In my previous blog I talked about a single experience some fifteen years ago which would go on to promote tremendous personal, cultural and intellectual growth. It was from hearing Jocelyn Pook’s ‘How Sweet the Moonlight’ sung by the countertenor Andreas Scholl. I often reflect on that experience as being ‘transcendental’ but is this description problematic for the non-believer? My heart wishes to retain this moment in my life as ‘out of the ordinary’ but to do so, must I commit to what a theist might call ‘the hand of God’?
Transcendent: exceeding usual limits; extending or lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience; (In Kantian philosophy): being beyond the limits of all possible experience and knowledge
Merriem Webster Dictionary
Part of my problem is that I don’t think it’s possible to use the word ‘transcendental’ without it’s other-worldly connotation. For the very existence of the term almost demands at the very least that something beyond the limits of ordinary experience could exist. There is an argument that terms such as ‘sacred’ and ‘transcendental’ can absolutely have secular meaning and that all we need is the ‘idea’ that such fantastical – natural law-breaking entities could exist. But if I commit to my 2005 experience as being truly transcendental – I get the benefit of believing that forces outside those of my own conscious mind can affect me directly.
For the theist reading this, there is probably a slow sagacious nodding of the head. She is possibly reading this thinking ‘yes – this is what we Christians/Muslims/Jews/ or any faith that believes in an interventionist God have known since revelation. You can only truly have a transcendental experience by the will of an entity that is itself – transcendental. How is it possible for your own limited human mind, contained within three pounds of grey matter, to truly experience anything other than that which you can account for either by sight, taste, touch or sound. Your feelings back then in 2005 as Andreas Scholl’s voice captivated and inspired you was not simply a psychological reaction culminating from the physiognomy of chemical signals in your brain flooding within you a hormone induced feeling of transcendence – it was God, actually ‘lifting’ you to a higher place of knowing, albeit briefly, to set you on your path to greater enlightenment. You know that the experience was truly other-worldly as your subjective world as it was, to all intents and purposes, forever changed.
Alright. Well…now I have a problem. I like this. I like this a lot. There is a tremendous amount of comfort in knowing that experiences that are transcendental could be evidence that a power, greater than that which I can imagine, are finding ways to help me grow and improve – and if it were possible to simply park the role of a celestial being in my life right there – then that would be useful. I love my God because She only gets involved to make sure I’m not missing any great opportunities to improve. Were it that simple. That rabbit hole entrance to faith (God as interventionist and interested in ‘me’) comes with a series of other commitments which, as I said in the previous blog, I simply cannot make. Commitments to doctrine, to ritual, to the paradoxes of Scripture and the fallible human hand making sense of the ineffable. I will absolutely concede that we are not limited to the Abrahamic faith’s interpretation of a divine being – there’s other ideas out there – but the natural world, understood by others and witnessed by me gives no objective proof that such a thing exists. There’s a reason why a belief in God is called a leap of faith.
So I still have the ‘transcendental’ problem. I can’t (or won’t) cross that Rubicon to a belief in God. So before I give over to the a-theist view, can my experience be saved from a simply psychological one? Let’s be clear on what exactly was the ‘transcendental’ moment for me in 2005. At that moment of hearing ‘How Sweet the Moonlight’ I was ‘transfixed’ ‘mesmerised’ ‘transported’ – as I have been in many other experiences before and since. No doubt I was experiencing strong psychological affects all of which were very pleasant. Within those four minutes and fifteen seconds I was not lifted to an astral plane nor did I glimpse Nirvana. In actual fact – the incredibleness of that evening was only realised upon reflection. I would certainly not have described that evening as a ‘religious experience’.
Ahhh! So is that the true nature of transcendence? It is not something one ‘feels’ rather something one ‘realises’. Transcendence only comes through context – through careful study of the whole story – not simply a tiny section of it. Maybe I can describe it as transcendental because it is only some years after the event I can fully appreciate the significance. Now I have context – I can clearly state that was a moment beyond the ordinary. I can only know I was beyond the limits of my own experiences because I had no idea what was to come next. This has potential for allowing transcendental to retain the meaning above but not tie me to the divine.
But yet it would appear then that I must concede that the experience itself was purely psychological and it’s lasting affects assigned to more earthly and ultimately human reasoning – so why do I feel a little disappointed? And why should I feel that psychological explanations are simply a ‘silver medal’?
It seems reasonable to ascribe ‘transcendental’ to the effects of the experience later on in my life, as I see it as part of a longer journey – but why did it happen then? Was that moment simply incidental?
In my last blog on this train of thought I will explore what it would mean to say it was simply incidental that “How Sweet the Moonlight’ would come to be such a significant moment. There may be some problems linked to free will and causality to consider – but as I prepare my thoughts, I wonder if the itch that remains present is whether my conscious mind could ever be enough to explain how some experiences can be so…beyond my limits.
StoatAubergine 