Maverick Philosopher

Over-Belief and Romans 1: 18-20

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Is the Pauline passage an example of Jamesian over-belief?

The 'Summons' of Meditation

This has happened often. I go to the black mat to begin my session.  I go there and assume the cross-legged posture. My purpose is  to enter mental quiet and elevate my mind to the highest. But a petty thought obtrudes. I begin to enact or realize this 'centrifugal' thought by attending to it. But then I receive a 'summons' in the form of a light, sometimes blue, sometimes white, sometimes small, sometimes large, sometimes pulsating, sometimes not, usually subtle but phenomenologically  unmistakable.  Nothing so dramatic as to throw me off my horse were I riding a horse.  Just a light, but one that calls me to the topic and into focus, and away from the diaspora of the petty. And then it goes out.

I know that the source of the light is not something physical external to my body.  Perhaps the cause is in my brain. But that is pure speculation, and easily doubted. The phenomenon is what it is and cannot be gainsaid: I can doubt the cause but I cannot doubt the datum in its pure phenomenality. It is indubitable as a pure givenness.  Perhaps the 'summons' is a call from the Unseen Order which lies beyond all sensible 'visibility.' But that too is speculation. Perhaps there is no Unseen Order. In that case the 'summons' would not be a summons.  I cannot be sure that it is and I cannot be sure that it isn't.

Neither underbelief nor overbelief is justified by the experience itself.  But the facts are the facts. The phenomenological facts are that I and other dedicated meditators  have this 'summons' experience and it is followed by mental focus or onepointedness which is some cases takes the more dramatic form of a 'glomming onto' the theme of the meditation.

So am I not within my epistemic rights -- assuming that it even makes sense to speak of rights and duties with respect to matters doxastic -- in treading the path of overbelief? 

Related:

Unusual Experiences and the Problems of Overbelief and Underbelief

Overbelief and Romans 1: 18-20