The Mystical Experience

When discussing religious or mystical, spiritual, numinous or transcendent experiences (see Religion, Mysticism, Spirituality) we need to view everything in a very different way. When discussing, simultaneously, the propensity for any individual to experience these elevated states of consciousness, we again need to start looking at things differently. One of the best ways to do this, I think, is to reduce our ideas into the language we are actually using. Isn’t that obvious? Not necessarily. As has been demonstrated in the article linked above, there are multiple layers of meaning people can attribute to the phenomena of dogs, so there are equally multiple layers of meaning that people can attribute to the phenomena of the spiritual, the mystical and the religious. There are many words which will inevitably crop up in discussions of subjects like this, ‘God’ and ‘Divinity’ for instance, and I will always try and endeavour to talk in a common language, so that when I say words like ‘mystical’ or ‘god’ you will know what I mean, because I can only guess the meaning you may attribute to the word, and I’d probably be wrong.

So, when using the words ‘mystical’, ‘spiritual’ and ‘religious’, what is meant? What has generated my meaning of these terms? What do you mean, when/if you use these words, and what has generated the meaning you attribute to them?

First of all, I need to make clear that this article is not written from the viewpoint of a Buddhist, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Taoist or Shinto: naturally, I do have my own ‘worldview’, my own biases, my own ideas of right/wrong and truth – I am not discussing anything from a viewpoint in which I feel ‘I am right’. I am revealing possibilities, patterns and ideas. This is not a book about truth, but more about the promise encountered while searching for it. I am trying, as much as possible, to move away from traditional views of religion and the spiritual, to get to the bases of this area of human experience, and not merely its outward form and the associations that emerge from that outer face. This is about the subterranean streams of human endeavour that make up the ocean of our consciousness in the present.

THE SACRED AND THE HOLY

One of the most common aspects of association with religion is the idea of the ‘holy’, the ‘sacred’. When we look at the word ‘holy’, we can get into all sorts of etymological tangles. Some people claim the word is derived from ‘holistic’, so that ‘holy’ things in some way complete ourselves; others that the word is to be taken quite literally, in the sense of something having a hole, a characteristic of many sacred objects in our first cultures. Other views involve the vagina (‘holy’, think about it), where the feminine is regarded as the original embodiment of divinity. Which of these is correct? See the above discussions about language and reality. You will probably find that depending upon the person doing the defining, whether anthropologist or hard-lined feminist, they will lay claim to a different theory which reflects their personal worldview.

Regardless of its derivation, ‘holy’ implies ‘otherness’, as does ‘sacred’, something with a different quality than anything else, something to be regarded with awe and respect, whether that be a particular object, a testament of communion with angels, or a location within space and time – the implication is that the imaginative dimension of man/woman has been excited. The sacredness of a thing lies not in its being, but within the perception of the observer who has been touched by its allusion to something that lies outside the self’s known world. An illusion to another reality is also a gateway in the mind’s eye, so that sacred objects, places, stories or people give access to dimensions of human experience which again lie outside the self’s known world. So if sacredness allows access to other dimensions of human experience, where are these ‘dimensions’? Where are they in relation to the self; what are they in relation to the self? As will be seen, these dimensions are accessed through the mind and could be said to ‘dwell’ there, lighting a path to the very roots of our consciousness.

DEFINING RELIGION

Discussing the word ‘religion’ will help us here in understanding what function religions actually serve in relation to these different dimensions of experience and the mind. This word, ‘religion’, has only come into use over the past couple of hundred years, as a reference to a belief system, a way of life which members of the species have found valuable in some respect. But why? The word has two revealing roots. Firstly, the French word, derived from Latin, religere, a word which means to ‘return to the source’, ‘to refer back to’ – the English word relegate has the same derivation, but, ironically, refers more to a lessening of importance. Another derivation sees the word religion as meaning ‘to tie back to’. Both of these derivations have implicit within them certain activities which the individual can execute while actively involved within a religion: to become aware of and to connect the self with a common root of the human species; to refer back to that root for guidance and wisdom, as to purpose, the nature of the universe and of ourselves.

When we look at other cultures and languages, we find some more revealing ideas about what religion might be. Firstly, in Arabic, the word ‘djin’ is used to describe what in English is termed religion. Djin has many connotations, one of which is ‘duty’. We also find within the Buddhist and Hindu traditions the word ‘Dharma’, which similarly has many different connotations, but can mean ‘duty’ as well. Implicit within these words is, then, a reference to how the individual should live their own life – they should live it in accordance with their own ‘djin’, duty and debt and dharma, their path and their duty. But what is this duty, this debt? Perhaps to you it sounds as if the individual is required to live in accordance within some rules, that they must restrict their conduct in accordance with certain elements of religious doctrine. Through the ages, law and religion have been weaved together, especially where state religion is concerned. But ‘duty’ and ‘debt’ do not necessarily have to be determined by an external authority, as will be seen. These concepts will be discussed further once we view some common ideas found within different religions.

WHERE IS GOD HERE?

Hopefully, from the above discussions, you are able to see what religion may be, and why we’ve had ‘religion’ for as long as our self-awareness and reasoning abilities. But aren’t I missing something, you may ask? To many people, the key element to any religion is a god or goddess or a few of them. So surely this should be explicitly dealt with in the definition of religion? The answer is a straightforward ‘no’. Let’s see why, and in the meantime see what the word ‘god’ might mean. This is, after all, an article about meaning and we may as well tackle this one now, it will come up at some point.

Firstly, not all religions have gods. Buddhism, for instance, is not strictly a theistic religion. Besides that, most religions are not monotheistic, that is, viewing only one god as existent. Hinduism, Shinto, Taoism, the wide variety of Native American beliefs, Neo-Paganism, some African religions, localised shamanic cultures and various others often believe in more than one god – though some of them, and some sections of them, may have a god that is superior. Zoroastrianism for instance, views reality as a struggle between two gods or forces, Ahura Mazda and Aramahn: Ahura Mazda is the god of light and so is seen to be superior to Arimahn, the god of darkness (a great oversimplification used for illustrative purposes). But, as you can see, the implication is that there are two forces at work in the universe. This is dualism, which will be discussed in due course. But, in summary, religion is not dependent upon a single god, or necessarily any god, for its purposes. And Monotheism, in terms of the plurality of available beliefs, is in the minority. Studying Religions at University, one often finds even Marxism to be embraced as a Religion. As the man who coined the term 'religion is the opium of the masses', he may not be too happy about this.

God itself is an odd concept, if we think about it. Some people would say that belief in God is an attempt to explain what appears to be chaos, to place an underlying ordering intelligence behind what can appear to the human mind a very disorganised system. But it is also a perfectly sane thing to do – even though things appear chaotic in our world, there can be an underlying order, and not one necessarily determined by a singular intelligence, as we’ll see later. But when we talk about gods, just like when we talk about dogs, not everybody means the same thing.

There are many ways of viewing gods, both according to which theology (the study of the nature of divinity) is being discussed, and according to who you are. As you may have guessed, this article posits the view that there are as many ways of viewing the universe as there are people viewing it. Theism posits the existence of a single 'God', and for this view there are a variety of ways in which this god is seen to exist. Pantheism views this one ‘God’ as everywhere and in everything, for instance. Polytheism is the belief in many gods, with different functions and status in the universe. Atheism is the belief that there is no god or divinity: this is quite often seen as a ‘rational’ belief, but remember that it is still a belief, a position in relation to divinity, based upon the personal experience of the believer, as all of these positions are. Agnosticism is fence-sitting: gnosis is an ancient Greek word meaning knowledge; the ‘a’ is a reference to not or neither, as in ‘amoral’, or ‘amorphous’ (having no particular form) and a-theism, so that to be agnostic is to express that there “is no knowledge available which implores me to swing either way in this whole god thing.”

We briefly discussed motivations for believing in divinity, above. The need for the human mind to explain, to place cause behind effect, for instance, or there may be no questioning about the existence of divinity, if, for example, the individual has been raised not to question their religions doctrine, and has subsequently been obedient. For the purposes of this article, the most important thing to remember about belief in divinity is that it is a belief in a force or forces which determine the universe and nature, which determine, in some way, our life as an individual: and also something (or no-thing) that we are able to address, to discourse with, something that will usually answer back in some way. Just a reminder, I am not positing one of these views as superior to another, as more correct or sensible. Here, they are all equal, all arising out of human experience and endeavour. For our purposes, we don’t need to view one as superior to another; we just need to acknowledge their existence.

DEMYSTIFYING THE MYSTICAL

Well, now that we have a working definition of what religion may be, lets move on to that other vague word: mystical. The word ‘mystical’ seems qualitatively different from ‘religious’, until the word ‘experience’ proceeds them both. Mystical seems to signify vagueness, ‘mist’, only with the gloss of something exciting lying behind it. Allied to the word we have ‘mystery’, ‘mysterious’; events, notions and experiences that are obscured by an inadequacy of knowledge about the essence of what exactly is referred to. These words also infer something to be solved. This seems to tie in with mysticism, and to what is referred to as ‘The Mysteries’: things which we may have no knowledge of, also things that, once we do have knowledge of can be understood, but can’t be described in terms satisfying to the listener, unless the listener has had similar experiences, or has similar knowledge. Mystical traditions such as Buddhism, Sufism and Kabbalah have within them riddles to be solved, some of which even the most hardened cross-word puzzler will find challenging, or more appropriately, ‘mystifying’. Trying to describe mystical experiences has this edge – even though the event occurred, and had a tangibility which pails in comparison to normal everyday experiences, because they are so personal they cannot necessarily be observed. Furthermore, because our language is not adequate, is not in fact very used to having to be stretched to the degree mystical experience requires of it, they are therefore related as something whose meaning is obscured, whose very eventuality is obscured, because of its mask of uncertainty. Mystical experiences aren’t something taught about in schools, nor discussed very much in society. When they are discussed they are often misunderstood, or even worse, assumed to signify a kind of madness. So, the experiences of which we are talking are ‘mystical’ because it can’t be adequately described, or perhaps, regardless of our so-called advanced civilisation, is not yet adequately understood.

Now that we’ve looked at the word mystical, and seen what it might refer to, lets look at mysticism itself, whose function is to induce mystical experience, to enable the mystic to have a direct perception of other realities.

There are problems in regarding religion and mysticism as ‘bedfellows’ – many institutionalised religions have actively opposed mystical doctrine and experience. And as will also become clear, a belief in God, or even in the ‘spiritual’, an ultimate reality beyond matter, isn’t necessary for participation in mystical systems, or for those systems to work. But the areas of the mind accessed while participating in a mystical system are the genetrices of religion (a point which may cause contention, but which we will test to its limits to see how far we can stretch it as a ‘truth’) and as such, the two have an indisputable link.

Mysticism is something quite separate from religion in its outward face – usually it doesn’t even have one of these. Arguably, a religion is the accepting of an interpretation of someone else's intuited knowledge (i.e. Christ’s word), whereas mysticism is the gradual arrival at that same knowledge through personal efforts (i.e. Buddhism). That’s not to say that mysticism doesn’t have its doctrines or authority figures, but rather to indicate that in contrast to religion, mysticism has at its heart an urge to make fundamental changes to the constitution of the human, and whose focus is more upon individual experience than faith or the revelation of others. Before we continue, the distinction must be made here that we are talking of mystical systems, not mysticism in a philosophical, doctrinal or poetic sense. The mysticism of which we are talking is experiential mysticism, which is, of course, the most fun kind!

Since the late 19th century, the choices of mystical systems to follow have increased greatly. So much so, that many of these systems shouldn’t be regarded as ‘mystical systems’, so much as ‘systems of brain change’. A very unwieldy word, so we’ll call them something else: simply ‘mind-expansion’. Mind-expansion has been something that all ages have occupied themselves with, whether they were actually aware of it or not. In another article, we'll look at different points in the same stream to see exactly what we’re talking about, and how it provides us with something that no other human construct can: experiences which oil the very mechanics of history.

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