Natural mysticism.

The trouble with mysticism is that it has been hijacked by supernaturalists – people who believe in non-natural entities such as deities and angels. My question is whether mysticism is necessarily defined by its supernatural content, or whether a natural mysticism is possible.

The mystic sees deep meaning that is personally inspiring and transformational. They see the hidden, that which was previously a mystery. And they wonder why they did not understand it before. The language of mysticism is that of enlightenment – the light dawns, new insights are clearly visualised. When people believed in saints and angels, these might have been viewed as the messengers who sent the new knowledge.

The language of mysticism is that of vision, witnessing something meaningful in the mind. Today we emphasise imagination, that such mental scenarios are created in your imagination and not beamed in from outside. The same with dreams. The singer Christie Moore found an inner ‘meeting’ with his dead father, playing with him on the beach as a child, very helpful therapeutically, enabling him to talk out and think out some issues about how he had not coped with his father’s death. No one suggests that this was a real spirit meeting, that his father had, like the Biblical prophet Samuel, been summonded from death by a modern Witch of Endor. It was imagined, but not therefore ‘pretend’ and not unreal and unmeaningful.

Philip Wexler the Marxist, in Mystical Society (2000) talked about ‘reselfing’, and ‘revitalization’: “the reintegration of active, self-enhancing practices of transformation” (p75). There has been an emphasis in mysticism in seeing beyond ourselves to infinity, and it is important to transcend our own narrow boundaries. That process should not however produce empty individuals seeking for peak experiences like a drug, but people who have re-visioned, and reformulated their sense of who and what they are. In James Fowler’s scheme, the ultimate re-visioned self is the compassionate ‘world soul’, the highest level of spiritual development.

In supporting the learning and development of children, the question ‘Who and what am I, and can I become?’ is top of the agenda. They have many pressures to defend themselves from, and this could well be their most important strategy.