I’ve been trying to think how to describe my philosophical position. Changing so deeply in such a short time, I suppose I am actually trying to decide my philosophical position. The vague yet monumental vista of a divine universe, in which my human life was inherently meaningful and redemption its natural end, collapsed.
It is so important to transcend duality, though, in understanding these things, or anything: we should try not to think in black and white or, if that is impossible, remember that we think in black and white. The great redemptive hope was not simply my belief, solid and unchanging, but something I saw a certain amount of sense in, yet sometimes doubted. Now, it is not a false view that I have rejected, but a theory that I strongly suspect is false. Similarly, I need to keep taking on that worldview again, doubting its negation, in order to check my reasoning and my intuitive feelings or imagination (call it what you will): the alternative is to be closed-minded.
But what is it I’m trying to work out? The word ‘mystical’ keeps coming to me, dragging a set of curious associations. I described myself on a forum yesterday as a ‘recovering mystic’, but this morning awoke to a train of thought that it would have been easy to label as a mystical observation, at least in the absence of a dictionary and before my first cup of coffee. - Read the full article…>
Posted by John Freestone 
