Mysticism
Introduction
The traditional conception of mysticism
Mysticism as experience and interpretation
The location of mysticism in religion
Mysticism and reason
Mysticism and the spiritual
Mysticism and secrecy
Mystical states
Techniques for inducing mystical experiences
The goal of mysticism
Fast Facts2-Min Summary
Facts & Related Content
MoreAdditional Reading
More Articles On This Topic
Contributors
Article History
==
Techniques for inducing mystical experiences
According to surveys, roughly one-third of the population of both the United States and the United Kingdom has had one or more spontaneous mystical experiences; almost all of these were reveries. (illusion, dream, 몽상) A tiny fraction of the population has had mystical experiences caused by psychopathology; these experiences are invariably reified.
Mystical experiences can also be induced voluntarily. Trance states can be brought about by many forms of concentrative meditation that fix attention monotonously, such as mantras, Buddhist samadhi (Sanskrit: “total self-collectedness”), Sufi dhikr (Arabic: “reminding oneself”), the Eastern Orthodox Jesus prayer (a mental invocation of the name of Jesus Christ), and staring at a crystal, a burning flame, or a drop of oil. Mystical use has also been made of trances that were produced by psychoactive drugs, such as those contained in the fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) and the African shrub Tabernanthe iboga and in potions made from the mandrake, henbane, belladonna, and datura plants.
Reveries can also be induced voluntarily. During waking consciousness, visualizing and dwelling emotionally on a mental image can induce a reverie in which a vision may occur. Mystical use has also been made of hypnagogic states, which immediately precede sleep. Sensory deprivation has been cultivated in the depths of caves and also in pits, huts, windowless rooms in temples, and other constructions that reduce sensory stimuli. In the Kabbala and the Ars magna (“The Great Art”) of the Catalan mystic and poet Ramon Llull, alphabetic letters were combined in pairs in alphabetic order. Inuit shamans rubbed a small stone in a circle on a larger one. Both procedures were regarded as magical, but both dependably produced reverie states.
The Buddhist meditative practice of satipatthana (Sanskrit: “mindfulness”) or vipassana (“insight”), which aims to arrest the process of thought, induces a reverie state of mystical intensity that Buddhists consider a pseudo-nirvana. A Christian mystical technique, which John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, called “watching,” involves observation of the contents of consciousness in order to detach oneself emotionally from sinful ideas. Wesley paired this technique with another, known as “the practice of the Presence of God,” which also induces a state of reverie. The hitbonenut (Hebrew: “self-reflection”) meditation of Moses Maimonides also induced a reverie state.
==
reverie [ rev-uh-ree ] Definition of reverie
- a state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing: lost in reverie.
- a daydream. a fantastic, visionary, or impractical idea: reveries that will never come to fruition.
John Wesley, detail of an oil painting by Nathaniel Hone, 1766; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London
Mystical experiences in reverie states have been occasioned by the use of hallucinatory or psychedelic substances or drugs, such as ergot, LSD, peyote, San Pedro cactus, psilocybin-bearing mushrooms, and marijuana. Peyote is used sacramentally in the Native American Church and other legally authorized institutions. San Pedro cactus is used sacramentally in some South American shamanistic traditions.
Mystical experiences in reverie states have been occasioned by the use of hallucinatory or psychedelic substances or drugs, such as ergot, LSD, peyote, San Pedro cactus, psilocybin-bearing mushrooms, and marijuana. Peyote is used sacramentally in the Native American Church and other legally authorized institutions. San Pedro cactus is used sacramentally in some South American shamanistic traditions.
Some scholars have hypothesized that the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece employed ergot sacramentally; others have asserted that manna, the miraculous bread of the Bible, was described as psychoactive in the biblical text and was secretly so understood by many commentators through the centuries.
Although psychedelic drugs do not themselves produce mystical experiences, they create alternate states of consciousness that may lead to mystical experiences through prayer, meditation, visualization, or other religious activity. The “Good Friday Experiment,” in which Walter Pahnke, a researcher at Harvard University, administered psilocybin in a double-blind study in 1962, established that when both mental “set” (the total contents of the mind) and physical “setting” are arranged to encourage the occurrence of a mystical experience, it occurs with a 90 percent probability. (Pahnke made the concept of a mystical experience operational by defining it in terms of characteristic experiential features, as reported by celebrated mystics from all the world’s religions.)
Claims that psychedelic mysticism differs from traditional mysticism invariably point to factors by which reverie states differ from trance states and not to characteristics that distinguish psychedelic mysticism from reverie-based mysticism.
Set and setting influence the contents of all mystical techniques. Requiring would-be mystics to practice austerities and to meditate for several years before they attain a mystical experience motivates them to have highly disciplined, doctrinally orthodox experiences. Providing easy access to mystical experiences necessitates greater doctrinal tolerance of varied experiences. The American psychologist and philosopher William James introduced the term “overbeliefs” to explain the contents of mystical experiences that reflect doctrinal expectations rather than the immediate or spontaneous features of the experiences themselves. Many auxiliary practices serve as overbeliefs: ethical behaviour, doctrinal preparation, asceticism, gymnastics, isolation, diet, drumming, dance, and rituals. Another category of overbelief is a mystic’s emotional attachment to his teacher.
The goal of mysticism
What mystics hope to achieve differs from culture to culture.
Set and setting influence the contents of all mystical techniques. Requiring would-be mystics to practice austerities and to meditate for several years before they attain a mystical experience motivates them to have highly disciplined, doctrinally orthodox experiences. Providing easy access to mystical experiences necessitates greater doctrinal tolerance of varied experiences. The American psychologist and philosopher William James introduced the term “overbeliefs” to explain the contents of mystical experiences that reflect doctrinal expectations rather than the immediate or spontaneous features of the experiences themselves. Many auxiliary practices serve as overbeliefs: ethical behaviour, doctrinal preparation, asceticism, gymnastics, isolation, diet, drumming, dance, and rituals. Another category of overbelief is a mystic’s emotional attachment to his teacher.
The goal of mysticism
What mystics hope to achieve differs from culture to culture.
- Shamans, theurgists, Daoists, Kabbalists, Western esotericians, and many others are primarily interested in mystical experiences as a means of performing magic.
- The gnostics of late antiquity, Hindu mystics, and Buddhists have sought liberation from ignorance through the apprehension of truth, and
- Christian and Sufi mystics seek consolation in God.
For the most part, mystics are engaged in acquiring a set of skills that will enable them to have visions, unitive experiences, possession states, and so forth.
In a few cases, however, the purpose of mystical practice is to produce personal transformation.
- Confucianism, for example, is aimed at the cultivation of sagehood.
- Fourteenth-century Roman Catholic meditations on the Passion of Christ, which induced death-and-resurrection experiences that were considered mystical unions with Jesus, were consciously aimed at reforming the soul in both faith and feeling.
- Early English Methodism was aimed at the achievement of a state of “sanctification,” in which sin ceases to be tempting and virtue is effortless.
- Tibetan Buddhism is directed toward the production of enlightened individuals, called bodhisattvas, who inevitably acquire compassion as a side effect of their progress toward truthful understanding.
Modern psychological research has established that both Buddhist “insight” meditation and Jesuit spirituality, the latter based on the teachings of St. Ignatius of Loyola, promote healthy growth of the personality.
Other researchers, however, have argued that mystical practices can be used as a form of brainwashing that promotes cult behaviour. Brainwashing typically involves a blend of attraction and coercion that subverts a person’s sense of integrity and inculcates a new set of values. Positive techniques such as support from the in-group coincide with negative techniques such as shaming, guilt-making, physical abuse, and isolation from friends, family, and other outsiders.
In such a context, the euphoria of mystical experience may enhance the attractiveness of a cult. It is not the positive techniques, however, but only the negative ones that reach traumatizing intensity, accomplishing coercion rather than persuasion.
In all, mysticism may be regarded as an emotionally intense experience, in which the personality is unusually plastic. Change for both the good and bad is possible to a greater than usual extent.
===
In 1966 David Bakan, one of the founders of humanistic psychology, argued that Sigmund Freud’s practice of psychoanalysis—and, by extension, all of the psychotherapies derived from it—constitute a modern revival of rational mysticism.
Bakan contended that free association is a type of meditation that is intended to induce moments of inspiration that psychoanalysts call “insight.” Psychoanalytic insights not only provide intuitive access to truths that are not manifest but also disclose a unity that underlies the apparent disconnectedness or nonintegration of manifest thought.
Whereas the Aristotelian mystics of antiquity and the Middle Ages meditated on nature outside themselves, Freudian clients meditate on their own natures, arriving at results that are no less mystical.
In keeping with Bakan’s intuition, several initiatives have sought to coordinate traditional religious mysticism with contemporary psychotherapy.
For example, transpersonal psychology, which developed from humanistic psychology in the 1970s, proceeds from the assumption that, because some mystics have demonstrably enjoyed superlative mental health, selected uses of classical mystical techniques may facilitate the therapeutic goal of self-actualization.
Westerners who engage in Buddhist forms of meditation have frequently attempted to use them as a kind of self-therapy, leading meditators who are qualified psychotherapists to place programs of meditation on a professionally responsible foundation.
Within Freudian psychoanalysis, a very small number of practitioners have recognized both free association and the analyst’s practice of “analytic listening” as types of meditation and have attempted to articulate further the mystical character of psychoanalysis.
At the same time, many of the world’s religions are becoming massively psychologized. Religious counseling and pastoral work are everywhere becoming increasingly sophisticated in both psychotherapeutic competence and psychological understanding. If deep psychotherapy is indeed a rational form of mysticism, then a new era in mysticism worldwide could be at hand.
===
