First, Evelyn, thank you for writing this, and for writing in such a cogent manner. This is the essay where the concepts I've been reading about re: mysticism finally clicked-- her aim, in this (and others, it seems) essay is to find the connection between 'true' mystical experiences (she does some work to explain what that idea entails) but all this leads her to an overwhelming question-- "what is the essential element in spiritual experience?" (8)
I must confess some guilt, as I felt some when Spicer pooh-poohed 'procedural or Dada experiments' instead of listening (being active rather than contemplative, perhaps)-- when she says, "What elements are due to the suggestions of tradition, to conscious or unconscious symbolism, to the misinterpretation of emotion, to the invasion of cravings from the lower centres, or the disguised fulfillment of an unconscious wish?" (8 again) because, as I read all of this literature on mysticism and the 'divine' if it can be called that, the more it seems that this isn't about the self, but an escape of the self-- but not for selfish purposes. So to get to the bottom of this, if at all possible, is a worthy goal-- what elements are necessary, which are metaphorical, again, which are necessary?
(9) This central fact, it seems to me, is an overwhelming consciousness of God and of one's own soul: a consciousness which absorbs or eclipses all other centres of interest. (Love this part: Having said this, however, we may allow that the widest latitude is possible in mystic's conception of their Deity)-- this addresses the important question that is brought into question (and which Girard addresses, in Violence & the Sacred)-- what's important isn't who, really-- it's what, and when, and how. And why. Really any of the journalism questions besides who. (or to whom, I guess)... by name. But it is, I think, important that it's someone/thing besides you. She says:
(10) In the highest experiences of the greatest mystics the personal category appears to be transcended.
Moving on:
(11) What is essential is the way mystics feel about their Deity, and about their own relation with it, for this adoring and all-possessing consciousness of the rich and complete divine life over against the self's life, and of the possible achievement of a level of being, a sublimation of the self, wherein we are perfectly united with it, may fairly be written down as a necessary element of all mystical life.
Since these experiences are so hard to talk about, many rely on negations. Guilty again:
(13) [Union between God and the soul... This is one essential of mysticism and there are as many ways...] But, on the other hand, when anybody speaking of mysticism proposes an object that is less than God-- increase of knowledge, of health, of happiness, occultism, intercourse with spirits, supernormal experience in general-- then we may begin to suspect that we are off track.
Another essential: the spirit/ acts/ disposition of the mystics themselves.
normal v. mystical life mimetic in normal v. unconscious mind-- the mystical experience is a glimpse of reality as it really is. Says Plotinus, 'The One is present everywhere and absent only from those unable to perceive it,' and when we do perceive it, 'we have another life... attaining the aim of our existence, and our rest.'
So what's the connection? 3 stages, not to place to much emphasis on that number, but it seems to happen frequently this way, suddenly or gradually:
I can't find the terms Underhill uses, but here are Jacob Boehme's:
1) the 'deepest Deity, without and beyond Nature'
2) its manifestation in the external light-world
3) the outer world in which we dwell according to the body, a manifestation, image, or similitude of the Eternal
So, sort of beginning, middle, end but reversed, for him-- not Underhill and others-- could easily be written backwards. Deity in its purest state, mix/awareness of this Deity/reality/ recognition that it exists, which starts the whole process.
End goal? Glimpsing reality. Then living. Says the Súfí mystic: 'I never saw anything without seeing God therein.'
Sidenote: look at this: 'How, then, am I to love the Godhead?' says Meister Eckhart. 'Thou shalt love him as he is: not as a god, not as a spirit, not as a person, not as an image, but as a sheer pure One. And in this One we are to sink from nothing to nothing, so help us God' or Jacopone da Todi to see 'I was mistaken-- Thou art not as I thought and firmly held' (32)
This connects, I think, to Simone Weil, and The Cloud of Unknowing-- a true mystical experience transcends the desired goal and makes you realize what reality is-- perhaps that it's more mutable than you thought, or less so-- or that we're only seeing and processing one tiny snippet of it, in a certain way, but it's not bound to those confines.
A mystic who has reached the 3rd stage is then called to a life both active and contemplative. Says Ruysbroeck: 'Then only is our life a whole, when contemplation and work dwell in us side by side, and we are perfectly in both of them at once.' (34)
Or Plotinus' example: 'We always move round the One, but we do not always fix our gaze upon it. We are like a choir of singers standing round the conductor, who do not always sing in time, because their attention is diverted to some external object. When they look at the conductor, they sing well and are really with him. So we always move round the One. If we did not, we should dissolve and cease to exist. But we do not always look towards the One, When we do, we attain the end of our existence and our rest, and we no longer sing out of tune, but form in truth a divine choir about the One.'
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