Interesting book by Jeffrey Kripal of Rice University on the relationship between spirituality and morality:
Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism, G. William Barnard and Jeffrey J. Kripal, eds. (New York: Seven Bridges Press/Chatham House, 2002).
This volume emerged out of a long-standing debate about the relationship between mysticism and ethics that I have had with my close colleague and friend G. William Barnard of Southern Methodist University. Put much too simply, I hold that there is no necessary relationship between the two, and Bill holds that there is. It’s much more complicated than that, of course. Hence this collection of essays. Unfortunately, the press that published the volume went out of business shortly after the book appeared, so it is almost impossible to find now—a rare book! I wrote three essays for this volume, all of which develop my thesis that, although monistic mystical experiences may well grant access to deeper strata of reality (I suspect they do), such states of consciousness do not necessarily produce or lead to ethical behavior and are often, indeed, catalyzed by entirely non-moral or even immoral events (like car wrecks, antinomian rituals, and sexual trauma). Monism, after all, implies an erasure or annihilation of ultimate difference, whereas moral norms require multiple moral subjects and elaborate social structures to exist at all.
