View source for Ineffability

{{template:connectionnav}}

{{navmenu}}
<h1 class="customtitle">{{FULLPAGENAME}}</h1>
<blockquote class="definition">
'''Ineffability''' is a characteristic of a [[Mystical Experience]] (a.k.a. [[Connection Experience]]. A mystical experience is an intense [[Connection Event]] with deep and significant spiritual content that cannot immediately, or without considerable effort, be put grounded and put into words.
</blockquote>

==Notes==

[[William James]] says "that it defies expression, that no adequate report of its contents can be given in words. It follows from this that its quality must be directly experienced; it cannot be imparted or transferred to others. In this peculiarity mystical states are more like states of feeling than like states of intellect. No one can make clear to another who has never had a certain feeling, in what the quality or worth of it consists. One must have musical ears to know the value of a symphony; one must have been in love one's self to understand a lover's state of mind. Lacking the heart or ear, we cannot interpret the musician or the lover justly, and are even likely to consider him weak-minded or absurd. The mystic finds that most of us accord to his experiences an equally incompetent treatment."<ref>
James, William. Varieties of Religious Experience, a Study in Human Nature (pp. 330-331). Kindle Edition.</ref>

Blum notes that ineffability claims must be taken seriously, and that "ineffability seem to represent the efforts of a mystic to extend the reach of his linguistic capabilities to encompass an experience that occurred, at least partially, in a nonlinguistic fashion."<ref>Blum, Jason N. "The Science of Consciousness and Mystical Experience: An Argument for Radical Empiricism." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 82 1 (2014): 169.</ref> -- Meaning mystical experience is real, and there are some/many aspects of a mystical experience that are hard to express in words.

{{template:cite}}

==References==

<references />

{{template:references}}

[[category:terms]]