John Horgan's 'Rational Mysticism'

Attempting to be more than Man We become less . . ."
--William Blake, The Four Zoas, Night the Ninth

In re:

Horgan, John. Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the Border Between Science and Spirituality. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Table of contents
Publisher description
Introduction

See also:

Debunking Enlightenment, book review by Thomas W. Clark, Free Inquiry, Volume 24, Number 2.

My review of Clark's review

My initial reaction to Horgan

I began with a hasty judgment of the author, but as his account of his adventures proceeded, I became more tolerant of Horgan and more hostile to his interlocutors, and my only gripe against Horgan was his tolerance of them. Horgan maintains an interest in hallucinogenic drugs, which becomes a major theme in the book.

Horgan begins with a 1999 conference on "Science and Consciousness", which follows Fritjof Capra's line (which Capra has since repudiated, according to Horgan) on the spiritual implications of physics. (15) Horgan has no brief for this, but he proceeds to query Huston Smith about his mystical beliefs. Smith claims to embrace all the world's religions and even purports to find unity among their contradictory belief systems. Horgan's not buying this either, and he is critical of Smith's metaphysics (which came to him in a drug-induced vision) and anti-scientific attitude. (22-23)

Horgan is also concerned that the mystical experience is not necessarily positive; it brings us face to face with the dark side of the universe and the problem of evil, thus his sympathies for gnosticism. (32)

His next encounter is with a group of postmodernist believers, such as Bernard McGinn, a Catholic. Here Horgan introduces another of his major preoccupations--the legitimacy or lack thereof of the notion of a "perennial philosophy". (40) Horgan introduces Steven Katz, who also looks askance at the perennial philosophy and is skeptical of Western adaptations of Eastern religions. (41ff) Katz is also an Orthodox Jew, and ties the anti-Semitism attributed to Joseph Campbell to the latter's perennialism. (46) Queried about whether Katz's relativistic inclinations lead to skepticism, Katz retorts that perennialism leads to skepticism, while his particularist view fosters tolerance. Horgan doesn't believe it. (47) He reviews Smith's notion of the 'scandal of particularly', or the idea that the Divine would favor any individual or group. (49) Finally, Horgan raises the issue of the notorious misbehavior of gurus, and the phenomenon of "holy madness". (53)

Ken Wilber is pro-science, pro-perennial philosophy, and favors a rational mysticism as synthesis of East and West, yet opposes the unification of physics and spirituality. (56) He has a classification scheme of levels of being and consciousness, the highest being nondual awareness, and lower levels including materialism, superstition, and New Age thought. (57) Horgan is initially uncomfortable with Wilber's work, but looks forward to meeting him. (58) Wilber firmly rejects postmodernism and quantum mysticism as well as materialism. (60) He also doesn't believe in drug use as a spiritual path. Wilber rejects the notion that mysticism yields moral superiority or privileged insight into the workings of the cosmos. (61-62) (In this he reminds me of Swami Agehananda Bharati , whom Horgan unaccountably never mentions.) Wilber is basically optimistic, but his progressive view of the cosmos is "embedded in a cyclical Hindu cosmology." (63) He believes that mind is primary to matter, but otherwise he is cogent enough to be favorably reviewed by Skeptical Inquirer. (64)

Horgan admires him, but is irritated by Wilber's big ego. Wilber himself admits this, though he claims 'ascience' (not-knowing) rather than omniscience. (65) Wilber then dipped into his book Integral Pyschology to deploy his erudition. (Howard Gardner wouldn't buy this concept or 'spiritual intelligence'.) (66) Wilber's model is more sophisticated than Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness, which exploited social darwinist thinking in a sexist and especially racist manner. (67) Wilber felt that God created the cosmos out of loneliness. (68) But Wilber rejects the dark gnostic view of the cosmos. (70) Horgan retains his doubts about nondual awareness, which is an extemely rare phenomenon. He also doubts Wilber's claim that mysticism is as empirical as science, since it is not replicable or transparent to all observers. (71) Wilber places high hopes on neuroscience.

Chapter 4 is devoted to neurotheology. Andrew Newberg and Eugene D'Aquili are advocates of the perennial philosophy. Newberg links mysticism to quantum mechanics. (77) Both argue that mysticism, meditation, and religious belief are good for us. (78-79) When prodded, Newberg is willing to concede the Dark Side of the Force (my lingo, not Horgan's). They express hope, with some backtracking, that one day neuroscience will be able to distinguish genuine mystical states. (81) Some have found their experiments ridiculous. (85) They have been funded by the Templeton Foundation. They believe in a transcendent reality, but they also tend to undermine their arguments when they postulate evolutionary causes, such as the notion that mystical states evolved from the experience of orgasm. (86) Horgan is reminded of a 1979 paper by Lewontin and Gould on spandrels, which criticizes the "Panglossian" (teleological?) fallacy that all human behavioral traits are adaptations. (87-88)

Michael Persinger is the inventor of the "God Machine", based on the notion that electrical impulses can generate religious and mystical states. He professes neutrality toward religious belief, but he's not terribly sympathetic to religion or mysticism. (95) Horgan tried out Persinger's machine, but it didn't do anything for him. Persinger himself never had any extraordinary experiences using this machine, perhaps because of his skeptical temperament. Others are skeptical that his research amounts to anything. (99) Persinger takes ESP seriously, which makes Horgan doubtful of him. (101) Horgan wonders if mysticism is connected to the paranormal and an evolutionary development as an extension of the ability to detect other minds. (105)

Susan Blackmore had a dramatic out-of-body experience and a lively interest in paranormal phenomena, but after putting her hypotheses to rigorous tests, became a skeptic. She also became a Zen Buddhist. She thinks that Buddhism anticipated cognitive science in some ways. She uses the concept of memes and suggests that the self is an illusion, just a bundle of memes. (114) She is skeptical of theorists like Ken Wilber. (117) Her vision of spiritual progress is stripped down: shed yourself of illusory memes. (119) Horgan is skeptical of her claims, particularly about the illusory self. He also has doubts about John Wren-Lewis, who argues for bliss by chance. (121)

Horgan gleaned the concepts of depersonalization and derealization from James Austin's Zen and the Brain. Austin sees mysticism in terms of personality changes, not metaphysical insight. That is, he believes in "perennial psychophysiology", not perennial philosophy. He has thoroughly reviewed the existing literature, much of which he finds flawed. He seeks to isolate the healthy from the pathological manifestations of these psychic states. (125) He doubts that the mystical experience can be localized in a specific part of the brain, and he "sees spiritual practice as a process of cognitive subtraction". (126) He is both skeptical of existing results and confident there is enlightenment at the end of the tunnel. (127) He thinks the states of "absorption" and kensho are rare, and that Newberg fails to do justice to the diversity of mystical experiences. (129) His experience of kensho made a lot of things seem unimportant, including the perennial philosophy. (130) He doesn't hold to the usual mystical claims, and he sees no reason to favor idealism over materialism as a metaphysical position. (131) He is also indifferent to the problem of evil. Horgan is rather unhappy about this position. Horgan doubts that enlightenment can be readily distinguished from passivity. He doesn't believe pro-Zen propaganda, as he finds Zen rife with dogmatism, amorality, and sadism. (133) But at least Austin is willing to subject all claims to experimental tests. Horgan notes that there is a philosophical problem, called "explanatory gaps", in all these scientific endeavors: the gap between physiological theories and subjective experience (qualia). (137) Biofeedback, by the way, proves to be limited. (139)

Horgan next turns to one of his favorite preoccupations, drugs. He begins chapter 8 with the story of LSD. Research is still going on in Basel, Switzerland, and one of the more interesting psychotropic plants is ayahuasca. Christian Ratsch thinks enlightenment is all about chemicals, not those years of traditional discipline. Enlightenment is transitory, like an orgasm, and there is no final enlightenment. (150) Franz Vollenweider's research, which does not jibe with everyone else's, is summarized. (151ff) He is skeptical about the sacramental, visionary use of drugs. (154) Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD, thinks that Timothy Leary was irresponsible, but that a ban on LSD research and use is an outrage. He sees science and spirituality as complementary. (155ff) Horgan notes that, paradoxically, research into patterns of altered states induced by drugs and other medical factors fosters an "ultramaterialism". (157)

Chapter 9, quaintly titled "God's Psychoanalyst", is about Stanislav Grof, a key player in transpersonal psychology, a veteran New Ager and teacher at Esalen Institute, early experimenter with LSD, and developer of "holotropic breathwork". He doesn't care for "ultramaterialistic" interpretations of drug experiences. (163) He is a believer in birth trauma, reincarnation, and the paranormal generally. (165-167) Inspired by Hinduism and Buddhism, Grof seeks to explain Creation, and tackles the problem of evil, claiming it is necessary to relieve cosmic boredom. (170) Horgan is dubious of many of Grof's claims, though this dark theodicy does remind him of his own gnostic inclinations.

Rick Strassman proposed hyperspace aliens as a possible explanation for reported close encounters with strange beings. (174-176) Oh, dear.

Timothy Leary dubbed Terence McKenna the "Timothy Leary of the 90's." McKenna's drug of choice is DMT. His specialties are psychotropic plants and shamanism. Basically, he is a New Age trickster enamored with extravagant pseudoscientific and metaphysical notions powered by psychedelic fantasies (180-184), though he also lays claim to skepticism (184) when he's not showing off. He's all about novelty, which is part of his metaphysics (even fascism was a necessary lesson) and predicts some earth-shattering event in 2012. (187) God's purpose is the production of novelty. Though Horgan doesn't buy any of this, he likes the guy (192), whereas I found him the most obnoxious character in the book. Horgan reiterates his gnostic vision and recounts physicist Steven Weinberg's nature-does-not-care principle.

Horgan prepares to ingest the psychedelic drug ayahuasca under the sponsorship of psychonauts Ann and Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin. They muse over questions of spirituality, enlightenment, and mortality. The balance of chapter 11 describes Horgan's DMT trip.

By this time Horgan has contemplated the alternatives, from gnosticism to cosmic indifference to good luck. He sums up what he has learned from the diverse viewpoints described in the book. He settles on negative theology or Rudolf Otto's mysterium tremendum. (216-217) Contemplating the relation between science and mysticism, Horgan reflects on the improbabilities of the universe (including the postulated anthropic principle in its weak, strong, and dismissive forms; WAP, SAP and CRAP). (217) Horgan wonders whether there will be an end to science's ability to explain the universe, or an end to mystery, as Peter Atkins insists. (221) Various scientists speculate on our ultimate destiny, with positive or negative scenarios. Still captivated by mystery, Horgan adopts Susan Blackmore's view of Zen as garbage removal, to which he adds the qualification that garbage removal systems generate garbage as well. (222-224) Hence we should react with irony and skepticism when confronted with claims to solve the ultimate mystery. There are contrary views on the value of drugs. (225ff) One can have life-enhancing or horrific visions. But one can be as haunted by beauty and wonder as much as by the dark side. And don't forget about fun. (227)

The most valuable part of what Horgan has to say concerns "oneness", the gold standard of mysticism. Referencing The Guru Papers by Diana Alsted and Joel Kramer, Horgan reminds us that the ideology of oneness conceals duality, hierarchy, patriarchy, and authoritarianism. "Oneness" generates elite beings and submissiveness in their followers, as well as an escapist attitude toward life. It is no accident that such ideology originates in severely class-stratified civilizations like India. Mystical experiences can generate sociopathic behavior, with the illusion of transcending human morality. Oneness becomes indistinguishable from the void, and it gives Horgan the creeps. Even a God might be horrified to be alone. Plurality and individuality make more sense. (228-230)

Horgan and Shulgin speculate on the consequences for civilization if the perfect drug were ever discovered. Even though this is Shulgin's quest, he thinks it would spell the end of the human species. (231-232) Horgan is unwilling to part with "free will", illusion or no.

In his epilogue, Horgan recounts his own and other interlocutors' experiences with mourning and fellowship. His final scenario regarding his family is moving. Ultimately it is human love, even with all its heartbreak, that saves us.

On the whole, this slice of spiritual tourism is very instructive, mostly negatively, and complements Bharati, whom Horgan never mentions but who confirms his findings before the fact. I differ with Horgan mostly in my assessments of the people he encounters. I find almost all of them exceptionally irritating. The LSD researchers in Basel don't particularly bother me. Of the others, I am most willing to entertain Austin and then Blackmore, but with serious caveats. Horgan in the end comes off as very reasonable, though negative theology doesn't quite do it for me. While notion of "mystery" has a cognitive dimension, however impoverished, this as well as the mystical experience mostly comes down to an experience. If the universe's "mysteries" are beyond solution, a distinction is nonetheless warranted, between the intellectually inexplicable and a more intuitive sense of wonder. As our very notions of scientific explanation are altered by the progress of science and increasingly arcane fundamental physical notions, even scientific explanation is not what it used to be, and in some sense defies comprehension. But mystery, however you spin it, is preferable to pseudo-explanation. One can have a much more dynamic life building on the knowable.

As for experience, while some researchers postulate beneficial personality effects, which may be more important than metaphysical claims, we don't really get beyond scattered anecdotes to find a comprehensive picture of how the mystical quest affects the rest of people's lives. How we manage to live in this world is curiously absent from the picture.

For all the variegated speculations, claims and counter-claims in the book, it is largely a portrait of philosophical banality. That people trying to be deep prove so intellectually shallow is a telling sign.

Perhaps even more telling is the absence of any serious social or political analysis by any of the interlocutors or reflection on their role in bourgeois society. Claims of cosmic consciousness devoid of social consciousness occasion cause for suspicion. How civilization is organized has made us what we are, and our prospects for it reveal who we are. Silence on this matter is unwitting self-condemnation.

Arthur Danto on Mysticism and Morality

Danto, Arthur C. Mysticism and Morality: Oriental Thought and Moral Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. Orig. 1972.

1. Factual Beliefs and Moral Rules
2. Karma and Caste
3. Brahma, Boredom, and Release
4. Therapy and Theology in Buddhist Thought
5. The Discipline of Action in the Bhagavad Gita
6. Conforming to the Way
(+ Prefaces, Suggested Readings, Index)

Danto concisely picks out the problems with the world views of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, as illustrations of a general problem. If I had known about this book in 1972, maybe I could have saved myself a lot of grief in the 1970s.

Danto begins his 1987 preface with a quote from Hume on the uselessness of asceticism. Danto notes that a hypothetical dispute between Hume and a monk would not be over moral issues, but over rival claims concerning factual truth. Ironically, Hume argued that there is no logical connection between is and ought. There is more than a strictly logical issue at stake, however. Moral disagreements when matters of fact are not in dispute will still occur, but certain moral arguments and practices tend to collapse if based entirely on truth claims that can be shown to be false. Danto states this as a general principle, though its application in this book’s original 1972 edition was to the dependence of the moral outlook of imported mysticism on its view of reality. (viii-ix) It’s one thing to import dietary and yogic practices from the East, which fit in quite nicely with Western consumer practices, but the belief systems that undergird them are not viable.

In his 1972 preface, Danto writes as an analytical philosopher arguing that Westerners cannot adopt the moral beliefs of the Orient without adopting the factual beliefs on which they are based. Danto’s point of departure is the is-ought problem as conceived by David Hume and G.E. Moore, both of which Danto rejects. Danto accepts bits and pieces of other moral theories to construct his own, predicated on the notion that “moral propositions presuppose factual ones.” (xvi)

In the first chapter Danto reviews the fact-value dichotomy. Moral propositions might be considered to be disjunct from the logic of factual propositions because the former consist of rules, which are prima facie neither true nor false. (9) However, rules must have application conditions, i.e. presupposed facts of the world and circumstances under which they are to be applied, which also provide the basis for admitting of extenuations and exceptions. (11) Various religious commandments and supernatural beliefs are given as examples. Some moral disputes can be largely reduced to factual disagreements. Thus tolerance of differing moral beliefs may necessitate tolerance of the factual beliefs on which they are based. (13) While moral beliefs cannot be justified in the manner of factual beliefs, they can be falsified by the removal of false factual beliefs and thus the application rules on which they are dependent--analogous to the falsifiability of scientific theories. (15)

The Indians, like Socrates, predicated morality on knowledge of the Good. The difference is that in the East, free will is not a primary concern. (16-7) Indian thinkers see no gap between knowledge and its application. (18)

While much of Western morality has survived its theological basis, Danto surmises “that if the factual beliefs of India to which I refer are false, there is very little point in Indian philosophy, and very little room for serious application of Indian moral beliefs. . .” (21)

Chapter 2, on karma and caste, gets right to the point. Reason in Indian thought never separated itself from its peculiar religious notions of salvation. (22)

Danto argues, as did Max Weber, that the caste system of Hinduism resists universality, as members of different castes are regarded as members of different species. This leads to a peculiar kind of toleration, just as we tolerate animals because they can’t be like us. Hindus will tolerate the actions of others so long as their behavior is defined as licit for their caste. Therefore, the morality operant in this scenario stands or falls on the presupposed factual beliefs about caste. (34-5)

The doctrine of oneness does not imply respect, consideration, or care for one’s fellow man.

And so, the Hindu is likely to feel at one with the entire universe without necessarily feeling at one with any special portion of the universe, viz., that portion consisting of other humans. Respect for life as a whole is consistent with a not especially edifying attitude towards one's fellowmen, who, for all that they may be one essentially, nevertheless remain lodged at different stations on the surfaces of the world. That they should be where they are is, as karma teaches, very much a matter of just desert: they are there because they deserve to be there. (38)

Ethics is external, belonging to the body that is separate from one’s essential soul. (40) The essential impersonality of Brahma, atman, and karma is also reflected in Indian art and literature. The existence of karma is not argued or proved; it is simply accepted as a fact. (41) The one philosophical school that rejected karma was Carvaka materialism. (42ff)

Danto begins chapter 3 with the issue of cosmic boredom and a comparison of the Hindu undesirability of rebirth and Nietzsche’s eternal return. (47) Danto draws an interesting contrast between the scientific mediation (reduction) of appearance/phenomenon and reality/underlying material entities (e.g. heat is explained not by heat but by molecular behavior) and the Indian dismissal of phenomena as illusion. (54-5) He then attempts to analyze the state promised by meditation. The bliss promised by the Gita is undifferentiated, contentless, and passive. (60) The downside of yogic asceticism is explored: exceptional individual seen as endowed with exceptional powers transcends conventional moral bounds, while the schema of social control is preserved. (61ff)

In chapter 4 Danto analyzes the Buddha’s Middle Path and the Noble Truths, but there is a brief diversion on the appeal of Zen to artists, non-intellectuals, and the lower classes. (66) Danto finds the notion of desire as the cause of suffering dubious. At this point, Buddha gets caught up in the general Indian cosmology of karma, the most critical desire, even while rejecting the theory of atman. (69) Danto analyzes the Buddhist conception of consciousness as the cause of the bodily self. (71) He finds the Buddha’s claim to reject metaphysical questions disingenuous, as some serious metaphysics (hardly comprehensible to the average peasant) is a prerequisite to the acceptance of his central claims. (72) Much of the Buddha’s doctrine is couched in parabolic form, but the metaphysical underpinning gradually takes over, relegating this world to illusion. (73) Buddhism runs the gamut of levels of intellectuality from the simplest to the most esoteric and abstract. (74)

The Mahayana tradition is oriented toward collective not merely individual salvation. Danto detects a paradox: the bodhisattva cannot pass over into Nirvana for selfish or unselfish reasons. (76) The disproportion between the exalted and the ordinary inevitably transforms the Mahayana into yet another religion, and the Buddha takes on godlike status. (78) If Samsara becomes Nirvana, then all of life becomes religious, and thus the world becomes aestheticized without alteration. Hence don’t change anything about the world, change your attitude. This will not do for Danto as a moral philosophy. (80-81) We must have an ethics, not of salvation, but of how to treat one another. (82)

In the next chapter Danto turns to the Bhagavad Gita. The infamous story of Arjuna is the key, the sophistical argument that Arjuna fight and kill with detachment. (88) One must perform one’s actions according to one’s calling, to be true to it without extraneous motivation. (91) This attitude is enabled by the detachment of self from body, so that one does not identify with the necessary actions of one’s body. Danto finds this to be bone-chilling, Nietzschean, and inhuman. The factual beliefs postulated are radically at odds with morality. (94-5) Danto ponders possible points of comparison of this notion of detachment with Kant, but insists that morality has no meaning without systems of rules. (96) Intention is decisive; it ties the agent to the action. The Gita robs actions of their moral qualities by detaching them from their agents. (98) This has some resemblance to Nietzsche’s position. (99)

Danto thinks that Chinese philosophy will help illuminate the essential Indian position, and so he turns to Taoism in the final chapter. I find this transition startling. He finds Westerners attracted to the Tao Te Ching on account of their distrust of intellect and language. There is a tacit assumption, to be found in Wittgenstein as well, that “the structure of the world must be antecedently linguistic.” The notion of an ideal language that mirrors the structure of the world is chimerical. This notion not only pervades Western philosophy but can be found in the Confucian rectification of names. (101-2) The Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu devalue prepositional knowledge and are practice-oriented. Danto objects to the conflation of the two. (103-4) “There is in any case no possible way of assimilating discursive to practical knowledge or conversely. . .” (104)

Knowledge as performance and representation is irreducibly duplex, and Lao Tzu is essentially correct when he implies that words, used at least descriptively, are logically external to the reality they record, and that there is a dimension of existence that could not possibly be put in words. The rest of his teaching is a deprecation of one sort of knowledge in favor of another. (105)

Practical knowledge admits of gradations of mastery. “The Way is smooth to those who know it.” The Taoist landscape is misty, and doesn’t lead to a definite goal. (105) Lao Tzu is contrasted to Dante: the former has no particular destination, nor can he get lost, nor does Lao Tzu struggle against the grain. (106)

Danto interprets wu wei (non-doing) as immobility, a notion he finds most explicitly developed by the Legalists, the ideal social architecture being a rigid hierarchical structure. Taoism vaguely promises a superior philosophy of government, paradoxically insinuating a superior capacity to dominate. It was inevitable that Taoism would degenerate into yet another superstition-saturated religion. (108-9) Comparisons are made to Indian religion.

The Tao Te Ching naturally appeals to artists, especially in reference to those moments of peak creative flow in which “struggle and externality” vanish. Hence the perpetual tendency, also religious, to glorify simplicity, charity, the lowly, and anti-intellectualism. (110-1). The Taoist literature recommends a minimalist approach to government while orienting itself towards the eccentric, independent individual. This is a form of romantic escapism in contrast to the duty-bound Confucian mind. No wonder then the eventual symbiosis between Confucianism and Taoism, the former longing for the life of the latter. (112-3)

Only when we come to Confucianism do we finally encounter genuine moral ideas. (114ff) Confucianism is moralistic in character and light on metaphysical concerns. It is the least “oriental” of the philosophies concerned. The others are inappropriate for moral guidance, and perhaps this is true for all religion. (120)

I find Danto's conclusions concerning Chinese philosophy disturbing. He places a reactionary philosophy like Confucianism ahead of the others because of its moralism and social orientation. What then of critique of the social order? Danto offers shrewd observations all the way through the book and he is correct about the weaknesses of Taoism, and perhaps he even draws some valid parallels to the Indian philosophies discussed. But the most influential texts of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu, abstracted from the traditions in which they became embedded, are the most doctrinally and metaphysically minimalist of anything passing for a sacred scripture ever written. Granted, they are inadequate as a positive guide to life and they offer no determinate negation of the feudal order. Their advocacy of naturalness implies a static world view, but then a return to nature is characteristically a reaction of protest against a corrupt civilization. The genius of these two Taoist texts lies in irony and critical orientation, a via negativa that abstractly addresses the problem of reification. Nowhere does one find the demented justification of violence one finds in the Bhagavad Gita. While I understand the abstract parallels, equating these two works to Buddhism and especially to Hinduism is almost tantamount to an obscenity. Of all the belief systems discussed, only these two Chinese Taoist texts stand out as gems shining amidst the filth of their civilizations.

Danto wrote this book in the thick of the counterculture of the '60s-70s, from a distant though needed vantage point. In another book perhaps he might have said more about the contemporary appeal of these ideas. The more carefully you read between the lines, the more clues you will find as to why some of the general ideas behind these systems, if to a much less extent the specifics, were able to diffuse in the contemporary West as they did. The impersonal, mechanistic, and amoral aspects of these world views, with a good percentage of their original mythic, superstitious, and social content conveniently downplayed or metaphoricized into oblivion, could readily be contoured to the discontents of a modern, mechanistic, depersonalized society disillusioned with conventional moralism, legalism, and deliberative rationality. So much so, that the majority of mystic-minded consumers, naive and ungrounded in historical consciousness, could be manipulated, cajoled, or sold on extremely pernicious, sociopathic notions without recognition of their implications.

References:
Christopher Lasch's The Minimal Self: A Portrait of Psychological Terrorism
Taoism & the Tao of Bourgeois Philosophy (review of J. J. Clarke, The Tao of the West)
Occultism, Eastern Mysticism, Fascism, & Countercultures: Selected Bibliography
Holistic Thought, New Age Obscurantism, Occultism, the Sciences, & Fascism
“Secularism, science and the Right” (Review of Meera Nanda, The Wrongs of the Religious Right: Reflections on Science, Secularism and Hindutva)