So my neighbor Fran, who has for years considered himself an Epicurean after reading my book, now says he considers himself "agnostic"--that he is OK with "not knowing" (presumably, about God).
He has said this to me after having experienced with mushrooms, and having enjoyed subsequent ecstatic states of mind after his experience, which opened his mind to a whole new reality. I did not try to change his mind, simply have been listening, and he is a friend first and foremost regardless of his views.
It seems to me now that he has equated Epicureanism as a form of atheism (although I think he knows it isn't), and I wonder if he sees Epicureanism as an "ism", a dogmatic and somewhat closed-minded philosophy insofar as it is separate from his recent experiences and he seems to have difficulty reconciling them with E-ism.
I wonder also if this association between philosophy and "sober reasoning" (as per the L Menoeceus) means (to some people, at least) that Epicureanism makes irrational / ecstatic experiences difficult to assimilate. I always thought that, in its embrace of FEELING, E-ism actually promoted these experiences.
Either way, it seems like pious or religious experiences (even natural ones, like the ones induced by mushrooms) can be powerful enough to swerve someone into a new path. I think the times we live in require new, coherently Epicurean explanations of mysticism that are based on the study of nature. The ancient ones (where divine photons from outer space interfere with our mind) are not, in my view, convincing. There is need, I think, for a new set of theories of mysticism.