subject and the object of the experience. Zaehner thought that theistic experience was an
advance over the monistic, since the latter expressed a self-centered interest of the mystic
to be included in the ultimate.
William Wainwright (1981, ch. 1) has described three modes of mystical extrovertive
experience: (1) a sense of the unity of nature; (2) a sense of nature as a living presence;
and (3) the sense that everything transpiring in nature is in an eternal present. Wainwright
recognizes the Buddhist unconstructed experience as a fourth mode of extrovertive
experience. Wainwright, like Zaehner, distinguishes two mystical introvertive
experiences, one of pure empty consciousness, and theistic experience marked by an
awareness of an object in “mutual love.”
6. Pure Conscious Events
6.1 The Defenders of Pure Conscious Events
Much philosophical discussion has taken place over whether PCEs ever occur, and if they
do, whether they are significant in mysticism. Defenders of PCEs
end p.146
depend on alleged references to pure consciousness in the mystical literature. One
striking example is the Buddhist philosopher Paramaartha, who stated explicitly that all
of our cognitions were “conditioned” by our concepts save for the nonsensory
“unconditioned” Buddhist experience of emptiness (Forman 1989). Another example
cited is from the writings of the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart that describe a
“forgetting” that abandons concepts and sense experience to sink into a mystical
“oblivion” (Forman 1993a). In addition, Robert Forman (1993b) has testified to a PCE he
himself endured, describing it as an empty consciousness from which one “need not
awake.”
6.2 Criticism of the Defense of Pure Conscious Events
(1) Reports of PCEs in the literature may not be decisive. We should suspect idealization
in at least some instances. Idealization occurs when an ideal goal is falsely presented as
achieved. Whether or not pure consciousness ever occurs, we should suspect it might be
presented as though it did. (2) The PCE defenders exaggerate the centrality of complete
emptying out in mysticism. It is questionable if it is central in the mainstream of Christian
mysticism, for example, where typically the mystic forgets all else to better contemplate
God. Typical is the Christian mystic Jan Ruysbroeck, who wrote that emptying oneself is
but a prelude to the mystical life of contemplating God through an act of divine grace
(Zaehner 1961, 170–71). Likewise, the “shedding of corporeality” in early Hasidism was