mysticism

100:5.1The world is filled with lost souls, not lost in the the­o­logic sense but lost in the di­rec­tional mean­ing, wan­der­ing about in con­fu­sion among the isms and cults of a frus­trated philo­sophic era. Too few have learned how to in­stall a phi­los­o­phy of liv­ing in the place of re­li­gious au­thor­ity. (The sym­bols of so­cial­ized re­li­gion are not to be de­spised as chan­nels of growth, al­beit the river bed is not the river.)

100:5.2The pro­gres­sion of re­li­gious growth leads from stag­na­tion through con­flict to co-or­di­na­tion, from in­se­cu­rity to un­doubt­ing faith, from con­fu­sion of cos­mic con­scious­ness to uni­fi­ca­tion of per­son­al­ity, from the tem­po­ral ob­jec­tive to the eter­nal, from the bond­age of fear to the lib­erty of di­vine son­ship.

100:5.3It should be made clear that pro­fes­sions of loy­alty to the su­preme ide­als—the psy­chic, emo­tional, and spir­i­tual aware­ness of God-con­scious­ness—may be a nat­u­ral and grad­ual growth or may some­times be ex­pe­ri­enced at cer­tain junc­tures, as in a cri­sis. The Apos­tle Paul ex­pe­ri­enced just such a sud­den and spec­tac­u­lar con­ver­sion that event­ful day on the Da­mas­cus road. Gau­tama Sid­dhartha had a sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ence the night he sat alone and sought to pen­e­trate the mys­tery of fi­nal truth. Many oth­ers have had like ex­pe­ri­ences, and many true be­liev­ers have pro­gressed in the spirit with­out sud­den con­ver­sion.

100:5.4Most of the spec­tac­u­lar phe­nom­ena as­so­ci­ated with so-called re­li­gious con­ver­sions are en­tirely psy­cho­logic in na­ture, but now and then there do oc­cur ex­pe­ri­ences which are also spir­i­tual in ori­gin. When the men­tal mo­bi­liza­tion is ab­so­lutely to­tal on any level of the psy­chic up­reach to­ward spirit at­tain­ment, when there ex­ists per­fec­tion of the hu­man mo­ti­va­tion of loy­al­ties to the di­vine idea, then there very of­ten oc­curs a sud­den down-grasp of the in­dwelling spirit to syn­chro­nize with the con­cen­trated and con­se­crated pur­pose of the super­con­scious mind of the be­liev­ing mor­tal. And it is such ex­pe­ri­ences of uni­fied in­tel­lec­tual and spir­i­tual phe­nom­ena that con­sti­tute the con­ver­sion which con­sists in fac­tors over and above purely psy­cho­logic in­volve­ment.

100:5.5But emo­tion alone is a false con­ver­sion; one must have faith as well as feel­ing. To the ex­tent that such psy­chic mo­bi­liza­tion is par­tial, and in so far as such hu­man-loy­alty mo­ti­va­tion is in­com­plete, to that ex­tent will the ex­pe­ri­ence of con­ver­sion be a blended in­tel­lec­tual, emo­tional, and spir­i­tual re­al­ity.

100:5.6If one is dis­posed to rec­og­nize a the­o­ret­i­cal sub­con­scious mind as a prac­ti­cal work­ing hy­poth­e­sis in the oth­er­wise uni­fied in­tel­lec­tual life, then, to be con­sis­tent, one should pos­tu­late a sim­i­lar and cor­re­spond­ing realm of as­cend­ing in­tel­lec­tual ac­tiv­ity as the super­con­scious level, the zone of im­me­di­ate con­tact with the in­dwelling spirit en­tity, the Thought Ad­juster. The great dan­ger in all these psy­chic spec­u­la­tions is that vi­sions and other so-called mys­tic ex­pe­ri­ences, along with ex­traor­di­nary dreams, may be re­garded as di­vine com­mu­ni­ca­tions to the hu­man mind. In times past, di­vine be­ings have re­vealed them­selves to cer­tain God-know­ing per­sons, not be­cause of their mys­tic trances or mor­bid vi­sions, but in spite of all these phe­nom­ena.

100:5.7In con­trast with con­ver­sion-seek­ing, the bet­ter ap­proach to the mor­ontia zones of pos­si­ble con­tact with the Thought Ad­juster would be through liv­ing faith and sin­cere wor­ship, whole­hearted and un­selfish prayer. Al­to­gether too much of the up­rush of the mem­o­ries of the un­con­scious lev­els of the hu­man mind has been mis­taken for di­vine rev­e­la­tions and spirit lead­ings.

100:5.8There is great dan­ger as­so­ci­ated with the ha­bit­ual prac­tice of re­li­gious day­dream­ing; mys­ti­cism may be­come a tech­nique of re­al­ity avoid­ance, al­beit it has some­times been a means of gen­uine spir­i­tual com­mu­nion. Short sea­sons of re­treat from the busy scenes of life may not be se­ri­ously dan­ger­ous, but pro­longed iso­la­tion of per­son­al­ity is most un­de­sir­able. Un­der no cir­cum­stances should the trance­like state of vi­sion­ary con­scious­ness be cul­ti­vated as a re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence.

100:5.9The char­ac­ter­is­tics of the mys­ti­cal state are dif­fu­sion of con­scious­ness with vivid is­lands of fo­cal at­ten­tion op­er­at­ing on a com­par­a­tively pas­sive in­tel­lect. All of this grav­i­tates con­scious­ness to­ward the sub­con­scious rather than in the di­rec­tion of the zone of spir­i­tual con­tact, the super­con­scious. Many mys­tics have car­ried their men­tal dis­so­ci­a­tion to the level of ab­nor­mal men­tal man­i­fes­ta­tions.

100:5.10The more health­ful at­ti­tude of spir­i­tual med­i­ta­tion is to be found in re­flec­tive wor­ship and in the prayer of thanks­giv­ing. The di­rect com­mu­nion with one’s Thought Ad­juster, such as oc­curred in the later years of Je­sus’ life in the flesh, should not be con­fused with these so-called mys­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ences. The fac­tors which con­tribute to the ini­ti­a­tion of mys­tic com­mu­nion are in­dica­tive of the dan­ger of such psy­chic states. The mys­tic sta­tus is fa­vored by such things as: phys­i­cal fa­tigue, fast­ing, psy­chic dis­so­ci­a­tion, pro­found aes­thetic ex­pe­ri­ences, vivid sex im­pulses, fear, anx­i­ety, rage, and wild danc­ing. Much of the ma­te­rial aris­ing as a re­sult of such pre­lim­i­nary prepa­ra­tion has its ori­gin in the sub­con­scious mind.

100:5.11How­ever fa­vor­able may have been the con­di­tions for mys­tic phe­nom­ena, it should be clearly un­der­stood that Je­sus of Naz­a­reth never re­sorted to such meth­ods for com­mu­nion with the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. Je­sus had no sub­con­scious delu­sions or super­con­scious il­lu­sions.

178:1.14You are not to be pas­sive mys­tics or col­or­less as­cetics; you should not be­come dream­ers and drifters, supinely trust­ing in a fic­ti­tious Prov­i­dence to pro­vide even the ne­ces­si­ties of life. You are in­deed to be gen­tle in your deal­ings with erring mor­tals, pa­tient in your in­ter­course with ig­no­rant men, and for­bear­ing un­der provo­ca­tion; but you are also to be valiant in de­fense of righ­teous­ness, mighty in the pro­mul­ga­tion of truth, and ag­gres­sive in the preach­ing of this gospel of the king­dom, even to the ends of the earth.

195:4.1The church, be­ing an ad­junct to so­ci­ety and the ally of pol­i­tics, was doomed to share in the in­tel­lec­tual and spir­i­tual de­cline of the so-called Eu­ro­pean “dark ages.” Dur­ing this time, re­li­gion be­came more and more monas­ti­cized, as­ceti­cized, and le­gal­ized. In a spir­i­tual sense, Chris­tian­ity was hi­ber­nat­ing. Through­out this pe­riod there ex­isted, along­side this slum­ber­ing and sec­u­lar­ized re­li­gion, a con­tin­u­ous stream of mys­ti­cism, a fan­tas­tic spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence bor­der­ing on un­re­al­ity and phil­o­soph­i­cally akin to pan­the­ism.

102:2.8Again, there are other types of un­sta­ble and poorly dis­ci­plined souls who would use the sen­ti­men­tal ideas of re­li­gion as an av­enue of es­cape from the ir­ri­tat­ing de­mands of liv­ing. When cer­tain vac­il­lat­ing and timid mor­tals at­tempt to es­cape from the in­ces­sant pres­sure of evo­lu­tion­ary life, re­li­gion, as they con­ceive it, seems to pre­sent the near­est refuge, the best av­enue of es­cape. But it is the mis­sion of re­li­gion to pre­pare man for bravely, even hero­ically, fac­ing the vi­cis­si­tudes of life. Re­li­gion is evo­lu­tion­ary man’s su­preme en­dow­ment, the one thing which en­ables him to carry on and “en­dure as see­ing Him who is in­vis­i­ble.” Mys­ti­cism, how­ever, is of­ten some­thing of a re­treat from life which is em­braced by those hu­mans who do not rel­ish the more ro­bust ac­tiv­i­ties of liv­ing a re­li­gious life in the open are­nas of hu­man so­ci­ety and com­merce. True re­li­gion must act. Con­duct will be the re­sult of re­li­gion when man ac­tu­ally has it, or rather when re­li­gion is per­mit­ted truly to pos­sess the man. Never will re­li­gion be con­tent with mere think­ing or un­act­ing feel­ing.

130:4.4A one-eyed per­son can never hope to vi­su­al­ize depth of per­spec­tive. Nei­ther can sin­gle-eyed ma­te­rial sci­en­tists nor sin­gle-eyed spir­i­tual mys­tics and al­le­gorists cor­rectly vi­su­al­ize and ad­e­quately com­pre­hend the true depths of uni­verse re­al­ity. All true val­ues of crea­ture ex­pe­ri­ence are con­cealed in depth of rec­og­ni­tion.

91:7.5The prac­ti­cal test of all these strange re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ences of mys­ti­cism, ec­stasy, and in­spi­ra­tion is to ob­serve whether these phe­nom­ena cause an in­di­vid­ual:

91:7.61. To en­joy bet­ter and more com­plete phys­i­cal health.

91:7.72. To func­tion more ef­fi­ciently and prac­ti­cally in his men­tal life.

91:7.83. More fully and joy­fully to so­cial­ize his re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence.

91:7.94. More com­pletely to spir­i­tu­al­ize his day-by-day liv­ing while faith­fully dis­charg­ing the com­mon­place du­ties of rou­tine mor­tal ex­is­tence.

91:7.105. To en­hance his love for, and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of, truth, beauty, and good­ness.

91:7.116. To con­serve cur­rently rec­og­nized so­cial, moral, eth­i­cal, and spir­i­tual val­ues.

91:7.127. To in­crease his spir­i­tual in­sight—God-con­scious­ness.

91:7.1Mys­ti­cism, as the tech­nique of the cul­ti­va­tion of the con­scious­ness of the pres­ence of God, is al­to­gether praise­wor­thy, but when such prac­tices lead to so­cial iso­la­tion and cul­mi­nate in re­li­gious fa­nati­cism, they are all but rep­re­hen­si­ble. Al­to­gether too fre­quently that which the over­wrought mys­tic eval­u­ates as di­vine in­spi­ra­tion is the up­ris­ings of his own deep mind. The con­tact of the mor­tal mind with its in­dwelling Ad­juster, while of­ten fa­vored by de­voted med­i­ta­tion, is more fre­quently fa­cil­i­tated by whole­hearted and lov­ing ser­vice in un­selfish min­istry to one’s fel­low crea­tures.

91:7.2The great re­li­gious teach­ers and the proph­ets of past ages were not ex­treme mys­tics. They were God-know­ing men and women who best served their God by un­selfish min­istry to their fel­low mor­tals. Je­sus of­ten took his apos­tles away by them­selves for short pe­ri­ods to en­gage in med­i­ta­tion and prayer, but for the most part he kept them in ser­vice-con­tact with the mul­ti­tudes. The soul of man re­quires spir­i­tual ex­er­cise as well as spir­i­tual nour­ish­ment.

91:7.3Re­li­gious ec­stasy is per­mis­si­ble when re­sult­ing from sane an­tecedents, but such ex­pe­ri­ences are more of­ten the out­growth of purely emo­tional in­flu­ences than a man­i­fes­ta­tion of deep spir­i­tual char­ac­ter. Re­li­gious per­sons must not re­gard ev­ery vivid psy­cho­logic pre­sen­ti­ment and ev­ery in­tense emo­tional ex­pe­ri­ence as a di­vine rev­e­la­tion or a spir­i­tual com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Gen­uine spir­i­tual ec­stasy is usu­ally as­so­ci­ated with great out­ward calm­ness and al­most per­fect emo­tional con­trol. But true pro­phetic vi­sion is a super­psy­cho­logic pre­sen­ti­ment. Such vis­i­ta­tions are not pseudo hal­lu­ci­na­tions, nei­ther are they trance­like ec­stasies.

91:7.4The hu­man mind may per­form in re­sponse to so-called in­spi­ra­tion when it is sen­si­tive ei­ther to the up­ris­ings of the sub­con­scious or to the stim­u­lus of the super­con­scious. In ei­ther case it ap­pears to the in­di­vid­ual that such aug­men­ta­tions of the con­tent of con­scious­ness are more or less for­eign. Un­re­strained mys­ti­cal en­thu­si­asm and ram­pant re­li­gious ec­stasy are not the cre­den­tials of in­spi­ra­tion, sup­pos­edly di­vine cre­den­tials.

110:4.1Ad­justers are able to re­ceive the con­tin­u­ous stream of cos­mic in­tel­li­gence com­ing in over the mas­ter cir­cuits of time and space; they are in full touch with the spirit in­tel­li­gence and en­ergy of the uni­verses. But these mighty in­dwellers are un­able to trans­mit very much of this wealth of wis­dom and truth to the minds of their mor­tal sub­jects be­cause of the lack of com­mon­ness of na­ture and the ab­sence of re­spon­sive rec­og­ni­tion.

110:4.2The Thought Ad­juster is en­gaged in a con­stant ef­fort so to spir­i­tu­al­ize your mind as to evolve your mor­ontia soul; but you your­self are mostly un­con­scious of this in­ner min­istry. You are quite in­ca­pable of dis­tin­guish­ing the prod­uct of your own ma­te­rial in­tel­lect from that of the con­joint ac­tiv­i­ties of your soul and the Ad­juster.

110:4.3Cer­tain abrupt pre­sen­ta­tions of thoughts, con­clu­sions, and other pic­tures of mind are some­times the di­rect or in­di­rect work of the Ad­juster; but far more of­ten they are the sud­den emer­gence into con­scious­ness of ideas which have been group­ing them­selves to­gether in the sub­merged men­tal lev­els, nat­u­ral and ev­ery­day oc­cur­rences of nor­mal and or­di­nary psy­chic func­tion in­her­ent in the cir­cuits of the evolv­ing an­i­mal mind. (In con­trast with these sub­con­scious em­a­na­tions, the rev­e­la­tions of the Ad­juster ap­pear through the realms of the super­con­scious.)

110:4.4Trust all mat­ters of mind be­yond the dead level of con­scious­ness to the cus­tody of the Ad­justers. In due time, if not in this world then on the man­sion worlds, they will give good ac­count of their stew­ard­ship, and even­tu­ally will they bring forth those mean­ings and val­ues in­trusted to their care and keep­ing. They will res­ur­rect ev­ery wor­thy trea­sure of the mor­tal mind if you sur­vive.

110:4.5There ex­ists a vast gulf be­tween the hu­man and the di­vine, be­tween man and God. The Uran­tia races are so largely elec­tri­cally and chem­i­cally con­trolled, so highly an­i­mallike in their com­mon be­hav­ior, so emo­tional in their or­di­nary re­ac­tions, that it be­comes ex­ceed­ingly dif­fi­cult for the Mon­i­tors to guide and di­rect them. You are so de­void of coura­geous de­ci­sions and con­se­crated co-op­er­a­tion that your in­dwelling Ad­justers find it next to im­pos­si­ble to com­mu­ni­cate di­rectly with the hu­man mind. Even when they do find it pos­si­ble to flash a gleam of new truth to the evolv­ing mor­tal soul, this spir­i­tual rev­e­la­tion of­ten so blinds the crea­ture as to pre­cip­i­tate a con­vul­sion of fa­nati­cism or to ini­ti­ate some other in­tel­lec­tual up­heaval which re­sults dis­as­trously. Many a new re­li­gion and strange “ism” has arisen from the aborted, im­per­fect, mis­un­der­stood, and gar­bled com­mu­ni­ca­tions of the Thought Ad­justers.

110:4.6For many thou­sands of years, so the rec­ords of Je­ru­sem show, in each gen­er­a­tion there have lived fewer and fewer be­ings who could func­tion safely with self-act­ing Ad­justers. This is an alarm­ing pic­ture, and the super­vis­ing per­son­al­i­ties of Sa­ta­nia look with fa­vor upon the pro­pos­als of some of your more im­me­di­ate plan­e­tary super­vi­sors who ad­vo­cate the in­au­gu­ra­tion of mea­sures de­signed to fos­ter and con­serve the higher spir­i­tual types of the Uran­tia races.

159:3.6Some­time the chil­dren of the king­dom will re­al­ize that strong feel­ings of emo­tion are not equiv­a­lent to the lead­ings of the di­vine spirit. To be strongly and strangely im­pressed to do some­thing or to go to a cer­tain place, does not nec­es­sar­ily mean that such im­pulses are the lead­ings of the in­dwelling spirit.