Angelhaunt.net Blog

In the second college philosophy class I ever took, we did a lot of reading of W. T. Stace. I thought he was brilliant at the time, but I've come to realize he was a total moron. (For those not familiar with this name--and there will be many who are not--he did most of his work circa 1950-60 and wrote a lot about mysticism and religion.) Stace for instance calls certain well-established principles of Newtonian physics nonsensical, and obviously he does not so much as understand them. Futhermore, the man was just plain narrow-minded as hell. I'm about to finish reading William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience, which is absolutely brilliant and a much more accurate analysis of religion in the hearts of men and women than Stace presented in his Time and Eternity and Mysticism and Philosophy. Why do I say Stace is narrow-minded? He calls all non-mystical religious feeling and experience simply invalid. To Stace, the only religious experience that is valid is mystical experience--which rules out visions, voices, emotional conversion experiences, Whitmanesque feelings of the divine in nature, prophecy, the sense of God's care in our lives; all of this according to Stace is not true religion. Stace even more moronically claims that the mere report of mystical experience proves the existence of God even for those who have no such experience. In other words, the mere report of such mysticism is supposed to prove God for everybody else whether they have such experiences or not. His reasons for this are long and complicated, and rely heavily on consequences to propositions that are extremely tentative at best. Stace puts forth proposition after proposition and derives consequence after consequence, all of it linked very poorly with very weak arguments that end up with conclusions that are absolutely unestablished. Finally, if Stace is right?--then the vast majority of religious people--including the founders of many religions--have a totally false religion, since Stace claims true religion is always based on mystic experience. How good it is to read William James's much more reasonable and open-minded work! As for Stace? Moron, moron and moron again. As I understand it the man is already mostly out of print, and good thing he is too.

- JSR

Angelhaunt presents
the music of
Postwestern Ghost

The following music is copyright © 2007-2009 Jason Stuart Ratcliff, the band being called Postwestern Ghost and the collection/CD/album entitled Hungover on Jupiter. All instruments are me but I've borrowed heavily from Pro Sessions sampling disks. Enjoy.

[Beatlejuice]

[Scarecrow Dynasty]

[Phantazmasia]

[Metallica Tribute]

[Basshead Epic]

[Riptear]

[Zillagod]

[Sharkdark]

[The Ballroom]

[mazeArt]

[kafKat]

[Conch Shell Prophet]

[Starlike]

[Lektrick]

[Parapsychology]

[Club Version]

[Good Fry Day]

[Dreamworms]

[UFO Experience]

[Mad Ness Monster]

[Seasick]

[Iceman Song]

[Dreamgarden]

[Sonic Bomb]

[Brass Lightning]

[Brainthief]

[UFO Religion]

[Creep]

[Electric Dawn]

[Assassin Nation]

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