Practical Mysticism?

[Jillyn'Toast]

I'm not sure if this goes here, but it seems like unorthodox theology to me.

I was at an International House of Prayer conference this week. There were many things that I was surprised by, and a few things I enjoyed. IHOP came highly recommended by a christian I respect, and so I was genuinely shocked when the speakers and worship leaders made God out to be a mystical, hidden, generalized, impersonal being. They claimed worship was a ladder from heaven to earth and angels ascend from heaven and are around us when we worship. It seemed to focus our worship on the presence of angels, a physical encounter with God and an attack on demons. I personally think that this is not the purpose of worship whatsoever. I also believe worship is more than singing songs and jumping around. So I visited their bookstore and found they were selling books on practical mysticism, this didn't surprise me after 3 days of hearing them talk.

I wondered if anyone had heard of churches being mystical on purpose. This is new to me and I don't want to be completely critical if there are some good points to it. I did not see anything beneficial in it, but I also didn't see them do anything wrong or bad. Just mystical.

Any thoughts?

[TuckEverlasting]

Maybe you could tell us what 'practical mysticism' is? :huh: I've never heard tell of it.

[technomage]

We have our equivalent in the various Wiccan traditions. Oh, that doesn't mean that I'm against mysticism--far from it--but there are plenty of people running around who are, to put it bluntly, too heavenly minded for any worldly good.

I'm frankly of the opinion that there's nothing wrong with Christian mysticism, provided that the mystic in question is not straying over into occultic practices, and that his practices actually benefit his Christian walk. If one has a mystical experience that allows them to love God, and to love their neighbor, to a greater degree than they were able to do before, then I'm all for it. But if it becomes a distraction from God, or interferes with love of one's neighbor, then it's not a good thing.

Of course, that's also the basic answer that I give to my students.

[Jillyn'Toast]

Maybe you could tell us what 'practical mysticism' is? :huh: I've never heard tell of it.

Well, in my understanding, mysticism is the belief that experiences with the supernatural beings (angels, God, demons, etc.) is how you gain knowledge and truth... Practical mysticism seems to be teaching that supernatural experience is the *only* way to gain knowledge. If you're not surrounded by angels and slaying demons, then you must not be doing something right. I guess it's a way to apply mysticism to the functions of the Church.

I didn't like it...

Justin, I think I agree with you... but I think this practical mysticism is going a bit far. It's not just a way to learn a few things, they're making it a way of life. They focussed everything on prophetic dreams and visions and the future. I think that interferes with how you live your life. If you're always concentrating on the future and things that are unseen, you won't be able to live your life in the present in things that are seen. I know the Bible says things unseen are eternal and to fix your eyes on him, but I think they took their teaching to an extreme. They had 7 year olds speaking that they had visions. Not that I don't think God can use children, but it seemed like a novelty act. The children had the lingo down, they know how to act when giving a prophesy, they knew when to hold out your voice and when to shout. It seemed like hype with no real purpose to life.

[spiritmech]

This sounds a lot like Gnosticism (that specific knowledge (in this case from angels) is the path to salvation). There are a lot of new-agey type strands floating around in Christianity, simply because people don't like to read the OT that much and assume the Israelites were new-agey type people.

SM

[technomage]

Hoo, boy! Yea, I've seen a few in Wicca like that ... and usually call it "the Witch-crap Tradition."

And yeah, I think you're right: it's a novelty, it attracts attention, and in Charismatic and Pentecostal churches that are more fixated on "Signs and Wonders" than grounded in your scriptures, it'll go over like wildfire. But if I were a betting man, I'd bet you a dollar to a stale doughnut that "hype with no real purpose" is as precise a definition as any.

Frankly, IMHO, it's a pride issue: Spiritual Gifts are supposed to come from God, but some folks aren't satisfied with that. They see the attention and adulation that those with Gifts sometimes get, and they say "Hey, if I have those gifts, I"ll get adulation, too." IMHO, that's why glossolalia is so popular in some Charismatic churches, and why things like the Brownsville "Laughing Revival" are so popular--instead of waiting for God to give a gift as he chooses, instead, these folks get to experience self-induced hysterics, and call it "The Spirit."

Justin

[ih8censorship]

maybey the mysticysm is like a cross-over from the "new age" movement. im sure you know people who go from catholic to protestant and they still hold some of their catholic doctrine that has no biblical basis. my mom is like that.

look up worship on dictionary.com. i see nothing about fighting off demons...

[shunyadragon]

We have our equivalent in the various Wiccan traditions. Oh, that doesn't mean that I'm against mysticism--far from it--but there are plenty of people running around who are, to put it bluntly, too heavenly minded for any worldly good.

I'm frankly of the opinion that there's nothing wrong with Christian mysticism, provided that the mystic in question is not straying over into occultic practices, and that his practices actually benefit his Christian walk. If one has a mystical experience that allows them to love God, and to love their neighbor, to a greater degree than they were able to do before, then I'm all for it. But if it becomes a distraction from God, or interferes with love of one's neighbor, then it's not a good thing.

Of course, that's also the basic answer that I give to my students.The comment 'straying over into occultic practices' is interesting, since this is something like the Jews say Christian Cult did when it broke away from Judaism.

I believed mysticism should be natural and not contrived. New churches and theologies pop up regularly trying to make the old dusty archeac ones relavent today, but the result is more of the same pilled higher and deeper. There are a lot of blind people wandering around trying to find the elephant.

Mysticism and practicality do not really fit together. Practically kills mysticism.

[Magdalenbrother]

I'm not sure if this goes here, but it seems like unorthodox theology to me.

I was at an International House of Prayer conference this week. There were many things that I was surprised by, and a few things I enjoyed. IHOP came highly recommended by a christian I respect, and so I was genuinely shocked when the speakers and worship leaders made God out to be a mystical, hidden, generalized, impersonal being. They claimed worship was a ladder from heaven to earth and angels ascend from heaven and are around us when we worship. It seemed to focus our worship on the presence of angels, a physical encounter with God and an attack on demons. I personally think that this is not the purpose of worship whatsoever. I also believe worship is more than singing songs and jumping around. So I visited their bookstore and found they were selling books on practical mysticism, this didn't surprise me after 3 days of hearing them talk.

I wondered if anyone had heard of churches being mystical on purpose. This is new to me and I don't want to be completely critical if there are some good points to it. I did not see anything beneficial in it, but I also didn't see them do anything wrong or bad. Just mystical.

Any thoughts?You should read Alan Watts' "Behold the Spirit: on the necessity of a mystical religion". Order it NOW on amazon.com. A true gem on "practical" Christian mysticism, with no New Age rubbish.

A mystical religion is a tautology. Any true religion must be mystical or it is completely fake. The fact that you are shocked by the very notion of a direct encounter with God or his messengers shows how corrupt mainstream Christianity has become.

Mystical religion in Christian garb has been taught by many in the Roman Catholic tradition. Let me just name here two French mystics: Brother Laurent de la Resurrection, an 18th century Carmelite and shoemaker, and Jean-Pierre de Caussade, a Jesuit, who also lived in the 18th century. He wrote a classic entitled Abandonment to Divine Providence, often quoted by Alan Watts.

Mysticism is exceedingly simple: it consists in paying disinterested, choiceless attention to the present moment, where God or Reality eternally is :smile: :smile: :smile: .

[Jillyn'Toast]

A mystical religion is a tautology. Any true religion must be mystical or it is completely fake. The fact that you are shocked by the very notion of a direct encounter with God or his messengers shows how corrupt mainstream Christianity has become.

I understand that religion has to have an element of mysticism, but it doesnt have to be it's complete focus (in my opinion). I was shocked because of how primary it was. I think it's very rare to have a physical encounter with God or angels or demons. And by physical I don't mean people who feel God leading them towards something. I'm referring to their teaching that while we pray angels should stand around us being in the room with us. I think theres no Biblical evidence for this and if thats what mainstream Christianity should be, then I would seriously reconsider my salvation. But I know Christianity is more than angels swirling around my head, and I wish Christians didn't have their heads in the clouds, so to speak.

[technomage]

A mystical religion is a tautology. Any true religion must be mystical or it is completely fake.
I'll agree with that ... up to a point. There has to be a balance between the mystical life and the material, and frankly, that balance is different for everyone. From the depths of my extensive ignorance (:smile:), I'd say that complete materialism and complete mysticism are both errors of extremism.

The fact that you are shocked by the very notion of a direct encounter with God or his messengers shows how corrupt mainstream Christianity has become.
Now, Magbro, that's not fair. Jill wasn't shocked at the concept of a "direct encounter with God or his messengers," she was skeptical that their methodology was genuine. Heck, I'm skeptical, too.

For my part, I'm realy leery of anyone who wants to sell me their knowledge. Part of my basic oaths as a Teacher is that what I know is not to be given for payment: I can teach for free, but I cannot, under any circumstances, charge for teaching.

Justin

[shunyadragon]

You should read Alan Watts' "Behold the Spirit: on the necessity of a mystical religion". Order it NOW on amazon.com. A true gem on "practical" Christian mysticism, with no New Age rubbish.

A mystical religion is a tautology. Any true religion must be mystical or it is completely fake. The fact that you are shocked by the very notion of a direct encounter with God or his messengers shows how corrupt mainstream Christianity has become.

Mystical religion in Christian garb has been taught by many in the Roman Catholic tradition. Let me just name here two French mystics: Brother Laurent de la Resurrection, an 18th century Carmelite and shoemaker, and Jean-Pierre de Caussade, a Jesuit, who also lived in the 18th century. He wrote a classic entitled Abandonment to Divine Providence, often quoted by Alan Watts.

Mysticism is exceedingly simple: it consists in paying disinterested, choiceless attention to the present moment, where God or Reality eternally is :smile: :smile: :smile: .
At times brother, you are inconsistent in you posts. In your last lines here you combine a Buddhist approach to the awareness of the present moment, and then say, where God or Reality eternally is. Then you accused me of some sort of 'Religious Imperialism' for saying the same thing from the Baha'i perspective. People tend to seperate God and Reality into their own individual logical compartments, orthodoxy and doctrine from both the Buddhist and Christian perspective, but in reality these things are not seperable by definition, logic, reason, or doctrine. This is where true mysticism comes in. The appreciation of existence as it is, and not how one wants it to be.

I do not consider Watts Behold the Spirit as necessarilly either a practical approach or totally a Christian approach, as in his other books. This book was a message directed primarily toward Christians, but it had a distinct Buddhist element also.

[Magdalenbrother]

I understand that religion has to have an element of mysticism, but it doesnt have to be it's complete focus (in my opinion). I was shocked because of how primary it was. I think it's very rare to have a physical encounter with God or angels or demons. And by physical I don't mean people who feel God leading them towards something. I'm referring to their teaching that while we pray angels should stand around us being in the room with us. I think theres no Biblical evidence for this and if thats what mainstream Christianity should be, then I would seriously reconsider my salvation. But I know Christianity is more than angels swirling around my head, and I wish Christians didn't have their heads in the clouds, so to speak.
Never read "I will sing your praise in the presence of the messengers (angels)"?

(I think the reason why they tell you to imagine angels while you pray is because they want you to pay attention and avoid absent-mindedness. This is a very common teaching on prayer based on concentration, which unfortunately must lead to constant mental conflict with what is. Attention is not concentration. )

Between God and Man there are many degrees. Angels served Jesus and he told Nathanael that he would one day see the same angels "ascending and descending upon the Son of Man".

Christianity is very diverse. We make it what it is. In French I would say that it is an "auberge espagnole": a Spanish tavern. You bring your own food to the restaurant.

As I've said many times before, "solo scriptura" will be the rule for all Christians, whether they aknowledge it or not, as long as God Almighty does not provide us with a 200-volume commentary on the Bible in precise, unambiguous, up-to-date language, and human beings have a mind that is conditioned by culture and language.

[Jillyn'Toast]

MagdalenBrother, you seem a little confused. There are a few verses that talk about angels ascending and descending. Jacob saw a ladder to heaven with angels ascending and descending, I'm not sure about your verse referring to the Son of Man, but even so, both of these illustrations are not referring to worship but rather to an event.

I would like to re-emphasize that I don't think worship has to be set to music and I don't think prayer has to be concentrated on the supernatural.

I'm not quite sure what you were saying about solo scriptura. You used a run-on sentence and confused me. Did you mean Christians follow scripture so exactly that we need a precise commentary? Or that we will follow scripture exactly until God gives us a precise commentary? I think Christians need scriptures to support their beliefs. I think any religion should have something to support their beliefs. Scriptures and sacred texts not only support your belief but give you guidelines. What is a religion without it being sacred and separate from other religions? There are many things that can't be found in scriptures, but if they don't line up with what scripture teaches, then that thing should be questioned on it's truth. Just like worship being for angels and demons, not just God. That doesn't line up with scripture, and so I'm questioning whether or not it's true or even useful.

[philip042040]

I agree wholeheaaaaartedly with this stzatement. It is wqhat most do not understand and is what gets many new christians in trouble because they think that somehow there is a conflict with this statement or that it is not logical. The exact opp9oosite is where the truthllies.

[Jeannot]

Maybe you could tell us what 'practical mysticism' is? :huh: I've never heard tell of it.
Here's a book on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375725709/sr=8-1/qid=1146055461/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-8545877-7188827?%5Fencoding=UTF8

[Bernie]

the speakers and worship leaders made God out to be a mystical, hidden, generalized, impersonal being.
I think God is indeed "hidden". Hidden = esoteric. Mbrother appears to me to have hit the nail on the head when he said, "The fact that you are shocked by the very notion of a direct encounter with God or his messengers shows how corrupt mainstream Christianity has become."

The interesting thing to me is why God is hidden, and why man has developed a means of approach to Him we call "mysticism"....which I believe can be shown to actually only possible by His approach to us, which facilitates the mystical. We're always taking credit for God's work in us as our own. It's our nature.

Mortimer J. Adler made an interesting point in noting in his "Ten Philosophical Mistakes" that the ancients possessed foundational truths about reality that has been largely dismissed for centuries, re, for example, the very real and significant distinction between prescriptive (spiritual) and descriptive (material) truth and reality. The spiritual has a power not found in the material, and the corruption Mbrother speaks of can be shown to be almost as intrinsic to mysticism as it is traditionalism.

God is a lake of fire of pure, Truth and man's falsity [evil] is kindling. I think we "hide" from God and spiritual experience [not mystical experience, which is a different thing] because His essence is death to our darkness (Jn 3:19). The worship practices by IHOP (hey, didn't I just eat pancakes there the other day?....) are to me merely feeble man's attempt to approach the fire without getting too close. It's what we do.

[Aletheia]

"Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through all the time.

This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true.

If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently.

God shows himself everywhere, in everything - in people and in things and in nature and in events.

It becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without him. It's impossible. The only thing is that we don't see it."

- Thomas Merton

[Aletheia]

I think we "hide" from God and spiritual experience [not mystical experience, which is a different thing] ...

What do you consider the difference to be?

[Jeannot]

"Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through all the time.

This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true.

If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently.

God shows himself everywhere, in everything - in people and in things and in nature and in events.

It becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without him. It's impossible. The only thing is that we don't see it."

- Thomas Merton
One way of looking at mysticism is that it is an awareness of the Presence of G-d, the Shekinah.

[Aletheia]

One way of looking at mysticism is that it is an awareness of the Presence of G-d, the Shekinah.

I think that is a fair definition.:thumb:

[Bernie]

Quote: Originally posted by Bernie

I think we "hide" from God and spiritual experience [not mystical experience, which is a different thing] ...

What do you consider the difference to be?
I think the spiritual is what God does to us--regeneration, which is nothing more or less than the destruction of falsity[evil] in human spirit and its restoration to a "true" state. This is why we fear God...the truly spiritual experience is a death and resurrection experience, and we don't want to die.

The mystical experience is man's response to the spiritual work (regeneration) wrought in the spirit. We're made capable by spiritual sanctification, of "seeing" and "knowing" God in that His Truth is in unity with the "true" property [spiritual life] in our spirit. Mystic experience is the exploration of these awakened areas and the illunination it's able to provide the intellect. But we still have a lot of darkness [falsity] in us, and "hide" from God in those areas we haven't yet been cleansed (or awakened, or killed and reborn, or however you want to put it). We're careful to not explore too deeply.....the end result being that the mystical, like the theological, is subject to the same fragmental falsity that rational theology suffers. Mystical experience can be false to a high degree and needs to be subjected to testing, same as theology.

Thus, at base, the mystical can never be communion beyond the degree of light we already possess as a gift from God. This is true for atheists, Christians, Moslems, etc. Any recognition of the moral good is an evidence of spiritual birth. Jesus taught us this when He refuted His detractors who said He had a demon. A divided house is weakened and falls. Philosophical moral of the story: truth has unity with truth, falsity with the false, and where one is found the other is necessarily absent. They don't mix. Bottom line is good and evil are found fragmentally in all...thus, all are fragmentally born spiritually, in some specific measure and ratio at any given point in life.

BTW, this illustrates the necessity of God's initial movement (His sovereignty in the spiritual experience) which facillitates the capacity for our response (volition in the mystical experience), IMO. This, to me, is practical mysticism.

[Jillyn'Toast]

"Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through all the time.

This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true.

If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently.

God shows himself everywhere, in everything - in people and in things and in nature and in events.

It becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without him. It's impossible. The only thing is that we don't see it."

- Thomas Merton

:yes:

I agree with this... I like the line that says it's not fable or a nice story, it's true. Because, to me, mystecism makes it a fable and a story. We don't have to make things up for God to be when he is already true and logical.

[Aletheia]

:yes:

I agree with this... I like the line that says it's not fable or a nice story, it's true. Because, to me, mystecism makes it a fable and a story. We don't have to make things up for God to be when he is already true and logical.

Hi Jill. :hi:

The quote, from Thomas Merton, a (deceased) Catholic monk, is actually the best description of mysticism I've found yet.

Mysticism isn't about making up things for God to be. Mysticism is the experience of God.

Unfortunately the word mysticism, as is being discussed in another thread, has become mixed up with some modern ideas that aren't 'mystical' at all, but are rather new age quakery that has given the word a bad name.

[Jillyn'Toast]

Hi Jill. :hi:

The quote, from Thomas Merton, a (deceased) Catholic monk, is actually the best description of mysticism I've found yet.

Mysticism isn't about making up things for God to be. Mysticism is the experience of God.

Unfortunately the word mysticism, as is being discussed in another thread, has become mixed up with some modern ideas that aren't 'mystical' at all, but are rather new age quakery that has given the word a bad name.

Yes, I suppose that's why I was so put off by the conference I went to. Mystecism in the way they meant it was, as you said, "new age quakery". Even now the word makes me a little unsure, and I don't think I'd purposely describe any part of Christianity as mystecism. I just think it gives people a very wrong impression.

oh, and hi there :flower:

[Jeannot]

Yes, I suppose that's why I was so put off by the conference I went to. Mystecism in the way they meant it was, as you said, "new age quakery". Even now the word makes me a little unsure, and I don't think I'd purposely describe any part of Christianity as mystecism. I just think it gives people a very wrong impression.

oh, and hi there :flower:
Mysticism has a long, honorable tradition in Christianity, from Jesus himself through Paul, John, Francis, Theresa of Avila, St John of the Cross, etc, etc.

[Jeannot]

"Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through all the time.

This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true.

If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently.

God shows himself everywhere, in everything - in people and in things and in nature and in events.

It becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without him. It's impossible. The only thing is that we don't see it."

- Thomas Merton
Aletheia,

Your Merton quote reminds me of a poem, "God's Grandeur," by Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ:

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.