In the third and final volume of
The Meaning of Life, Professor Whiteman, a mathematician and
mystic (who celebrated his 100th birthday in November 2006) has
completed the mammoth task he set himself, namely to incorporate his
own mystical experiences into a world view. As he writes in the
Preface, 'What we are to consider here is the experience of the
divine Reason (Logos) in everything of life always working for the
advancement of the good. The experience which gives or leads to this
is today described as mystical. So here we study what has been said
or depicted regarding the mystical, also the way to proceed for its
attainment and development, and what the most notable teachers in
the past have seen fit to declare.
"This third volume of the "meaning
of life" deals accordingly with the fruits of spiritual development
in three chief ways. Firstly, every conclusion reached is based on
and in accord with the mystical and psychical experience granted to
me over the course of about eighty years (some even earlier)....
Secondly, there is a need for an intensive study of ancient
scriptures, which I have felt obliged to study in the original
languages: Vedic, Sanskrit, Pali, Hebrew and Greek [as] translations
of these scriptures have almost invariably been made by scholars
lacking mystical experience.... Knowledge of quite another kind is
also needed, philosophical and indeed mathematical in character, if
the consistent rational development of objective phenomena in
other-world states of life (and even in the physical world) is to be
understood.... In the Historical Survey, Part III, I have restricted
the enquiry to writings reasonably taken to refer to first-hand
mystical experience in history up to about 120 CE.... there is good
reason to believe that, after that date, the earlier and genuine
accounts of mystical experience have been built on by theologians
and others who had not been granted that experience.'
