The Verifiability of Daoist Somatic Mystical Experience

Mystical religious experiences usually claim to involve encounters with the transcendent or spiritual entities, but Daoism offers a different model. This paper examines Daoist mystical experiences focused on bodily transformations and their epistemological implications. The authors defend the justificatory power of these somatic experiences against the disanalogy objection, which argues that mystical experiences lack epistemic value because they are not socially verifiable like sense perceptions. They contend that some Daoist mystical bodily states, being essentially spatiotemporal, are exempt from this challenge, leading to a broader understanding of mysticism and a partial resolution to the objection.

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Abstract

Mystical religious experiences typically purport to engage with the transcendent and often claim to involve encounters with spiritual entities or a detachment from the material world. Daoism diverges from this paradigm. This paper examines Daoist mystical experiences of bodily transformations and explores their epistemological implications. Specifically, we defend the justificatory power of Daoist somatic experiences against the disanalogy objection. The disanalogy objection posits that mystical experiences, in contrast to sense perceptions, are not socially verifiable and thereby lack prima facie epistemic value. We argue that some Daoist mystical bodily states, being essentially spatiotemporal, are exempt from this challenge. This leads to a broader understanding of mysticism and offers a partial resolution to the disanalogy objection.