ABSTRACT
Monism (from the Greek monos, meaning ‘alone’ or ‘solitary’) can be considered as a philosophical approach to reality, but most of its exponents have thought of it in religious terms. Others, who have held to what most would class as monistic systems, have not expounded a system at all; rather, they have been people whose religious outlook is described, from outside, as monistic. Because of this generally religious context for monism, the argument of this book needs to take a new turn. Up to now the stress has been on the role of reason reflecting upon ‘ordinary’ human experience, such as the phenomenon of consciousness. We now have to look at the controversial field of religious experience, since without it neither monism nor theism can be understood, except in exceedingly vague and general ways. In making this switch we are not abandoning a rational approach, but it is a rational approach that now includes reflection on the data of religious experience. There will be no claims based upon sheer authority, and no claims about some kind of ‘direct’ knowledge which does not need to be questioned and analysed. Perhaps, as suggested earlier, some people do have what could be called direct or intuitive knowledge, but I am not proposing to rely on any such claim.
