The map of this mystical territory is the mystical language, which we use to describe the internal experience of our minds. If you close your eyes, some of those candle sensations go away. In the mystical language, we’d say they stop being real. We don’t care about the objective / physical candle. In the mystical world view there is no “candle” per se, there are only sensations in your mind. In fact, if the candle wasn’t even lit and your eyes are closed, the candle would altogether stop being real. There wouldn’t be any sensations in your mind associated with it. It’s no longer part of the territory. (If you’re still thinking about the candle, though, then that thought is real and part of the territory.)
Overall I like this post, but this part seems to be suggesting a mind-only, solipsistic epistemology is necessary to the use of mystical language when in fact I often use mystical language with phenomenal empiricism in mind. That’s kind of a nitpick, but to me it seems important because often mystical metaphors go off-the-rails when they become divorced from reality and people use them as if they can accurately describe metaphysics rather than use the language of metaphysics metaphorically. As you note, it’s that sort of confusion that scares off the scientifically-minded because, to be fair, woo-speakers are not always careful to keep their metaphors separate from their metaphysics, so this seems a nit worth picking since it may be a crux around which some would reject your thesis.
Overall I like this post, but this part seems to be suggesting a mind-only, solipsistic epistemology is necessary to the use of mystical language when in fact I often use mystical language with phenomenal empiricism in mind. That’s kind of a nitpick, but to me it seems important because often mystical metaphors go off-the-rails when they become divorced from reality and people use them as if they can accurately describe metaphysics rather than use the language of metaphysics metaphorically. As you note, it’s that sort of confusion that scares off the scientifically-minded because, to be fair, woo-speakers are not always careful to keep their metaphors separate from their metaphysics, so this seems a nit worth picking since it may be a crux around which some would reject your thesis.
Could you please give some examples of this?