I'm thinking to myself, okay, swing low, sweet charity. I actually use that phrase. Like, I'm out of here. And what a way to go and all of that. (00:14:25)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : When I had in my mind the thought of that burned out village, and I went suffering... out loud. And then... I'm like, it's almost like I'm... (00:14:39)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : I know this is a strange story. I'm almost like lifted up, back, straight. And here's the weirdest part. In the window, out the window, in the clouds. Huge, like a giant driving movie screen. I saw a scene of pain or confusion from my life. Followed instantly by a scene that made sense of it. Redeemed it. Showed me what I had learned from it. And when I say seen, I mean felt it. Like, lived it again. (00:15:12)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And then, the resolution. Boom, another scene. Boom, boom, boom. Basically, my life was passing before my eyes. But in pairs. And I also remember, I can't remember a single one of them in detail. I do remember that they were all like black and white. Which is strange, because I dream in color. But that was it. My life review. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Everything I thought I was trying to avoid at the time, and was painful for me. Something I grew from. (00:15:42)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Now, we all know we learn from mistakes, and that are all good. But to have your whole life pass through your eye, and pass before yourself like that, is, you know, wow. As someone once pointed out to me, usually in a life review, you see the pain you've caused others. (00:15:57)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : This wasn't that. It was my own pain, showing how I was redeemed. So, (00:16:04)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : my instant mood coming out of that, I always compare it to Alistair Sim in The Christmas Carol. Where after his third dream, he's so excited and joyful, he's like renewed, and get the turkey for Tiny Tim, and all of that. That was my mood. It was like, oh my god, it was as if all my burdens were lifted all at once. Because it was like, wait a minute. I'm trying to steer myself in a certain way. (00:16:38)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : This, trying to avoid all my life is about trying to avoid this pain, trying to avoid that pain. And here I am, it's like, everything's just okay as it is. (00:16:48)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Everything I thought I needed to avoid brought me something. Wow. (00:16:54)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So, and then, here's the third most unusual part of it. I started to be squeezed into the exact horizon moment. And by this, I mean I lost the landscape of the past and the future. The I reverberates as. And I literally mean this. There was no vision of, no, not a single image related to the past, nothing related to the future, nowhere to go. Just this moment, gap, this moment. So like each moment arrived as if between a gap. (00:17:36)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : You know, Basho, who you know, he spent two years in a Zen monastery. He tried to explain what that experience was like. And he kind of created haiku. (00:17:48)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Old pond, frog jumps in, sound of the water, the gap in between each moment. That's what I, that's what I was living. And it was a tremendous ecstasy, moment by moment. (00:18:03)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : The energy in my forehead, and there's a picture actually. You can see me like a week after, but there's an energy in my forehead. I had no energy in my forehead. It like had relaxed into folds. I had no energy in my genitals. And I was on fire everywhere else. And when I went to sleep at night, I guess I had nothing to process of the day because there was just each moment. And then instant by instant, I seemed to have nothing to process because I slept. (00:18:37)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It felt like total sleep, except I was aware. I was awake for it, aware of it. It's like just black, black, black, black. And I knew I had something to teach from this. (00:18:52)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : There's something to share. (00:18:54)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : But the only thing I could come up with was whatever is, is. The bliss of when you don't have the eye to reverberate as, right? Which, I mean, the eye is that reverberation between past and future. When you don't have that, then like, where are these thoughts coming from? I mean, I had a friend who had died of AIDS a few months earlier. I was calling out to him. It's like, Arthur, are you sending me these thoughts? (00:19:23)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It's like, where are these thoughts coming from? You know, people, God, different people, different sense of who God is, and they'll say that or whatever. I'm just saying all of us are unified in the sense that it doesn't feel like it's coming from inside just me. Right? And there's a Taoist, we're wearing our Taoist pins, aren't we? There's the book of Balance and Harmony that says you should concentrate 24 hours a day throughout all your activity on inwardly searching for this. What is it that speaks, is silent, looks, and listens? (00:20:03)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Now, I think that question is not expected to get an answer anytime soon. Like, well, in the 12th hour I'll come up with... No. That's pointing to, to this. So, that became absolutely central to me, this idea of this gap between thoughts. Because you can play that out, as you know, we've been talking through different mystical traditions, and eventually, of course, through James. That's why I came to James. I needed to understand consciousness from the root, bottom up. (00:20:35)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right? And I began with him. And it was like falling down a rabbit hole, because James was open to so much. Psychical research and everything else. So, you know, I basically never left the James world. (00:20:49)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : You've become a William James scholar, essentially as a result of this kundalini, mystical, meditative experience. (00:20:59)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : My friend Peter Kingsley, who you've spoken about, he said to me, they told me, you can't be a mystic and an academic both. His reply was, he was an academic because he was a mystic. Because he too had profound experiences that hopefully he will share with you one day. (00:21:18)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Yeah, I hope so. (00:21:19)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yeah. So it's funny, you know, to think of myself as a James scholar. What I am is somebody who emphasizes a side of James that James on and off would emphasize. I mean, his sister said, his wonderful, brilliant sister Alice said, he's like a blob of mercury. You know, you put your finger down and he changes somewhere else. And he was, he had a very strong sense of religion. He keeps writing about the one and the many, the one and the many. (00:21:51)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And he tried to write the many and the one. That's for a whole nother reason that he was, there were things he liked about the one and the many. He got it, he got it supreme peace. But as, as you know, he had, and we've talked about it, he had a very special reason for making it. No, it's got to be the many and the one. We'll, we'll, we'll get the one in there, but don't take away my many. (00:22:13)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It's like a lifeline for me. I need to know there's a pluralistic universe. It kind of rescued him from a, from a deep depression. (00:22:24)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : He was a product of the 19th century. And the 19th century was known for Newtonian determinism up until the advent of quantum physics. (00:22:37)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Exactly. And he was caught up in this. Let's remember that, you know, he's born in 19, sorry, 1842. The word, the word scientist didn't come out until I believe it was 1833 or 7, 8, in the 1830s, the word comes out. So this whole idea of, of what it is to be a scientist, you know, not now just a chemist or you're just studying chemistry or physics or geology, and you're, you're all now one thing. You're now, you're now all scientists. (00:23:09)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And that becomes its own cult and religion, right, in its way. So one of these, a real Darwin exponent, Chauncey Wright, got James into the monism of, you know, material scientific determinism. You know, it's like Darwin, it's everything is, is, is materially determined. James bought into that when he was a young man, he was in his late 20s. (00:23:38)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And it made him sick. (00:23:39)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It made him sick. It got him, like, just, he spent a summer just on a hammock swinging to this tune, I'm just not a wiggle of my will is free. So he really bought into that sense of material scientific materialism. And then he was a medical, you know, he did get an MD, but he never, never practiced. (00:24:05)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, let's step back a little bit. Scientific materialism in the 19th century meant that every action had a cause, a scientific cause that could be determined. So there was no room whatsoever for free will. (00:24:21)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right. (00:24:22)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And James bought into that, although, of course, in normal, everyday conscious intuitions, we all believe that we have a measure of free will. (00:24:33)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : We feel like we do. Yeah. Right. But James so was burning that thought through his head, not a wiggle of my will is free, not a wiggle of my... And then he's working as a sort of like an intern. I don't know exactly, but you know, like he had to, to get his MD, he had to do a certain service in a hospital. In a mental hospital. And there was a patient who was, he had epilepsy, but he was in a catatonic state on a shelf. (00:25:01)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : James, and James used two images for him, like a Peruvian mummy, which they're like, you know, with their knees bent up or an Egyptian cat. You know, you think of those Egyptian sculptures, right? That stiffness and stillness. And he thought, that shape am I. So that really put him in this deep depression. But then he was reading this French philosopher, Renuvier, who sort of made it seem to him that, well, you know, you can, you're first reading him freedom up to say this. My first act of free will will be to believe in free will. (00:25:37)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Renuvier led him to that. And it kind of worked for him. From now on, he's going to just believe in it. And that belief sustained him. But it's important to know how much he needed to keep refueling that idea. Because even at the end of his life, when he published posthumously a book called Some Problems in Philosophy, he dedicated it to Renuvier for rescuing him from the monism that had so oppressed him as a youth. So he really took this very seriously, that you've got to have a sense of free will to be active in life. (00:26:23)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And he's considered a champion of free will. There's no question about that. And it was vitally important to him. So any other belief system that's about another kind of monism, an absolute monism, and they were all around. This time Bradley and his colleague Royce. And they're all kind of influenced by Hegel, and Hegel himself is influenced by Parmenides. So this sense that everything that ever was or will be is now one, and we're just walking through them. We're just all part of something that's already complete, was total anathema to him. (00:26:57)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Your book on the illusion of self, will, and time suggests that William James had mystical insights into these things. And that throughout his life he struggled because he thought of himself as a pragmatic person, as a philosopher, and as a scientist. And as such he couldn't let go of free will. He didn't want to let go of free will. But at a deeper level, you suggest that he understood that free will and time are both illusions. And even the idea of the self, that there is such a thing as me. (00:27:41)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right. (00:27:42)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Is an illusion. (00:27:43)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So to begin with will, because the first paper I published out of this experience that I had five years later with the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, was a variety of religious experience, William James and the non-reality of free will. Because what James found when he tried to come up with the psychology, what he called the psychology of volition, the whole data of the psychology of volition he could be felt in this thought experiment, but no, this actual experience. He said, I'm lying in bed. (00:28:16)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : This is the example he uses. Oh, I've got to get up, there's work to do. Oh, but the bed feels so comfortable. Because there's no feeling of free will without choice. We do lots of actions and moving around, but free will feels like I have made this choice. So that's what he focused on. He focused on what is it to get out of bed? How do I make that choice? (00:28:37)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So there's the thought, oh, I'm so comfortable, but oh, no, no, there's things to be done, I'm so comfortable. And then what happens? He says, there's like a gap. I've got my attention. And suddenly we just, oh, and we just get up. And he feels like you talk about the effort to get up, but he says, for whatever reason that you can't identify, you can't... He'll say, the energy of one just left and you had the energy of the other. (00:29:05)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It wasn't competing. You weren't like, you know, one wasn't balancing the other. One's gone for a mysterious reason, no reason you can say. You just suddenly find that you have got up. So there's that. And the whole point of, we say, well, what about effort? But effort, he said, this is so key. When he was younger, his first question, when he was a professor of psychology, but in his early days of it, his exam question, his first exam question was, what is the difference between afferent and efferent? Which is so key to the feeling of what will is. (00:29:43)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And both of them are impersonal. Efferent is like E with an E, like exit going out, right? Afferent is like attraction pulled toward, same word as tractor, pulled toward. So one's going out, one's going in. So we want to, I will try to lift that. Well, of course, I can't lift myself in the chair. But you try to pull on something and you feel that, ah, see, I'm making an effort. But thoughts are immediately impulsive. (00:30:12)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : You can't trace the thought to the actual thing. You have the thought, it happens, unless another thought blocks it, right? So if the thought arises and it's there, then you lift up. But depending on what you think the amount of effort would be required, you'll feel resistance. And that's afferent. That's a feeling of incoming information. And we confuse efferent with afferent, we say. And we think, oh, look, I'm struggling, I'm struggling, ah, look at that. (00:30:45)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : No, no, no. Your thoughts going out have an immediate effect. The registering of it is the afferent. And so it's like a contradiction of assessment that makes it feel like effort. You know, if you have a small little, like a cup here, and I didn't know, and I didn't see what was in it, and I just was going to pick it up, but it was filled with, like, lead or something, or something heavy, it would all suddenly feel like an effort. But if I saw the lead in it, it wouldn't, because I would know exactly the amount of, you know, physical thing to pick it up with. (00:31:19)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So, effort, as he said, no experiment will ever be found, has been found, no experiment will be found, to show that effort produces energy for the result. (00:31:41)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : That effort produces energy for the result. (00:31:45)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Like, it's like an original force of effort. Because effort, he's saying, is ultimately, the feeling of effort is ultimately that sense of effort. You have a thought, thoughts have an immediate effect on, you know, you want to raise your arm, think to raise your arm, it raises your arm. You're not tracing effort down to it. So, also with that is his idea that thoughts, if we, the fundamental fact of consciousness, he says, is not I think, but it thinks. As he says, if we could say it thinks, the way we say it reigns, we'd be speaking with a minimum of assumption. (00:32:29)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : This is where you pick up on the title of your book, Schistness. (00:32:35)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yes, yes, yes. (00:32:38)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : It's consciousness without the con. (00:32:40)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right, exactly that, exactly that. He introduces schistness in the principles of psychology. (00:32:47)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Some of our viewers may not realize, we haven't said it so far, William James is regarded as the father of American psychology. (00:32:56)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : The father of American psychology, and you could say the father of transpersonal psychology, I guess too. (00:33:02)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And many other things. One of the fathers of pragmatic philosophy. (00:33:08)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right. (00:33:08)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : The father of religious studies. (00:33:11)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yeah, I think his book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, is his best read book. (00:33:16)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And one of the founders of the field of psychical research, which is now popularly known as parapsychology. (00:33:25)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right, that's right. He was one of the founders, he co-founded the American Society for Psychical Research. (00:33:30)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And was a president of the British Society. (00:33:34)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right. So, think about that. All the phenomena that are associated with psychical research, that go beyond our common sense way we're operating in the world. But my whole point was, there is a lot of that you can find in the principles of psychology. Late in life, a colleague of his, Dickinson Miller, Sergeant Miller. Yeah, he was taught at Bryn Mawr. Younger colleague. He wrote this wonderful write-up of James, extolling him. This is in James' last year of his life, or just before. (00:34:08)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Extolling him as a psychologist. And James said to him, you know, I don't care. I never cared much for psychology. I don't care for psychology so much now, I didn't care for it so much then. He cared about philosophy and metaphysics. And, I would say, religion, which he got from his father. Who, I think, consciously set him on a path to reconcile science and religion. (00:34:33)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : James' father was Henry James Sr., who was regarded as a lay Swedenborgian preacher. (00:34:41)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right, right, right. But boy, what a... I mean, he's the father of Henry James, the writer, the novelist, the great novelist. And William, of course, and his daughter Alice, her journal became quite well-known and popular and well-read. (00:35:00)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : One of the most famous families of the 19th century in America. And, as I recall, somewhere I probably, Time Magazine, regarded William James as one of the hundred most influential Americans of all time. (00:35:17)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yeah, for sure. And he was hugely popular in his time. I mean, most of his talks, they were lectures, which I think is part of the reason the language is so vivid. He wanted to be an artist early in life. That was going to be his passion. But he writes, like, with an artist's eye, you know, for detail and things like that. (00:35:39)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : People often say that Henry James, the novelist, wrote novels like a psychologist. And William James, the psychologist, wrote psychology books as if he were a novelist. (00:35:51)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Dead on true. Absolutely right. They had quite a rivalry. Henry James is very, you know, well-known for sort of very introspective and journalizations and all that. And James would write, why can't you write something with more action in it? Action! And Henry wrote back, I would rather go to a dishonorable grave than write the kind of book you want me to. But they were very close. (00:36:19)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : So, of course, I'm fascinated by William James. He's one of my intellectual heroes. And people have suggested maybe there's even more to it than that. I think of it as an archetypal connection, a synchronistic connection. He's had a deep impact on my life and I gather on your life as well. (00:36:44)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : For sure. I definitely see the connection with you. I mean, he was, James went out of his way at a time when travel was not so easy to be with other philosophers. I mean, and, you know, talk to them directly, not just through letters. Although, oh my goodness, my life, oh my God, 12 volumes this wide of writing. But no, he wanted to be face to face with them. And like your Roots of Consciousness, he was generous in quoting pages and pages. (00:37:15)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : If it was good stuff, get it in there, let people share it. Varieties of Religious Experience, which wasn't his own research, it was the Sky Star book, would be a very small book without the long quotes of people's experiences. (00:37:29)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : So, what you've suggested, though, is that he struggled between his mystical self and his scientific self. The mystical self, I think your point is understood, that self itself is an illusion. (00:37:47)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yeah, right. (00:37:49)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Well, what I found was, James so needed to believe in free will, that there was one phenomenon that comes up in psychical research that he couldn't relate to. (00:38:06)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And that's precognition, because if anything is going to threaten free will as an actuality, it's precognition. I know people have ways of trying to negotiate that. But you would agree with me, yes, that it's a challenge. (00:38:25)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : It's a challenge. I think some of the ways of negotiating it, as you said, are pretty successful. But people say, you know, if the future is fixed, which some of these extraordinarily accurate precognitions would suggest, then maybe we don't have free will. (00:38:46)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Maybe we don't. Right. And I think James, who knew, as his own phrase was, divination is broadcast over the surface of history. He knew very well, and his radical empiricism says, nothing experienced left out, nothing not experienced put in. And just what made him different than his scientist colleagues was that he allowed all of this paranormal, not that, right, that wasn't his phrase at the time, all this psychical research to come into play. And talked about scientists using all their authority to try to close the door that psychical research is trying to burst wide open. (00:39:27)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And he argued fiercely against the people who, he didn't mind that they would oppose his ideas, but he objected to the callous and flimsy way in which they did it. (00:39:41)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Totally. Totally betraying their own creed of what to be a real scientist is. It's a method, he said, not a belief system, not a, this materialism, anyway. You want a scientific materialism, you want to use it as a method to try to, you know, you can run experiments. Yeah, he, God, what was one of his, yeah, he called psychical research a dog with so few friends at court that any stick is good enough to shake at it. And he talked about Herbert Spencer, who was a big philosopher at the time, working in the realm of Darwin and all this, and a very, you know, scientific materialist guy, right? (00:40:21)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : He says about any of this psychical research that, let me get the phrase exactly out, that Spencer would politely lead it out the door and he would never allow to have access to the temple. (00:40:35)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And there's still that attitude. (00:40:38)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed. A lot of, James really particularly pressed the point that scientists who have no, absolutely no research done in the area, just try to, just claim that they know what's going on. How is that scientific? They're totally out of their field. It's not like, I mean, and it would happen all the time. They didn't spend any time investigating it. And boy, is that still true today? (00:41:10)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : It's very true. And many people feel quite entitled to call it a pseudoscience, that is, paranormal investigations. It's a pseudoscience. There's nothing there. And the reason they're so confident is because they imagine that all their colleagues believe the same thing. It's like we all know. But when you talk to their colleagues, privately, in private, most of them will admit they've had this experience or that experience. They've gone off to the Insight Meditation Center. (00:41:45)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right. Absolutely right. Yeah. So, yeah, that's some of the best, I think, most relevant passages of James to be revived today. Because, boy, if something could be said well, I mean, he could say things better than anyone. And he was, you know, because he read all the time. He read all of Shakespeare. You know, he talked about one summer, reading him chronologically from beginning to all the plays. So he's filled with this vivid, vivid language. (00:42:13)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : But I wanted to say, so psychical research, that one phenomenon of precognition, he kept avoiding dealing with it until the end of his life. The last year of his life, he finally had to talk about it. And it was really, it was like you're suppressing it so long. It comes out in a pretty powerful form, how he addresses it. And what he was dealing with was the correspondent of his, Frederick Hall, who had an experience with ether, coming out of ether. And he said everything the doctors were about to say, he knew what they were going to say. (00:42:59)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So he had this precognitive experience. James relates it. And then finally, finally it comes out, James is going to try to negotiate with this. He says, and he negotiates it with a question, but a very powerful question. Is the consciousness that Hall is experiencing, is it already there, waiting to be uncovered? And is it a veridical revelation of reality? Veridical, right? True. Truly true. So he asks the question. And so potent is that question for him. (00:43:39)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : He doesn't try to answer it. He says, this question will not be resolved in this generation or the next. Which I think puts you on track for being eligible to acknowledge it. He says, it won't be known for this generation or the next. But he asks the question. I go back and I take the principles of psychology. I mean, I now read backwards through James to say, okay, what has James himself discovered that's in support of that question to answer it in the affirmative? And yes, as you mentioned, well, you know, thoughts arise. (00:44:19)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : I mean, it thinks, right? If we could say it thinks the way we say it, right? The passing thought is itself the thinker, right? All of this impersonal process means that we may be sourcing something beyond what we are just contained in our skin-encased egos, right? So something bigger is being accessed. Enter the anesthetic revelation, which was huge to James. He did have like a mystical coach. The last essay he wrote was about this guy, Benjamin Paul Blood, who was known for the anesthetic revelation. (00:45:01)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And what that was, was people coming out of ether would have this kind of mystical experience. But they couldn't really account for it because it was like they were leaving one world and coming into another world. They were leaving a kind of undifferentiated mass of a world and coming into the differentiated world of subject and object. Talking about this being about separation, here it is. And because of that, they couldn't get back. But they knew there was an immensity that was existing that was so essential to what their whole being was. (00:45:43)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And that's where schistness comes in. (00:45:52)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And that Flournoy, who mentored Jung, talks about that. Theodore Flournoy. He talks about mystics and people coming out of ether have this experience. (00:46:05)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It's this notion of interpolating objects, right? (00:46:14)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That we come out and we're coming out of a non-dual state into subject-object state. James talks about this himself. He had his own experience with ether and nitrous oxide. We'll get to it in a moment. But his experience with ether going into... or chloroform. They have the same kinds of reactions. Going into it, he saw objects recede, he said. And coming out of it, he says, there's a sense of existence in general. And then the sense of self as something additional thereto. (00:46:49)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So he's accessing... you could call it Paul Tillich's The God Above God. The Ground of Being. So, now schistness for James was... Again, consciousness without consciousness of self, without subject-object. It's a simple that. Before it doubled into, one, a state of mind. And two, a reality intended thereby. Right? Because that's where... you don't have a subject without an object, but there's a state. It's not like the subject-object is being distilled from the experience. (00:47:26)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : No. The framework of a subject and object is being added on. (00:47:31)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : The phrase that comes to mind for me is, you're no longer the dancer, you're the dance. (00:47:37)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Exactly. Exactly. Or the moment of the sunset before you say, how beautiful. But Blood was very... his mystical... I call him his mystical coach... was very, very clear about this. That it's prior to form and manifestation. Prior to form and manifestation. So, and this is in the varieties of religious experience. Although back in 1902, James is not ready yet to face the full implications of what this is. He had to wait until... you know, he let it out with a little question and then pushed it into the future. (00:48:10)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : But there's a long footnote in the varieties, which is a commentary on... he's actually sharing directly these anesthetic revelationists, Blood, and his is another one, Xenos Clark. And I should add, because people say, well, why are you emphasizing a footnote so much? But Christopher Nelson in Streams of William James says, it's the culmination. Varieties of religious experience leads to what this experience is. And their language is amazing about it. One thing they say, two aspects of it, one is succession is the thing. (00:48:50)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Succession is the thing. One point followed another. James' goldmine of insight, he called him Shadworth Hodgson. He told James, and it's put in the principles of psychology, that the minimum of assumption, a very key notion, what's the minimum of assumption about things, about consciousness, is that it is a sequence of difference. E-N-T-S. So when you have sequencing, you have gaps. And Krishna, you go back now to my experience, because that really has always stayed with me as some profound moment by moment by moment. Krishnamurti says, if you watch, thoughts happen so quickly, you don't notice there's a gap. (00:49:41)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : But there is a gap between thoughts. It's also what the Bardo is, it's another name for, it's not just the afterlife, it's the gap between thoughts. (00:49:51)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So, pausing here. (00:49:57)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, let's go back to your mystical experience, your kundalini experience. I don't think when you described it to me a little few minutes ago, you didn't talk about the gap between thoughts then. But I gather from the conversation now that you had that experience yourself. (00:50:18)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Well, this is what it is. If you don't have... I mean, James talks about the specious presence, right? That we're sort of... something's receding and something's coming in, right? And so that's what kind of makes the stream of consciousness, right? But if you don't have the past, and you don't have the future, and you just have this moment, and then you just have this moment, it's not like choppy in that way, but it was like the connection... It felt like a gap, because I wasn't... that streaming wasn't there. (00:50:59)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That usually connects and it happens... (00:51:04)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : We often identify consciousness with thinking, with our thoughts. (00:51:09)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right. (00:51:09)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And what I think you're getting at is the idea of pure consciousness. (00:51:13)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yes. Yeah. Wow. I mean, John Dewey, right, a great American philosopher, read his 1200-page book, James's book, it was a big deal, writes something and says, the most important part is your part about schistness, as he saw it. And it's the idea, right there and there, it's right in that... the idea that what's primary is not the organizer, the self, or the organized thing, matter, right? Because James wrote it's like consciousness swings between subject and object, like that. (00:51:50)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : But what Dewey was emphasizing that James was doing was the self is an organization, the sense of self is an organization of consciousness, right? And matter is an organization of consciousness, but they themselves don't have some independent reality from which consciousness is emerging and stuff. So, the idea, though, of succession being a thing, and we know light pulses, right, photons and all pulse, but that allows one to consider consciousness already there, waiting to be uncovered. And he says later, as in a field, it stood there always to be known, even as that at some point. (00:52:37)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Think about this, if that ground of being that the ether experience gives, and we'll talk about James on nitrous oxide, but that ground of being, right, but can that be uncovered moment by moment? I mean, how do you access it? We're no longer talking about the stream of consciousness, we're talking about, you can think of like a flip book, right? It's possible to access. And James at some point says, maybe, and this is toward near the end, too, in pluralistic universe, maybe, and again, this speculation was hard for him to make because of his belief in free will, so it just appears a little bit, and then he doesn't elaborate it much until a couple of essays later, I'm connecting consciousness already there with this that he says in the pluralistic universe, which is, perhaps we are the margin of some more merely central self, like a wind rose in a compass. (00:53:39)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So if you think of, this was like a whole circle of a compass, every moment is connected to the moment next to it by its relation to the center point, right? Because there are no lines on a circle, no facets, right? (00:53:57)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : All the lines are tangential to the perimeter of the circle. (00:54:03)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yeah, you can't explain things by going here to here. This is all, James has a phrase, the continuity of adjacents, right? Now, McTaggart, the time guy, this is where time comes in a little bit, you know, who has his A-series, right, of past, present, future, his B-series of before and after. They don't go together because they can contradict each other. But he has a C-series, the alphabet. You know, A-B-C-D-E, not A-C-D-whatever. (00:54:35)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It has, right, it has a direction. Permanent sequence. That's right, a permanent sequence, exactly that. But no, you know, it has, it's not dynamic, it's just, so that's the sequence. So everything is in sequence, organized in situ, you could say, in place next to each other. But the relationship is the same. (00:54:57)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : You have to get to the center to go from one to the other. Now, we began this discussion by saying that James was hesitant to explore the implications of precognition. (00:55:12)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right. (00:55:13)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : So, let's bring it back to precognition. (00:55:18)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And retrocognition. (00:55:21)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So, for me, what that means, if there is precognition, if there is retrocognition... (00:55:31)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And there certainly is. (00:55:32)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And there certainly is. Well, one way to give that a foundation is to look at Parmenides. Right. And the thing about Parmenides... See, this is the thing about James. There were absolutists in his time saying it's all one and it's all, you know, time isn't real, like McTaggart and others. But James thought they were using, like, logical arguments, you know. And the worst would be like Parmenides. It's like they all come from him because he's considered to logically make the case that it all has to be one. (00:56:04)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : But Peter Kingsley, others had before, but Peter Kingsley most persuasively, you know, the latest, you know, has shown us that Parmenides was a shaman. He led incubations in caves, like, and people would... healings would come to them, like Edgar Cayce you could think of, right? Just somehow in stillness and all of this. So maybe, you know, you could... if you think of him as a shaman, maybe he too was accessing precognitive experiences and all of that. So it's a little... James called the logical thinner as opposed to a thicker evidence. (00:56:39)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It's the thicker evidence we could probably go with, as his own psychical research was the thicker evidence. And he even said, the scientists, why don't they look at... why aren't these absolutists using this information, this psychical research? It should be a good fit. He called it the wild deserts of philosophic research, you know. It's banned to that. He said they should be using it. But Peter Kingsley now allows us to take logic... (00:57:05)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Instead of looking at Parmenides as one of the first logicians, which we should consider, to look at him as a shaman who was offering... You know, what does it mean if people see the future, let's say? And so what does he say? Nor was it ever, nor will it be, since now it is, altogether one. And he said, what is, is like a well-rounded sphere from a center point, equally matched. And you go back to James's compass, compass windrows, right? (00:57:46)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Because you could say, you know, a sphere is just all made of circles. You could say a circle, too. There's a saying, God is a circle, center is everywhere, circumference nowhere. James introducing that compass image, you know, really kind of essential. Because so everything that relates to that center point, we don't know where the circumference is, but we know whatever it is, it's related to the center point. And that gives a great comfort. (00:58:11)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That to know that no matter what you do, because you have to think of what that center point means. Think of it in a sphere. What does it mean for everything from it to be equally matched distance-wise? So that everything is equal to God. Wherever in that center point, let's say you could think of it as God, although it's like the circumference defines the center point as much as the center point defines the circumference. Which goes well with God as the all in all, and all of that. (00:58:37)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So if God is the center point, wherever he looks, it's the same, it's the same, it has the same value. Everything is coming together to create this sphere. And from that center point, the inside of that center point, is a place for God. There's, you know, the Bindu talks about this as a center point. This is a very common, everywhere you look, all through this house, as we've shown, you've got rosettes, you've got this whole notion. The Greeks were obsessed with the one and the many. (00:59:08)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And I don't know a better way to think of the one and the many than as that center point radiating out to the circumference. There's circumference defined by the center point, the center point defined by the circumference. And I believe James has given us all the tools to construct the cosmos, the Greek word for order, in that way. (00:59:32)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : So, if I can summarize what you've just said, I think what you're saying is that we, humans, and all other sentient creatures are all joined at the center point, this source. You could say it's the singularity of the Big Bang, perhaps, when we were all united in an infinitesimally small point. Quantum physics would probably agree as a result of that we're all entangled with each other in the quantum sense. And that's our deepest reality. (01:00:07)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : That's who we are most ultimately. And it is a level outside of time, outside of space, way beyond any notion of self or personal will. (01:00:19)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Exactly. (01:00:20)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And that is who we are at the deepest level. (01:00:25)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Absolutely. Yes. I mean, James, in the Varieties of Experience, says, at one with the absolute and aware of the oneness. He says, this, tat famasi, he quotes that, he uses that phrase, and he says, this idea is not changed by creed or clime. You'll find it, clime meaning climate, you'll find it all over, it's universal, this notion of ultimate attainment. Even in Whitmanism he used the word, he loved Whitman. He had played with him, but he loved him. (01:00:57)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Absolutely. (01:01:00)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : But James also struggled with that very insight, that it went against his scientific nature, and he wrote the book, The Pluralistic Universe. He wanted to celebrate the diversity, the differences. (01:01:17)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Absolutely right. I mean, you know what he said, he said about the absolute, it says, it sanctions everything, and determines nothing. It just, it allows anything to be. And he says, you'll list all of these horrors, all of these things in the world. And he says, well, how can that be? So, it's true, you would have to bring in the notion of lila, of play, that things are, if you go back to my experience, my initial mystical experience, I have sort of a problem thinking that ultimately there is anything bad. I think there's maybe play at work. (01:01:58)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And if we have reincarnational continuity, you know, because if a little child has all the suffering, they're not going to have all, they're not going to have my sequence. (01:02:09)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Yeah, I mean, it doesn't help to come to a person who is suffering and tell them, well, don't worry, it's all going to be okay in the end. We're all going to die anyway and then be reborn. (01:02:19)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right. (01:02:21)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : It doesn't help a suffering person to hear that. (01:02:24)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It doesn't. And James thought, you know, he knew the great value of the absolute, much more than pluralism, was that it did, though, offer solace to sick souls. (01:02:36)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yeah. (01:02:36)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : He did say that. You know, Vivekananda, they were friends. (01:02:40)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : They were good friends. (01:02:41)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yeah, and he was going to write the introduction to the Janana book of Vivekananda. I forget what exact circumstances prevented that, but, you know, there were letters from Vivekananda saying, hey, has that come in yet? We can't wait anymore, let's just publish. So, you know, he called Vivekananda the paragon of monism, but Vivekananda is very interesting. He's an Advaitin, of course, non-dualist, but it was like a challenge for James because he's like a heroic non-dualist, right? There's nothing passive about Vivekananda. So, but, you know, again, James, that need, which he expressed to the end of his life, about needing free will, kept him from, he would talk about the virtues of the absolute. (01:03:29)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : He knew what, you know, the Tattvamasi, how soothing and stuff. (01:03:33)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Let's define that for our viewers who may not know the Sanskrit term. (01:03:38)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Oh, that thou art, that thou art, you're not, and again, think of this, that thou art, the experience I had, I'm calling out to Arthur. Now, Arthur isn't sending me my thoughts or whatever, you should concentrate 24 hours a day, you know, who, what is it that speaks, that Tattvamasi says, well, it's, you're part of an absolute. The anesthetic revelation is you're coming out of something much larger. The sense of self is something additional thereto. (01:04:06)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It's not what's creating everything, it's what's getting added into the mix. Right? It's, you know, you're interpolating a subject and an object. It's being doubled into a state of mind and a reality intended to provide. (01:04:20)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : I mean, we live in a world of duality where we take subject and object for granted. Right. The world universe is me and everything that is not me. (01:04:31)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right. That's right. And there's, you know, I think Blood even called it the sanity of that. James even talked about the genius of common sense that allows for that, knowing it wasn't, you know, his neutral modism, knowing that it wasn't the ultimate understanding, but the genius of common sense, you know, that otherwise everything gets all mixed up. (01:04:52)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And by and large, from a common sense point of view, mystics who would say things like all is one and the self is unreal and time doesn't exist, they're thought of as dreamers. Right. You know, they're not pragmatic. They're not pragmatic. They're not going to get, hold down a job, for example, although I think we know that that's a myth as well, that some of the most brilliant, creative people on the planet have also been mystics. (01:05:25)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right. Oh my goodness, yes. James was quite well aware of that. I mean, The Varieties is really quite a book for showcasing. And of course it was always, it's like know them by their fruits. That's a very Jamesian kind of notion, right, with pragmatism. What's the result you get from this? That's what's the validity of the experience. (01:05:49)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : But we should also mention that James' insight, his mystical insight of the timelessness of consciousness, that it's the deepest level, was shared by quantum physicists. It's not so different from Einstein's view of time, for example, or Planck's view of consciousness as being fundamental. That there's a lot of resonance with that mystical idea coming from within the most brilliant thinkers of the scientific world. (01:06:26)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yes. I think what's so striking about James' breakout statement, his way of adding up Frederick Hall's experience, is that he said consciousness already there, waiting to be uncovered. He could have said all kinds of things. Is the world somehow already there, or whatever, but he knew it would be consciousness, which, as Planck and others have said, is ultimate. Everything is an aspect of that. I find that comforting. I find that comforting if you can put it within a context. (01:06:59)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Here's the thing. People don't want to be confined to a circle either, right? But change involves movement and stasis. One way or another, you have to negotiate those two. So, why not? I mean, I say, why not? I'm offering, as a spiritual, I don't know, call it a context, if you will, to think... because belief in God or belief in... no, belief in God doesn't go away, for even these non-dualists. Vivekananda has always talked, says the Lord all the time. (01:07:46)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : His guru, Ramakrishna, all the time. Lord, Lord, Lord. (01:07:51)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : But the idea is that everything is God at that point. (01:07:55)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Everything is God. But it's like, OK, if we're all just circumferal points, where is this God? Well, OK, the center point there. (01:08:01)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : But the center is everywhere. (01:08:04)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : The center is everywhere, but everything comes and relates to the center point, which is, you know... I mean, if you... when I think of, like, Whitman, and again, Henry James, his brother was enthralled with Whitman. And James quotes him a lot, loves him. He had a kind of pushback saying, oh, it's too much optimism. He says, that's what absolute awe offers people, just this ultimate optimism, that everything's going to be OK. And they're not looking enough at the real bad stuff in the world. (01:08:40)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Like you mentioned, pragmatism, you know, he lists whole pages of newspaper accounts of really tragic situations. His father, his kids were starving, and he got a job... this is in pragmatism. He's getting a job shoveling snow, and he's just too weak, and he can only do it for an hour. He ends up killing himself with carbolic acid. And James is saying, what, the absolute, you know, which sanctions everything? This is OK for the absolute, you know? (01:09:13)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And he says, and that's like Whitman, he's too much of an optimist. But that's a real misread of Whitman. Whitman was a Civil War, like a nurse, a medic, right? He knew all about, you know, the worst of what could happen to you. Talk about his brother, Wilkie, at some point, who experienced the worst. But... (01:09:38)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : James' brother. (01:09:39)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : James' brother, sorry. He had two younger brothers who... Well, you only have really two super successful, and then you have three, like, problems, pretty much. But, yeah, so no, Whitman was no just optimistic, just, well, I mean, he was a positive person. But it's not like he ignored, you know, the suffering of life within his whole formula of how to be. But still he was able to say, and this works very well with the circle of being a circumferential point. The universe is duly in order. (01:10:12)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : What has arrived is in its place. And what waits will be in its place. To have that serenity of whatever is, is. Because when I had that mystical experience, that was the only teaching I had, whatever is, is. But really, and that's actually a longer version, the short version is, what is, is. (01:10:30)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : But you also had the sequence of reliving your whole life and seeing all of the painful, traumatic moments of your life ended up with a positive lesson. (01:10:43)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right, right, right. So that gives me that trust. I mean, I guess I'm going to say this. What is, is. Which is kind of what my first lesson in Buddhism was. Or that inquiry I talked about. That's kind of the most important thing to keep in play and to keep mindful of. Because if you go against that, that's where all suffering is. I mean, the Buddha's moment of enlightenment, he said, was neither welcoming nor opposing. So you don't want to mess with what is. (01:11:18)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And what belief system allows that the most? Back to Whitman, the universe is duly in order, what is arrived is in order. So you're not fighting it, it is what it is. You can change it in the next moment, but you can't, well you can, you can try to change it without realizing what it is. But by being fully with what it is, then you can change it more effectively. You'd say, and that would be the next thought, that you'd be kind of a loser. (01:11:44)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Isn't this point of view also very similar to the philosophy of Spinoza? Maybe I'm misunderstanding it, but I think Spinoza said something to the effect that he was a determinist, and he felt that God was the ultimate determiner. And so, it's like, let go and let God. As long as you understand God's in charge of everything, you don't have to worry about a thing. (01:12:11)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yeah, either God or nature, he'd call it either one. Yeah, and look, Frederick Meyers, one of the leading psychical researchers, perhaps the leading psychical researcher, communicated in the afterlife a whole book, as you know, The Road to Immortality. Yes, indeed. And he talks about the master spinner. And he also talks about the master spinner, and we're all going to merge with the mind of God, which has past, present, and future all in it. So yeah, Spinoza, that's right, he was a determinist, so was Einstein. So I like to say, okay, the two most prominent, by far, the two most prominent Jewish thinkers, Spinoza and Einstein, did not believe in free will. (01:12:58)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Now, Thomas Cahill wrote a wonderful book, The Gift of the Jews. He wrote The Gift of the Greeks, The Gift of the Romans, I think The Irish. So he said, what did the Jews bring to the world? Free will. And novelty, right? Like new beer wouldn't have sold way back when. But the Jews introduced the idea that novelty is a good thing. Abraham went forth, and now we're getting out of this wheel thing, this Babylonian. They broke us out of that. (01:13:24)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So he says, the gift of the Jews is free will, and my line back is, never mind. That the two most prominent Jewish thinkers gave it back. Tried to give it back. (01:13:34)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, this has been a fascinating conversation, Jonathan. It's like, do we have free will or don't we? (01:13:44)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : We feel like we have free will. And that's probably enough. I heard the one guru say, treat every moment as it comes as if you have free will, and every moment as it passes as if you don't. (01:13:55)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Nice way to look at it. My point of view, incidentally, is that we have a measure of free will, and a large measure of habits and robotic-like behaviors, conditioned responses, that are not a reflection of free will at all, and that we're something of a balance. (01:14:15)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Well, what I would say there, again, it's, look, James didn't like the absolute because he wanted zest. Don't take away my zest. He uses that word. There's a supreme peace to the absolute. And Whitman further, what does he say? He says, the simple, compact, well-formed scheme, myself disintegrated, everyone disintegrated, yet part of the scheme. So I think it's a matter, for me, how much of that ultimate supreme peace do you value? And are you, Jeff, are you measuring? (01:14:56)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Well, I'm like James. And you may be James. There's a lot about you that says, yeah, you're a pretty plausible reincarnation to me. But, you know, how much are you, you know, you don't want to, would you give up a little more zest for a little more security? I think it's really going to have to be an all or nothing. It's very hard to mix, unless you're going to do, I mean, James ultimately argued for a God in the world, you know, fighting with us, not outside, not involved, you know. Yeah. I mean, and that's, is that what you... (01:15:26)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, there is, of course, the Jewish idea of wrestling with God. Right. It seems to be who we are as a people. And even though I'm completely secular and I'm not a religious Jew at all, I consider myself very Jewish. (01:15:43)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right. Oh, you're telling me. I mean, I'm like, you know, I can't say it enough. I'm not living this. You know, this is a belief system you could almost say I aspire to. But I do have as a background, like, you know, God in the foreground is a little tricky. You want God in the background. God in the foreground is like a terrorist blowing up buildings in some way, it seems to me. But, you know, what can you, you know, in times of suffering or times of, what can you refer to? (01:16:11)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : What supports you? (01:16:12)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : You know, I have my own way of dealing with it. I mentioned many times to the viewers my personal motto, love everyone and everything all the time. Which is an expression of the idea of the One. (01:16:28)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : You know, Jeffrey, you actually live that. I've been with you now for a couple of days. And, you know, there's like, you know, but how many years of podcasts were you, you know, you... (01:16:39)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, I've started doing interviews over a half century ago. (01:16:43)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It's just been amazing to be in your presence, I have to say. I think you really do live that, what you're saying. (01:16:51)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, that's very generous of you. I would say it's something I aspire towards. But, certainly to me, as an interviewer, I would say the very best interviews, going back right to the beginning, are the ones where we touch on the One. The idea that we're all interconnected, we're all one. My friend Lance Mungia would say, I'm a different version of you. (01:17:20)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Hmm. I like that. I like that a lot. Well, I mean, look, James knew, there's the... when we talk about, okay, you absolute people, how can you talk about, you know, with all the suffering and this and that. What if everything really is like a dream of Brahman? (01:17:39)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yeah. (01:17:39)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right? I mean, and James talks about this. He says, if I dream of a gold mountain, obviously, you know, a gold mountain isn't real, but in the dream, it appears as real. Yeah. And that's really... there was a period where I was having dreams which just seemed to be about verifying how real matter was. I remember those gray staples, staplers that were kind of tall. Oh, sure. I remember very vividly picking up one and feeling its whole heft in the dream. (01:18:11)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : This is a really important thing to try to... I think it's the key to everything. And, frankly, the key to overcoming James' objection about, come on, there's a whole pluralistic universe. What is this kind of oneness kind of just washes all that out? No, if everything's the dream of Brahman, then you have as pluralistic a universe on one level, experientially, it's experienced as a pluralistic, without it actually being in reality a pluralistic. And he says matter is something behind phenomena, it's a postulate of thought anyway. (01:18:40)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So, I think it's important to talk about how dreams... we could be the dream of Brahman. We could be... because in your dream at night, you go through, everything's real, as real as what we're having right now, and then you wake up, oh, it's all in the pillow. So it's just, what is it that's dreaming? What is it that speaks, is silent, looks and listens? Well, it's the source, like our head on the pillow is the source of all of our dreams. (01:19:09)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Now, scientists, science-minded people, really want to push back against that. I'll mention Alvin Noe, in, I forget the book, but he talks about, he has a special note about, now let's... people think dreams can be as real as reality, but no, that's not true. Because, he talks about, and these are true, he's right to mention, like you can look at something, and if it has words on it, and then look back again, the words will change. In other words, it changes a little bit the world, and you can't really think through thoughts as deeply or something, he'll say. (01:19:44)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : But Andrew Holacek, who is a Tibetan practitioner, he used to be a dentist, but then he studied, you know, for years, and now is, I think, one of our leading teachers. He wrote Dream Yoga, he wrote Visions of Light, fantastic guy. He says, look, in my dreams, he's also a concert pianist, he's kind of an amazing guy, but anyway, he says, in my dreams, I can play a movement of a Beethoven Sonata, as well as I can play it without. And I can give lectures in my dreams as good as ones I can give without. (01:20:17)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So, he's pushing against this idea that you can't have anything like reality, that's, you know, that a dream-like sense, where, of course, everything is connected. There it is, we're all one, we're all unified in a dream. He says, yeah, but that unification cannot give you ultimate reality. You can't have that kind of unity, because you don't even experience what we experience in this world. This world has an extra reality to it that that world can never have. (01:20:49)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : But I think the Tibetans, especially with all of their dream yoga practices, are here to tell us otherwise. And I think that may be a very important thing, I think it is, for understanding this Eastern notion of the dream of Brahman. (01:21:06)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, we certainly have only just begun to tap into the potential of not just dreams, but all altered states of consciousness. (01:21:15)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So, and as we do, do we want to be like James saying, okay, I got to kind of keep this one away, because it affects my free will. Because look, Jeff, I've been in this, I was program director at the Open Center, as you mentioned, and stuff. And we brought a lot of people that you've brought here. And it keeps coming back to free will, they want free will, no matter what they, and I get that. I get that, because frankly, why not have free will? (01:21:43)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Think of God as playing chess with himself. It's a more fun game if the other is really other. So why not as part of the, let us think we have free will. Why not? (01:21:54)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Or let us really have free will. (01:21:57)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Well, who's the us that separates the game and the free will? That's the thing. If you keep it like this, maybe I'll be a dream, then that love that you so beautifully, I didn't say more inspired, because you really do do it. But it's something you feel is a doing for you. That love just, just exists. Like in my first, when I had the knee thing, and I just, that feeling of connection to absolutely everything is real. The reality of that, of what that feeling is, would be more like, like I'm living in a dream, right? (01:22:30)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : With the ontology of what dreaming is, when everything is an aspect of consciousness. Wouldn't that be what a dream is? And everything in a dream is an aspect of consciousness. We don't have trouble saying it. (01:22:42)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And love is like that as well. I can't force myself to love anybody, but I can relax into it and discover that it's already there anyway. (01:22:54)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : You can, but you know, to come back to Peter Kingsley, Empedocles says strife is higher than love, which confuses a lot, confuses a lot of people. Kingsley put some real effort in trying to explain this. People, they try to, oh, he must have made a mistake there. No, no, Peter Kingsley says, no, that's right. That Aphrodite is a trickster goddess, pulling us toward thinking our ultimate is going to be, have to merge with somebody else or be pulled to somebody else, when actually we're already there where we want to be. We're already part of God. We're already... (01:23:30)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : So now how does that make strife? (01:23:32)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Because when you're pulled to somebody, now you're with them and loving them. But strife is what pulls you away. It's like coming together, pulling apart. And people think, well, it has to be the coming together that's the ultimate. But actually it's realizing that we're all already there. This mystic Dauphry John says, reality is in what is. Reality is what is already, always already is. And if you feel love as being, it's not that you won't feel the kind of love, I guess, in that state. (01:24:08)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : In fact, you'll feel the bliss of being part of God. But there's a kind of love that brings you away from your sense of being. If we're all part of God, right, we don't need somebody else to make us even more part of God if we fully realize every moment. Because every moment in a dream is a dream. We're all connected no matter what we do. (01:24:31)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, at the same time, we're in a paradoxical reality because we're individuals, we're learning, we're growing. You and your mystical experience, it was trauma lesson, trauma lesson, trauma lesson. So we're here to learn, we're here to grow. (01:24:51)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : I couldn't agree more. And I'll probably have past lives, I'll have future lives. You can follow a narrative of me just like we can follow a narrative of you. We all have individual narratives with reincarnational continuity. We're just the actors, though, we're not the playwrights. We're just, that's what a moment of reality is, is me this, me that, whatever. All the story goes together. I mean, what is so hard about seeing the whole proceeding the parts? (01:25:21)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : You know, James tried to write, you know, the many and the one. He was so still desperate to keep pluralism in play, right? But what, isn't it much easier to start and believe that there is a one and then talk about how we can be fooled by the many? It's really hard to assemble the many into the one, I think, don't you? (01:25:41)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, I think it's a mystery. (01:25:43)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It was a failed attempt on his part to do it. (01:25:48)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : It's good to be open to whatever lessons the mystery has to offer us. I'm not ready to say, absolutely, there is no self. Absolutely, there is no time. Absolutely, I have no free will. I'm not there yet. (01:26:05)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Well, you know, living with you this last day or two in this magnificent home, I don't want to stop you on that. I don't need you changing your direction because it's so amazing to be here. But, you know, the one and the many. James talks about Mozart, how he composed, right? There's some controversy about this, but it's been fairly well verified. It was like he said, pieces come together. This is in the principles of psychology. (01:26:39)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : I'm going back to the principles as a basic. He says, pieces of thought come together until... The great thing is hearing it all at once. Nabokov talks about his novels come to him all at once. I know a Taoist writer, teacher, brilliant woman, Livia Cohn. She's written like 30 books. How do you do that? And she farms and she does a lot of dancing. She does all this singing. She sings at Carnegie Hall with a choir. (01:27:11)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : This woman is so active. And yet she says they're downloads. She actually says this. So if you accept that, that Nabokov isn't lying, and he said it doesn't matter where he wrote. He could write on little cards or this or that. If a novel can come whole, why can't this whole world be considered as a whole? (01:27:32)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, I think it can be. (01:27:34)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : If it's a whole, what I mean is, now let's double down on this. It's the doubling down that I didn't even quibble about. Okay, let's double down on this. If Nabokov sees it as whole, no parts, no sentences are being generated. This is really important because, you know, James was really into Bergson because he thought Bergson was about, you know, insisting on kind of duration. Creative, ongoing. (01:28:07)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : The philosopher Henri Bergson. (01:28:09)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right. And James just loved him and thought he had solved the problem. He's going to use James against the logical absolutists. You know, the ones who said it's a logical argument. It's a complicated argument. You mean he's going to use Bergson? He says, yeah. He says, yeah, that's right. Ordinary experience as it comes to us with individuated objects and stuff is hard to explain unless you have an absolute. This was the, you know, Bradley and others. (01:28:40)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Just, I guess, to give a moment about what they're about. It's like, you know, a sugar cube, right? A sugar cube is, it's white and it's sweet and it's hard. These are all qualities. So what is that? You don't really have, you can't really talk about, like, just an independent object. It's all about relations. How do they hang together or what? So, you know, and from that they developed this whole notion that there's an absolute that accounts. (01:29:07)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Without the absolute accounting for it, you can't really talk about reality. You need the absolute. But Bergson... (01:29:15)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Aristotle said much the same, I think. (01:29:18)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yeah, actually. (01:29:20)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : The unmoved mover. (01:29:22)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's a beautiful thing, isn't it? But Bergson, yeah, the unmoved mover, I think, really works. Xenophanes, before Aristotle, you know, said, you know, God is whole, you know. He hears whole, he thinks whole, he sees whole, and he doesn't move. Because it would be unseemly to move from place to place. So, but what about movement that we see? How do you account for that? And Bergson, you know, thought that was real duration. (01:29:53)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Duration and time. (01:29:54)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right. Unfortunately, he had a debate with Einstein. It's generally considered that Einstein won that debate. And also, as William Barnard, who wrote the last really important work on Bergson, he says it. He says, look, if precognition is real, Bergson can't account for it. (01:30:14)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, we need to introduce the concept of the block universe, which comes out of Einstein's work, which is another way of saying what you've been saying all along. (01:30:24)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right. I mean, Karl Popper's nickname for Einstein was Parmenides. Right. I mean, it's the same thing. You know, the most quoted Einstein from, I guess, mostly non-scientists like me, is, you know, for us believing physicists, the separation between past, present, and future is an illusion, however stubborn. And so, yeah, that's a very Parmenidean thing. Nor was it ever, nor will it be, since now it is altogether one. And Einstein didn't believe in free will. (01:30:55)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : The block universe idea is, from God's eye, you see all of history, from the beginning of the universe to the very end of the universe, at once. (01:31:08)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right. Think again. Don't think of a block. Think of James's circle. And Parmenides' sphere, from a center point, equally matched everywhere. (01:31:19)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : I like the torus, incidentally. (01:31:21)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : I know you do. (01:31:23)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Which is another long discussion we don't need to go into. But it meets the same requirements as the circle or the sphere. (01:31:31)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yeah, and you should, as we talked about earlier, it can go with the Greek monad, which is that center point, you know, and then around it. It kind of looks like a version of a torus. (01:31:41)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : A torus with an infinitely small hole at the center. (01:31:45)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right, right. (01:31:47)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : A wonderful image for how we're all connected. (01:31:52)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : I think so. I really think the word Leela needs more prominence. (01:32:05)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Let's talk about Leela, because I don't think we've defined it. (01:32:09)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Basically, it's play. It's cosmic play. Yeah. You know, I mean, I don't mind doubling down on this, because... (01:32:22)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Because it's who you are. (01:32:25)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Look, I live pretty close to the World Trade Center, right? So, and I heard that plane fly over when it crashed. And I lost friends in it and all that, but afterwards, for months and still going on, I saw that plane crash into that building a hundred times. Because, you know, it kept coming up in stories and stuff. All right, these people on the plane experienced confusion, whatever, maybe somebody just had to look over it. And then they're out of it. (01:32:57)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : They're into a whole other realm. And we know, increasingly this age, and maybe we're being prepared for some big suffering, we know that, like, near-death experience means you're lifted out of whatever painful situation is. (01:33:14)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And so, the question is... You can say, well, how could God do this? (01:33:24)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : But what if it... I mean, is the suffering really what we think it is? There's a wonderful video, if I may offer, from Alan Watts. He talks about... Suppose you're God, or suppose you could dream every night, whatever you want. You know, anything you wanted to do, and you'd have these fantastic adventures. You'd see these landscapes, you'd hear the most beautiful music. You know, and it could go on, and everything would be wonderful, and love affairs, and all... It could be for a night, it could be for a week, it could be for a thousand years. (01:34:01)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Let's just say that was your life, he says. And then you wake up and just go back and have that dream, he says. But then maybe after a while you'd say, let's spice this up a little bit. You know, let's rescue a damsel in a dragon or something. And then maybe suffer a little bit. What's that like? Because you're going to wake up out of it, it's not going to be permanent or something, right? And so, you know, finally you get to more and more suffering, more and more... (01:34:31)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Oh, I've tested myself at this level, now I'll go to this level, now I'll go to this level. And then he says, well, maybe that's what is right now. (01:34:41)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, every good play, every good novel has an element of tension, of conflict. Right. (01:34:49)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : No, exactly right. And that would be part of what the play is. Now, I'll go here. It's like the Holocaust was created to counter anything that's like, you know, optimistic about a universe that can sanction anything. (01:35:06)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yes. (01:35:07)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Like, come on, sanctioning the Holocaust? And I'm coming from just having read Elie Wiesel, I read a lot of Primo Levi. And coming from Auschwitz, I did visit it. And that makes the reality, you know... (01:35:21)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, I think most people of our generation, growing up Jewish, have witnessed the tears of our elders crying over their lost families. (01:35:31)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right. That's right. That's right. I mean, oh my goodness, the history of Jewish history, oh my goodness. Well, don't go into how now we're creating our own disaster, it seems, in Israel right now. But, the Holocaust, is there some way the absolute, that's part of the whole, something as devastating as that amount of horror? (01:35:57)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Or the nuclear bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (01:36:01)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Which also may be coming to us via Russia, for all we know. (01:36:05)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : For all we know. I mean, you're right to bring these things up, because facing what seems like evil, what seems like tragedy, it's necessary from a philosophical point of view, from a poetic point of view, from a spiritual point of view, these things have to be faced. (01:36:29)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yeah. Now, if there's one, if you can verify one near-death experience, and they all do seem to have the same trajectory of, like, bliss. There's not, as Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, I asked her this question, I knew her way back when, what about, like, bad spirits, or bad, and she says she didn't encounter any of those. Like, it's all the near-death experiences that she experienced. (01:36:56)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, researchers today will say 5-8% of people have a negative experience, a hellish near-death experience. That is known. And, of course, the recovery, even from a positive near-death experience, can be very difficult. (01:37:15)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yes, yes. No, I'm aware of that. That's right, that there's a minor, a minority of cases that can be like that. But, if, I mean, and again, it's almost impossible not to keep re-running those Holocaust images, by people stepping on baby skulls to get to a little inch of air in the door, you know, to live, what, another 20 seconds or something? (01:37:39)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : It's human misery at its utmost. (01:37:43)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right. But, and this is where I risk, you know, having tomatoes thrown at me from the crowd there. I mean, I think, I recently saw an interview you did with the magnificent Bernardo Castro. He talks about, I think it was kids in Brazil who choke each other as, you know, as a kind of thing to bring on a high. Oh, yes. At the loss of oxygen. Yeah. Imagine that. Imagine that. (01:38:08)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Now, you'd say, well, strangling and cutting off breath can, is it not possible that this horror that we're seeing on our side was turning into bliss from their side? I mean, again, it's a terrible thought even, you know, because if people say, what are you doing? You're trivializing the Holocaust, for goodness sake. Houston Smith said there is a way to fit it in, but he had to whisper it. Even he, he, the most distinguished religious scholar, one of them anyway, over time, couldn't just come out and really talk about and fit this in. (01:38:43)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Although he knew it did fit in. But that was his phrase. Now, you have to whisper. He couldn't talk about it. Well, here I am with Jeff Mishlove talking about it. But it has to be. We love, and it's all a dream, you can't just, you can't say, well, that was the exception. The absolute just, well, whatever. (01:39:01)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : No, you can't, you can't say that. And you can't expect everybody is going to believe you when you're discussing it today. We'll hear from our viewers who will say this is worse than nonsense from their point of view. And that is how they see it. There's no doubt. (01:39:22)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yeah. I mean, it's important, you know, I keep using this phrase of Whitman's. Again, again, Whitman was so important to James, and Henry, I keep using that phrase, right? The universe is duly, that's the first phrase, the universe is duly in order. What has arrived is in place, and what waits will be in place, right? So that sense of everything's going to be what it is, what is, is. But then he goes on, and what does he talk about? (01:39:50)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : He starts listing. You know, Whitman, he's a great lister, right? And he talks about children of venereal disease, and wounds, and he describes a specific, because he knew about wounds. And, you know, he lists a whole bunch of just terrible things. He's fully aware that when he says everything is duly in place, he's not leaving out. And that was part of the problem, I mean, mistake I think James made, is to try to keep him out of there. Interestingly, I should, you know, his father, who believed all is God, he's worth talking about in this relationship, in this context we're talking about. (01:40:26)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : He once tried to give that message to Wilkie, who was, at one time, he was the most famous James. Wilkie was the youngest son, and like his older brother, Robertson, right, went off to war, right? Civil War, and the other James brothers stayed back. Not, by the way, James' very good friend, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who became, you know... Supreme Court Justice. That's right. He kept in his closet his uniform with the holes, and his whole judicial life was about, you know, what will create more or less conflict. Because he'd do it, and the consequences of it, and so did Wilkie. So he comes back, he's wounded, he limped the rest of his life, he had a real bad foot wound, James has a beautiful sketch he made of him. (01:41:17)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Henry the father, and Henry relates this. Henry James Sr. Henry James Sr. tries to relate to Wilkie a kind of absolutist position, in the sense that God is... Coming from a Presbyterian background somewhat, Swedenborgian comes into it, but the sense of God is everything was really important to Henry Sr. And he says, God loves all people equally. He says, and before you could say something more, you know, like, that's like God taking care of you. (01:41:48)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Wilkie said, Dad, when I was lying there, when I was wounded, right? They put me on a stretcher, and the one of the people who was carrying me had his head blown off by a cannon. (01:42:05)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And then he's lying there and some other soldier came. And this has to be Henry's word, I think, deluged his blood on me from his jaw had been blown off and deluged his blood on me. And Henry said, Yeah, I think he was trying to tell me, you know, just don't be too glib with that. Henry, it's worth, because this is, if you go back to my experience, right? Oh, something bad led to something good, something led to nothing good. (01:42:40)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : The James family has the archetypal instance of that. And that would be Henry. (01:42:46)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Who lost the use of a leg. (01:42:49)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right. When he was a boy, I don't know, 10 or 11. He was part of a group that was with a scientist whose name I don't remember, who became somewhat famous as an American scientist. But they were, he was showing them how to make rockets go up with paper rockets. And they'd light, you know, they'd put some fuel, some sheet under it, right? And they'd rise up and all this. (01:43:12)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And one, and then they'd come, you know, there would be a fire, but it would, you know, sprinkle and disperse. But one went into a barn and lit some hay and started a fire. So Henry ran over to try to put it out. And the fire went up his pant leg. So he had to have his leg first sawed off below the knee. And there's no anesthesia in this time. Nitrous oxide and other stuff. (01:43:42)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : So he first had it, and then later, I don't know whether it was weeks or months, above the knee with a saw. I mean, it's hard to think of a more horrific event to happen to one. I mean, there's plenty, but that's up there, right? (01:43:58)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : He's a child. (01:44:00)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : He's a child. (01:44:00)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : This colored the rest of his life. (01:44:03)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Well, he was a child who lived for outdoor play. And now, of course, he's so bedridden and he's got alcohol to keep him going. He dealt with that later in his life. He was not an alcoholic in his life later. But anyway, you're going from a boy who went from outdoor play to having a very deeply introspective nature. (01:44:26)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And without that, you don't get William James, you don't get Henry James. And I should... (01:44:34)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : I mean, they were Presbyterians. Presbyterians, they're like all is God, everything is God. They're coming from Calvinism and stuff. So Henry Sr.'s father, right, who had come over penniless from Ireland and... (01:44:53)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Became very wealthy. (01:44:54)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : The third wealthiest man in America, I believe. I've heard that said of him. Yeah, he was working in a dry goods store and then bought a little real estate and then bought a little more and more along what was the Erie Canal. So there was... and he had 13 children and all that. He was, as you imagine any father would, was really like broken up by this. I mean, it was so hard for him to be in that tremendous sympathy for his son. (01:45:22)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : The mother, I guess, being a more strict Presbyterian, I don't know. But she was, but she shooed the father out of the room, didn't want him trying to comfort that way. It was because it's like the Lord's judgment. (01:45:35)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That really stuck with Henry. He said later, I didn't blame the flame. The flame was just being obedient. So, but to make a point about further about Henry James is he, I mean, free will was a little, you know, that's not the free will for Henry James was left it up to will to love God. (01:46:11)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Like, are you got that choice? That's the only choice you have. He was very close with Emerson. They had a good relationship back and forth, right? (01:46:19)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Emerson, who became the godfather of William James. (01:46:23)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right. He became the godfather. (01:46:24)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Ralph Waldo Emerson. (01:46:25)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right. And famous for what's his most famous essay is self-reliance. (01:46:30)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Self-reliance. (01:46:31)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : But at the end of his life, I mean, toward the end of his life, you know, he said, you know, I would duly keep meets and bounds and, you know, support free will. But I have to say, I realized there isn't any, you know, not a sparrow falls. It's everything is an expression of God. There's no, you know, he has that poem is not just an exotic poem about Brahman. If the red slayer thinks he slays or if the slain thinks he is slain, they know not the subtle ways I keep and pass and turn again. (01:47:07)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : I would love America to really keep reading that poem. We're talking... Emerson's poem Brahman. Brahman. You have to remember about these guys like Emerson and Thoreau. Emerson had the largest Oriental library in America. And that's what Thoreau was, you know, he wasn't just their handyman. He was hanging out in the library all the time. I think there were some Japanese scholars that translate Thoreau back into Japanese. It's really remarkable how much Eastern thought was going on back then. (01:47:49)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : How much non-dual and all... and James is to me is so part of it. Religion really mattered to him. I mean, you know, that's what his wife said. And she was probably important for keeping religion going. Keeping it active with him. Not letting him slouch. Because she really was very religious. Henry James Sr. is the one who introduced... she was a Swedenborg. He helped introduce her. He came home from a meeting with her when she was at and said... (01:48:19)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : I've got a girl for you. I've got a girl for you. (01:48:22)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Exactly. (01:48:23)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : But what we're talking about here is the heart of the American Transcendental Movement. (01:48:29)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yes. (01:48:30)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And it's really influential in literature. (01:48:35)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Yes. Yeah. (01:48:37)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And Henry James was, along with Thoreau, were right at the center of that movement. And of course Emerson. (01:48:47)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And Whitman was also, right? He was a big part of it. (01:48:51)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And William James was sort of on the periphery. (01:48:55)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right. You know, an important thing about Whitman, because I've quoted him how many times in our time together here, a simple, compact, well-joined scheme. Myself disintegrated. Everyone disintegrated. Yet part of the scheme. But as you know, I sing the song of myself. I sing myself. You know, he had a tremendous kind of ego. And not just for that poem. Thoreau visited Whitman in New Jersey. Visited him at his home. And he says... (01:49:24)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : All Whitman wanted to know was... How am I doing out there? Are they reading me? What's going on? And that was what he was obsessed with. So I can't say this enough. Of course we have a sense, we have the feeling of self. Look, I'm Jewish. We keep coming back to this. I'm in my shoulders all the time, you know? That's why I kind of practice Tai Chi. You know, because Tai Chi instantly gets you out of your shoulders. (01:49:49)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : You know, if you kind of point your finger, like an embrace. Like you want to feel like... Oh, you know, this is Tai Chi. Nobody hugs like this, right? You want to just, you know, just like embrace. An embrace feels good. A loving embrace feels good before you even move. Because you're moving out of this. But the sense of self is pretty much a sense of contraction. Right? James and Watts used the same word for the sense of self. (01:50:17)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : A reverberation. You know, a second beat. There's... (01:50:23)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : When you say Watts, you mean Alan Watts. (01:50:25)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Alan Watts, yes. As if I'm just talking to boomers out there. I saw him once live. I'm sure you know him too. He looked pretty hollowed out. I mean, there's a man who... I don't know a better writer, a better, you know, just... (01:50:42)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Brilliant thinker. (01:50:43)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right? He was an alcoholic. And when his niece asked him, why do you drink? He said, I'm lonely or something. I mean, I embrace the game. You know, it's not like I'm longing to get back into that state. Where I was just... You know... This moment. This moment. Total bliss. Total... You know, I'm happy to be back out in that world. But like, I could say, oh, I'm a bodhisattva. You know the bodhisattva thing, right? (01:51:14)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : But think about what that means. It's like, oh, you mean you have the choice. Like, you could go away from everybody else. But no, you're staying there, right? To help them out. I don't know, nirvanic resort or something. I don't know quite what they mean by that. I like better nirvana is samsara. That you realize, oh, every moment is part of... I'm already there, right? The anesthetic revelation, one of the points was, as Xenos Clark said, we start on a journey that's ended before we begin. (01:51:53)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : You know, so... (01:51:56)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : We started on a journey that's ended before we begin. It sounds like T.S. Eliot. (01:52:02)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Well, T.S. Eliot, he was a student of Bradley, one of James's, you know... (01:52:11)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Philosophical compatriots. (01:52:12)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right. Compatriot is a great word. And of course, a big promoter of the absolute. And if you think about Eliot's poetry, he talks about eternal recurrence. (01:52:24)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : At the end of our journeys, we discover that we've arrived at the place we've always been. (01:52:31)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : That's right. That's right. So, there, the anesthetic... Bradley, as Sprigg, Thomas Sprigg has the book, T.L. (01:52:41)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Sprigg has, you know, let's get this right, American Truth, British Reality. (01:52:50)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : He says, if he had stayed around for Einstein, he would have been able to also embrace this notion of a blocked universe. (01:52:59)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Who? (01:53:00)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Bradley. (01:53:01)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : If Bradley had stayed around. (01:53:03)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : If Bradley, you know, he was a little tentative to talk in those terms of, like, it's all completed. But he did think that way. And as you say, Eliot was, you know, Eliot's poem, Reflex. Yeah. So, with the sphere, right, we're talking about eternal recurrence, which, you know, what do you got? Pythagoras, Nietzsche, a lot of people before Christianity rose. That's what people, you know, sometimes don't realize, that Augustine came along and said, hey, no more of this eternal recurrence. The Lord God died once for our sins, and we're not going to keep recrucifying him. (01:53:43)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : You know, it's just a cartoonish version. Because if everything is part of the dream, and if the passing thought is the thinker, there's no individual, whether Jesus or whatever, there are no individual people to be cycling again and again. It's just a moment in the sphere. There's no collecting point either. There is a way, I think, to make that work. (01:54:06)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Well, you're bringing in a new topic now, eternal recurrence. I know it's part of your thinking. But why? Is it necessary? (01:54:16)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Well, I think it is, because otherwise, if you hear a block universe, James, by the way, was the first person to put block and universe together. And then he thought, well, I've got to do more work than this. He characterized it as an iron block. He put that word block on there to keep people from... he didn't want to make it attractive for people, the idea. But what he didn't understand was, there is... the reason why... I was asked to write this essay for IAITV called, and they came up with a title, The Metaphysics of Laughing Gas, right? (01:54:54)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Which is, you know, nitrous oxide and stuff. So the anesthetic revelation is that, right? And they're comfortable, very comfortable with the idea that this thing that you're coming out of is this sort of permanent thing that exists. It doesn't change, it doesn't move. Aristotle said, I'm a mover, whatever you want. It's that larger, vaster consciousness in general, before it becomes consciousness in specific. But they knew succession is the thing. (01:55:29)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : And the succession is the thing because in that, you can... it's not you doing the succeeding. It's just moment after moment after moment. So it's not a block in that sense. And then when James added the term iron block to say, okay, in case block is not enough to keep you away from it, I'm going to put the word iron in there too. This is all James. The block you remember is James. It's just his phrase. (01:56:00)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And he meant it the same way physicists today mean it? (01:56:04)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Well, yes, in terms of everything that ever was, will be is now. Yes. But that sense of banning even succession from it, right? Because it has that sense of block. Just solid and nothing's moving. (01:56:21)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : So where does eternal recurrence fit in? (01:56:23)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Well, let's do two things. One, when you think of a block, nobody thinks of a sphere. So that's the other thing, right? It's like that word has been one way to keep us away. We didn't have to add iron. People just don't. Once that word block got in there, we're all ready. (01:56:41)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : With the block universe, normally I would conceive of it as having a beginning and an end. Starts at the big bang and it will end at the big crush. And that's that. (01:56:52)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : You wouldn't think it goes back to... I mean, you know how they talk about the big bounce. (01:56:58)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Yeah, sure. You could do that too. (01:57:01)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right. But all of it is just appearance of stuff being generated and all of that. So I say first make it a sphere. It's still the idea of, you know, everything's contained within it. And the beauty of a sphere or a circle is it has no beginning or end. The beginning is the end. Look, what are we wearing here? (01:57:24)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : The rainbow yin yang. No, it's there. We can see it. (01:57:30)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Oh, you can see it. Okay. So notice this yin and yang and the opposites. And, you know, when I talk about God as a sphere who centers everywhere, circumference nowhere, no identifiable somewhere. You know, Nicholas Acusa picked up on that. It's the conjunction of opposites. You know, just like this yin yang and Heraclitus talks about the hidden harmony. Right. So all of this yin and yang or, you know, you can't have yin without yang. The Taoists like to say it's yin yang. (01:57:58)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : You can't just say yang by itself or yin by itself. It's always kind of a yin yang. So all of this dynamic movement is going on. However, it's all happening in a circle. (01:58:11)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : And I have an animated version in which indeed it does repeat itself. (01:58:16)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It repeats itself in the circle. But what is actually... it's all governed by... so that feels like the reality, right? Except, you know, you've got the circle suggesting at least, right, that everything's connected to a center point. Because you can't have a circle unless every point out there is connected to a center point. And you cannot, again, go from the surface one to the other. You know, there's this phrase James has is the continuity of adjacents. (01:58:44)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It's a key phrase of his. He says, I can't stress how important this is. He actually puts a lot of emphasis on it. It doesn't need self-transcendence to come around. And neither does this. This can be impersonal. It thinks, right? It reigns. Again and again, I have to say it's a fundamental of consciousness, James thought, that was. That impersonal thing. And then, by the way, at the end of Principles of Psychology, the brief, of course, the abridged edition, I think they used to call it, on like the last page, he talks about schistness as prime reality. Leaving who the knower is wide open. (01:59:27)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : No, leaving who the knower really is. (01:59:30)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : The ultimate knower. (01:59:31)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Right. Who the knower really is, wide open. Remember, like, you should concentrate 24 hours a day inwardly searching for this. Who is it? What is it that speaks, is silent, looks and listens? Look at Ramana Maharshi. All he said was just keep asking, who am I? Who am I? Who is that? And you get this schistness guiding us to who the knower is, wide open. Well, wide open in one sense, to me, because I'm making an inference. You know, it's not... James was very clear about this. (02:00:01)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : We're like cats and dogs in the library when we're trying to think of the big issues. We're not going to know. I'm not pretending how this has to be what it is, but I am making this inference that this is the cosmos, the Greek word for order. (02:00:15)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : Jonathan Bricklin, what a joyful conversation. (02:00:21)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : It's always such a delight to be with you, Jeff. (02:00:24)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : It's a great pleasure. I feel like we've known each other a long time. (02:00:28)
[Jonathan Bricklin] : Well, maybe I was Benjamin Paul Blood in a past life and I'm catching up with you in this life. (02:00:33)
[Jeffrey Mishlove] : That could be the topic of another conversation. Thank you so much for being with me today. And for those of you watching or listening, thank you for being with us, because you are the reason that we are here. (02:00:51)
(2025-09-27)