Philosophical Concepts

"In 1958, Robert Monroe floated out of his body for the first time. It began “without any apparent cause,” he wrote. His doctor, finding no physical ailment, prescribed tranquilizers. A psychologist friend, meanwhile, told me him to try leaving his body again. After all, the friend said, “some of the fellows who practice yoga and those Eastern religions claim they can do it whenever they want to.” Monroe did try it again—and again and again. He recalls these experiences in his classic 1971 book Journeys out of the Body, which launched the phrase “out-of-body experiences” into the public conversation. Monroe died in 1995, but the fascination with out-of-body experiences endures."

"When writing, I often feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience in which I’m as ageless, sexless, classless, raceless as I can ever humanly get…I have to forget myself so I can be fully committed to understanding my character’s motivations in a way that isn’t facile or boxed in…"

"According to the literature of the psychic underground, the religious-mystical history of man constantly makes reference to this Second Body. Long before Christianity and the Bible appeared, cultures in Egypt, India, and China, to name a few, held the Second Body idea as standard operating procedure. Historians have found these references again and again, but evidently consigned them to the mythology of the times. If one reads the Bible from this point of view, the belief is confirmed many times in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Catholic Church are found consistent reports of saints and other religious figures having such experiences, some of them willfully. Even in Protestantism, devout followers have reported the out-of-body experience during some form of religious ecstasy. In the Orient, the concept of a Second Body has long held a natural and accepted position of reality."

"Early in the experimentation, a side effect began to manifest itself. It was not an out-of-body activity as such, but took place in states of deep relaxation prior to any separation. It is evidently called in the trade "precognition." As I was lying down, my mind stilled and body relaxed, without my volition, the "vision" would occur."

"Often I wake up to myself, abandoning my body: foreign to everything else in my own intimacy, I see the most extraordinary beauty imaginable. I am convinced, especially then, that I have a superior destiny, my rapture is the highest level that life can reach, I am united with the divine being and, having arrived at this rapture, I fix myself in him above all beings intelligible. But after this rest in the divine Being, having descended from the Intellect back to reflected thought, I ask myself how I carried out this descent in practice and how the soul was able to enter the body, that soul which, although within a body, is the thing noblest he has shown himself to be."

"I never want to forget that I'm doing an impossible thing. How rare is it that you get to be part of something people love? It's really special. It's a very out-of-body experience to be a part of something so huge."

"Most black men couldn't balance a checkbook But buy a new car, talking 'bout, 'How my neck look?' Well, it all looks great Four hundred years later, we buyin' our own chains The light is before us brothers, so the devil workin' hard Real family stick together and see through the mirage The smokescreens, perceptions of false reality I've been woken from enlightened man's dream Checkin' Instagram comments to crowdsource my self-esteem Let me not say too much or do too much 'Cause if I'm up way too much, I'm out of touch I'm prayin' a out-of-body experience will happen So the people can see my light, now it's not just rappin' God, I have humbled myself before the court Drop my ego when confidence was my last resort."

"I have seen a light; not in a near-death experience — I was just passing out. And what I perceived was the tiniest beam of light — that to me was … the final form of life. It just occurred to me, holy cow, there it is. There is the light that everybody talks about. But it's a common theme among people who say they have had a near-death experience or an out-of-body experience. What they see is a light. Some people have seen Jesus in, in this light; other people just see a bright light."

"To clarify the difference between analytic and natural philosophy, here is a list of 11 dogmas that I think are often assumed by analytic philosophers but rarely explicitly defended. For each, I state the natural alternative. 1. The best approach to philosophy is conceptual analysis using formal logic or ordinary language. Natural alternative: investigate concepts and theories developed in relevant sciences. Philosophy is theory construction, not conceptual analysis. ..."