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Mystical Experiences - Overview Page 1 of 15 21.0 Mystical Experiences - Overview Page 1 of 15 21.0: Mystical Experiences - Overview Using the poetical words of the 19 th century French priest and spiritual director Abbé Henri de Tourville, mystical experiences can be considered as: 1 …a foretaste of Paradise amidst the troubles of earth. If you find this a little too brief, try this explanation from John Blofeld, a British writer on Asian thought and religion, which comes from the first chapter of his book ‘Beyond the Gods’: 2 Perhaps I may be forgiven for paraphrasing a few paragraphs from a book I wrote on Tibetan mysticism, 'The Way of Power', as these, though still very far from expressing the mystery, come as near to it as I can get: 'There are moments when a marvellous experience leaps into mind as though coming from another world. The magic that calls it forth is often so fleeting as to be forgotten in the joy of the experience itself - it may be a skylark bursting into song, the splash of a wave, a flute played by moonlight or the fateful shrieking and drumming of a mountain storm; a lovely smile, perhaps, or a single gesture, form or hue of compelling beauty; a familiar scene transformed by an unusual quality of light, or a cluster of rocks suggestive of beings imbued with life. Or the spell may be wrought by a sudden exaltation, a jerking of the mind into an unknown dimension. A curtain hitherto unnoticed is suddenly twitched aside and, for a timeless moment, there stands partially revealed - a mystery. This mystery has a hundred names, all of them inapt. It has been called the Good, the True, the Beautiful. Philosophers term it the Absolute; Christian mystics, the Godhead. It is the Beloved of the Sufi Moslems, the Tao of the Taoists and, to Buddhists, Nirvana, the Womb of Existence, Suchness, the Void, the Clear Light, the One Mind. Were it not that frequent and clear visions of it engender a compassionate urge to communicate its bliss, it would be best to use no name at all. In addition, David Hay, a zoologist with a longstanding professional interest in the disputed boundary between biological science and the religious and spiritual dimensions of human experience, tried to explain the different types of mystical experience: 3 If readers can find in their life histories a moment when they have been overwhelmed by strangeness or total 'otherness', this 'mysterium tremendum' is what [Rudolph] Otto is driving at [when using the term numinous] . A second quality is a feeling of the 'awfulness' of the experience, in the sense of a dread or even of a terror which can make the flesh creep. Thirdly there is an element of being overpowered, of being 'dust and ashes' before the divine. Fourthly there is the feeling of being caught up in the power of unbridled energy - 'The love of God is a consuming fire'. Finally, in spite of the fearfulness, there is a powerful element of fascination or alluring charm. ...[the above] shade into another large group of experiences which are called 'mystical' by modern scholars. The difference is that in a mystical episode the experience feels that, in an extraordinary way, all things are One. Another scientist who appreciated the value of mystical experiences, although rather better DAJ 08/11/2019 08:30:29 21.0 Mystical Experiences - Overview Page 2 of 15 known, was Albert Einstein. Whilst this giant of theoretical physics emphatically did not subscribe to the personalised modern God, according to the expert on comparative religion Karen Armstrong, he believed that science was no longer averse to mystical wonder and mystery. In his treatise 'Strange is Our Situation Here on Earth' he explained that: 4 The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the sower of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger ... is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself to us as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the centre of all true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the ranks of devoutly religious men. A description which I like is not one which lists all the possible types but which tries to capture the essence of what mystics have been telling us for years. It comes from the South African born Anglican priest Martin Israel, a mystic in his own right: 5 It is no wonder that mystical experience is sought above all else by those who know, for in the glimpse of reality vouchsafed, the meaning and destiny of individual existence is dimly comprehended. Many different names have been used to refer to these extraordinary and super-sensual experiences. In the Unitarian minister William Houff’s book ‘Infinity in Your Hand’, he mentioned that: 6 ...William James called a 'religious experience.' Abraham Maslow named it a 'peak experience.' And James Joyce used the word 'epiphany.' Call it what you will, it doesn’t really matter. What is important is that these experiences appear to relate to a reality beyond our fives senses. Whilst many of you may feel that the idea of another reality is a bit far-fetched, it seems to be the only explanation for the feelings that the mystics encounter. I will try to explain. As the mystic deepens his relationship with Spirit and particularly during meditation or contemplation their vibrations are raised to such an extent that they come in contact with the level of the Spirit plane just ‘above’ the earth plane. In this way they start to experience what it is like to exist within the Spirit World – the alternative reality. This means that there are at least two realities – the life you live on earth and the life which exists in the Afterlife. I cannot prove this statement yet although, as the Indian philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan observes: 7 Religious experiences possess their own distinctive character and we seem to be in touch with reality other than that of matter, life or mind. There have been many different names or ways of referring to this reality. In ‘God and the Evolving Universe’ reference is made to the words of the 19 th century American philosopher and psychologist William James: 8 Plunge into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely "understandable" world. Name it the mystical region, or the supernatural region, whichever you choose. DAJ 08/11/2019 08:30:29 21.0 Mystical Experiences - Overview Page 3 of 15 Another way of referring to this ‘reality’ was expressed by the English mystic and teacher F. C. Happold who quoted from a passage in the Parinirvana Sutra: 9 It is only when all outward appearances are gone that there is left that one principle of life which exists independently of all external phenomena. It is the fire which burns in the eternal light, when the fuel is expended and the flame is extinguished; for that fire is neither in the flame not in the fuel, nor yet inside either of the two, but above, beneath, and everywhere. Words start to get difficult to understand, not only because of the cultural differences but also the centuries that have passed since these words were uttered or written. In addition, there are some people who do not have the ability to conceptualise; to think in conceptual terms. Of such people, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote: 10 Only those who are practiced in dealing with abstractions can readily grasp a general principle without the help of instances. The mystics don’t deal in examples; metaphors and paradoxes are their explanatory mechanisms. This means that for some people a problem exists with the way in which some of the European mystics express their view of this reality. The mystical writer Evelyn Underhill states that: 11 …the conscious mind being passive, the more divine mind below the threshold- organ of our free creative life - can emerge and present its reports. In the words of an older mystic [Dionysius the Areopagite in De Divinis Nominibus vii.3] , “The soul, leaving all things and forgetting herself, is immersed in the ocean of Divine Splendour, and illuminated by the Sublime Abyss of the Unfathomable Wisdom.” This description of the reality to which the mystic ascends is very poetic and typical of the early mystics. Fast-forwarding to the 20 th century, Paul Davies, an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, believed that this contact with another reality is one of the fundamental experiences of a mystic. He states that: 12 The essence of the mystical experience, then, is a type of shortcut to truth, a direct and unmediated contact with a perceived ultimate reality. It typifies the mystic; it ratifies part of the dictionary definition of ‘mystic – one that seeks God directly, without intermediaries’. Evelyn Underhill added another aspect of mystic experience, when she wrote that there are: 13 ...two distinct sides to the full mystical experience. (A) The vision or consciousness of Absolute Perfection. (B) The inward transmutation to which that Vision compels the mystic, in order that he may be to some extent worthy of that which he has beheld: may take his place within the order of Reality. It all depends how we perceive and examine any mystical experiences. If we consider Near Death Experiences as, in some minor way, a step towards mystical experience then by their analysis we may be able to approach an understanding.
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