Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

Mysticism:
A Study of the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness
Evelyn Underhill (1911)

Mysticism : a desire to transcend the limits & evils of Realism

   Post 96. August 06, 2019

  Mysticism

   Idealism vs Pragmatism  

 American philosopher & psychologist, William James, once “admitted that his own constitution shut him off almost entirely from the enjoyment of mystical states, thus his treatment was purely objective”. And that is also my own Character. Yet, I am also interested in seeing through other eyes how the world looks and feels to those of different views. Evelyn Underhill was an English Catholic Mystic1, who was romantic and religious by nature. So she was offended by the “destructive criticisms of the psycho-analytic school”. She was, however, impressed by the ideas of Henri Bergson, a secular Jew, who considered converting to Catholicism at the end of his life. In the early 20th century, the ancient para-religion2 of Mysticism3 was being revived in various forms of Spiritualism and Magic. At the same time, Bergson’s concept of Elan Vital, while intended to be a scientific theory, was interpreted as Holy Spirit, and accepted enthusiastically by non-analytical mystic-minded seekers.

Her book, Mysticism, although recognizing the universal nature of the mystical impulse, is mostly a review of oppressed Western mystics, whose non-liturgical practices were sup-pressed by the institutional church and belittled by pragmatic science. In the East though, cultivation of alternate conscious-ness has been integral to most religious practices. In essence, Mysticism seeks the feeling of personal union with God, or Nirvana, or Tao, whereas the established Church assumes a God-vs-man separation, approaching the divine concept as wholly-other. Some seekers after that oceanic feeling of union with the All use various physical and metaphysical methods, such as meditation, contemplation, drugs, privation, ecstasies, glossolalia, or other charismatic practices. Ordinary Christians seem content to get their god-fix by merely communing with others of like mind. Unlike motivated mystics, they wait patiently for direct communion with God in the afterlife.4

Apparently, people with a talent for mysticism are rare, but their charismatic influence on ordinary others is significant. Mrs Underhill describes them as those who seek via “a certain spiritual and intangible quest : the finding of a ‘way out’ or a ‘way back’ to some desirable state in which alone they can satisfy their craving for absolute truth.” Since, for tender-minded mystics5, the real world is depressingly imperfect, they envision a Garden-of-Eden or Golden-Age, when the world was uncorrupted. But they are aware that such a place cannot be found in the present real world of sensory experience, so they search for ways to explore “the unknown world which lies outside the boundaries of sense.” Unfortunately, it’s that rejection of the proximate & present that annoys more pragmatic people. You don’t have to be a mystic to imagine a Utopia, but in practice the dreamers too often awaken to disappointment. So, it helps to keep it hidden from profane eyes and from mundane reality, in an occult realm where magic mystifies the muggles.

Humans have always been at war within themselves, torn between the poles of their dual nature. On the one paw, they are animals, for whom the world is limited to the here & now. On the other hand, they are angels who can contemplate what has been and what might be. Those possibilities can be approached from two perspectives : wistful or skeptical. . . .

Post 96 continued . . . click Next

1. Catholic Mystic :
“Initially an agnostic, she gradually began to acquire an interest in Neoplatonism and from there was increasingly drawn to Catholicism against the objections of her hus-band, eventually becoming a prominent Anglo-Catholic.”
___Wikipedia

2. Para-religion :
   A secular belief system having certain aspects of religion.
___Wikipedia
   But Underhill admits that throughout the history of the Catholic Church, mystics have been treated as outcasts, until sanctified after their deaths, due to popular appeal.

3. Mysticism :
“belief that union with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or the spiritual apprehension of know-ledge inaccessible to the intellect, may be attained through contem-plation and self-surrender.”
___Google
   “Mysticism is the practice of religious ecstasies (religious experiences during alternate states of conscious-ness), together with whatever ideologies, ethics, rites, myths, legends, and magic may be related to them. It may also refer to the attain-ment of insight in ultimate or hidden truths, and to human transformation supported by various practices and experiences.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism

4. Direct Communion :
   Impatient mystics are not content to commune with God via intermediaries : Priests, or even the Christ.
“Her spiritual mentor from 1921 to 1924 was Baron Friedrich von Hügel, who was appreciative of her writing yet concerned with her focus on mysticism and who encouraged her to adopt a much more Christocentric view as opposed to the theistic and intellectual one she had previously held.”
___Wikipedia

5. Tender-minded Mystics :
   “William James says rationalistic philosophers are "tender-minded" in their disposition. They're generally intellectualistic, idealistic, optimistic, religious, free-willist, monistic, and dogmatic. They insist on going by principles. . . . For James, the empirical ("tough-minded") philosophers like to go by facts and they're sensationalistic, material-istic, pessimistic, irreligious, fatalistic, pluralistic, and skeptical.”
http://overweeninggeneralist.william-james-tough-and-tender.html

   James’ description of two kinds of philosophers and scientists contrasted theoretical thinkers with pragmatic doers. But the tender-minded epithet seems to fit anti-rational other-worldly Mystics.

Mystical Magic