Re: Joy of this, Joy of that

On Tue, 10 Dec 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 09/12/2024 22:12, rbowman wrote:

On Mon, 9 Dec 2024 10:33:06 +0100, D wrote:
 

I find it interesting how in our modern and enlightened times (say from
the 1950s and onward) there's been a "merge" with eastern spirituality
where christian writers have "christianized" eastern meditational
practices, and sometimes almost re-invented what the original crew you
mentioned above did several 100 years earlier.

 Prophet in his own land...  iirc Thomas Merton, who was well versed in
Zen, pointed out the similarities to Christian mysticism and suggested you
didn't really need to make the 'journey to the east'.

>
Mysticism is pretty much the same the world over. As I said some consider its the relics of a global shamanism that permeated the dawn of time.
>
It  all deals with non-ordinary states of mind. What differs, is how it is described and tge means by which you obtain them.

I would add a small difference when it comes to purpose. In shamanism shamans used to visit the spirit plane with different purposes, while in later mysticism, generally the idea is to find union with god.
I find that perhaps a small "off-shoot" or inheritor to shamanism is the occult, where people have more tangible intents and purposes behind their tripping.