“The existence of mystical states absolutely overthrows the pretension of non-mystical states to be the sole and ultimate dictators of what we may believe.” These alternate forms of consciousness “might, in spite of all the perplexity, be indispensable stages in our approach to the final fullness of the truth.” He detected in such experiences, in which the mind “ascend[s] to a more enveloping point of view,” hints of a grand metaphysical “reconciliation”: “It is as if the opposites of the world, whose contradictoriness and conflict make all our difficulties and troubles, were melted into
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