edgar-mitchell

84
The Way of the Explorer
A classic book of case studies of spontaneous expansive experiences
written at the turn of the century by Dr. R.M. Bucke, entitled Cosmic
Consciousness, set the tone for my own inquiries. Epiphany, I became certain,
is a latent event in every individual. It is, to a large degree, what has
allowed humankind to evolve in our thinking, as it brings about a sudden
synthesis between existing ideas. Where mystics have believed the more
startling insights to be a supernatural phenomenon, I was reasonably sure
it was entirely natural, even normal; perhaps an emergent characteristic
of ongoing evolution. Everyone experiences that potent, ethereal sense of
aha, and for a brief moment, they glimpse the larger structure of a problem
in their lives, resolve a conflict in their thinking, or glimpse the grand
pattern of the universe itself. The idea of epiphany can be viewed as an
abrupt organization, or reorganization, of information in a way that produces
new insight at the level of conscious awareness. And that’s what
occurred, I believe, while on that fateful journey from the moon. I became
quite sure of this. Yet I couldn’t honestly describe it as a “religious”
experience.
It is quite a different matter to suggest that an evolutionary product
(the brain) spontaneously reorganizes its information to produce a new
insight at the level of conscious awareness, than to assume that what one
suddenly comprehends is the word of God. The latter, of course, is the
more popular and common view of such events in a society steeped in
traditional religious and cultural beliefs. All I wanted to know was why
and how it happens. I wanted a more secular, scientific answer.
Bucke related in his case studies that these spontaneous events brought
not only a more expansive viewpoint, a sense of inner peace and wellbeing,
but also an unshakable feeling of immortality, accompanied by joy.
This was a fairly precise, yet secular description of my own experience. It
would have been quite easy, I suppose, to have fallen back upon some
explanation such as having touched the face of God. But as a metaphor it
didn’t appeal to me, and it certainly wasn’t literally true. I was convinced
that these were natural events, not supernatural or magical, though certainly
beautiful and profound. The ecstasy I experienced was somehow a
natural response of my body to the overwhelming sense of unity I received.
I saw how my very existence was irrevocably connected with the movement
and formation of planets, stars, and galaxies—the ineluctable result
of the explosion of an immensely hot and dense dot at the center of the
universe billions of years ago. Or, if quasi-steady state theorists are correct,
as it now appear they may be 2 —the ineluctable result of continuous
matter creation in super clusters of galaxies.
Human volition, similar to human behavior, is rarely predictable, much
less predetermined. I’ve had to make tens of thousands of choices in my
own life, each of which would lead me down a different path. My own