CONTEXT OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
the mystic feels as if his own will were in abeyance, and indeed sometimes as if he were grasped and held by a superior power - William James
Religious experiences are indescribable in ordinary language: the experient cannot put them into words. Instead, they have to use poetry, song or art to get across what has happened to them. If they use ordinary language, it has to be symbolic and is often confusing.
I wish I could give a description of at least the smallest part of what I have learned, but, when I try to discover a way of doing so, I find it impossible - SAINT TERESA OF AVILA William James explains ineffability like this:
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No one can make clear to another who has never had a certain feeling, in what the quality or worth of it consists. One must have musical ears to know the value of a symphony; one must have been in love one's self to understand a lover's state of mind - William James
mystical states seem to those who experience them to be also states of knowledge. They are states of insight into depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect - William James
Noesis in Monistic Tradition
In monistic tradition, noesis is very important, because the divine reality is an ultimate truth about life. This isn't usually presented as a set of rules or instructions, but more as guidelines, principles or insights that have to be built upon afterwards (in other words, non-propositional revelation),
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Mystical states cannot be sustained for long. Except in rare instances, half an hour, or at most an hour or two, seems to be the limit beyond which they fade into the light of common day - William James