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This post was initially a topic I discussed on a separate website, The Philosophy Forum, but I have noticed a lot of militant atheists brewing in the forum lately so I have decided to distance myself from it. That being said, I will post a few threads that I wrote here to hopefully generate thoughtful discussion and dialogue. Hope you enjoy.
"Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science. What the mystic finds waiting for him, then, is a humanity which has been prepared to listen to his message by other mystics invisible and present in the religion which is actually taught. Indeed his mysticism itself is imbued with this religion, for such was its starting point. His theology will generally conform to that of the theologians. His intelligence and his imagination will use the teachings of the theologians to express in words what he experiences, and in material images what he sees spiritually. And this he can do easily, since theology has tapped that very current whose source is the mystical. Thus his mysticism is served by religion, against the day when religion becomes enriched by his mysticism. This explains the primary mission which he feels to be entrusted to him, that of an intensifier of religious faith." - Henri Bergson
"Men talk of the extravagances and frenzies that have been produced by mysticism; they are a mere drop in the bucket. In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic... The only thing that has kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the night-club and the lethal chamber, has been mysticism — the belief that logic is misleading, and that things are not what they seem." - G.K. Chesterton
"No word in our language — not even 'Socialism'— has been employed more loosely than 'Mysticism.'" - Ralph William Inge
"What I don't like today is, to put it coarsely, the phony Hasidism, the phony mysticism. Many students say, 'Teach me mysticism.' It's a joke." - Ellie Wiesel
"The kingdom of God is within you." - Jesus Christ
Mysticism according to Bernard McGinn concerns itself with "the preparation for, the consciousness of, and the effect of a direct and transformative presence of God." Personally I do not believe that just because someone sees Christ in the sky on the cross or has a vision of Vishnu that one has achieved union with God. I propose something different. Mystical union is experienced via a recognition of the continual awareness of the presence of God in the here and now. This is, I think, the meaning of Christ's words when he says that the kingdom of God is within us and the ideas of the Shin Buddhist Shinran where he discusses the idea of "Other-Power" (I know this primarily from the Kyoto School of thought).
I had written a series of papers for a grad program that I was in; It was at a very Thomist Catholic school, so that gives you an idea of how the faculty were (nothing against Thomism its just the "Strict Observance" camp that really grinds my gears). The course was two parts, fall and spring, and we were expected to write two book reviews throughout both sections of the course. My first paper was on the Carmelite friar Nicolas Herman, known to the world by his tonsured name Brother Lawrence. He wrote the classic book The Practice of the Presence of God and I really wanted to do this book; This is probably one of the best books on mysticism that anyone can read. It is not at all technical. My professor, who I was not at all fond of, emails me later that day and says no "New Age" books are allowed. This is why I dislike Thomist's of Strict Observance; Aquinas was a great man but he was just that: a man. I don't think he'd be happy with people canonizing his philosophical work as the alleged "theory of everything." After some back and forth, she did her homework and allowed me to write about the text. My own personal definition of mysticism, that it is an awareness of God in the present moment, was initially formed when I read him. My second paper was on the first book that Alan Watts wrote. It is titled Behold the Spirit: The Study of the Necessity of Mystical Religion and it is one of my favorite reads. I loved Watts early in college but as I matured I found his later works rather dry. My professor allowed me to write a review of it because of its "theologically conservative nature despite the minor quips." What was my professor referring to? The early Alan Watts adhered to an orthodox Christian view that portrayed Christ as the fulfillment of all things and this was backed up by his interest in Zen Buddhism, Daoism, and Vedanta; Like Aquinas analyzed Aristotelianism and the other schools of Greek philosophy, Watts sought to analyze Christianity through Asian thought. My third paper was on Meister Eckhart, a Dominican friar accused by the Inquisition of heresy, and one of the greatest medieval thinkers. Specifically the paper focused on his 71st sermon, focusing on the concept of nothingness in relation to God, and his short treatise On Detachment. My final paper was on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book The Cost of Discipleship, specifically his distinct between cheap grace and costly grace and his analysis of the Sermon on the Mount.
This is not only an opener on mysticism and a criticism of Strict Observance Thomism. I truly believe that genuine mysticism is a middle ground between rationalism and religion.
"Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science. What the mystic finds waiting for him, then, is a humanity which has been prepared to listen to his message by other mystics invisible and present in the religion which is actually taught. Indeed his mysticism itself is imbued with this religion, for such was its starting point. His theology will generally conform to that of the theologians. His intelligence and his imagination will use the teachings of the theologians to express in words what he experiences, and in material images what he sees spiritually. And this he can do easily, since theology has tapped that very current whose source is the mystical. Thus his mysticism is served by religion, against the day when religion becomes enriched by his mysticism. This explains the primary mission which he feels to be entrusted to him, that of an intensifier of religious faith." - Henri Bergson
"Men talk of the extravagances and frenzies that have been produced by mysticism; they are a mere drop in the bucket. In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic... The only thing that has kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the night-club and the lethal chamber, has been mysticism — the belief that logic is misleading, and that things are not what they seem." - G.K. Chesterton
"No word in our language — not even 'Socialism'— has been employed more loosely than 'Mysticism.'" - Ralph William Inge
"What I don't like today is, to put it coarsely, the phony Hasidism, the phony mysticism. Many students say, 'Teach me mysticism.' It's a joke." - Ellie Wiesel
"The kingdom of God is within you." - Jesus Christ
Mysticism according to Bernard McGinn concerns itself with "the preparation for, the consciousness of, and the effect of a direct and transformative presence of God." Personally I do not believe that just because someone sees Christ in the sky on the cross or has a vision of Vishnu that one has achieved union with God. I propose something different. Mystical union is experienced via a recognition of the continual awareness of the presence of God in the here and now. This is, I think, the meaning of Christ's words when he says that the kingdom of God is within us and the ideas of the Shin Buddhist Shinran where he discusses the idea of "Other-Power" (I know this primarily from the Kyoto School of thought).
I had written a series of papers for a grad program that I was in; It was at a very Thomist Catholic school, so that gives you an idea of how the faculty were (nothing against Thomism its just the "Strict Observance" camp that really grinds my gears). The course was two parts, fall and spring, and we were expected to write two book reviews throughout both sections of the course. My first paper was on the Carmelite friar Nicolas Herman, known to the world by his tonsured name Brother Lawrence. He wrote the classic book The Practice of the Presence of God and I really wanted to do this book; This is probably one of the best books on mysticism that anyone can read. It is not at all technical. My professor, who I was not at all fond of, emails me later that day and says no "New Age" books are allowed. This is why I dislike Thomist's of Strict Observance; Aquinas was a great man but he was just that: a man. I don't think he'd be happy with people canonizing his philosophical work as the alleged "theory of everything." After some back and forth, she did her homework and allowed me to write about the text. My own personal definition of mysticism, that it is an awareness of God in the present moment, was initially formed when I read him. My second paper was on the first book that Alan Watts wrote. It is titled Behold the Spirit: The Study of the Necessity of Mystical Religion and it is one of my favorite reads. I loved Watts early in college but as I matured I found his later works rather dry. My professor allowed me to write a review of it because of its "theologically conservative nature despite the minor quips." What was my professor referring to? The early Alan Watts adhered to an orthodox Christian view that portrayed Christ as the fulfillment of all things and this was backed up by his interest in Zen Buddhism, Daoism, and Vedanta; Like Aquinas analyzed Aristotelianism and the other schools of Greek philosophy, Watts sought to analyze Christianity through Asian thought. My third paper was on Meister Eckhart, a Dominican friar accused by the Inquisition of heresy, and one of the greatest medieval thinkers. Specifically the paper focused on his 71st sermon, focusing on the concept of nothingness in relation to God, and his short treatise On Detachment. My final paper was on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book The Cost of Discipleship, specifically his distinct between cheap grace and costly grace and his analysis of the Sermon on the Mount.
This is not only an opener on mysticism and a criticism of Strict Observance Thomism. I truly believe that genuine mysticism is a middle ground between rationalism and religion.
