by Sudhir Kakar
With Plato’s idea of the psyche as a fundamental entity before us, let us move on to William James. In the Phaedo, Plato states that it is impossible to plumb the depths of knowledge as long as we are entangled in our bodies. A related idea was taken up by William James in his Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality (1998). James was a close student of the more intensely developed and perhaps relatively rare experiences, thinking, along with Frederic Myers, that the extremities of human performance might offer us clues to a deeper understanding of the human personality. James and Myers posit a mind that pre-exists and stretches beyond the limits of the ordinary conscious personality; our brains are bulwarks against the excesses of mind that threaten to inundate or transform us at a moment’s notice. There are conditions where a personality may be flooded by qualitatively new forms of experience, by spontaneous uprushes from what Myers called the ‘subliminal self’: ascetic practices, crises of conscience, conversion during sickness, profound loss, near-death, inspiration after incubation, etc.
Subjects in the modern NDE are not only conscious after cardiac arrest, but also increase and expand their cognitive range (life review, vision of knowledge, meeting with excarnates) and qualia (beings of light and feelings of love and joy). James thought his move of positing a fundamental mind that ‘pre-exists’ the body (shades of the Platonic psyche and Hindu purusha) not only saved one the effort of trying to derive mind from matter, but explained a variety of paranormal and mystical experiences, otherwise unintelligible to impoverished reductionists.
The ‘Kingdom of God’ indeed is ‘within’ and accessible via the subliminal mansions of our ‘own’ minds. But how can we plumb these depths, which for the most part seem partitioned by various barriers, thresholds and internal constraints? The NDE, thanks to modern resuscitation technology, has become a phenomenon that demonstrates the reality of breakthrough to such domains outlying all barriers and constraints. But a question comes up. Are there less violent and chancy methods for precipitating the expansive influxes of consciousness reported in the spontaneous NDE? Is it possible that each of us is walking around with a treasure trove of inner resources just waiting to be accessed and unleashed? Is it possible to explore the profoundly interesting benefits of NDEs without literally bringing ourselves to the brink of bodily death?
Plato’s Concept of Philosophy and Consciousness Research
This question is our cue to return to Plato. I said we have three things to take from his Phaedo. The first was his ‘substantial’12 conception of the soul—an archetypal one that recurs throughout intellectual history. (The new thing I am trying to stress on is that we have solid empirical matter to bring to this archetypal conception.) The second point is about Plato’s conception of philosophy, as defined in the Phaedo. And this, in line with our purpose, we will try to interpret in light of NDE data and the ‘filter’ model of mind-brain (where brain filters, channels, colours, but doesn’t produce or create mind, soul, consciousness, etc.).
In the course of Socrates explaining how the body is a distraction, how our consciousness is ‘nailed’ to our bodily pains, pleasures and obsessions, he arrived at the paradoxical (and ironical) definition of philosophy as melete thanatou (a ‘practice of death’). This is not as sinister or moribund as it may sound. Practising for death implies releasing the psyche from the cognitively distorting effects of being entangled in bodies, and all the concepts and emotions related to bodies that normally possess and dominate our lives. For Plato the supreme gnosis of being is only possible in a state of complete freedom from the body and its distractions and constraints. The philosopher systematically practises detaching his or her psyche from what Bergson called ‘the plane of life’. Unlike the violent tearing of consciousness away from life during a near-death episode, one gradually and meditatively ‘dies’ to the world of the body, its pains and pleasures, its values, delusions, ideologies. One does this by pursuing a path of dialectic that leads from dianoia (conceptual understanding) to direct mystical illumination, or nous. Plato’s conception of philosophy as an activity that aims for afterdeath freedom and gnosis of the psyche anticipates the transformative drift of the modern NDE.
Is there a modern, scientifically grounded way of doing Plato’s philosophical ‘practice of death’? A way of inducing the qualitative equivalent of a modern NDE? In my view, the NDE illustrates a process perhaps unconsciously drawn upon in ancient philosophy, and as well in shamanic, yogic, prophetic and mystical practice. The core of the practice assumes a model in which normal brain functions are inhibited for the sake of inducing higher forms of experience. Whatever the methods—fasting, meditation, dance, drugs, eroticism, the aim seems to be to stop the brain from performing its normal everyday adaptive activities. Philosophy is a feint, a distraction, a diversion from the routines of the everyday survival-driven life-process. Procedures were discovered empirically that could ‘open the gates of distance’ (nice Zulu metaphor13) and thus widen the horizons of consciousness.
Heroic asceticism seems to make sense in light of the NDE—melete thanatou connection. A relatively small percentage of persons carry asceticism to heroic extremes14; however, the ascetic mystics are usually the ones who exhibit the siddhis and charisms. A prime example would be Joseph of Copertino (1603–63).15 In various ways, Joseph seems to be systematically engineering himself towards a ‘near-death’ state, relentlessly diverting his attention from the plane of ordinary life. His gross appearance often suggests a person near physical death. His biographer Bernini persistently refers to him as looking like a cadaver as a result of his austerities; when he goes into ecstasy, his face is pale, eyes upturned, body stiff as a board, skin cold to the touch, and he is not responsive to physical stimuli. Meanwhile, as with the NDE, heightened, intensified episodes of consciousness are invisibly taking place. Joseph’s spiritual project resembles the Platonic practice of death; he is radically committed to a set of practices that strive to disengage all the normal mental and physical mechanisms that get in the way of his desire for union with ultimate reality. And so he mortifies the flesh; fasts nearly always, peppering what he does eat with a bitter powder; denies himself sleep and all physical comforts; flagellates himself, drawing blood, which eventually prompts his superiors to intervene. The near-deathlike state he cultivates isn’t just on the gross level of the body; the most severely rigorous form of the Platonic practice of death is mental. Joseph strives to arrest his ordinary mental life through the practice of chastity, poverty and obedience. Joseph practised these virtues with Zen-like intensity and absurdity. The aim is to become dead to the world; to reduce himself, as he was fond of saying, to nulla (‘nothing’). This he believed was the necessary condition for experiencing the divine.
In the language of the filter model, the theory predicts that by baffling, stopping and diverting the biologically normative mind-filtering neuro-mechanisms of one’s brain, there is an increased chance of ‘uprushes’ (Myers’ term) from the subliminal mind or ‘overflows’ (Bergson’s term) from the greater mind (Aldous Huxley called it Mind at Large), accelerations and expansions of consciousness such as we know from the NDE and related forms of experience. In disrupting normal brain activity during accidental near-death we get one kind of phenomenology; in the varieties of more deliberate methods of diverting consciousness, we get accelerations and expansions, but with different phenomenologies, on account of different contexts, aims and needs. What runs through all these experiences is the coupling of extreme breakdown with sudden breakthrough; it’s enough to say that something is going on here at odds with the presumptions of neuro-fundamentalism.
We are considering an idea that seems to have lost traction since the rise of modern classical physics. Likewise, for evolutionary theory, it is holy writ that the whole drama of life is essentially grounded in the byplay of stochastic forces. However, in light of an interesting array of data I prefer not to ignore, I believe we are entitled to speak of mind as an aspect of nature that is irreducibly itself and that se
ems in unpredictable ways to escape the constraints of physics. By assuming as our starting-point a mental reality that subliminally undergirds conscious life, we have a tool for making sense of the queer phenomena that challenge contracted mainstream views.
Nowadays there is a relatively small niche for dialogue between science and religion. If the NDE helps illuminate the empirical roots of Plato, why not religion in general? The NDE speaks to life after death, the mystical experience, and to outlaw phenomena we call psychic, supernormal, and so forth. Given the whole range of supernormal and mystical phenomena, we have valuable material for conducting a dialogue between science and religion. All we have time for, however, is to single out two of the most common ideas of virtually all religions, and say something about them. These two beliefs are plainly understood as factual: belief in post-mortem survival and the belief that some people (somehow) experience direct contact with transcendent reality. Where there are factual claims it is possible to be scholarly, objective, critical and scientific; this could be the basis of dialogue between science and religion.
Let us consider these two big ideas, at this moment in the evolution of scientific culture looked upon with grave doubt and suspicion. In my view, it might not be all that bleak, if we pay attention to the rather sprawling, densely populated world of psychical research. Begin with the idea of post-death consciousness. F.W.H. Myers (and his colleagues)16 created a new psychology to investigate the question of survival, but as a secular, not a religious concern. Those who pursue this inquiry are a tiny minority. There is another tiny minority of scholars and scientists who pay attention to the records and studies that swirl around the field of mysticism.
We can ask two big questions: Do any core aspects of human personality survive death? The second, related, question is about mysticism. In all forms of religious life we find reports of individuals who claim contact with ultimate reality, however conceived, imagined or named. The diviner, the shaman, the mystic, the prophet, the medium, the inspired poet, these are all types often noted for paranormal or mystical experiences. There are also people who under various circumstances spontaneously have encounters with God, Brahman, Nirvana, the summum bonum, the Ineffable One, Cosmic Consciousness, and so on and so forth. (There are many vocabularies and grammars for talking about these remarkable experiences.)
What is the relationship between the two types of experience? Is there a way we can rank them? In one sense, the mystical question seems more fundamental than the question about survival, for it prompts us to think about the antecedent desirability of survival. Before I indulge the sheer craving for more existence, should I not think about the qualitative dimension of my life and consciousness, and whether I really want, blindly and at all costs, to continue existing? Is it wise to become preoccupied with just survival? One might regard survival research as a futile enterprise; either we survive or not, and all the research in the world will make no difference to the outcome. Why not just wait and see (if there is anything to see) and in the meantime deal with the slippery business of living? Although I believe there are some good reasons for expecting I will survive death, other facts, moods, or ad hoc reflections may prompt me to doubt its reality or likelihood or even its desirability.
Now it is a different matter with the other empirical item we find reported in most religions. In this case, more is involved than a belief one can never adequately confirm until one actually dies. The mystical dimension is something I can, at least in principle, fully and decisively experience here and now. The interesting thing about the NDE is that we can take it as an argument for the survival of consciousness (see below), but it also provides examples of the mystical state, usually in the form of an encounter with a being of light that resembles in qualia and after-effect experiences in the family of the mystical love.
There is a point about the primacy of the mystical: it usually brings with it the conviction of immortality: not an abstract proposition, but a living light that touches the whole of one’s existence. One ceases to feel the need to argue for or to find better proof, a better case—the perfect case! The mystic’s own experience is the ‘perfect case’. For a person who has had a deep mystical experience the scientific model of certainty will seem superfluous. As long as we remain on this side of the great divide, the case for survival will always be based on inference to the best explanation, and therefore always indirect, and in that sense lacking and short of satisfying.
The situation is different with mystical claims of contact with the Supreme Reality. The mystical element is subject to direct experimental verification; survival we can at best infer; the knowledge is indirect. The mystical experience we can in principle know in the very mundane midst of life; and from a therapeutic perspective, the NDE is a powerful attenuator of the natural fear of death.
We will of course continue with survival research and collect new facts that favour or detract from the hypothesis. This is one way to proceed; the other is to explore more direct types of experimentation, devise ways to reconstitute the various aspects of the near-death state. The main idea here is to learn how to withdraw attention from the normal influx of impressions and motor responses. From texts like the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali to the medieval classic The Cloud of Unknowing, this kind of internal strategy is designed to precipitate direct experiences of consciousness detached from its routine preoccupations. With this model that combines the Platonic assumption (refined by James and Bergson) with the NDE, we have a framework for experimentation. It is a framework that invites mind-brain experimentation to shed light on the question of the ontology of consciousness. There is no reason to rule out that neuroscience devises experiments to test the hypothesis of substance dualism. Best of all would be for the neuroscientist to be the experiment as well as the experimenter.17 This would take Plato’s concept of philosophy as melete thanatou to a new level: neuroscience in service to transcendence, a new approach to experimentation. And a new approach to subject matter, going for the empirical core of the great faiths: survival of consciousness after death and the mystical expansion of consciousness.
The ages of faith are past; we have entered the age of experimentation. Perhaps a time is coming when people will assume the responsibility of performing the most important life and death experiments on our own, in a sense, de novo. Aren’t there some kinds of experiments we have to perform ourselves, such as choosing a vocation or finding a mate or testing one’s personal philosophy? Were not the founders, shapers and renewers of the world’s great spiritual traditions all amateurs, hobbyists, experimenters? They were impatient to find their own answers to fundamental human questions.
Any time you ask a question of nature, and get an answer, you have the nuts and bolts of an experiment. The authority of science perhaps needlessly cows us. There are degrees of sophistication and of importance in the multiverse of experimentation. Survival in one’s neighbourhood on earth is an ongoing experiment. Every work of art—perhaps every thought—is an experiment. One reaches out, one has a plan, one tries something: one watches and waits for a response. Messy life will never be as precise and formal as a quantifiable scientific experiment. But different kinds of experiments have different contexts and purposes and demand different methods and protocols. We need to locate the intermediary space between the strict scientific and the strictly existential. A remark of Niels Bohr catches the essence of what an experiment is: ‘By the word “experiment” we refer to a situation where we can tell others what we have done and what we have learned.’18 This definition would cover an experiment in quantum mechanics as well as an experiment in fasting or meditation, perhaps a bold and unexpected act or gesture towards the art of living. In fact, there’s an infinite number of ways that Bohr’s definition of experiment could be usefully applied. In the behavioural sciences that interest us, where survival and mysticism are such volatile and elusive subject matters, we need more subtle, context-sensitive methods of study and recording results. And perhaps we need to engage ourse
lves as the most important subjects of experimentation. Not in awe of objectivity, we are drawn to the infinite subjective. There are many ways to practise ‘death’, i.e., deflect our consciousness-filtering structures, habits, dispositions; throw them aside. The experimenter may carry on exercises in self-observation, inner dialogue, creative dissociation,19 prolonged attention on one object (Patanjali’s samyama), observing effects of fasting, solitude, meditation, sensory isolation, sleep deprivation, orgy, chanting, self-laceration, Eros, litany, group prayer, hyperventilation, psychoactive chemicals, and so on and so forth. Whatever method you adopt, the goal is to plunder the treasure trove of Myers’ ‘subliminal self’. It is a mistake to imagine there are only a few tried and tested procedures for doing this.
If we never expect a thing to happen, we may not notice if it does. The Epicureans put a high premium on diathesis—’attitude’. The wrong attitude can close off a world. An impoverished belief-system can reduce us, for it would obscure our ability to detect hints, coincidences, moods, impressions, what knows what response, or offering, from the unknown part of ourselves that presides over us as we sleepwalk through life. Einstein famously had a genius for thought-experiments; we should take courage to make our lives a thought-experiment. But really, you ask, how on earth are we supposed to do this?
There are as many ways to tell a story as there are authors and stories to tell, said Henry James; you could say the same about tricking ourselves into states that open up to the greater mind the traveller’s maps indicate as surrounding us. Almost anything we encounter might play off the paradox of the filter theory that equates loss with gain, the end with a new beginning, and even death with the possibility of greater life. We are starting to weave the scattered details of the nascent map into a story
The Myth of True Earth
Now to the third point from Plato relating to the NDE. Besides plying his companions with the ‘charms’ of argument, Socrates tells a story at the end of the dialogue, a mythos of the ‘true earth’—aleithos ge.20 Plato expressed his ideas in the form of dialogues, perhaps because he started out as a dramatist. Besides dialogue and conceptual analysis he employed rhetorical devices such as analogy, encomia, allegory, charm-spinning and sometimes elaborate mythology. Plato resorts to myths and various figures of speech when he needs to say something with suggestive, evocative language, which analytic discourse cannot handle.