2. Agenda
• Mysticism
• Definitions of Mysticism
• The Necessity of Mysticism
• Views of Mysticism by Other Philosophers /
Theologians / Psychologists
• Implications of Mysticism
2
3. Agenda
• Cult
• Definition of Cult
• Case Study: Eastern Lightning (東方閃電) /
Church of Almighty God (全能神教會)
• Challenges
3
5. Philosophical Definitions of “Mystical
Experience” in Wide Sense
• A (purportedly:) super sense-perceptual or sub
sense-perceptual experience granting
acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that
are of a kind not accessible by way of sense
perception, somatosensory modalities, or
standard introspection.
• Exclude religious visions / auditions, OBE,
telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance…etc
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6. “Mystical Experience” in
Narrow Sense
• A (purportedly:) super sense-perceptual or sub
sense-perceptual unitive experience granting
acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that
are of a kind not accessible by way of sense-
perception, somatosensory modalities, or
standard introspection.
• Eradication of multiplicity, Oneness, “oceanic
feeling”…etc
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8. Other Related Definitions
• Religious Experience: any experience related to
religious context. Narrow sense: without mystical
experience
• Numinous Experience: Mystical experience in
wide sense - mystical experience in narrow
sense.
• Non-unitive experience
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9. Categories of Mystical
Experiences
• Extrovertive and Introvertive framework (Stace,
1960) - Perennialism
• Theistic and Non-theistic:
• Theistic: Union with God. “I am God”.
• Non-theistic: Neurophysiologically / Drug
induced.
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10. Psychological Definitions of
Mysticism
• Lectures XVI and XVII “Mysticism”, “The Varieties of
Religious Experience” (William James, 1920)
• Ineffability: "defies expression, that no adequate report
of its content can be given in words"
• Noetic quality: "insight into depths of truth unplumbed
by the discursive intellect”
• Transiency: short occurrence but effect persists
• Passivity: not active seekers, but passive recipients
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11. Evidential Force and Value
• The evidential value of religious experiences (Clark,
1984)
• The evidential force of religious experience (Davis,
1989)
• The evidential value of religious experience
(Swinburne, 1981)
• Evidential Force: sufficient warrant for belief in God
• Evidential Value: justify if holding Principle of Credulity
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16. Some unsolved at this
moment
• Origin of Universe
• Origin of Life
• Hard problem of consciousness
• P = NP
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17. Origin of Universe
• Current mainstream interpretation in physical
science: homogeneous
• God is homogeneous. Universe is homogeneous.
Which to choose?
• By Occam’s razor, choose universe is
homogeneous?
• Implications: many worlds interpretation,
multiverse, bubble universe
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18. Gap of Human Knowledge
• How should we fill in?
• Scientism, New Atheists: Science. God is God of
the Gap.
• Science of the Gap? Science / natural
explanation is more superior? With predictive
power? With track record?
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19. Falsifiability of Science
• Open-end worldview
• Can always adjust hypotheses
• Must accept possibility of unknown unexpected
events in the future (e.g. miracles)
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22. Agnosticism
• We cannot know forever
• Critique of Pure Reason (Kant)
• das Ding an sich (thing-in-itself, 物自身, Noumenon)
• Antinomy (二律背反): Space and Time, Atomism, Freedom, God
• the most rational stance, but modern philosophers think this as
lazy stance (there is an internal urge)
• If you have a mystical experience, you still need to handle (explain
to yourself)
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23. Skepticism
• Doubt everything. If not sure, default is negative.
• Look for normal explanation before turning to mystical /
supernatural explanation.
• Ray Hyman
• Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of Oregon
• Cofounded Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI),
previously Committee for the Scientific Investigation of
Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)
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24. Pseudoskepticism?
• Reject pseudoscientific and paranormal events
• Include yogic flying, therapeutic touch, astrology,
fire walking, voodoo, magical thinking, Uri Geller,
alternative medicine, channeling, psychic hotlines
and detectives, near-death experiences,
unidentified flying objects (UFOs), the Bermuda
Triangle, homeopathy, faith healing, and
reincarnation
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25. An extraordinary claim
requires extraordinary
proof.
— Marcello Truzzi, On the Extraordinary: An Attempt at
Clarification, Zetetic Scholar, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 11, 1978
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26. Purely Psychological
• The Psychology of Religious Mysticism (Leuba, 1925):
physiological explanation
• The Future of an Illusion (Freud, 1927/1961b): psychological
• double error: presume existence of God, attribute to God
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27. Purely Psychological?
• The Varieties of Religious Experience (James,
1902/1985)
• science cannot rule out that a mystical
experience is an experience of the Real or of a
foundational reality that may be necessary for
the experience to occur
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28. Maybe neuropsychological
• some fundamental internal mechanism is
operating (Wulff, 2000)
• activated non-theistic mystical experience from
prefrontal area (d'Aquili and Newberg, 1993,
1999, 2000)
• they question its practicality in evolution with such
mechanism
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29. Maybe psychotic?
• Mysticism: Spiritual Quest or Psychic Disorder?
(Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, 1976)
• Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
• Not neurophysiological deficiency
• Hallucination?
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30. Explanation to Mysteries in
the Bible and Theology
• hypostatic union
• exorcism
• holy spirit
• basis of revealed theology
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31. Explanation to personal
events
• private revelations
• meditations
• big dreams
• not psychosis
• ground of personal validity, may not be
universally valid
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32. Views of Mysticism by Other
Philosophers / Theologians /
Psychologists
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33. St. Thomas Aquinas
• Rational, systematic theologian, natural
theologian
• writer of Summa Theologica (神學大全)
• Lives of the Saints (Alban Butler, Thurston and
Attwater revision, 1956)
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34. • On the feast of St. Nicholas [in 1273, Aquinas] was
celebrating Mass when he received a revelation that so
affected him that he wrote and dictated no more, leaving his
great work the Summa Theologiae unfinished. To Brother
Reginald’s (his secretary and friend) expostulations he
replied, "The end of my labors has come. All that I have
written appears to be as so much straw after the things that
have been revealed to me." When later asked by Reginald
to return to writing, Aquinas said, "I can write no more. I
have seen things that make my writings like straw.”
• Aquinas died three months later while on his way to the
ecumenical council of Lyons.
Aquinas’s Mystical
Experience
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35. Martin Luther
• Reformer, Protestant
• “It occurred in the tower room of the monastery when he was
reading the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. While
reading Luther suddenly saw that Paul was describing a merciful
justice, and not a punitive one, which is conferred upon men
through Christ and which in no way can be separated from the
Redeemer. Because of this revelation Luther was like a man for
whom paradise had been reopened. With the selfsame intensity
with which he has previously hated God, he now drank in the
exceedingly sweet pledge. It was not that Luther found God, but
rather God found him. From then on he was oriented more toward
the Pauline epistles than toward the Gospel.”
(http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/l/luther_martin%20.ht
ml)
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36. Tien Ming Lee (李天命)
• Modern Philosopher in Hong Kong, specialized in
critical thinking and mathematical logic
• Had mystical experience, and so hold religious
stance as mystical optimism (神秘樂觀)
• 李天命網上思考:神秘樂觀
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrvQKgp7dog
)
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37. Paul the Apostle
• Saul, zealous Pharisee
• Conversion of Paul the Apostle
• As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.
He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute
me?”
“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
"I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and
you will be told what you must do.”
The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see
anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing.
So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat
or drink anything.
— Acts 9:3–9, NIV
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38. Lúcia Santos
• 1 of 3 visionaries to the Marian apparitions at
Fátima in 1917
• Another 2 died as prophesied on the next year
(1918 influenza pandemic)
• they requested no treatment
• She turned into Carmelite nun for whole life
• Died in 2005. Beatified in 2008.
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39. Carl Jung
• Psychologist, contributing to psychotherapy and
analytical psychology
• Open to experiences before interpreting by
religious contexts
• Mystical experiences described in Memories,
Dreams, Reflections (MDR)
(http://www.bodysoulandspirit.net/mystical_experi
ences/read/notables/jung.shtml)
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41. Implications of Mysticism
• Encourage superstition
• whenever cannot explain something, just say it
is a mystery
• Charismatic movement
• glossolalia
• active seeking
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42. Implications of Mysticism
• New Age Movement
• UFO
• To scientists / new atheists, do they believe in aliens
more than in God?
• Ancient Astronaut Theory
• Creationism
• Cults & New Religious Movement
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47. Brief History
• The Shouters (呼喊派), another cult, was found by Witness Lee (李常受)
in 1962 in US
• The Shouters was spread to China from US in 1970s
• Zhao Weishan (趙維山) was a core member of The Shouters
• He started Eastern Lightning (東方閃電) from Henan (河南) in China in
1990s
• Declared a female mental patient Yang Xiangbin (楊向彬) (“Lightning
Deng”, 鄧閃電) as female Christ (女基督)
• They escaped to US in 2001
• Started to spread to Taiwan and Hong Kong in 2010s
47
50. Growth Methodology
• Target Christians, clergies and females
• New immigrants to HK
• Infiltration to local churches and seminaries
• Setup street stations next to MTR stations
• KPI: 30 new leads / mo
• Threats, drugged, kidnapping and imprisonment
• Flirty fishing to clergies
• Sell their books in bookstores
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