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Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or Spirituality meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ultimate or hidden truths, and to human transformation supported by various practices and experiences.
The term "mysticism" has Ancient Greek origins with various historically determined meanings. Derived from the Greek language word μύω múō, meaning "to close" or "to conceal", mysticism came to refer to the biblical, liturgical (and sacramental), spiritual, and contemplative dimensions of early and medieval Christianity. During the early modern period, the definition of mysticism grew to include a broad range of beliefs and ideologies related to "extraordinary experiences and states of mind".
In modern times, "mysticism" has acquired a limited definition, with broad applications, as meaning the aim at the "union with the Absolute, the Infinite, or God". This limited definition has been applied to a wide range of religious traditions and practices, valuing "mystical experience" as a key element of mysticism.
Since the 1960s scholars have debated the merits of perennial and constructionist approaches in the scientific research of "mystical experiences". The perennial position is now "largely dismissed by scholars", most scholars using a Contextualism approach, which considers the cultural and historical context.
The related form of the verb μυέω (mueó or myéō) appears in the New Testament. As explained in Strong's Concordance, it properly means shutting the eyes and mouth to experience mystery. Its figurative meaning is to be initiated into the "mystery revelation". The meaning derives from the initiatory rites of the pagan mysteries. Also appearing in the New Testament is the related noun μυστήριον (mustérion or mystḗrion), the root word of the English term "mystery". The term means "anything hidden", a mystery or secret, of which initiation is necessary. In the New Testament it reportedly takes the meaning of the counsels of God, once hidden but now revealed in the Gospel or some fact thereof, the Christian revelation generally, and/or particular truths or details of the Christian revelation.
According to Thayer's Greek Lexicon, the term μυστήριον in classical Greek meant "a hidden thing", "secret". A particular meaning it took in Classical antiquity was a religious secret or religious secrets, confided only to the initiated and not to be communicated by them to ordinary mortals. In the Septuagint and the New Testament the meaning it took was that of a hidden purpose or counsel, a secret will. It is sometimes used for the hidden wills of humans, but is more often used for the hidden will of God. Elsewhere in the Bible it takes the meaning of the mystic or hidden sense of things. It is used for the secrets behind sayings, names, or behind images seen in visions and dreams. The Vulgate often translates the Greek term to the Latin sacramentum (sacrament).
The related noun μύστης (mustis or mystis, singular) means the initiate, the person initiated to the mysteries. According to Ana Jiménez San Cristobal in her study of Greco-Roman mysteries and Orphism, the singular form μύστης and the plural form μύσται are used in ancient Greek texts to mean the person or persons initiated to religious mysteries. These followers of mystery religions belonged to a select group, where access was only gained through an initiation. She finds that the terms were associated with the term βάκχος (Dionysus), which was used for a special class of initiates of the Orphic mysteries. The terms are first found connected in the writings of Heraclitus. Such initiates are identified in texts with the persons who have been purified and have performed certain rites. A passage of Cretans by Euripides seems to explain that the μύστης (initiate) who devotes himself to an ascetic life, renounces sexual activities, and avoids contact with the dead becomes known as βάκχος. Such initiates were believers in the god Dionysus Bacchus who took on the name of their god and sought an identification with their deity.
Until the sixth century the practice of what is now called mysticism was referred to by the term contemplatio, c.q. theoria. According to Johnston, "both contemplation and mysticism speak of the eye of love which is looking at, gazing at, aware of divine realities."
Parsons warns that "what might at times seem to be a straightforward phenomenon exhibiting an unambiguous commonality has become, at least within the academic study of religion, opaque and controversial on multiple levels". Because of its Christian overtones, and the lack of similar terms in other cultures, some scholars regard the term "mysticism" to be inadequate as a useful descriptive term. Other scholars regard the term to be an inauthentic fabrication, the "product of post-Enlightenment universalism".
Richard Jones notes that "few classical mystics refer to their experiences as the union of two realities: there is no literal 'merging' or 'absorption' of one reality into another resulting in only one entity." He explicates mysticism with reference to one's mode of access in order to include both union of the mystic with some transcendent reality and the non-sensory revelation of that reality. The mystic experience can be defined by the mystic's purported access to "realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of ordinary sense-perception structured by mental conceptions, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection." Whether or not such an experience is veridical remains undecided.
An influential proponent of this understanding was William James (1842–1910), who stated that "in mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness." William James popularized this use of the term "religious experience" in his The Varieties of Religious Experience, contributing to the interpretation of mysticism as a distinctive experience, comparable to sensory experiences. Religious experiences belonged to the "personal religion", which he considered to be "more fundamental than either theology or ecclesiasticism". He gave a Perennialist interpretation to religious experience, stating that this kind of experience is ultimately uniform in various traditions.
McGinn notes that the term unio mystica, although it has Christian origins, is primarily a modern expression. McGinn argues that "presence" is more accurate than "union", since not all mystics spoke of union with God, and since many visions and miracles were not necessarily related to union. He also argues that we should speak of "consciousness" of God's presence, rather than of "experience", since mystical activity is not simply about the sensation of God as an external object, but more broadly about "new ways of knowing and loving based on states of awareness in which God becomes present in our inner acts."
However, the idea of "union" does not work in all contexts. For example, in Advaita Vedanta, there is only one reality (Brahman) and therefore nothing other than reality to unite with it—Brahman in each person ( atman) has always in fact been identical to Brahman all along. Dan Merkur also notes that union with God or the Absolute is a too limited definition, since there are also traditions which aim not at a sense of unity, but of Kenosis, such as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Meister Eckhart. According to Merkur, Kabbalah and Buddhism also emphasize Sunyata. Blakemore and Jennett note that "definitions of mysticism ... are often imprecise." They further note that this kind of interpretation and definition is a recent development which has become the standard definition and understanding.
According to Gellman, "A unitive experience involves a phenomenological de-emphasis, blurring, or eradication of multiplicity, where the cognitive significance of the experience is deemed to lie precisely in that phenomenological feature".
According to Evelyn Underhill, illumination is a generic English term for the phenomenon of mysticism. The term illumination is derived from the Latin , applied to Christian prayer in the 15th century. Comparable Asian terms are bodhi, kenshō, and satori in Buddhism, commonly translated as "enlightenment", and vipassana, which all point to cognitive processes of intuition and comprehension.
Until the sixth century, the Greek term theoria, meaning "contemplation" in Latin, was used for the mystical interpretation of the Bible and the vision of God. The link between mysticism and the vision of the Divine was introduced by the early Church Fathers, who used the term as an adjective, as in mystical theology and mystical contemplation.
Theoria enabled the Fathers to perceive depths of meaning in the biblical writings that escape a purely scientific or empirical approach to interpretation. The Antiochene Fathers, in particular, saw in every passage of Scripture a double meaning, both literal and spiritual.
Later, theoria or contemplation came to be distinguished from intellectual life, leading to the identification of θεωρία or contemplatio with a form of prayerOxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press 2005 ), article contemplation, contemplative life distinguished from discursive meditation in both East and West.
The theology of Catherine of Sienna was analysed in terms of mystical theology by Baron Friedrich von Hügel in The Mystical Element of Religion as Studied in St. Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends (1908). Von Hügel proposed three elements of religious experience: the institutional/historical, the intellectual/speculative, and the mystical/experiential.
For Erasmus, mysticism subsisted in contemplating the deep secrets contained in the Bible, notably the startling personality of Christ.
Martin Luther dismissed the allegorical interpretation of the bible, and condemned Mystical theology, which he saw as more Platonic than Christian. "The mystical", as the search for the hidden meaning of texts, became secularised, and also associated with literature, as opposed to science and prose.
Science was also distinguished from religion. By the middle of the 17th century, "the mystical" is increasingly applied exclusively to the religious realm, separating religion and "natural philosophy" as two distinct approaches to the discovery of the hidden meaning of the universe. The traditional hagiographies and writings of the saints became designated as "mystical", shifting from the virtues and miracles to extraordinary experiences and states of mind, thereby creating a newly coined "mystical tradition". A new understanding developed of the Divine as residing within human, an essence beyond the varieties of religious expressions.
Under the influence of Perennialism, which was popularised in both the west and the east by Unitarianism, Transcendentalists, and Theosophy, mysticism has been applied to a broad spectrum of religious traditions, in which all sorts of esotericism, religious traditions, and practices are joined together. The term mysticism was extended to comparable phenomena in non-Christian religions, where it influenced Hindu and Buddhist responses to colonialism, resulting in Neo-Vedanta and Buddhist modernism.
In the contemporary usage "mysticism" has become an umbrella term for all sorts of non-rational world views, parapsychology and pseudoscience. William Harmless even states that mysticism has become "a catch-all for religious weirdness". Within the academic study of religion the apparent "unambiguous commonality" has become "opaque and controversial". The term "mysticism" is being used in different ways in different traditions. Some call to attention the conflation of mysticism and linked terms, such as spirituality and esotericism, and point at the differences between various traditions.
Dan Merkur notes, though, that mystical practices are often separated from daily religious practices, and restricted to "religious specialists like monastics, priests, and other .
Shamanism involves a practitioner reaching an altered state of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with spirits, and channel transcendental energies into this world.Hoppál 1987. p. 76. A shaman is a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of evocation, who typically enters into trance during a ritual, and practices divination and healing.
Neoshamanism refers to "new"' forms of shamanism, or methods of seeking visions or healing, typically practiced in Western countries. Neoshamanism comprises an eclectic range of beliefs and practices that involve attempts to attain altered states and communicate with a spirit world, and is associated with New Age practices.Harner, Michael The Way of the Shaman. 1980, new edition, HarperSanFrancisco, 1990,
Theosis, practical unity with and conformity to God, is obtained by engaging in contemplative prayer, the first stage of theoria, which results from the cultivation of watchfulness ( nepsis). In theoria, one comes to behold the "divisibly indivisible" divine operations ( energeia) of God as the "uncreated light" of transfiguration, a grace which is eternal and proceeds naturally from the blinding darkness of the incomprehensible divine essence. It is the main aim of hesychasm, which was developed in the thought St. Symeon the New Theologian, embraced by the monastic communities on Mount Athos, and most notably defended by St. Gregory Palamas against the Greek humanist philosopher Barlaam of Calabria. According to Roman Catholic critics, hesychastic practice has its roots to the introduction of a systematic practical approach to quietism by Symeon the New Theologian.
Symeon believed that direct experience gave monks the authority to preach and give absolution of sins, without the need for formal ordination. While Church authorities also taught from a speculative and philosophical perspective, Symeon taught from his own direct mystical experience,deCatanzaro 1980, pp. 9–10. and met with strong resistance for his charismatic approach, and his support of individual direct experience of God's grace.
The Late Middle Ages saw the clash between the Dominican Order and Franciscan schools of thought, which was also a conflict between two different mystical theologies: on the one hand that of Saint Dominic and on the other that of Francis of Assisi, Anthony of Padua, Bonaventure, and Angela of Foligno. This period also saw such individuals as John of Ruysbroeck, Catherine of Siena and Catherine of Genoa, the Devotio Moderna, and such books as the Theologia Germanica, The Cloud of Unknowing and The Imitation of Christ.
Moreover, there was the growth of groups of mystics centered around geographic regions: the Beguines, such as Mechthild of Magdeburg and Hadewijch (among others); the German mysticism Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, and Henry Suso; and the English mystics Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, and Julian of Norwich. The Spanish mystics included Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and Ignatius Loyola.
The later post-reformation period also saw the writings of lay preacher visionaries such as Emanuel Swedenborg and William Blake, and the foundation of mystical movements such as the . Catholic mysticism continued into the modern period with such figures as Padre Pio and Thomas Merton.
The philokalia, an ancient method of Eastern Orthodox mysticism, was promoted by the twentieth century Traditionalist School.
Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between an unchanging, eternal and mysterious Ein Sof (no end) and the mortal and finite universe (his creation). Inside Judaism, it forms the foundations of mystical religious interpretation.
Kabbalah originally developed entirely within the realm of Jewish thought. Kabbalists often use classical Jewish sources to explain and demonstrate its esoteric teachings. These teachings are thus held by followers in Judaism to define the inner meaning of both the Tanakh and traditional Rabbinic literature, their formerly concealed Oral Torah dimension, as well as to explain the significance of Jewish Halakha. "Imbued with Holiness" – The relationship of the esoteric to the exoteric in the fourfold Pardes interpretation of Torah and existence. From www.kabbalaonline.org
Kabbalah emerged, after earlier forms of Jewish mysticism, in 12th to 13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, becoming reinterpreted in the Jewish mystical renaissance of 16th-century Safed. It was popularised in the form of Hasidic Judaism from the 18th century forward. 20th-century interest in Kabbalah has inspired cross-denominational Jewish renewal and contributed to wider non-Jewish New Age, as well as engaging its Gershom Scholem and historical re-emphasis through newly established Jewish studies.
Regarding Jewish mysticism there are many "Segulot". "Segulot" are spiritual powers that have the ability to influence reality in our world. However, the "Segulot" do not necessarily "must" work. When there is some trouble, the main thing is to rummage through our actions to know what transgressions brought us the trouble, "and teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah (In English they are repentance, prayer and charity) pass the evil of the decree". But if you already do teshuvah, and pray with all your heart, and give tzedakah, especially to support the scholars, then surely it is good and right to also add the power of "Segulot" to give, so to speak, an additional "push" to each one to reach the salvation he needs.A quality information on the topic of The “Segulot” index on the website "Meshiv Kahlahah".
Classical Sufi scholars have defined Sufism as
A practitioner of this tradition is nowadays known as a (صُوفِيّ), or, in earlier usage, a dervish. The origin of the word "Sufi" is ambiguous. One understanding is that Sufi means wool-wearer; wool wearers during early Islam were pious ascetics who withdrew from urban life. Another explanation of the word "Sufi" is that it means 'purity'.
Sufis generally belong to a halaqa, a circle or group, led by a Sheikh or Murshid. Sufi circles usually belong to a Tariqa which is the Sufi order and each has a Silsila, which is the spiritual lineage, which traces its succession back to notable Sufis of the past, and often ultimately to Muhammed or one of his close associates. The turuq (plural of tariqa) are not enclosed like Christian monastic orders; rather the members retain an outside life. Membership of a Sufi group often passes down family lines. Meetings may or may not be segregated according to the prevailing custom of the wider society. An existing Muslim faith is not always a requirement for entry, particularly in Western countries.
Sufi practice includes
The aims of Sufism include: the experience of ecstatic states ( hal), purification of the heart ( qalb), overcoming the lower self ( nafs), extinction of the individual personality ( fana), communion with God ( haqiqa), and higher knowledge ( marifat). Some sufic beliefs and practices have been found unorthodox by other Muslims; for instance Mansur al-Hallaj was put to death for blasphemy after uttering the phrase Ana'l Haqq, "I am the Truth" (i.e. God) in a trance.
Notable classical Sufis include Jalaluddin Rumi, Fariduddin Attar, Sultan Bahoo, Sayyed Sadique Ali Husaini, Saadi Shirazi, and Hafez, all major poets in the Persian language. Omar Khayyam, Al-Ghazzali, and Ibn Arabi were renowned scholars. Abdul Qadir Jilani, Moinuddin Chishti, and Bahauddin Naqshband founded major orders, as did Rumi. Rabia Basri was the most prominent female Sufi.
Sufism first came into contact with the Judeo-Christian world during the Moorish occupation of Spain. An interest in Sufism revived in non-Muslim countries during the modern era, led by such figures as Inayat Khan and Idries Shah (both in the UK), Rene Guenon (France), and Ivan Aguéli (Sweden). Sufism has also long been present in Asian countries that do not have a Muslim majority, such as India and China.
Yoga is a term for Human body, mind, and soul practices or disciplines which aim to attain a state of permanent peace. Various traditions of yoga are found in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.Denise Lardner Carmody, John Carmody, Serene Compassion. Oxford University Press US, 1996, page 68.Stuart Ray Sarbacker, Samādhi: The Numinous and Cessative in Indo-Tibetan Yoga. SUNY Press, 2005, pp. 1–2.Tattvarthasutra 6.1, see Manu Doshi (2007) Translation of Tattvarthasutra, Ahmedabad: Shrut Ratnakar p. 102 The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali define yoga as "the stilling of the changing states of the mind", culminating in the state of samadhi.
Classical Vedanta gives philosophical interpretations and commentaries of the Upanishads, a vast collection of ancient hymns. At least ten schools of Vedanta are known, of which Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita, and Dvaita are the best known. Advaita Vedanta, as expounded by Adi Shankara, states that there is no difference between Atman (the world-soul) and Brahman (the divine). The best-known subschool is Kevala Vedanta or mayavada as expounded by Adi Shankara. Advaita Vedanta has acquired a broad acceptance in Indian culture and beyond as the paradigmatic example of Hindu spirituality. In contrast Bhedabheda-Vedanta emphasizes that Atman and Brahman are both the same and not the same, while Dvaita Vedanta states that Atman and God are fundamentally different. In modern times, the Upanishads have been interpreted by Neo-Vedanta as being "mystical".
The goal of Sikhism is to be one with God. Sikhs meditate as a means to progress towards enlightenment; devoted meditation, simran, is seen to enable communication between the Infinite and the finite human consciousness. There is no pranayama (as in other Dharmic religions), but chiefly, the practice of simran consists of the remembrance of God through the recitation of the Divine Name. A frequent metaphor is that of mystics "surrendering themselves to the Lord's feet."
Buddhism aims at Moksha from the cycle of rebirth by self-control through meditation and morally just behaviour. Some Buddhist paths aim at a gradual development and transformation of the personality toward Nirvana, like the Theravada stages of enlightenment. Others, like the Japanese Rinzai Zen tradition, emphasize Subitism, but nevertheless also prescribe intensive training, including meditation and self-restraint.
Although Theravada does not acknowledge the existence of a theistic Absolute, it does postulate Nirvana as a transcendent reality which may be attained. It further stresses transformation of the personality through meditative practice, self-restraint, and morally just behaviour. According to Richard H. Jones, Theravada is a form of mindful extrovertive and introvertive mysticism, in which the conceptual structuring of experiences is weakened, and the ordinary sense of self is weakened. It is best known in the west from the Vipassana movement, a number of branches of modern Theravada Buddhism from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, and includes contemporary American Buddhist teachers such as Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield.
The Yogacara school of Mahayana investigates the workings of the mind, stating that only the mind ( citta-mātra) or the representations we cognize ( vijñapti-mātra), really exist. In later Buddhist Mahayana thought, which took an idealistic turn, the unmodified mind came to be seen as a pure consciousness, from which everything arises. Vijñapti-mātra, coupled with Buddha-nature or tathagatagarba, has been an influential concept in the subsequent development of Mahayana Buddhism, not only in India, but also in China and Tibet, most notable in the Chán (Zen) and Dzogchen traditions.
Chinese and Japanese Zen is grounded on the Chinese understanding of the Buddha-nature as one true's essence, and the two truths doctrine as a polarity between relative and Absolute reality. Zen aims at insight into one's true nature, or Buddha-nature, thereby manifesting Absolute reality in the relative reality. In Soto, this Buddha-nature is regarded to be ever-present, and shikan-taza, sitting meditation, is the expression of the already existing Buddhahood. Rinzai-zen emphasises the need for a Kensho in this Buddha-nature, but also stresses that further practice is needed to deepen the insight and to express it in daily life, as expressed in the Three mysterious Gates, the Four Ways of Knowing of Hakuin, and the Ten Bulls. The Japanese Zen-scholar D.T. Suzuki noted similarities between Zen-Buddhism and Christian mysticism, especially Meister Eckhart.D.T. Suzuki. Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist. Routledge, 2002.
The Tibetan Vajrayana tradition is based on Madhyamaka philosophy and Tantra. In deity yoga, visualizations of deities are eventually dissolved, to realize the inherent sunyata of every-'thing' that exists. Dzogchen, which is being taught in both the Tibetan Buddhism Nyingma school and the Bön tradition, focuses on direct insight into our real nature. It holds that "mind-nature" is manifested when one is enlightened, being nonconceptually aware ( rigpa, "open presence") of one's nature, "a recognition of one's beginningless nature". Mahamudra has similarities with Dzogchen, emphasizing the meditational approach to insight and liberation.
Walter Terence Stace, in his book Mysticism and Philosophy (1960), distinguished two types of mystical experience, namely extrovertive and introvertive mysticism. Extrovertive mysticism is an experience of the unity of the external world, whereas introvertive mysticism is "an experience of unity devoid of perceptual objects; it is literally an experience of 'no-thing-ness'." The unity in extrovertive mysticism is with the totality of objects of perception. While perception stays continuous, "unity shines through the same world"; the unity in introvertive mysticism is with a pure consciousness, devoid of objects of perception, "pure unitary consciousness, wherein awareness of the world and of multiplicity is completely obliterated." According to Stace such experiences are nonsensous and nonintellectual, under a total "suppression of the whole empirical content".
Stace argues that doctrinal differences between religious traditions are inappropriate criteria when making cross-cultural comparisons of mystical experiences. Stace argues that mysticism is part of the process of perception, not interpretation, that is to say that the unity of mystical experiences is perceived, and only afterwards interpreted according to the perceiver's background. This may result in different accounts of the same phenomenon. While an atheist describes the unity as "freed from empirical filling", a religious person might describe it as "God" or "the Divine".
William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience is the classic study on religious or mystical experience, which influenced deeply both the academic and popular understanding of "religious experience". He popularized the use of the term "religious experience" in his "Varieties", and influenced the understanding of mysticism as a distinctive experience which supplies knowledge of the transcendental:
Yet, Gellman notes that so-called mystical experience is not a transitional event, as William James claimed, but an "abiding consciousness, accompanying a person throughout the day, or parts of it. For that reason, it might be better to speak of mystical consciousness, which can be either fleeting or abiding."
Most mystical traditions warn against an attachment to mystical experiences, and offer a "protective and hermeneutic framework" to accommodate these experiences. These same traditions offer the means to induce mystical experiences, which may have several origins:
The theoretical study of mystical experience has shifted from an experiential, privatized, and perennialist approach to a contextual and empirical approach. The experientalist approach sees mystical experience as a private expression of perennial truths, separate from its historical and cultural context. The contextual approach, which also includes constructionism and attribution theory, takes into account the historical and cultural context. Neurological research takes an empirical approach, relating mystical experiences to neurological processes.
In contrast, for the past decades most scholars have favored a constructionist approach, which states that mystical experiences are fully constructed by the ideas, symbols and practices that mystics are familiar with. Critics of the term "religious experience" note that the notion of "religious experience" or "mystical experience" as marking insight into religious truth is a modern development, and contemporary researchers of mysticism note that mystical experiences are shaped by the concepts "which the mystic brings to, and which shape, his experience". What is being experienced is being determined by the expectations and the conceptual background of the mystic.
Richard Jones draws a distinction between "anticonstructivism" and "perennialism": constructivism can be rejected with respect to a certain class of mystical experiences without ascribing to a perennialist philosophy on the relation of mystical doctrines. One can reject constructivism without claiming that mystical experiences reveal a cross-cultural "perennial truth". For example, a Christian can reject both constructivism and perennialism in arguing that there is a union with God free of cultural construction. Constructivism versus anticonstructivism is a matter of the nature of mystical experiences while perennialism is a matter of mystical traditions and the doctrines they espouse.
The temporal lobe seems to be involved in mystical experiences, and in the change in personality that may result from such experiences. There is a long-standing notion that epilepsy and religion are linked, and some religious figures may have had temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).
The anterior insula may be involved in ineffability, a strong feeling of certainty which cannot be expressed in words, which is a common quality in mystical experiences. According to Picard, this feeling of certainty may be caused by a dysfunction of the anterior insula, a part of the brain which is involved in interoception, self-reflection, and in avoiding uncertainty about the internal representations of the world by "anticipation of resolution of uncertainty or risk".
Richard King problematizes the individualist trend in contemporary mysticism as increasingly disengaged from political concerns:
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