judge whether one's own consciousness is perfectly relaxed, or deformed; and how you interpret experience, depends on how you look. Suppose for example that God exists, and is ultimate reality; nothing is easier than for an individual to make himself unaware of the existence or presence of God. All he has to do is to numb his consciousness in such a way that he is no longer aware of what he would otherwise regard as the sensation of God's presence. This he does most easily by letting thoughts of despair enter his heart, which is allowing death to enter his thoughts. Presumably this is what the death of God school of theology have actually done. On the other hand, suppose that God does not exist; then nothing is easier than to whip up a little bogus enthusiasm, until one actually believes in one's imagination that one feels his presence. All subjective pronouncements that God does, or does not exist, are equally valueless, because their validity depends on the validity of the consciousness making the pronouncement. That is just what one is not entitled to assume is valid.
The practical necessities of life demand that a man assumes that his consciousness is valid, and his power of decision reliable; although we all blunder from time to time, and learn again our limitations. But theoretically man is not entitled to assume that his consciousness sees life as it truly is, and is without fault or flaw anywhere; and he should remember this. As Cromwell said to the Kirk, “I beseech you** think it possible you may be mistaken”. Error is perpetuated from one generation to another without hope of its being eliminated, by this unwillingness to admit one may be mistaken. A good example is the Inquisition; their actions were an absolute denial of everything they professed to stand for - goodness, mercy, turning the other cheek. Yet they could not see it. Unless those responsible were completely cynical, which I doubt, they had no insight into their own paranoid mentality. Whipped-up bogus enthusiasm for a being, who doesn't exist, is Freud's description of…