Pure Consciousness Experience: Mr. Robert
Forman, on page 131 of the ‘Journal of Consciousness Studies’, Volume 5, Issue 2, 1998, (in a paper called ‘What Does
Mysticism Have To Teach Us About Consciousness?’), described the introversive ASC [altered state of consciousness] as a pure
consciousness event so as to emphasise the absence of any experienced object – it is pure subjectivity in other words –
which is also why such terminology as ‘Consciousness Without An Object’ is used to describe the totally senseless and
thoughtless trance state known as ‘dhyana’ in Sanskrit (Hinduism) and as ‘jhana’ in Pali (Buddhism). In the West such a
state can only be described as catalepsy [a condition of trance or seizure with loss of sensation or consciousness and abnormal
maintenance of posture] and a never-ending ‘dhyana’ or ‘jhana’ would result in the body wasting away until its inevitable
physical death ... as a means of obtaining peace-on-earth it is completely useless. When I first came onto the internet in 1997 I
subscribed for a while to an academic consciousness studies mailing list associated with the ‘Journal of Consciousness
Studies’ and it was there I first heard of the phrase ‘pure consciousness event’ – with the emphasis that there be no
experiencing in such a state – and thus chose the phrase ‘pure consciousness experience’ so as to make the generic phrase
‘peak experience’ I had been using for eleven years more specific and to regain the actual purity of the unadulterated
sensuous experience
of consciousness without a subject (a body sans
identity) from the adulterated mystical experience of consciousness without an object (an identity sans body). Richard
Richard: A PCE is when
one’s sense of identity temporarily vacates the throne and apperception occurs. Apperception is the mind’s perception of
itself … it is a pure awareness . Normally the mind perceives through the senses and sorts the data received according to its
predilection; but the mind itself remains unperceived ... it is taken to be unknowable. Apperception is when the ‘thinker’ and
the ‘feeler’ is not and an unmediated awareness occurs. The pure consciousness experience is as if one has eyes in the back of
one’s head; there is a three hundred and sixty degree awareness and all is self-evidently clear.
This is knowing by direct experience, unmoderated by
any ‘self’ whatsoever. One is able to see that ‘I’ and ‘me’ have been standing in the way of the perfection and purity
that is the essential character of this moment of being here becoming apparent. Here a solid and irrefutable native intelligence
can operate freely because the ‘thinker’ and the ‘feeler’ is in abeyance. One is the universe ’s experience of itself as
a human being ... after all, the very stuff this body is made of is the very stuff of the universe. There is no ‘outside’ to
the perfection of the universe to come from; one only thought and felt that one was a separate identity.
Apperception is something that brings the facticity
born out of a direct experience of the actual . Then what one is (‘what’ not ‘who’) is these sense organs in operation:
this seeing is me, this hearing is me, this tasting is me, this touching is me, this smelling is me, and this thinking is me.
Whereas ‘I’, the identity, am inside the body: looking out through ‘my’ eyes as if looking out through a window, listening
through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting through ‘my’ tongue, touching through ‘my’ skin, smelling
through ‘my’ nose, and thinking through ‘my’ brain. Of course ‘I’ must feel isolated, alienated, alone and lonely, for
‘I’ am cut off from the magnificence of the actual world – the world as-it-is – by ‘my’ very presence.
To get out of stuckness and induce a Pure
Consciousness Experience one gets off one’s backside and does whatever one knows best to activate delight. Delight is what is
humanly possible, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity/ innocuity born of the pure consciousness experience,
and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one
can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being
alive now. Then one is no longer intuitively making sense of life ... the delicious wonder of it all drives any such instinctive
meaning away. Such luscious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté – the nourishing of which is essential if
fascination in it all is to occur – and the charm of life itself easily engages dedication to peace-on-earth. Then, as one gazes
intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly
– the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and one is the experiencing of what is happening.
But refrain from possessing it and making it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared.
When one remembers a PCE – or precipitates another
– then one is well on the way to freedom ... this is what actualism is all about. Scattered along the wide and wondrous path to
an actual freedom are as many PCEs as one may need ... repeated peak experiences may very well be brought about on maybe a daily
basis with constant application of reflective and fascinated contemplation . In such pure contemplation, ‘I’ cease seeing and
seeing takes place of its own accord. ‘I’ can never be here now in this actual world for ‘I’ am an interloper, an alien in
psychic possession of the body. ‘I’ do not belong here.
All this is impossible to imagine which is why it is essential to be
confident that the actual world does exist. This confidence is born out of knowing, which is derived from the PCE, and is an
essential ingredient to ensure success. One does not have to generate confidence oneself – as the religions require of one with
regard to their blind faith – the purity of the actual world bestows this confidence upon one. The experience of purity is a
benefaction. Out of this blessing comes pure intent, which will consistently guide one through daily life, gently ushering in an
increasing ease and generosity of character. With this growing magnanimity, one becomes more and more anonymous, more and more
self-less. With this expanding altruism one becomes less and less self-centred, less and less egocentric. Eventually the moment
comes wherein something definitive happens, physically, inside the brain and ‘I’ am nevermore.