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Mysticism Unbound MYSTICISM UNBOUND An Interpretative Reading of Jeffrey J. Kripal’s Contribution to the Contemporary Study of Mysticism By Jason James Kelly A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa, as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Religious Studies Written under the supervision of Professor Naomi R. Goldenberg of the Department of Religious Studies © Jason James Kelly, Ottawa, Canada, 2011 1 Abstract for Thesis Mysticism Unbound: A Critical Assessment of Jeffrey J. Kripal’s Contribution to the Contemporary study of Mysticism By Jason James Kelly Thesis Supervisor: Naomi R. Goldenberg, Ph.D This thesis examines the relationship between human sexuality and “the mystical” in the work of Jeffrey J. Kripal. I claim that Kripal presents a nondualistic understanding of the relationship between human sexuality and “the mystical” that contests the conventional distinction between body and “soul.” In particular, Kripal‟s two central concepts – “the erotic” and “the enlightenment of the body” – suggest that embodiment shapes our understanding of “the mystical.” By demonstrating the psychoanalytic, hermeneutical, and comparative significance of the relationship between human sexuality and “the mystical,” Kripal‟s model calls attention to the crucial role that body, gender, and sexual orientation play in both the historical and contemporary study of mysticism. The point of my research is to show that Kripal‟s approach signals a new way of studying “the mystical” in terms of “mystical humanism,” which draws on both Eastern and Western philosophies to construct a critical, non-reductive appreciation for the transformative and ultimately emancipatory potential of certain mystical states of consciousness. 2 For Farrah, my light and my fire. 3 Acknowledgements I wish to express my gratitude to Jeffrey J. Kripal for all his support. I also wish to thank my thesis supervisor Naomi. R. Goldenberg for all her guidance. I am especially grateful to my family for all their help and understanding. 4 Table of Contents Introduction 6 Chapter One: Mystical Desire 1) The Art of Madness 53 2) Reading the Erotic 98 3) The Night that Illuminates 157 Chapter Two: Rational Mysticism 1) A Gnostic Revolt 197 2) More Human than Human 239 3) Deus sive Natura 278 Conclusion 289 Bibliography 313 5 INTRODUCTION Am I a god? I feel such a light within. From Goethe‟s Faust 6 In his influential work The Psychology of Religious Mysticism (1925), the American psychologist Frank Leuba claims that “not one of the prominent representatives of mysticism lived a normal married life” (Leuba 1925: 213). If Leuba‟s locution “normal married life” is interpreted as a colloquial euphemism for sex, then it would appear as though Leuba is suggesting that not one of the “prominent” mystics lived a “normal” sex life. Given the generality of Leuba‟s remarks, it is of course difficult to adequately gauge the validity of his proposition. However, it is also just as difficult to deny the fact that historically, issues relating to human sexuality have played a significant role in shaping our conventional understanding of the mystical. Is this supposed link between the sexual and the mystical a mere construction of Western psychology? Perhaps; but it is also possible that this link between the sexual and the mystical is both a construction of Western psychology and a genuine characteristic of mystical experience. Stated simply, perhaps Western psychology tends to link the sexual and the mystical precisely because, historically, mystics from various religious and cultural traditions have actually favored a discussion of the mystical in terms that are both implicitly and explicitly sexual. The question of how to address the relation between sexuality and the mystical remains an enduring issue that continues to confront the contemporary study of mysticism. What type of role does sexuality play in the construction, interpretation, and representation of the mystical? Does a discussion of sexuality hinder or help our understanding of the mystical? At what point, if at all, do the pains and pleasures of sexual desire coincide with the agony and ecstasy of mystical desire? More precisely, 7 where do they intersect? Do the energies that create and sustain the sexual and the mystical converge in the body or in the “soul”? If the psychoanalytic theorist Norman Brown is correct and “all values are bodily values,” then why do so many religious traditions tend to frame the mystical in terms that deny the demands of the body and the material world in general (Brown 1959: 293)? Why is there such a palpable tension in the history of religions between the material and the immaterial, immanence and transcendence, and finally, the sexual and the spiritual? Must the demands of the body always be at odds with the desires of the “soul”? The short answer is no. There are in fact certain religious traditions that offer a complimentary understanding of the relationship between the sexual and the mystical based in terms of their mutual interdependence. For example, the beliefs and practices associated with the Tantric traditions of East Asia tend to frame the sexualized body as a sacred conduit of the mystical. In contrast to the dominant narratives that traditionally inform the worldview and systems of value indicative of the Abrahamic religions, which, generally speaking, tend to vilify both the body and sexuality as obstacles that often obfuscate our understanding of the mystical, the Tantric traditions tend to venerate the sexualized body as a vehicle of spiritual liberation. In other words, for the traditional Tantric practitioner, the human body, or more specifically, the sexualized human body, signifies a mystical bridge between the “mundane” and the “sacred.” This valorization of the sexualized body that has come to characterize the mystical traditions of Tantra is not limited to the history of Eastern mysticism. For example, in the West, there are certain alternative traditions, such as Paganism and 8 Gnosticism, which interpret the mystical in terms that often resemble the erotic writings typical of the Tantric traditions. Moreover, the writings of certain “free-lance” mystics, particularly, the American poet Walt Whitman and the French philosopher Georges Bataille, tend to frame the mystical in terms that are explicitly erotic. Such work calls attention to the mutual interdependence of the body and the “soul.” These brief examples underscore the point that historically, there are mystics and mystical traditions in both the East and the West that address the relationship between the sexual and the mystical as two sides of the same bodily coin. The question remains: What are the consequences for our conventional understanding of the relationship between consciousness and culture when our understanding of the mystical is fully embodied? What if the material world – the world of flesh, blood, and body – is in fact a genuine expression of the mystical? Or, even further, what if the material world is the mystical? Is it possible that Nature is “God,” that the earth is “heaven,” and Samsara is Nirvana? After all, what could possibly be more mystical than the natural wonders of the cosmos, where “a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars” (Whitman 2004: 49)? The complex relationship between human sexuality and the mystical, and its various implications for our understanding of consciousness, culture, and cosmos, is central to the work of Jeffrey J. Kripal. Kripal‟s innovative work has proved highly influential in broadening the psychoanalytic, hermeneutical, and comparative scope of the contemporary study of mysticism. In particular, Kripal‟s focus on issues of eroticism, body, gender, and sexual orientation, directly challenge the conventional view of the mystical as something “beyond” the body. While Kripal is careful not to foreclose the 9 possibility that the mystical can potentially signify “something more” than mere bodily desire, he refuses to ignore the historical fact that the concerns of the human body and human sexuality have played a crucial role in shaping the way human beings traditionally relate to the mystical. This thesis can be read as a critical assessment of Kripal‟s contribution to our understanding of human eroticism in relation to the historical and contemporary study of mysticism. I suggest that Kripal‟s corpus of work offers a multifaceted model for addressing how the mutual imbrications of the sexual1 and the mystical expand the comparative understanding of “the enlightenment of the body” (Kripal 2007: 23). In particular, I claim that Kripal‟s theory of “the erotic,” understood as “a coincidentia of the mystical and the sexual,” is key to elucidating how his conception of “enlightenment” relates to his conception of “the body” (Kripal 2002: 37). Stated simply, in Kripal‟s model “the erotic” is what links “enlightenment” to “the body.” Furthermore, I argue that Kripal‟s most significant contribution to the contemporary study of mysticism lies with the emancipatory value he attributes to “the enlightenment of the body.” The emancipatory value that Kripal attributes to “the enlightenment of the body” can be best understood in relation to the overarching aim of Kripal‟s work, which, I suggest, is to establish a space 1Kripal explains his understanding of sexuality and gender as follows: “I understand sexuality to be a biological driven instinct that, although perhaps genetically determined to some degree, is
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