Mysticism

Mysticism from the Greek μυω (muo, "concealed") is the pursuit of achieving communion or identity with, or conscious awareness of, ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight; and the belief that such experience is an important source of knowledge or understanding. It may involve a belief in the existence of realities beyond immediate perceptual apprehension, or a belief that true perception of the world goes beyond intellectual apprehension, or that 'beingness' is central to all perception.

Mystics generally hold that there is a deeper, more fundamental state of existence hidden beneath the appearances of day–to–day living (which may become, to the mystic, superficial or epiphenomenal). For the mystic, the hidden state is the focus, and may be perceived in any of various ways — as God, ultimate reality, a universal presence, a force or principle, psychological emancipation — and be experienced or realized directly. Such experience are spoken of, variously, as ecstatic revelation, theosis, direct experience of the divine or of universal principles, nirvana, enlightenment, satori, samadhi, etc. They are sometimes characterized by a fading or loss of self, or a perceived interconnection with all existence, and are often accompanied by feelings of peace, joy or bliss.

Mysticism is usually understood in a religious context, but as William James (1902) points out, mystical experiences may happen to anyone, regardless of religious training or inclinations. Such experiences can occur unbidden and without preparation at any time, and might not be understood as religious experiences at all. They may be interpreted, perhaps, as artistic, scientific, or other forms of inspiration, or even dismissed as psychological disturbances. With that in mind, the word mysticism, is best used to point to conscious and systematic attempts to gain mystical experiences though studies and practice. Techniques include meditation, prayer, asceticism, devotions, the chanting of mantras or holy names, or even intellectual investigation. While mystics are generally members of some religious denomination, they typically go beyond specific religious perspectives or dogmas in their teachings, espousing an inclusive and universal perspective that rises above sectarian differences. (see interdenominationalism, interfaith, and perennial philosophy).

James points out that a mystical experience displays the world through a different lens than is present in ordinary experience. The experience, in his words, is "ineffable" and "noetic"; placed beyond the descriptive abilities of language. While there is debate over what this implies—whether, in fact, the experience actually transcends the phenomenal or material world of ordinary perception, or rather transcends the capacities of ordinary perception to bring the phenomenal and material world into full view—such debates do not a mainstay eof mystical teaching. Mystics focus on the experience itself, and rarely concern themselves with ontological discussions. (see the discussion below)

Understanding the mystical perspective

The difficulty with definitions

The mystic interprets the world through a different lens than is present in ordinary experience, and can prove to be a significant obstacle to those who research mystical teachings and paths. Much like poetry, the words of mystics are often ideosyncratic and esoteric, can seem confusing and opaque, simultaneously over-simplified and full of subtle meanings hidden from the unenlightened. To the mystic, however, they are pragmatic statements, without subtext or weight; simple obvious truths of experience. One of the more famous lines from the Tao Te Ching, for instance, reads:

My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice

Yet no one in the world understands them or puts them into practice. (TTC, 70)

Readers frequently encounter seemingly open-ended statements among studies of mysticism throughout its history. In his work, Kabbalah, Gershom Scholem, a prominent 20th century scholar of that field, stated: The Kabbalah is not a single system with basic principles which can be explained in a simple and straightforward fashion, but consists rather of a multiplicity of different approaches, widely separated from one another and sometimes completely contradictory. (Scholem, 1974)

Strategies used, and avenues of failure:

aphorisms, poetry, and etc.

semi-artisitc efforts to crystalize some particular description or aspect of the mystical experience in words

• God is Love (Christian and Sufi in particular), Atman is Brahman (Advaitan), Zen haiku, Rumi's love poems (Sufism). Often these are taken as slogans or as art, and so lose their core meaning as depictions of practical experience.

koans, riddles, and metaphysical contradictions

irresolvable tasks or lines of thought designed to direct one away from intellectualism and towards direct experience

• The classic "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" (Zen) or "How many angels can stand on the head of a pin?" (Christian/philosophical). Sometimes these are dismissed as mere incomprehensible silliness (see humor, below); sometimes they are taken (erroneously) as serious questions whose answers would have mystical significance. In either case, the intention is lost.

humor and humorous stories

teachings which simultaneously draw one away from serious discussion and highlight metaphysical points

• Primary examples are the Nasrudin tales and Bektashi_jokes (Islam), and the Animal Spirit stories passed down in Native American, Australian Aboriginal, and African Tribal folklore. "Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby", for example, is fairly acute psychology wrapped in a children's tale. Humor of this sort is often corrupted into mere jokes: some Nasrudin tales have a clear metaphysics built in, while others are little more than depictions of a crazy, dimwitted old man.

parables and metaphor

stories designed to teach a particular but unconventional view of the world indirectly, by using analogy

• Christ consistently used parables to teach: e.g. the "Master of the House" parables which convey—contrary to the conventional reading of the book of genesis—a world belonging entirely to God, where man's place is that of a servant whose master is away.

These categories are, of course, intended only as guidelines; many mystical teachings cover the gamut. For instance, Yunus Emre's famous passage:

I climbed into the plum tree

and ate the grapes I found there.

The owner of the garden called to me,

"Why are you eating my walnuts?"

is humor, parable, poem, and koan all at once.

The relation of mystical thought to philosophy

To an extent, mysticism and modern (analytic) philosophy are antithetical. Mysticism is experiential and holisitc, and mystical experiences are generally held to be beyond expression; modern philosphy is analytical, verbal, and reductionist. However, this distinction is peculiar to the modern world. Through much of history mystical and philosophical thought were closely entwined. Plato and Pythagoras, and to a lesser extent Socrates, had clear mystical elements in their teachings; many of the great Christian mystics were also prominent philosophers; and certainly Buddha's Sutras and Shankara's 'Crest Jewel of Discrimination' (fundamental texts in Buddhism and Advaitan Hinduism, respectively) display highly analytical treatments of mystical ideas. The rift between mysticism and modern philosophy derives mainly from elements of scientism in the latter: certain branches of philosophy, influenced by the natural sciences, broadly disavow subjective experience as meaningless. That said, several areas of study in philosophy address the same issues that concern the mystic.

Furthermore, Continental philosophy, widely scorned by analytic philosophers, tends to be concerned with issues closely related to mysticism, such as the subjective experience of existence in Existentialism

Ontology, epistemology, and phenomenology

The focus on experience in mysticism tends to belie ontological questions; mystical ontology is rarely stated in clear affirmative particulars. Often, it consists of generalized, transcendent identity statements—"Atman is Brahman", "God is Love", "There is only One without a Second" — or other phrases suggestive of immanence. Sometimes it is stated in negative terms, instead—from the Hindu tradition, for instance, the word Brahman is usually defined as God 'without' characteristics or attributes. Buddhist teachings explicitly discourage ontological beliefs, Taoist philosophy consistently reminds that ontos is knowable but inexpressible, and certain 'psychological' schools—spiritual schools following after Carl Jung, and philosophical schools derived from Husserl—concern themselves more with the transformations of perceptions within consciousness than the connection of perceptions to some external reality.

Mysticism is related to epistemology as well, to the extent that both are concerned with the acquisition of knowledge. However, where epistemology has always struggled with foundational issues—how do we know that our knowledge is true or our beliefs justified—mystics are more concerned with process. Foundational questions are answered, in mystical thought, by mystical experiences. Their focus, thus, is less on finding procedures of reason that will establish clear relations between ontos and episteme, but rather on finding practices that will yield clear perception. At least one branch of epistemology hints at this distinction by claiming that non-rational procedures (e.g. statements of desire, random selection, or intuitive processes) are in some cases acceptable means of arriving at beliefs.

Phenomenology is perhaps the closest philosophical perspective to mystical thinking, and shares many of the difficulties in comprehension that plague mysticism itself. Husserl's phenomenology, for instance, insists on the same first-person, experiential stance that mystics try to achieve: his notion of phenomenological epoché, or bracketing, precludes assumptions or questions about the extra-mental existence of perceived phenomena.[1] Heidegger goes a step beyond: rather than merely bracketing phenomena to exclude ontological questions, he asserts that only 'beingness' has ontological reality, and thus only investigation and experiencing of the self can lead to authentic existence. Phenomenology and most forms of mysticism part ways, however, in their understanding of the experience. Phenomonology (and in particular existentialist phenomenology) are pre-conditioned by angst (existential dread) which arises from the discovery of the essential emptiness of 'the real'; mystics, by contrast generally speak of the peace or bliss that derives from their active connection 'the real'.

Those who adopt a phenomenological approach to mysticism belive that an argument can be made for concurent lines of thought througout mysticism, regardless of interaction[2]

Differences of interpretation

The soul

Abrahamic religions conceive of a soul that lies within each individual, which is of great spiritual signifigance. Christian mysticism has diverse takes on the relationship between God, the soul, and the individual.

Quakers view the soul as inner light, an inherent presence of God within the individual. Other Protestant sects, as well as Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, hold a more distinct division between the individual soul and God, given the traditional belief that the salvation of the soul and union with God will occur after death at the resurrection, but these faiths generally hold that righteousness is possible during life. Christian mystics seek this state, variously, through intense prayer, ascetism, monasticism, or even mortification of the flesh.

In Catholicism, saints and other beatific individuals are said to have recieved the Holy Spirit—a movement of God in their souls that grants them miraculous, prophetic, or other transcendent abilities—and this belief is taken up in certain charismatic and evangelical faiths that seek out testaments to divine revalation through speaking in tongues, faith healing, the casting out of demons, etc.

Islam shares this conception of a distinct soul, but with less focus on miraculous powers; the muslim world emphasizes remembrance (dhikr, zikr): the recalling one's original and innate connection to Allah's grace. In traditional Islam this connection is maintained by angels, who carry out God's will—though only prophets have the ability to see and hear them directly.

Sufism (the mystical aspect of Islam) holds that God can be experienced directly as a universal love that pervades the universe. Remembrance, for Sufis, explicitly means remembrance of divine states of love, and Sufis are particularly noted for the artistic turn their forms of worship often take.

Eastern philosophies, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism are less concerned with the individual, and instead seek dissolution of the soul and ego (moksha) into transcedent reality (generally Brahmanor Ishvara). In the mystical aspects of the Vedic tradition Atman (something not entirely different from the werstern concepion of the soul) is believed to be identical with Brahman. Hindu mystical practices aim for God-consciousness and loss of self.

Buddhist teaching holds that all suffering (dukkha) in the world comes from attachment to objects or ideas, and that freedom from suffering comes by freeing one's self from attachments. The doctrine of anatta suggests that the soul, or the perception of an unchanging and cohesive self, is a mental construct to which one may be attached, and thus a source of suffering. While conventional Buddhist religion has an assortment of deities and venerated beings, the mystical sects of Buddhism at minimum avoid affirming, and in some cases overtly deny the existence of a permanent or unchanging soul, or of any permanent or unchanging being to the universe.

Taoism is largely unconcerned with the soul. Instead, Taoism centers around the tao ('the way' or 'the path'). The human tendency, according to Taoism, is to concieve of dualisms; the Taoist mystical practice is to recapture and conform with that original unity (called te, de, which is translated as virtue).

Regardless of particular conceptions of the soul, a common thread of mysticism is collective peace, joy, compassion or love.

External or internal divinity

From the inner light of the Quakers to the Atman of the Hindu, many have found a soul or other essential essense within themselves to be a center of focus. Even the buddhist who seeks Buddhahood through anatta places a great deal of emphasis on their inner world.

In contrast some (particularly gnostics and other dualists) see the self as wicked and deserving of punishment or extreme neglect through asceticism, with positive values placed only upon the transcendent.

Pantheism and acosmism

Pantheism means "God is All" and "All is God". It is the idea that natural law, existence, and/or the universe (the sum total of all that is, was, and shall be) is represented or personified in the theological principle of 'God'.

In contrast Acosmism denies the reality of the universe, seeing it as ultimately illusory (maya), with only the infinite unmanifest Absolute as real.

There are also dualist conceptions, often with an evil (though existant) material world competing with a transcendent and perfect spiritual plane.

Nirvana, Moksha and Heaven

Michelangelo's interpretation of Heaven

Three different terms for a desired afterlife are Nirvana (literally extinction), Moksha (liberation or release) and heaven (usually understood as a gathering place for goodly spirits, near to God and other holy beings). Each of these terms is defined very differently by various persons within a given religion, and their usage within mysticism is often no less imprecise.

The common threads of mystical traditions

Mysticism and syncretism

Mystics of different traditions report similar experiences of a world usually outside conventional perception, although not all forms of mysticism abandon knowledge perceived through normal means. Based on extraordinary perception, mystics may believe that one can find true unity of religion and philosophy in mystical experience.

Elements of mysticism exist in most religions and in many philosophies, including those where the majority of the followers are not mystics. Some mystics perceive a common thread of influence in all mystic philosophies that they see as traceable back to a shared source. The Vedic tradition is inherently mystic; the Christian apocalyptic Book of Revelation is clearly mystical, as with Ezekiel's or Daniel's visions of Judaism, and Muslims believe that the angel Gabriel revealed the Qur'an in a mystical manner. Indigenous cultures also have cryptic revelations pointing toward a universal flow of love or unity, usually following a vision quest or similar ritual. Mystical philosophies thus can exhibit a strong tendency towards syncretism.

Some systems of mysticism are found within specific religious traditions and do not relinquish doctrinal principles as a part of mystical experience. In some definite cases, theology remains a distinct source of insight that guides and informs the mystical experience. For example, St. Thomas Aquinas' mystical experiences all occurred squarely within the love of the Catholic Eucharist.

Types of mystical experience

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes four common classifications of mystical and religious experiences:

• Extrovertive – mystical consciousness of the unity of nature overlaid onto one's sense perception of the world.
• Introvertive – any experience that includes sense-perceptual, somatosensory, or introspective content. An experience of "nothingness" or "emptiness", in some mystical traditions, are examples of introvertive experiences.
• Theistic – experiences of God.
• Non-theistic – experiences of a reality other than God or of no reality at all.

Subjectivity and mysticism

Theistic, pantheistic, and panentheistic metaphysical systems most often understand mystical experience as individual communion with a God. One can receive these very subjective experiences as visions, dreams, revelations, or prophecies, for example.

Thomas Aquinas, a Christian mystic of the 13th century, defined it as cognitio dei experimentalis (experiential knowledge of God). In Catholicism the mystical experience is not sought for its own sake, and is always informed by revelation and ascetical theology.

The relation of mystical paths to conventional religion

Conventional religions, as a rule, are marked by strong institutional structures. A religious faith will generally have most or all of the following:

• an established hierarchy
• a definitive creed
• a set of approved central texts
• regular public services
• an accumulation of rites, rituals, and holy days
• a clearly stated ethical code or set of moral laws

Adherents of the faith are expected to respect or follow each of these closely. Most mystical paths arise in the context of some particular religion but tend to set aside or ignore these institutional structures, often styling themselves as the 'purest' or 'deepest' representations of that faith. Thus, to the extent that a mystical path has a hierarchy, it is generally limited to teacher/student relationships; to the extent that they use a central text or ethical code, they view them as interpretable guidelines rather than established law. Conventional religious perspectives towards mystics varies between and within faiths. Sometimes (as with the Catholic church and Vedantic Hinduism) mystics are incorporated into the church hierarchy, with criteria set up for validation of mystical experiences and veneration of those who achieve that status. In other cases, mystical paths follow a separate but parallel course. Traditionally, Buddhist monks were closely interwoven into the fabric of village life through most of Asia, but had no authoritative position in the community; likewise, Sufis are somewhat peripheral to Muslim culture, viewed by more conventional Muslims as an interesting curiosity. Some faiths—including most Protestant Christian sects—find mystical practices disreputable; mystic practices and beliefs are restricted to specific sects, such as the Society of Friends or certain Charismatic groups, which have implicitly incorporated them.

The mystic's disregard of religious institutional structures often lends a quasi-revolutionary aspect to mystical teaching, and this occassionally leads to conflict with establish religious and political structures, or the creation of splinter groups or new faiths.

New Religious movements

Because of the need to interpret metaphorically, it is often difficult to distinguish mystic statements from mere obfuscation, a problem which became particularly acute in the occult movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries and has extended itself into many New Age and New religious movements, some near universally regarded as fraudulent cults.

The late 19th century saw a significant increase of interest in mysticism in the West that combined with increased interest in Occultism and Eastern Philosophy. Theosophy became a major movement in the popularization of these interests. Madame Blavatsky and G. I. Gurdjieff functioned as central figures of the theosophy movement. This trend later became absorbed in the rise of the New Age movement which included a major surge in the popularity of astrology. At the end of the twentieth Century books like Conversations with God (a series of books which describes what the author claimed to be his experience of direct communication with God) hit the bestseller lists.

Self-transcendence, self-discovery, and entheogens

The term Perennial Philosophy, coined by Leibniz and popularized by Aldous Huxley, relates to what some take to be the mystic's primary concern:

[W]ith the one, divine reality substantial to the manifold world of things and lives and minds. But the nature of this one reality is such that it cannot be directly or immediately apprehended except by those who have chosen to fulfill certain conditions, making themselves loving, pure in heart, and poor in spirit. (Aldous Huxley, 1945)

Some mystics use the term to refer to a manner wherein the mystic strives to plumb the depths of the self and reality in a radical process of meditative self-exploration, with the aim of experiencing the true nature of reality.

In some cultures and traditions, mind-altering substances—often referred to as entheogens—have been used as a guide; the Uniao do Vegetal being a notable modern example.

Examples in major traditions

Examples of major traditions and philosophies with strong elements of mysticism are:

• Christian Gnosticism
• Christian mysticism
• Eastern Orthodox Hesychasm
• Javanese mystical movements
• Judaic Kabbalah
• Mormonism, being founded on visions, revelations, and angelic ordination
• Mystery religions and cults
• Native American Ghost Dances of the late Nineteenth Century were mystical in origin
• The New Age movement
  • Near Death Experiences
• Quakerism in its theology
• Theistic Satanism
• Sufi tradition of Islam
• Sumarah
• Surat Shabda Yoga
• Taoism
• Tibetan Buddhism
• Transcendentalist Unitarianism
• Vedantic Hinduism
• Yoga
• Zen Buddhism

Hindu mystics

Some examples of Hindu mystics:

Andal

Shankara

Gopi Krishna

Lalleshvari

Mirabai

Nārāyana Guru(1856-1928)

Sri Ramakrishna

Ramana Maharshi

Sri Deep Narayan Mahaprabhuji

Tukaram

Chinese mystics

Lao Zi (Lao Tze)

Zhang Sanfeng

Zhuangzi (Chuang Tsu)

Christian mystics

Some examples of Christian mystics:

St. John the Apostle (? -101)

Clement of Alexandria (? -216)

St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

St. Gregory I (590-604)

Saint Anselm (1033-1109)

Hugh of Saint Victor (1096–1141)

St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)

Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)

Albertus Magnus (1206-1280)

Mechthild of Magdeburg (1210-1279)

St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1275)

Angel of Foligno - (c.1248-1309) )

Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 - 1327/8)

Richard Rolle (c. 1290 - 1349)

St. Gregory Palamas (1296 - 1359)

St. Bridget of Sweden (1302-1373)

Julian of Norwich (1342-c.1416)

Margery Kempe (c.1373-1438)

Paracelsus (1493-1541)

St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)

Jakob Boehme (1575-1624)

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)

Michael de Molinos (1628-1696)

Sarah Wight (1632-?)

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)

William Blake (1757-1827)

Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824)

Jakob Lorber (1800 - 1864)

Rufus Jones (1863-1948)

Max Heindel (1865 - 1919)

G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897-1963)

Daniil Andreev (1906-1959)

Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Islamic mystics

Some examples of Muslim mystics (also called Sufi):

Persian:

al-Ghazali, (d. 1111)

al Hallaj (d. 922)

Jalal ad-Din Rumi (d. 1273)

Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi

Sadi

Abdul Qadir Gilani

Abu Yazid Bistami aka Bayazid of Bistam

Abusaeid Abolkheyr

Farid al-Din Attar

Jami

Mahmud Shabistari

Afghan:

Mawlana Faizani, (20th Century)

Turkish:

Yunus Emre

Indian:

Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, aka Khwaja Gareeb Nawaz

Khwaja Nizamuddin Chishti, aka Nizamuddin Auliya or just Khwaja Nizamuddin

Qalandar Baba Auliya

Amir Khusro

Shahbaz Qalander

Jewish mystics

Some examples of Jewish mystics:

Shimon bar Yochai (c.200)

Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia (1240-1291)

Moses ben Shem Tob de Leon (1250-1305)

Isaac Luria (1534-1572)

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (1707-1746)

Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810)

Abraham Isaac Kook (1864-1935)

Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994)

Mormon mystics

Some examples of Mormon mystics:

Joseph Smith, Sr. (1771-1840)

Eliza R. Snow (1804-1887)

Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805-1844)

Wilford Woodruff (1807-1898)

Joseph F. Smith (1838-1918)

Hugh Nibley (1910-2005)

Other mystics

Some examples of other mystics:

Aleister Crowley (magick and Thelema)

Gurdjieff

David R. Hawkins

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Bob Marley

Plotinus (Neo-Platonist)

Chapel Tibet

Walt Whitman

Carlos Castaneda

Joseph Beuys

See also

• Apophatic theology
• Christian meditation
• Esoteric Christianity
• Esotericism
• Faith healing
• Kabbalism
• Ken Wilber
• List of dignitaries of mystical organisations
• List of spirituality-related topics
• Meditation
• National mysticism
• Nazi mysticism
• Neo-Tech
• Occult
• Religious Experience
• The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception
• Rosicrucian
• Spiritual awakening
• Sufism
• Surat Shabd Yoga
• Thelema
• Western mystery tradition
• Yoga

References

• Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, Perennial 1945, ISBN 006057058X
• William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902), ISBN 0300062559
• Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, Oxford 1923, ISBN 0195002105
• Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah, Meridian 1974, Plume Books 1987 reissue: ISBN 0452010071
• The Four Yogas Of Enlightenment: Guide To Don Juan's Nagualism & Esoteric Buddhism by Edward Plotkin (2002) ISBN 0972087907

External links

• GodConsciousness.com Mystic texts and resources.
• Mysticism in Catholic Encyclopedia
• Who's Who in the History of Mysticism by Professor Bruce B. Janz
• ChristianMystics.com includes many short essays covering various aspects of Christian mysticism
• Islam Way Online - Your Religion and Spirituality Portal Books on Life and Faith, Mankind and the World (sufi)
• Alphabetical List of Mystics
• Christian Mysticism
• Evelyn Underhill's classic work A Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness
• Mysticism in World Religions
• Neo-Tech Neo-Tech a philosophy that says mysticism in all its forms is the "number one enemy of human life" and whose explicit mission is its total elimination
• Islamic Mysticism
• AbstractAtom.com: Information on Buddhism (especially Indian and Tibetan), the philosophy of Brahman, and Buddhist atomism
• Spiritual Travel - mystical and visionary out-of-body experience
• Planet Baha'i Mysticism Resources A look at mysticism in the Bahá'í Holy Writings, its relationship to mystical elements in other religions, and its impact on the lives of individual Bahá'ís.
• Bahá'í Mystics A collaborative exploration of Bahá'í mysticism using Wiki software.
• Millennial Mystics Offered by a Bahá'í artist, this site presents studies and study aids on Bahá'í mysticism, emphasizing its connection to the arts.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry