“the hand of God” means his continuous intervention, control, guidance etc.

“the hand of God” means his continuous intervention, control, guidance etc.

It is enjoyable to read someone who takes non-rational phenomena seriously. Notice I did not say “irrational.” I hold that the two are not identical. The non-rational has a logic of its own; patterns that can be discerned. In addition, someone who has such experiences can compare them to religious traditions, the lineage of western esotericism, and contemporary writers whose books emerge out of their own experiences. Some have depth, some don’t. But we have to start somewhere. And comparisons help us to clarify our own spiritual experiences.

I also appreciate your writing because you make explicit the need to make reasonable arguments for the claims of spiritual beliefs. Which implies that anyone rejecting such claims should abide by these same rules. No appeal to authority as if some a priori determinant has already set all possible answers. Like your point about A. Cohen rejecting out of hand any credence to angelic messages. That’s to know beforehand all there is to know about a subject. Which would mean omniscience and make the claimant a god of some sort.

Rather like a scientist rejecting astrology– which could only be done fairly by studying the subject in detail. Only then rejecting it because its methods did not produce predicted results. However, it would be appropriate to say something like: from what I’ve seen, astrology does not seem scientifically proven to me. Very different than insisting that, regardless of one’s actual experience with the subject, one can simply “know” it is false.

Or conversely, that it is true. This seems to me to be the position taken by some New Age believers. Right at the edge of solipsism. Slippery territory, that. What self-respecting New Age political progressive would seriously argue that blaming the victim is appropriate? But that’s the implication of the idea you create your own reality. What need, then, of political or economic reforms?

Your point about the empirical 5 senses as containing the subset of information as limited to those 5 senses is an important idea. It reveals what is hidden. One group values “I think,” another values “I feel.” They’re versions of that old metaphor of the blind men and the elephant. In addition, thinking and feeling can both be based on sensory data.

But what about information from sources not connected to any immediate sensory input? Those of us familiar with these other modes consider their denial irrational. Those whose beliefs exclude the possibility a priori thereby judge what is real or unreal. Which is also a strict boundary of either/or.

I envision this dichotomy as better expressed by something like the Tree of Kabbalah. Which can serve as a frame for what you called spiritual senses. The Tree of Life, strictly speaking, is way more complex than what I have in mind here. But taken as meaning the functions within the realm of Yetzirah or Psyche, it’s useful. Dreams I would place in Netzach. Also feelings, meaning emotions. Divine messages in Hod– what is more appropriate than the realm of Thoth/Hermes? There, too, is the home of rationality. Gut feelings, which are bodily sensations, often warnings, fit with Yesod. That’s also the place of instincts. Angelic inspirations, often connected with light, seem to be coming through Tiphareth. These four quadrants also work with Carl Jung’s model.