ABSTRACT
In this and in the following three chapters, the reliability of the testimonials and the validity of claims of absolute knowledge found therein is systematically pursued through the disinterested methods employed in behavioral neurosciences for evaluating all empirical data. First, the idiosyncratic features of mystical experience that vary randomly among mystics are set aside as unreliable and those that repeat consistently are retained and are further subdivided into two sets: those that vary reliably with the cultural heritage of the mystics reporting them, and those that are common to all mystics independently of their time, place and culture, and also independently of the method they employed for attaining them. The former set of features, being, demonstrably, culturally conditioned, is discarded. The validity of the latter, culture-independent, or genuine features is further explored in the remaining two chapters. Moreover, the possibility that the mystical claims are fabrications, whether intentional or unconscious, is examined and discarded as non-valid.
