THE MYSTIC

 Mystics have fallen out of fashion, it seems.  There is nothing useful about them that can be taken seriously.  Modern language defies them.  Why?  Mystics as defined by Websters Collegiate Online Dictionary:   

Main Entry: 1mys·tic

Pronunciation: mis-tik

Function: adjective

Etymology: Middle English mistik, from Latin mysticus of mysteries, from Greek mystikos, from myst s initiate

Date: 14th century

1 : MYSTICAL 1a

2 : of or relating to mysteries or esoteric rites : OCCULT

3 : of or relating to mysticism or mystics

4 a : MYSTERIOUS b : OBSCURE, ENIGMATIC c : inducing a feeling of awe or wonder d : having magical properties

 

Main Entry: mys·ti·cal

Pronunciation: mis-ti-k l

Function: adjective

Date: 15th century

1 a : having a spiritual meaning or reality that is neither apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence <the mystical food of the sacrament> b : involving or having the nature of an individual's direct subjective communion with God or ultimate reality <the mystical experience of the Inner Light>

2 : MYSTERIOUS, UNINTELLIGIBLE

3 a : MYSTIC 2 b : MYSTIC 3

- mys·ti·cal·ly \-k( -)l \ adverb

Science scoffs.  They say there is no proof for life outside our senses. 

Religion feels it’s useless outside of myth. 

Medicine puts mystical experiences under a schizotypal paradigm. 

However, while writing her biography on Carl Jung, Boundaries of the Soul, June Singer said:

I find that Jung’s “complex theory” and the related ideas comcerning psychic energy are not easy to comprehend from an exclusively pragmatic point of view.  On the other hand if one can admit to being open-minded enough to allow for the possible existence of demons, many difficulties to udnerstanding the nature of complexes can be overcome.

The problem is mystics can be found everywhere – even in our very practical western society.  we find many are famous artists, scientists, academics and their visitations are curious because they are neither demonic nor angelic.  I think Dr. Singer, though, didn’t know what else to call Jung’s ethereal guide, for it was not ghostly in the classic sense.  So looking “Demon” up in the OED we find:

demon ( di m n)  Also 6-9 dæmon. [In form, and in sense 1a, a. L. dæm n (med.L. d m n) spirit, evil spirit, a. Gr. divinity, genius, tutelary deity. But in sense 1 b and 2, put for L. dæmonium, Gr. , neuter of adj. ‘(thing) of divine or dæmonic nature or character’, which is used by the LXX, N. Test., and Christian writers, for ‘evil spirit’. Cf. F. démon (in Oresme 14th c. démones); also 13th c. demoygne = Pr. demoni, It., Sp. demonio, repr. L. dæmonium, Gr. .] 

and those studying Daemon are involved in:

demonology (di m n l d )  Also 7 -gie, 7-9 dæ-. [mod. f. Gr. + - -LOGY: cf. F. démonologie (16th c. in Littré).]:  That branch of knowledge which treats of demons, or of beliefs about demons; a treatise on demons. [1]

Our popular notion is that language is a social construct and a tool society uses to define its structures.  It seems though, that millions of federal dollars are being granted to Harvard University and Stephen Pinker who is proving that language is a biological instinct.  He has already made the point that we are not the Blank Slate our society has taught us we are and Marc Hauser is right behind him showing that our morality is also a modality.  This should not be a surprise.  In the 1970s, Michel Foucault wrote about Power being an organic Process – that would make sense.  In the 1980s Jeffrey Burton Russell, a Historian of Religion from California, tells us Evil is a Process and wrote a 5 volume “Devil” series about it. 

Nature is a complicated process that cannot be thwarted by man’s will.  Many things it seems are not clear cut.  If we look at a human being as a chemistry lab full of processes triggered by hormones, released by genes – we see these processes laying out on spectrums of all sorts of wonders including our abilities, predilections and talents.  Within this spectrum we find the potentials for science, art, farming, mechanics and yes, mysticism.  Mankind does its dance with its world as the genes load the gun that the world fires. 

What interests me about unbridled mysticism is that it is so physically exhilarating.  One of many reasons it is taboo is that it can have some disturbing sexual components – It’s much safer to be snug (not smug) in one’s unphysical, unemotional thought processes which too, interestingly enough, come from our brains and are physically generated.  Even more disturbing though are what mystics see and hear that others don’t.  This is why Sigmund Freud thought mysticism was a kind of neurosis or even better, psychosis.  Carl Jung disagreed.  We could theorize that these beings that mystics come in contact with truly are a product of a brain blip.  Perhaps there is something intimate and organic that we’re not seeing about our relationship with this world.  Perhaps through studying the mystical we can explore the nature of life itself which has been eluding science for millennia. 

I believe mysticism is not as occult as we are led to believe, but is right in front of us all the time.   I believe its biological component is why indigenous societies are more in touch with these processes before they are socialized out of it.  I think the reason societies experience structural violence and tyranny is because we don’t understand the relationship we have with this process, and that relationship is necessarily biological.  Mysticism is a part of all that.  It is the intimate relationships mystics have with the world around them that may seem so mysterious but isn’t at all.  We can’t see relationships.  We can’t measure relationships until we recognize them as part of our body’s chemical reaction to everything around us. 

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[1] Copyright © Oxford University Press 2008