Henry: Hi Vineeto,
My impression was that it was a PCE, so perhaps this an opportunity for me to become more incisive.
Could this be a case of a PCE devolving into an altered state? I think that the limitations of language play a role as well often, for example someone who hadn’t ever read the Actualism site might find themselves describing a PCE as ‘beautiful,’ having not observed that there was in fact no beauty at play. (link)
Hi Henry,
Thank you for your reply. It is indeed vital to be “incisive” [astute] when assessing another’s (and your own) extraordinary experiences.
Even though Claudiu wrote an excellent exposé already, I post this one as well as it was already written.
Let’s have a close look at her wording and consider if you would use such words describing your own PCE –
Jane Goodall: “Lost in awe at the beauty around me”
Both “awe” and “beauty” are definitely feeling words.
Jane Goodall: “the moment of truth that suddenly came upon me then. Even the mystics are unable to describe their brief flashes of spiritual ecstasy.”
“Truth” is clearly a spiritual/ religious word, so is “spiritual ecstasy”. Ecstasy also means ‘rapture, bliss, euphoria, jubilation, exaltation’ per Oxford Dictionary, which is clearly not describing an experience where the instinctual/ feeling self, both ‘I’ and ‘me’, is in abeyance. Also why mention “the mystics” unless one believes in a spiritual reality beyond the physical reality.
Jane Goodall: “the self was utterly absent: I and the chimpanzees, the earth and trees and air, seemed to merge, to become one with the spirit power of life itself.”
The “self” Jane Goodall is referring to is the ego-self, not the ‘Self’ with a capital “S”. With the ego-self absent she temporarily becomes “one with the spirit power [sic!] of life itself” and merges with “the chimpanzees, the earth and trees and air” – a oneness as is described being experienced in many altered states of consciousness.
Jane Goodall: “The air was filled with a feathered symphony, the evensong of birds. I heard new frequencies in their music and also in singing insects’ voices – notes so high and sweet I was amazed. Never had I been so intensely aware of the shape, the color of the individual leaves, the varied patterns of the veins that made each one unique.”
This part of her description could be similar to that of a pure consciousness experience, even though it has a poetic tinge to it.
Jane Goodall: “Scents were clear as well, easily identifiable: fermenting, overripe fruit; waterlogged earth; cold, wet bark; the damp odor of chimpanzee hair, and yes, my own too. And the aromatic scent of young, crushed leaves was almost overpowering.
That afternoon, it had been as though an unseen hand had drawn back a curtain and, for the briefest moment, I had seen through such a window.”
This indicates that the experience may have started as a PCE but very quickly devolved into an ASC, as demonstrated by her unequivocal spiritual sentences at the beginning and referral to malice and sorrow at the end.
Jane Goodall: “In a flash of “outsight” I had known timelessness and quiet ecstasy, sensed a truth of which mainstream science is merely a small fraction. And I knew that the revelation would be with me for the rest of my life, imperfectly remembered yet always within. A source of strength on which I could draw when life seemed harsh or cruel or desperate.”
The mentioning of the “revelation” being a strength “on which I could draw when life seemed harsh or cruel or desperate” means that nothing she experienced has revealed that there is an actual world where life is already, and always, perfect and pure. This is really the strongest clue that it was not ever a PCE despite her heightened awareness experience.
I did not mention “timelessness” as the experience of time standing still in a PCE can be easily misnamed – Richard explains it well in Pamela’s video. (link)
Does this help to draw a distinction between a pure consciousness experience and an altered state of consciousness (for millennia considered as the summum bonum of human consciousness)?
Here is the selected correspondence on differentiating altered states and PCEs – (Richard, Selected Correspondence, Affective vs. Pure Experiences)
Cheers Vineeto