Mystical experience which is deliberately intended, rather than spontaneous, is usually attained through the practice of spiritual exercises, taking the form of meditation and yoga, as in Buddhist and Hindu traditions, certain forms of Christian prayer, dancing in Sufism, or even the repetition of the mystic’s own name, as the nineteenth century English poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson found:
"I have never had any revelations through anaesthetics, but a kind of waking trance—this for lack of a better word—I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood, when I have been all alone. This has come upon me through repeating my own name to myself silently, till all at once, as it were out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused state but the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond words—where death was an almost laughable impossibility—the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction, but the only true life."[17]
The intuitive inventiveness Tennyson describes is not unusual amongst mystics who are independent of organised disciplines. But most descriptions of mystical technique are more likely to follow the proven formula of a tradition. These proven formulas often have common elements: that is, the novice mystic should follow a lifestyle committed to humility (transcendence of the status quest) and, following the example of celebrated mystic role models, usually be celibate as well (detachment from fertility). Once the novice has correctly arranged their lifestyle, which might require residence in a monastery, convent or spiritual community, mental exercises are then learned and practised, usually using a combination of techniques. Variations of Tennyson’s name repetition are often found as components under the name of ‘mantra’ or ‘prayer’.
Meditation, in one form or another, is usually the centre-piece of mystical practice. The essential component of all meditative practice is for the practitioner to develop an ability to observe their own flow of thoughts. This involves the establishment of an aspect of identity that looks inward, and relates to mental phenomena, and is distinguished from self-identity by being its observer. This deliberate effort to consciously observe the mental activity of the self, rather than to participate in existence through the expression of self-identity, can produce an effect in which the person’s mind is split so that consciousness is catapulted in a trajectory above and beyond the existential anxieties of self consciousness.
Different experiences of transcendence have a number of common components. The most notable of these involve emotional perceptions—the transcendence of fear and the experience of love—and non-sensory communications, perceived directly in the mind as voices or visions.
"Imaginary visions may appear with the intensity of actual sensations . . . It is as if the images and symbols normally restricted to the unconscious are released when the mind first penetrates into the unknown depths of itself . . . The mystical vision structures this ‘unconscious’ material according to its own intentionality."[18]
It is not normal for mystics to refer to these thought patterns as hallucinations, though clearly this is the psychological terminology that most appropriately describes them. The term ‘hallucination’, as has already been discussed in the description of the medical model, was given its special psychiatric meaning about the middle of the nineteenth century. Mystics are generally inclined to perceive and describe their experiences in terms of the particular discipline in which they have trained, and many of these predate the nineteenth century by a considerable margin.
Academic analysts have some difficulty in finding the right terms by which to describe the voices and visions of mystics: ‘intellectual visions are not visions proper, since they do not consist of perceptions or images. Nor are they intellectual in the ordinary sense, since they are entirely nondiscursive and contribute nothing to the subject’s "understanding" of himself and his world. Nevertheless, their main impact is one of insight and even of all-surpassing insight.’[19]
Some analysts deal with the problem by focussing on the emotional aspects of mystical experience, and the ‘consciousness of close communion with God’ is presented as being the primary aspect of mystical experience. Seemingly hallucinatory experience is relegated to a secondary role of lesser importance:
"Among these symbols we must reckon a large number of the secondary phenomena of mysticism: divine visions and voices, and other dramatisations of the self’s apprehensions and desires. The best mystics have always recognised the doubtful nature of these so-called divine revelations and favours, and have tried again and again to set up tests for discerning those which really ‘come from God’ i.e. mediate a valid spiritual experience."[20]
However, some of the ‘best mystics’, that is, those whose mystical experiences have been incorporated into the lore of mainstream religions, have been unequivocal about the significance of their voices and visions. John of Ephesus, for instance, the author of the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, relates how he was on the Isle of Patmos and,
"was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last’, and ‘What thou seest, write in a book ‘And I turned to see the voice that spoke to me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle." [21]
Mohammed, the founder of the Islamic religion, is reported by Moslem writers to have spent many years in contemplation before a mystical experience gave him the necessary insights to launch a major religion. He saw a vision of the angel Gabriel, who asked Mohammed to read instructions written on cloth:
"He was passing the month of Ramadan in the cavern of Mount Hara, endeavouring by fasting, prayer and solitary meditation to elevate his thoughts to the contemplation of divine truth. As Mohammed lay wrapped in his mantle he heard a voice calling upon him. Uncovering his head a flood of light broke upon him in such intolerable splendour that he swooned. On regaining his senses he beheld an angel in human form, which, approaching from a distance, displayed a silken cloth covered with written characters."[22]
Moses’ inspiration to lead the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt came from a mystical encounter with God as he tended his flock of sheep in the desert:
"he came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, ‘I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.’ And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the midst of the bush, and said, ‘Moses, Moses’."[23]
Moses’ ‘hallucinations’ covered a considerable range in this encounter with God. He was given a messianic mission, and as evidence that he would have the persuasive power necessary to fulfil the role he was led to believe he had a magical ability to turn his rod into a snake and to induce the symptoms of leprosy by putting ‘his arm into his bosom’.[24]
The New Testament provides ample evidence that the ‘best mystics’ are not immune to encountering visions and voices in their mystical experiences. John the Baptist had been instructed by a mystical presence to baptise people in the River Jordan and to persevere in this task until he encountered a person ‘upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending’[25]
"And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptised of John in Jordan. And straight away coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the spirit like a dove descending upon him: and there came a voice from heaven, saying, ‘Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’"[26]
George Fox, the founder of the Quaker religion, left a journal with many accounts of his mystical experiences, some of which involved visions and voices. He relates how, on one occasion, he separated from friends to pay a solitary visit to the city of Lichfield in England.
"I was commanded by the Lord to pull off my shoes. I stood still for it was winter: but the word of the Lord was like a fire in me. So I put off my shoes and left them with the shepherds; and the poor shepherds trembled, and were astonished. Then I walked on about a mile, and as soon as I got within the city, the word of the Lord came to me again, saying: Cry, ‘Wo to the bloody city of Lichfield!’ So I went up and down the streets, crying with a loud voice, Wo to the bloody city of Lichfield! It being market day, I went into the market-place, and to and fro in the several parts of it, and made stands, crying as before, Wo to the bloody city of Lichfield! And no one laid hands on me. As I went thus crying through the streets, there seemed to me to be a channel of blood running down the streets, and the market-place appeared like a pool of blood."[27]
In The Varieties of Religious Experience William James shows considerable respect for George Fox’s mystical accomplishments and his contribution to religious understanding. James returns repeatedly to Fox’s journal to demonstrate finer points of religious understanding. By way of explaining Fox’s unusual behaviour in Lichfield, James writes:
No one can pretend for a moment that in point of spiritual sagacity and capacity, Fox’s mind was unsound. Everyone who confronted him personally, from Oliver Cromwell down to county magistrates and jailers, seems to have acknowledged his superior power. Yet from the point of view of his nervous constitution, Fox was a psychopath or détraqué of the deepest dye.[28]
James was a medical practitioner and a psychologist, and The Varieties of Religious Experience came out of a lecture series he gave at Edinburgh University in 1901–02. His assessment that Fox had soundness of mind in regard to spiritual judgement but that his nervous constitution, as indicated by the Lichfield behaviour, was psychopathic, supports the argument that mental health professionals are predisposed to label mystics with mental illnesses. In James’s case this is done in spite of the recognition given to the value of Fox’s mysticism. This raises the interesting question of whether James would have offered treatment to Fox, at the possible risk of undermining his mystical capacity, had the two men lived at the same time.
Next: Mysticism and Psychiatry
[17] Alfred Lord Tennyson, in a letter to Mr. B. P. Blood, quoted in William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 370.
[18] Louis Dupre, ‘The Mystical Experience of the Self and Its Philosophical Significance’, in Woods, op. cit., p. 457.
[19] Ibid., p. 458.
[20] Evelyn Underhill, ‘The Essentials of Mysticism’, in Woods, op. cit., p. 38.
[21] ‘The Revelation of Jesus Christ’, in Ernest Sutherland Bates, ed., The Bible Designed To Be Read As Literature, p. 1198.
[22] Washington Irving, Life of Mohammed, Bell and Daldy, London 1869, quoted in Richard Maurice Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness, p. 126.
[23] The Book of Exodus, in Bates, op. cit., p. 82.
[24] Ibid., p. 83.
[25] The Gospel according to John, in Bates, op. cit., p. 1008.
[26] The Gospel according to Mark, in Bates, op. cit., p. 902.
[27] George Fox, ‘Journal’, quoted in James, op. cit., pp. 30–1.
[28] James, op. cit., p. 30.