Observations placeholder
Masters and Houston - On empathy
Identifier
016230
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience – Dr Robert Masters and Dr Jean Houston
In the more common varieties of empathy the subject identified with another person much as an actor may identify with his role, then feels he has gained a high degree of understanding of that other; by a kind of 'reverse empathy' the subject assimilates another into himself, rather than 'feeling' himself into the other; or his experience resembles sympathy ….. a similar relation between persons whereby the condition of one induces a responsive condition in another. Or here, we may take a definition from physics - “the relation between two bodies whereby vibrations in one produce responsive vibrations in the other
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At the extremes of the empathetic experience ….the subject appropriates the other person, the other being drawn into oneself and regarded as a part or extension of oneself..
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In the mystical union, ........... the self is described as being finally extinguished altogether.