LET'S GET MYSTICAL

Let's Get Mystical


Perhaps the most intriguing prayer tradition is that of mysticism. This is the aspect of much New Age spirituality that, I believe, makes it so attractive. Yet the mystical tradition is also one of the most misunderstood. At first glance, it seems like the Advanced School of Prayer, and in some ways it is. We are wise, though, to understand it as simply another way of prayer that has its own gifts to impart.

There's Mysticism and Then There's Mysticism

Mystical prayer is prayer in which the prayer seeks to experience God, or ultimate reality, in an immediate, direct, intuitive way that is, you experience God more immediately than the chair you're sitting in. This is a broad definition, so many people who do not consider themselves mystics have had mystical experiences. For such people, including myself, the occasional experience (once or twice in a lifetime) is enjoyed but not sought after, remembered but not dwelt upon.


For the person pursuing the mystical way, more such experiences are sought, with the ultimate goal of ongoing or complete union with God. No one has understood mysticism better than Evelyn Underhill, an early twentieth-century Anglican writer who said this about a true mystic: "The central fact, it seems to me, is an overwhelming consciousness of God and his own soul: A consciousness which absorbs and eclipses all other centers of interest."


As such, mysticism can be found in every religion: in the Hindu metaphysical system known as the Vedanta, and in the philosophy of Yoga, which offers a rigorous discipline to encourage mystical experiences. Taoism, especially as expounded by its traditional founder, the Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu, has a strong mystical emphasis. The Muslim Sufi sect also practices a form of mysticism that closely resembles that of the Vedanta.

Some forms of Christian mysticism sound very similar to Eastern and Muslim mysticism. But in the best Christian mysticism (that is, the type that seeks to shape itself according to traditional Christian teaching), there are some important differences.


1. Though nature can be a vehicle for experiencing God, nature never becomes God in Christian mysticism. For all their profound wonder at nature, Christian mystics always understand that there is a difference between creation and the creator.

2. Mystics tend to be impatient with language that limits God including the language of the Bible, in which God is understood in metaphors: Father, Redeemer, Rock, Lord, King, and so on. Mystics are fond of abstract language, which they believe more readily frees us from thinking about God in our "man-made" categories and allows us to experience God more truly. When they talk about God, they'll used words and phrases like these: Being, the Unknowable, Bare Pure One, Perfect Beauty, Love That Gives All Things Form, Reality, and so on.

Even many Christian mystics move in this direction. "God may well be loved but not thought," wrote the author of the mystical classic The Cloud of Unknowing. But in Christian teaching, the biblical metaphors for God especially Father,


Lord, and King have been given to us by God himself. They are not intended to say everything there is to say about God, but what they do say should not be lightly set aside.

Furthermore, the democracy of history has determined that more people find God and have come to know him better by praying to "Our Father" rather than "The Ground of All Being."

3. In some forms of mysticism, mystics become increasingly passive and isolated from society. In the Christian tradition, though, mysticism naturally leads to vigorous action in the world. In Christian history, you find mystics running monastic orders (Teresa of Avila), arguing politics with popes and kings (Catherine of Siena), and starting movements that electrify continents (Francis of Assisi).

4. In non-Christian mysticism, often the goal is for the individual to be absorbed into the divine essence, to have his or her individual personality "obliterated" and united with the All-in-All. This is decidedly not the Christian goal, which is a relationship with God and demands that there will forever remain a distinction between God and us. If a Christian mystic speaks about "obliterating the self," it's usually hyperbole for getting under control those parts of the self that stand in the way of a relationship with God.

A Brief History of Mysticism

Let's go through the following history so that you can see some of the names associated with this form of prayer. This will give you an idea of the breadth and pedigree of the tradition. As a person who likes to know where things have come from, I need this sort of thing before I dip into something new. If you're not into history, though, just move along to the next section.

We start at the very beginning of Christianity: The apostle Paul was the first great Christian mystic. Though he didn't use the terminology or theology of later mysticism, he had his share of mystical experiences: He said he was once "caught up in the third heaven" (2 Corinthians 12:23), whatever that means.

Mysticism as we now know it today was first articulated in the early Middle Ages, in the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, a.k.a. Pseudo-Dionysius (because many scholars think someone else wrote this stuff and just attached Dionysius's name to it). He combined Christian theology with Neo-Platonist philosophy (which is where a lot of the abstract language of mysticism comes from).


In the Middle Ages, the most celebrated mystics were found among the monks of both the Eastern church and the Western church, particularly the "Hesychasts" of Mount Athos, Greece, and, in Western Europe; Bernard of Clairvaux; Hildegard of Bingen; Francis of Assisi; Theresa of Avila; and John of the Cross. Gerhard Groote, a Dutch mystic, founded the monastic order known as the Brothers of the Common Life, which Thomas à Kempis later joined and in which he produced his famous The Imitation of Christ, a prayer classic (see the next chapter).

Johannes Eckhart, a.k.a. Meister Eckhart, was the foremost mystic of Germany. Some of his followers, members of a group called the Friends of God, wrote works that influenced the reformer Martin Luther.

Mysticism with an English touch, at least in the 1300s and 1400s, is exemplified by Margery Kempe, Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich, and the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, another classic work on mystical prayer.

Post-Reformation Catholic works include The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola; The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence; and the works of seventeenth-century French quietist, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon, or usually Madam Guyon. On the Protestant side, there's Jakob Boehme's Mysterium Magnum (The Great Mystery) and William Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.

In the twentieth century, the strongest mystical voices have been Austrian Roman Catholic Friedrich von Hügel, British Anglican Evelyn Underhill, American Quaker Rufus Jones, French philosophers Simone Weil and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and American Trappist monk Thomas Merton.

If any of these names have intrigued you in the past, their writings might be a place to begin your own exploration of mysticism.


The Five Stages

Depending on whose material you read, there are as few as three and as many as seven (and sometimes more) stages in the mystical way. Though writers differ on the number, most seem to agree on the characteristic phases that people go through when they try to take up the mystical tradition.


"Stages" and "characteristic phases" are loose terms. These are stages in the same way that there are "stages" in grief. We each experience denial, bargaining, acceptance, and so on, but each stage has a way of returning again in some ways, all stages are present in each one. Still, we recognize the stages as different types of experiences we have after a loved one has died. The same is true of stages in the mystical way.

Here we examine the classification of Evelyn Underhill as outlined in her now-classic Mysticism.

· Awakening. The person is first awakened to the reality of spiritual things and to the presence and love of God. This can happen suddenly, in an instant conversion, or it can take place over months or years: The person becomes aware of God's love as never before, and the experience comes with feelings of joy and even exaltation.

· Purification, also called purgation. Having experienced the love and holiness of God, the person before long recognizes how out of sync with God he is. Thus begins a period of mortification, the killing off of desires, habits, and states of mind that get in the way of God. Often serious disciplines are taken up longer prayer, fasting, self-examination retreats, sexual chastity, relinquishing possessions to conquer spiritual sloth and pride. The period is characterized by moral effort and spiritual pain.

· Illumination. Now more morally and spiritually honed, the person becomes joyfully aware of God at a new level. The knowing in the "awakening" phase is like enjoying the light of a full moon on a cloudless night; this is like basking in the noontime sun on a summer day.

These first three stages together are often called "the first mystic life," and this is about as far as most mystics travel along the way. As we'll soon see, it is not a perfect and ongoing experience of God, but one in which purgation is still necessary. Still, it is an experience far richer than awakening and is characterized by ongoing peace and joy.

· Dark night of the soul. This most terrible experience of the mystical way is sometimes experienced at various points in each stage, and sometimes as an extended period of its own. It is sometimes called "mystic death," for it entails the final and complete purification of the self. It takes its name from a book by this title, written by John of the Cross, in which John describes the new experience.


The chief characteristic is absolute loss of God, a sense that the sun has been completely obliterated. Desolation and despair are the usual emotions the seeker experiences. It isn't that God literally withdraws the omni-present God cannot do that but he does withdraw every emotional benefit the seeker has so far derived from faith. The seeker continues through the spiritual loneliness knowing that this "spiritual crucifixion" is necessary: One must learn to seek God for God's sake, not for the sake of the happiness God brings.

· Union. In this stage, the seeker enjoys God not as in illumination, in which God shines down upon him: Here he becomes one with God. Again, this is not one in the sense that the seeker is destroyed, but one in the sense that husband and wife become one in sex. I'm not being disrespectful here: In fact, sexual imagery is common in mystical teaching, and this stage is often called "mystical marriage."

Books to Get You Started

This is only the briefest of overviews. Underhill's classic is more than 500 pages and is only one book of many on the subject. But if this approach intrigues you still, you might look for others.

For starters, read one of Underhill's books (Mysticism or The Essentials of Mysticism), or a more modern treatment such as Father Benedict Groeschel's Spiritual Passages: The Psychology of Spiritual Development (Crossroad, 1990). Whereas Underhill's book describes all of mysticism, Groeschel's book concentrates on discussing the stages (he has three)how they are experienced psychologically and spiritually, as well as some of their dangers and opportunities.

You may also want to read a classic in mystical writing: Teresa of Avila's The Interior Castle, or John of the Cross's Ascent of Mount Carmel.


Getting "Professional" Help

If you're going to embark on this way, you also are wise to find a spiritual director all the great mystics had them. These are people skilled in the art of discerning the spiritual life. You meet with them as you would a counselor (though not at the cost!), and you discuss your spiritual life. Some are more directive, giving assignments each week (or month however often you meet); others are non-directive, asking questions to help the seeker to understand better how God is speaking.


Spiritual directors are not listed in the phone book as such, but many monasteries have people who specialize in spiritual direction. You might also contact a local Roman Catholic or Episcopal priest, who may know other places in your area where you can find a spiritual director.

You are better off not using your own pastor or priest because the relationship with the spiritual director is more intimate than most people feel is appropriate with their clergy person. In fact, I believe that it's best to not know your spiritual director in any other setting. Let this person's one job be as your spiritual director not pastor, teacher, friend, or whatever. This way he can focus on you in just this one capacity.

Furthermore, you are probably wise to select a spiritual director of your own gender. First, there's the matter of intimacy; you don't want to start becoming confused about your feelings for your spiritual director. Enough said.

Second, the spiritual life is a gendered life. How we experience God is in many ways shaped by our gender and how we relate to people of the same and opposite sex. In most circumstances, these aspects of spirituality are best discerned by someone of your own gender.

Finally, you may want first to visit a few individuals to discuss their philosophy and approach before settling in on the one person who is going to help guide your spiritual life. And there is no law that says you can't change your spiritual director if you're not being helped.

In any event, having a guide is crucial and even if you're not going to embark on the more strenuous mystical way, it can be a big help. Climbers of Mt. Everest don't go without a guide, for sure. But even those who simply want to take a nature walk through Yosemite Valley find that a ranger's company can make the experience more meaningful.