Wuhan Journal of Cultic Studies
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Volume 2: Issue 2, 2024
ARTICLE
Deconstructing Katzian Contextualism: The Uncanny and the Path to Pure Consciousness Dario Pizzuto Independent Scholar, Sydney Abstract Does there exist a universal, cross-cultural mystical experience? Steven T. Katz’s contextualist approach argues that there does not. For Katz, consciousness is necessarily content-based, and content is necessarily always acculturated and produces varied experiences. This article argues against Katz's conclusions about universal mystical experiences. I begin with Robert Forman’s classic refutation of Katz, then update the refutations against Katz by utilising two neuro-cognitive models of consciousness, namely those of Zoran Josipovic and Thomas Metzinger. I argue not that these states of consciousness certainly exist, but rather, that because we have no privileged access to such phenomenological states of consciousness (a claim with which Katz concurs), the necessary position respective to pure consciousness is agnosticism. Pure consciousness offers the possibility that universal, or near-universal, mystical experiences exist; consciousness “of nothing” would necessarily be closer to a universal experience across subjects than consciousness “of something.” This article therefore begins to construct a typology of intermediate, or “uncanny,” experiences of consciousness. If the demolition of phenomenological structures can lead to a ‘contentless’ form of consciousness, what are the states between this endpoint, and ordinary consciousness? In this investigation, I refer to Jewish Kabbalism, Bonaventure’s Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, the “Middle Way” in Madhyamika Buddhist philosophy, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea (1938). Keywords: Mysticism, Steven Katz, Pure Consciousness Events, methodological agnosticism, experience | ||