[Ibrahim]

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

Sounds pretty cliche at this point, but people who are innately convinced of an objectively comprehensible external reality just really haven't done enough drugs yet (or perhaps enough zazen). Cannot stress enough that this is an area that requires personal experience rather than intellection. Note that I am not asserting the existence of God; neither am I claiming "the self" or mind are not real (or that scientific laws aren't real). I'm just stating that our hold on basic ontology is a lot shakier than we'd like to believe. I'm sure something like 95% of the human race lives and dies without confronting anything like a directly experienced ontological challenge or shakeup, which means we don't really have a good way of describing it. It's sort of like experiencing an alteration of gravity - since so few humans ever do, we don't have much vocabulary to discuss it. Think this kind of thing is much more interesting than the "Priest made a deal with the Devil and now must face the consequences!" or "The serial killer didn't really die, watch out for his GHOST!" idea of 'the supernatural' that most people have.

Perhaps you are already on record about it here, or somewhere, mr. Isis, but this makes me curious what you think of Phil Dick's Valis. I don't remember anything explicitly supernatural occurring in it, but it should be able to uproot more preconceptions about reality than all the eldritch unspeakables from unfathomable Lovecraftian abbysses together. & what of Burroughs's Nova Express trilogy?