Drugs and Mysticism

Chapter III: The Definition of Mysticism

The purpose of this chapter is to define what we mean by the term, mystical state of consciousness. A typology of basic characteristics of mystical experience in the broad sense is developed. The broad sense means a basic typology which is universal and holds true for mystical experience in different cultures and religions. Before defining the typology in detail, we shall discuss mystical experience with regard both to its relationship to religious experience and to the universality of its occurrence.

Mystical Experience in General

The Relationship between Mystical Experience and Religious Experience

A simple identification of religious experience and mystical experience fails to take into account the many definitions of religion. Religions vary in their emphasis upon mysticism, although there is a tendency, especially among psychologists of religion who have been interested in the dramatic and intense phenomena of the mystical experience, to make the mystical element the most important characteristic of religion.¹

All religious experience is not necessarily mystical in the sense of our definition of mystical experience as given below. Pratt, for example, divides religion into four kinds or aspects, of which the mystical is only one, the other three being the traditional, the rational, and the practical or moral.² Even when quite emotionally meaningful, participation in a particular religion by such practices as observance of religious laws, intellectual belief in a certain creed or theology, institutional membership, and attendance at rites and rituals, may not result in or be the product of mystical experience.

On the other hand, all mystical experience is not necessarily religious. Again, of course, much depends on how one chooses to define religion. If one makes the concept of a “personal God” central in the definition of religion, many forms of mystical experience could not be considered religious. The phenomena of mystical experience, for example, may occur outside the framework of any formal religion, with no reference to any articulated theology.

The problem is by-passed or merely indicated, rather than solved, by broadening the definition of religion to include any experience which would qualify as mystical by our criteria. Tillich, for example, considers as religious an experience which gives ultimate meaning, structure, and aim to human experience or in which one is concerned ultimately.³ Wach gives a similar definition of religious experience as a total and intense existential response to what is experienced as Ultimate Reality (i.e., nothing finite) and adds the practical criterion that the experience must compel to action.⁴

Rather than attempting to define religion and religious experience in order to differentiate precisely the relationship between religious and mystical experience, we have indicated the nature of the problem and the error of loosely speaking of religious and mystical experience as if the two were always synonymous. Our attention will be focused upon the nature of the mystical experience, whether the experience be religious or not.

The Universality of the Characteristics of Mystical Experience

Many of the well-known commentators on and analysts of mystical experience have made the presupposition that there are certain fundamental characteristics of the experience itself which are universal and are not restricted to any particular religion or culture, although particular cultural, historical and religious conditions may influence both the understanding and the description of the essential mystical experience.

James lists four common or universal characteristics of mystical experience: (1) ineffability, or the feeling that the experience cannot adequately be expressed with words; (2) noetic quality, or the certainty that the knowledge gained as insight is true; (3) transiency, or the impermanence of the mystical state; (4) passivity, or the feeling that one is not acting but, rather, being acted upon.⁵ His examples range from persons with no particular religious allegiance to monks and nuns, but the cases in his series possess these common characteristics. Pratt provides a broad and universal definition of mysticism as a consciousness of a Beyond, or the sense or feeling of the presence of a being or reality, via other means than sense perception or reason.⁶ He distinguishes between mild and extreme types. The mild is characterised by (1) ineffability, (2) noetic certainty, especially of the presence of the Beyond, and (3) joy and calm.⁷ The extreme type is exemplified by the unitive state of ecstasy which includes the phenomena of (1) suddenness, (2) passivity, (3) loss of sense impressions of the outside world, (4) noetic insight or knowledge or acquaintance which combines feeling and cognitive intuition, (5) ineffability, (6) immediate intuition of the Beyond, or God’s presence, and (7) intense, ecstatic joy and love.⁸ He takes his examples from both Eastern and Western sources.

Bucke has collected cases from various times and cultures with the following universal criteria of “cosmic consciousness”: (1) suddenness or instantaneousness, (2) photism or subjective light, (3) moral elevation with an emotion of joy, assurance, and triumph, (4) ineffable intellectual illumination, (5) sense of immortality, (6) loss of the fear of death, (7) loss of the sense of sin, (8) usual occurrence between the ages of 30-40, and (9) added charm to the personality after the experience.⁹

Underhill gives four universal tests which must be satisfied by any example of true mysticism and which penetrate behind the particular descriptive symbolism employed.¹⁰ For her mysticism must: (1) be an organic life-process in which the whole self is involved in an active, practical, and intense experience (this in contrast to an intellectual opinion which can be merely passive and theoretical), (2) have a wholly transcendental and spiritual aim (i.e., the mystic is interested in a realm of ultimate reality; the changeless One beyond ordinary, everyday reality); (3) know this One not merely as the Reality of all that is, but also as a living personal object of Love which draws one’s whole being under the guidance of the heart,love is defined as the driving power and deep-seated desire of the soul toward its Source and is “the ultimate expression of the self’s most vital tendencies”;¹¹ (4) have a Living Union with this One involving the liberation of a new, or rather latent, form of consciousness which is called “ecstasy” or better, the Unitive State.

Clark also makes the assumption that there are universal characteristics of the mystical state of consciousness. He lists and comments upon those mentioned by James and Underhill and adds (1) that “the language of mysticism makes extensive use of figures of speech and paradox,”¹² (2) that the mystics “regard what the ordinary man considers the Real as the Unreal, and what the ordinary person considers the Unreal as the Real”¹³ and (3) that the mystic has a “tendency toward extravagance in behavior” which expresses his “desire for integration of the psychic life.”¹⁴

Johnson universally defines mystical experience as the state of illumination in which the sense of separateness, of individuality, is to a great degree lost and which has positive significance, value, and certainty for the experiencer.¹⁵ Such experiences are divided into the slighter and the more profound types. He finds the following four common features of the slighter types:

(a) The illumination or radiance which is seen to infuse everything ‘without’ is felt to come from ‘within.’ (b) The sense of belonging to a new and greater unity is always felt. That which is seen forms a part of a larger whole. (c) The emotional tones are always supremely attractive: pulsing light, livingness, joy, peace, happy wonder. Through them, and interwoven, is an enormously enhanced sense of the supreme values, and the most adequate description usually seems to the experiencer to be a ‘revelation of God.’ (d) Words fail to express the experience, and the terms used are known to be only symbols and analogies.¹⁶

He lists the universal features of the more profound type in two groups:

1. Those who have had the more profound type of mystical experiences, no matter in what age or to what race or creed they have belonged, tell us the fundamental things: the sense of separateness vanishes into an all-embracing unity, there is certain knowledge of immortality, there is an enormously enhanced appreciation of values, and there is knowledge that at the heart of the universe is Joy and Beauty. This unanimity of testimony is quite remarkable.

2. Those who have known such an experience are always profoundly impressed by its significance as a revelation of truth. There is from then onwards, not the satisfaction of an intellectual answer to life’s ultimate questions, but a serenity born of the knowledge that all is well, and that the secret purpose of the universe is good beyond all telling.¹⁷

Johnson quotes experiences which are described in traditional religious language as well as those which do not mention orthodox religious symbols yet still have the universal phenomenology covered by his description.

Walker considers the mystical consciousness a state of Universal Consciousness which is a higher level than the usual self-consciousness of everyday existence. Characteristics include an intuitive, experiential realization that “the small individual self has always been a part of the great Universal Self,” a “melting away of the individual ‘self’ into ‘boundless being'”¹⁸ and “a world completely outside of time.”¹⁹ His chief examples are Edward Carpenter, Wordsworth, Sri Aurobindo, R. M. Bucke, Jacob Boehme, H. G. Wells, Plotinus, Meister Eckhart, and his own personal experience. His quote from Ouspensky demonstrates his own presupposition and that of the other writers mentioned above:

If we follow neither the religious nor the scientific views, but try to compare descriptions of the mystical experiences of people of entirely different races, of different periods and of different religions, we shall find a striking resemblance amongst these descriptions, which can in no case be explained by similarity of preparation, or by any resemblances in ways of thinking and feeling. In mystical states, utterly different people, in utterly different conditions, learn one and the same thing, and what is still more striking, in mystical states there is no difference of religion. All the experiences are absolutely identical: the differences can be only in the language and in the form of discipline.²⁰

Although Suzuki does not make the claim that the satori experience is the same as other mystical states of consciousness, his description has many of the same universal characteristics given by other writers on mysticism: (1) irrationality which defies intellectualization, conceptualization, or logical explanation, (2) intuitive insight, (3) authoritativeness or finality, (4) affirmation or positive acceptance of all things that exist, (5) sense of the beyond or a melting away into something indescribable and of quite a different order than that to which one is accustomed, (6) impersonal tone, (7) feeling of exaltation, (8) momentariness,abruptness and transitoriness.²¹

W. T. Stace in Mysticism and Philosophy has surveyed the mystical literature to make his case for the universality of the basic phenomena of mystical experience. He has given examples from the writings of those who have personally experienced mystical states of consciousness to support what he calls the universal core of mystical experience. He has distinguished between introvertive and extrovertive types which both “culminate in perception of, and union with, a Unity or One though this end is reached through different means in the two cases.”²² He has listed seven characteristics of each type but five of the seven are the same. These five common elements are:

Sense of objectivity or reality, (comparable to James’ noetic quality which leads to certainty of the objective reality of what is learned in the experience).

Feelings of blessedness, joy, peace, happiness, satisfaction, etc.

Feeling that what is apprehended is holy, divine, and sacred.

Paradoxicality.

Alleged by mystics to be ineffable.²³

The introvertive type as the name suggests is inner-directed and its essence is the experience of undifferentiated unity which is “…the Unitary Consciousness, from which all the multiplicity of sensuous or conceptual or other empirical content has been excluded, so that there remains only a void and empty unity.”²⁴ The Unitary Consciousness is by definition nonspatial and nontemporal. The extrovertive type is outer-directed and is experienced through the physical senses in or through the multiplicity of objects. The essential characteristic for this type is “…the unifying vision expressed abstractly by the formula ‘All is One.'” The One is apprehended “…as being an inner subjectivity in all things, described variously as life, or consciousness, or a living Presence.”²⁵ Spatiality is paradoxically preserved, but the normal sense of time may be lost.

The extrovertive and introvertive are not mutually exclusive and may occur in the same mystic.²⁶ Stace shows how Meister Eckhart is an example of this.²⁷ Brinton’s study of Jacob Boehme supports Stace’s point. Boehme harmonized the in-going and out-going wills by going from one goal to the other and back in a kind of dynamic equilibrium.²⁸ Stace maintains that although the extrovertive and the introvertive One are experienced in different ways, they are identical.²⁹

Primary Experience versus Interpretation

After a general discussion of the problem of the universal core Stace quotes the writings of representative mystics from a wide variety of cultures to substantiate the extrovertive and introvertive types and each of the common characteristics. He always tries to reach behind individual interpretations which he feels are conditioned by various theological and intellectual frames of reference, to the raw experience itself. Again and again he emphasizes his distinction between primary phenomenology and interpretations conditioned by culture. He feels that his characteristics of the universal core are the basic phenomenology of mystical experience stripped bare of interpretation.³⁰

Stace’s distinction between the primary experience and the interpretation is either stated or implied by other writers who attempt to abstract general characteristics of the mystical experience from the phenomenological accounts thereof. Some examples are as follows:

Such symbolism as this,a living symbolism of experience and action, as well as of statement,seems almost essential to mystical expression. The mind must employ some device of the kind if its transcendental perceptions,wholly unrelated as they are to the phenomena with which intellect is able to deal,are ever to be grasped by the surface consciousness. Sometimes the symbol and the perception which it represents become fused in that consciousness, and the mystic’s experience then presents itself to him as ‘visions’ or ‘voices’ which we must look upon as the garment he has himself provided to veil that Reality upon which no man may look and live. The nature of this garment will be largely conditioned by his temperament,as in Rolle’s evident bias toward music, St. Catherine of Genoa’s leaning toward the abstract conceptions of fire and light,and also by his theological education and environment. Cases in point are the highly dogmatic visions and auditions of St. Gertrude, Suso, St. Catherine of Siena, the Blessed Angela of Foligno; above all of St. Teresa, whose marvellous self-analyses provide the classic account of these attempts of the mind to translate transcendental intuitions into concepts with which it can deal. (underlinings mine)³¹

We must, however, be careful to distinguish between the content of the intuition which takes place during the ecstasy, and the truths which the mystic comes to believe as a result of reflecting upon his experience.³²

I recognize the fact that those who have enjoyed mystical experiences are likely to describe them afterwards in terms of their own religion, and that this entails their making use of the terminology and the beliefs of the religion in which they happen to have been brought up.³³

This mystical experience, in its essential aspects as experience, is pretty much the same through the centuries and in all lands. What accounts for the historical types is, therefore, not the nature o … [OUTPUT TRUNCATED – 454 chars omitted out of 50454 total] … marriage or unitive life.¹⁴⁹

The categories in the above typology allow for a difference in intensity or level within the mystical experience. The question arises as to when an experience ceases to be defined as mystical. Stace has classified experiences which do not have all the core characteristics of either the introvertive or extrovertive types as atypical or borderline.¹⁵⁰ Laski in her study of what she calls transcendent ecstasy includes aesthetic experiences in art, poetry, music, drama, and nature; creative experiences in writing or scientific work; and certain sexual and childbirth experiences as well as the commonly termed religious or mystical experiences. Some of her criteria are the same as our categories, but the breadth of her characteristics leads her to include experiences in which all our categories would not be represented.¹⁵¹ Such experiences would be called more or less atypical or borderline by our definition unless some essential characteristics from all of our categories were present. Some categories have a variety of phenomena which are an expression of the same universal characteristics. Not all the phenomena of each category need be experienced for the category to be counted positively in the evaluation of a particular experience (e.g., all the various elements of deeply positive mood or changes in attitude and behavior). What is experienced, however, should occur to a strong or adequate degree to qualify that particular category when the completeness of the mystical typology as a whole is judged.

The category of unity is the most important, and if either external or internal unity is experienced, characteristics from the other categories are likely to be experienced also.¹⁵² If neither internal nor external unity is complete, unity has not been truly experienced. Even if all the other categories are represented, such an experience must be considered as close to, but not strictly the same as the most complete mystical experience by our definition. In such a case, the total experience would be classified as incomplete, although more complete than atypical or borderline.

All the phenomena which resemble and include mystical experience can be placed on a continuum from dim aesthetic feelings in nature and the arts through experiences considered as atypical or borderline to the complete extrovertive type and finally to the most profound introvertive experience with the strongest presence of characteristics in each of our categories.¹⁵³¹⁵⁴ The ideal example of the most complete mystical state would be an experience in which all categories were experienced to the strongest or most complete degree. With the suggested continuum in mind, this categorization of mystical states of consciousness can now be used to evaluate drug experiences and determine where on the continuum, if at all, they fit.

Notes

¹ William James reflects this attitude by his preference for religion which is an “acute fever” rather than a “dull habit” (op. cit., p. 8).

² J. B. Pratt, The Religious Consciousness, A Psychological Study (New York: Macmillan, 1921), p. 14. Compare a similar discussion of the elements of religion by R. H. Thouless, An Introduction to the Psychology of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), pp. 12-15. Pratt includes all four divisions in his definition of religion, which is as follows, “the serious and social attitude of individuals or communities toward the Power or powers which they conceive as having ultimate control over their interests or destinies” (op. cit., p. 2). Note Thouless’s similar definition of religion: “a felt practical relationship with what is believed in as a superhuman being or beings” which are “felt to be greater than man or may be looked up to by him” (op. cit., p. 3).

³ Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), Vol. I, pp. 11-14. It is Tillich’s opinion that what is truly ultimate can be best symbolized by Jesus who is called the Christ, in Christian theology (pp. 15-18).

⁴ Joachim Wach, The Comparative Study of Religions (Columbia Paperback Edition; New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), pp. 30-36. See also his important work, Types of Religious Experience, Christian and Non-Christian (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1951), pp. 32-33.

⁵ James, op. cit., pp. 371-372.

⁶ Pratt, op. cit., pp. 337-341.

⁷ Ibid., pp. 346-362.

⁸ Ibid., pp. 394-429.

⁹ R. M. Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind (Philadelphia: Innes & Sons, 1901), pp. 60-62.

¹⁰ E. Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness (New York: Meridian, 1955), pp. 81-94.

¹¹ Ibid., p. 85.

¹² W. H. Clark, The Psychology of Religion: An Introduction to Religious Experience and Behavior (New York: Macmillan, 1958), pp. 81-94.

¹³ Ibid., p. 273.

¹⁴ Ibid., pp. 274-275.

¹⁵ R. C. Johnson, The Imprisoned Splendour: An Approach to Reality, based upon the significance of data drawn from the fields of Natural Science, Psychical Research and Mystical Experience (New York: Harper, 1953), pp. 300-302.

¹⁶ Ibid., pp. 325-326.

¹⁷ Ibid., pp. 331-332.

¹⁸ Walker, op. cit., p. 40.

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 41.

²⁰ Ibid., pp. 92-93, quoting from P. D. Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1937), p. 51.

²¹ D. T. Suzuki, Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D. T. Suzuki, ed. William Barrett (Doubleday Anchor Edition; Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1956), pp. 103-108.

²² Stace, op. cit., p. 62.

²³ Ibid., pp. 131-132.

²⁴ Ibid., p. 110.

²⁵ Ibid., p. 79.

²⁶ Ibid., pp. 63-65.

²⁷ Ibid., pp. 98-99.

²⁸ H. H. Brinton, The Mystic Will: Based on a Study of the Philosophy of Jacob Boehme (New York: Macmillan, 1930), p. 21.

²⁹ Ibid., p. 152, 273-274.

³⁰ See especially pp. 62-133, 153-182.

³¹ Underhill, op. cit., pp. 78-79. See also her Essentials of Mysticism (Dutton Everyman Paperback Edition; New York: E. P. Dutton, 1960), pp. 4, 18-19.

³² Pratt, op. cit., p. 407.

³³ Walker, op. cit., pp. 156-157.

³⁴ Rufus Jones, The Radiant Life (New York: Macmillan, 1944), p. 100.

³⁵ James, op. cit., pp. 416-417.

³⁶ Suzuki, op. cit., p. 106.

³⁷ R. Otto, Mysticism East and West, A Comparative Analysis of the Nature of Mysticism (Living Age Edition; New York: Meridian, 1957), p. 139. See also pp. 162, 165, 168, 206.

³⁸ Ibid., pp. 38-69.

³⁹ Ibid., pp. 103-136.

⁴⁰ Ibid., p. xvi.

⁴¹ Ibid., pp. 38-69.

⁴² Ibid., p. 166.

⁴³ Ibid., pp. 35-37.

⁴⁴ Ibid., pp. 103-136.

⁴⁵ Ibid., pp. 181-182.

⁴⁶ R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the non-rational factor in the idea of the divine and its relation to the rational (Galaxy Edition; New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 21-22.

⁴⁷ Ibid., p. 21.

⁴⁸ Ibid., p. 22.

⁴⁹ The first part of the final chapter gives a clear statement of his position (op. cit., pp. 198-199).

⁵⁰ Ibid., p. 182.

⁵¹ Ibid., pp. 28-29.

⁵² Ibid., p. xii.

⁵³ Ibid., p. 200.

⁵⁴ Stace, op. cit., p. 152.

⁵⁵ Ibid., p. 97 (footnote 44).

⁵⁶ Internal and external unity correspond to Stace’s introvertive unitary consciousness and extrovertive unifying vision, respectively (op. cit., pp. 63-133).

⁵⁷ Stace, op. cit., pp. 86-87.

⁵⁸ Ibid., pp. 111-123, 244.

⁵⁹ Ibid., p. 110.

⁶⁰ Ibid., pp. 244-245.

⁶¹ Ibid., pp. 163-178.

⁶² Ibid., p. 120.

⁶³ Ibid., pp. 123-127.

⁶⁴ Suzuki, op. cit., p. 105.

⁶⁵ Stace (op. cit., p. 119) cites this example which James (op. cit., p. 374) quoted from Tennyson’s letter to Mr. B. P. Blood (no reference given).

⁶⁶ A. Koestler, The Invisible Writing (New York: Macmillan, 1954), p. 352, quoted in Stace, op. cit., pp. 120-121.

⁶⁷ Stace, op. cit., p. 91, uses this example from James, op. cit., p. 376, who quotes it from H. F. Brown, J. A. Symonds, A Biography (London, 1895), pp. 29-31.

⁶⁸ Stace, op. cit., pp. 104-105, citing from Plotinus, Enneads (trans. by Stephen MacKenna; New York: Medici Society, n.d.), Enneads VI, IX, xi.

⁶⁹ Stace, op. cit., p. 120.

⁷⁰ Ibid., pp. 107-109.

⁷¹ Ibid., p. 113.

⁷² Ibid., p. 115. Stace uses as his authority, R. A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism (London, n.d.), p. 66.

⁷³ Stace, op. cit., p. 114.

⁷⁴ Ibid., pp. 157-158.

⁷⁵ Martin Buber, Between Man and Man (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1947), pp. 24-25, cited by Stace, op. cit., p. 155.

⁷⁶ Stace, op. cit., pp. 156-157, quoting from Buber, op. cit., pp. 24-25.

⁷⁷ Stace, op. cit., pp. 299-301.

⁷⁸ Rufus Jones, The Inner Life (New York: Macmillan, 1916), p. 185.

⁷⁹ Underhill, Mysticism, p. 367.

⁸⁰ Ibid., p. 373.

⁸¹ Pratt, op. cit., pp. 396-417.

⁸² Johnson, op. cit., pp. 331-332.

⁸³ Walker, op. cit., p. 40.

⁸⁴ Stace, op. cit., pp. 119-123.

⁸⁵ Pratt, op. cit., pp. 337-341, 412-413.

⁸⁶ Clark, op. cit., p. 263.

⁸⁷ James, op. cit., pp. 498-499.

⁸⁸ Stace, op. cit., pp. 64-65.

⁸⁹ Ibid., pp. 69-70.

⁹⁰ Walker, in describing the level of Universal Consciousness experienced by Edward Carpenter, states: “…we lose the customary feeling of existing as separate individuals and find ourselves, instead, a part of everything else…the subject and object coalesce and become one.” (op. cit., p. 39.) Johnson phrases the same thought as “The sense that all the visible, tangible world is a part of a larger whole and is apprehended as having an underlying unity…” (op. cit., p. 326.)

⁹¹ Stace, op. cit., p. 78. Bucke also describes such living presence in his own experience of cosmic consciousness (op. cit., p. 8).

⁹² Stace, op. cit., pp. 64-65.

⁹³ Underhill, Mysticism, pp. 254-265.

⁹⁴ Stace, op. cit., pp. 152, 273-274.

⁹⁵ Walker in describing the experience of Universal Consciousness says: “…the words ‘before’ and ‘after’ seem to have lost all their former meaning for us, so that we appear to have been transported to a world completely outside of time.” (op. cit., p. 41.)

⁹⁶ Stace, op. cit., p. 68. Pratt, op. cit., pp. 351-352.

⁹⁷ Underhill, Mysticism, p. 366.

⁹⁸ Laski, op. cit., pp. 85-86.

⁹⁹ “This is the condition that I call the ‘ecstatic afterglow’ when, with returning consciousness, the realization, appreciation, and interpretation of the experience begins.” Laski feels that especially calm, stillness, peace, and sense of well-being are likely to carry over into an “ecstatic afterglow.” (Ibid., pp. 85-86.)

¹⁰⁰ Stace does not include love as one of the “universal core” characteristics (op. cit., pp. 68). Pratt suggests that the more personal that God is to the mystic, the more the sentiment of personal love is aroused (op. cit., p. 345). The very mention of “God” is for Stace already an interpretation rather than a description of the basic psychological experience.

¹⁰¹ Underhill, Mysticism, pp. 425-428.

¹⁰² Stace, op. cit., pp. 101-105.

¹⁰³ Stace, op. cit., p. 341.

¹⁰⁴ New Studies in Mystical Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1927), pp. 31-32.

¹⁰⁵ Otto, Idea of the Holy, pp. 13-46.

¹⁰⁶ Stace, op. cit., p. 79.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid., p. 250.

¹⁰⁸ Pratt, op. cit., pp. 356-357, 416-418.

¹⁰⁹ Stace, op. cit., p. 79.

¹¹⁰ Otto, op. cit., pp. 10-11.

¹¹¹ Bucke describes such intellectual illumination in his definition of cosmic consciousness: “Like a flash there is presented to his consciousness a clear conception (a vision) in outline of the meaning and drift of the universe…The person who passes through this experience will learn in the few minutes, or even moments, of its continuance more than in months or years of study, and he will learn much that no study ever taught or can teach. Especially does he obtain such a conception of THE WHOLE, or at least of an immense WHOLE, as dwarfs all conception, imagination or speculation, springing from and belonging to ordinary self consciousness, such a conception as makes the old attempts to mentally grasp the universe and its meaning petty and even ridiculous.” (Op. cit., p. 61.) Similar is his description of his own experience: “…it was impossible for him ever to forget what he at that time saw and knew, neither did he, or could he, ever doubt the truth of what was then presented to his mind.” (Ibid., p. 3.)

¹¹² James, op. cit., pp. 371-372.

¹¹³ Pratt, op. cit., p. 411.

¹¹⁴ Mysticism, pp. 375, 378.

¹¹⁵ “There is no certitude to equal the mystic’s certitude.” (Underhill, Mysticism, p. 331.)

¹¹⁶ “…the mystic feels as if his own will were in abeyance, and indeed sometimes as if he were grasped and held by a superior power.” (James, op. cit., p. 372.)

¹¹⁷ Pratt, op. cit., pp. 347-48, 400-402.

¹¹⁸ Stace, op. cit., pp. 67-68, 134-206.

¹¹⁹ James, op. cit., pp. 408-412. Suzuki feels that persons who experience satori “are always at a loss to explain it coherently or logically.” (op. cit., p. 103.) Stace argues that mystical paradoxes are meant to be true paradoxes (i.e., both sides although contradictory are really true descriptions by those who reported what they actually experienced and are not due to confusion or unclearness (op. cit., pp. 257-276). The extensive use of figures of speech and paradox is one of Clark’s characteristics of the mystical experience (op. cit., pp. 273-74). Stace would agree but would insist that much of what might at first be thought to be figure of speech or metaphor is in fact true description which is by nature paradoxical (op. cit., pp. 299-303). This point is discussed further in the next section.

¹²⁰ Stace maintains that this paradox of identity in difference gives rise to pantheistic philosophical interpretations of mysticism. For example, the contradictory propositions that the world is identical with God and that the world is distinct from God are both asserted to be true (op. cit., pp. 212-218ff).

¹²¹ James, op. cit., p. 371; Pratt, op. cit., pp. 346-347, 476; Johnson, op. cit., p. 325; Suzuki, op. cit., p. 103.

¹²² Stace, op. cit., p. 297.

¹²³ Ibid., pp. 281-283; Pratt, op. cit., p. 410.

¹²⁴ Stace, op. cit., p. 298.

¹²⁵ Ibid., p. 283.

¹²⁶ Ibid., pp. 304-306.

¹²⁷ Underhill, Mysticism, pp. 331-32. Suzuki uses the term “irrational” to cover both categories (op. cit., p. 103).

¹²⁸ Stace, op. cit., pp. 281-283.

¹²⁹ Laski, op. cit., pp. 60-66. James, p. 372.

¹³⁰ See Underhill’s discussion of the “unitive life” (Mysticism, pp. 413-444) or Pratt’s chapter on “The Mystic Life” (op. cit., pp. 430-441).

¹³¹ Pratt speaks of the rhythm between contemplation and activity (ibid., p. 433).

¹³² Underhill states that “the greatest of the contemplatives have been unable to sustain the brilliance of this awful vision for more than a little while.” (Mysticism, p. 331.)

¹³³ C. Butler in his Western Mysticism (Grey Arrow Edition; London: Arrow Books, 1960) includes transiency as a characteristic in his description of mysticism and gives specific examples from the writings of St. Augustine (pp. 165-167), St. Gregory the Great (pp. 140-141), and St. Bernard of Clairvaux (pp. 165-167).

¹³⁴ For example, Jacob Boehme’s experiences as related in Brinton’s biographical chapter were temporary although the impact and insight gained were so great as to have a lasting influence on his life (Howard H. Brinton, The Mystic Will [New York: Macmillan, 1930], pp. 47-52). Bucke’s own experience of cosmic consciousness happened only once. “The illumination itself continued not more than a few moments, but its effects proved ineffaceable…There was no return that night or at any other time of the experience.” (Op. cit., pp. 7-8.)

¹³⁵ Op. cit., p. 108.

¹³⁶ Johnson, op. cit., p. 332. Clark, op. cit., pp. 274-275.

¹³⁷ Compare this necessity for action to Wach’s fourth universal characteristic of genuine religious experience,that it results in action. He distinguishes, however, the “right” action from any action. (Wach, Comparative Study of Religions, pp. 36-37.)

¹³⁸ James uses such a pragmatic approach as a guide in evaluating all kinds of religious experience (op. cit., pp. 21-22, 321). Pratt also judges the value for life by the practical fruits (op. cit., pp. 466-477). Zaehner points to Ruysbroeck’s condemnation of quietism on the basis of what it produced (Mysticism, Sacred and Profane, pp. 173-174).

¹³⁹ H. N. Wieman and R. Westcott-Wieman, Normative Psychology of Religion (New York: Crowell, 1935), pp. 186-188.

¹⁴⁰ Such positive changes toward self are emphasized in discussions by Jones, the Wiemans, and Underhill. R. Jones especially notes the optimistic tone and heightened dynamic quality in the life of a person who has been opened to the utilization of resources of vital energy through transcendent experience (The Inner Life, pp. 171, 180). The Wiemans give a balanced presentation of both the potential evils and values of mystical experience (op. cit., pp. 186-91). Underhill is one of the most enthusiastic describers of the life-enhancing power of mysticism (Mysticism, pp. 413-446; Essentials of Mysticism, pp. 12-14).

¹⁴¹ Underhill, Mysticism, p. 437.

¹⁴² Clark stresses extravagance in behavior (i.e., acting in an imprudent way for self-benefit) as a characteristic effect of mystical experience (op. cit., pp. 274-275).

¹⁴³ Wieman and Westcott-Wieman, op. cit., pp. 190-191. Walker, op. cit., p. 156.

¹⁴⁴ Johnson, op. cit., p. 332.

¹⁴⁵ Stace, op. cit., pp. 339-340.

¹⁴⁶ Pratt, op. cit., pp. 338-339.

¹⁴⁷ Johnson, op. cit., pp. 301-318.

¹⁴⁸ Stace, op. cit., p. 132.

¹⁴⁹ R. H. Thouless, An Introduction to the Psychology of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), pp. 228-233. Underhill, Mysticism, pp. 167-443.

¹⁵⁰ Stace, op. cit., pp. 81-84.

¹⁵¹ See especially her Appendix D for a summary of her characteristics (op. cit., pp. 482-495).

¹⁵² Stace, op. cit., pp. 67, 83, 110, 132-133.

¹⁵³ The phenomena of visual and auditory hallucinations, trances, involuntary vocal utterances, and/or automatic writing have not been included in the universal characteristics of the mystical state of consciousness. None of these phenomena are universal or necessary although they may be present along with mystical experience, but their varying content and presence are determined by the culture and temperament of the individual. (Ibid., pp. 47-55.)

¹⁵⁴ Ibid., pp. 80-81.