From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Mon Dec 02 2002 - 11:55:25 GMT
Hi David,
> Hmmm. The static interpretations (religions, churches, theology) are
> supposed to get one to the "cutting edge", but not generate a mystical
> experience? This is either a logical contradiction or the "cutting edge"
is
> something different than the mystical experience. Please explain.
Gladly, I think this is the crux of our difference. I think the 'cutting
edge' is not an *experience* in the sense that you have described, I think
it is better captured by the phrase 'transformation of consciousness' or
something like that. It's axiomatic that DQ is ineffable - if it could be
articulated then it is no longer DQ, it is a static pattern. When Christian
mystics talk about an experience of grace, that is what they are talking
about: the transformation of their nature by the action of God, the loss of
their own will and its replacement by God's will; the absence of domination
by static patterns and the replacement by a domination of DQ (and, in MoQ
terms, the development of their static intellectual patterns in a more
dynamic direction. I think Wim's description is useful here: that the
patterns evolve towards greater freedom; the best patterns are the ones
which allow the most free flourishing, without thereby collapsing into
degeneracy).
So for me, Christian theology can be discriminated in various ways. There
are teachings which are designed to establish the social level above the
biological drives (at the group and individual levels) - these are the
'moral laws'. There are teachings which are geared around establishing the
'soul' above the social level - these are the 'virtues'. And there are
teachings which are geared around breaking down the soul in order to be
transparent to God - this is the 'mystical' path, as outlined by people like
Eckhart or St John of the Cross. They are all geared around a transformation
of consciousness, but they are not designed to provoke 'experiences'. That
is, how you actually feel as you progress through the levels is less
important than the difference the progression makes in your life. I'm taking
'experience' to mean how something feels (or is understood) to the person
having the experience. (As it happens, one 'experience' that I have had was
utterly terrifying and self-destructive, the precise opposite of another,
more 'standard' mystical experience, but as it provoked a transformation of
consciousness I still understand it as a 'moment of grace'. It was certainly
something that pushed me forward in my spiritual growth. So although the
'experience' in the two cases was diametrically opposed, I see them as the
same sort of thing, ie moments when 'God spoke to me'. [I sound like a nut,
I know.] Julian of Norwich is perhaps the best exemplification of the
difference: she had her 'showings' in a near-death experience, but she then
spent thirty years or so drawing out the theological implications through
reflection and developing her understanding and closeness to God. Of course,
she was an anchorite, literally bound in to the sacramental shape of the
Church.)
This is why I don't think 'experience' is the best way to understand what is
going on. The experiences themselves are as varied as people themselves in
their different contexts and stages of development; the question is, does
any change that is provoked count as a development towards God (or towards
DQ) or is it either degeneracy or self-indulgence?
If there is some 'content' which is understood to be definitive of 'mystical
experience' (eg all the sensations of 'oneness', 'meaning', 'love', 'light',
'power', 'abandonment of self' etc etc) and then there is some 'practice'
which seeks to generate those experiences, then that is what will happen -
but those experiences won't be DQ (you will find what you expect to find).
As Eckhart himself puts it, 'Those who seek God in ways will find ways and
not God'.
Furthermore, it is when mysticism is understood in this way - as a generator
of 'experiences' - that I think it can be equated with SOM thinking. For
what has happened since the sixteenth century is a transition in the
understanding of 'mystical', from an adjectival sense to a substantival
sense. That is (as I keep saying!) instead of 'mystical' referring to the
element of, say, ritual that enables the journey into God, 'mystical'
becomes seen as a separate thing in itself - an experience, or an encounter.
It is part of the widespread transition to a scientific culture; it is an
aspect of systematic, scientific (SOM) thinking; it is precisely an
abstraction from the context that generates an idea (an objectification, no
less) of an 'essence of the mystical', and it is this same approach which
generates the idea that different religions are simply alternative paths up
the same mountain.
In just the same way as logical positivism was the inevitable
end-consequence of empiricism, with logical and scientific data seen as
'foundational' for all knowledge, so too can the idea of 'mystical
experience' be seen as a form of 'spiritual postivism' in the sense that the
data of 'experience' can serve as a foundation for "religious" knowledge.
This is specifically and explicitly the project which William James tried to
do - he was consciously trying to provide a basis for the scientific study
of religion, and thought that an account of 'experience' would provide a
defensible basis for that study. And that Jamesian understanding has been
enormously influential in our culture - including some self-proclaimed
'mystics'. The classic Christian mystics expended great energy on denouncing
that sort of approach as heretical and delusional. (Not on behalf of the
Church - on behalf of God; see below).
Thing is, much of what you quoted from other authors I have tremendous
sympathy with. In particular, the divorce between 'theology' and
'spirituality' is a central element in the book I am working on (where I am
drawing on many different authors who have researched the area, and indeed
on my own 'experiences'!). Although the roots go deeper, it has its origins
in the development of the universities in the twelfth century - that was
when theology started to get 'dry' and 'academic'; when it was rooted in the
academic quadrangle, not the monastic cloister (which latter was itself the
product of the 'counter-cultural' movement your author referred to). It is
that academic form of Christianity which is hostile to mysticism (it has
enough difficulties with prayer), and it is that tradition which, in
particular, the 'high' medieval mystics were concerned to counter. Eckhart,
in particular, can't be understood unless you relate his language to the
scholasticism in which he was trained, and which he was trying to overcome.
It is precisely the 'Christianity' that was formed following that transition
which, I think, both you and I reject, but from opposite sides as it were. I
think that 'authentic' Christianity is recoverable and valuable and viable
(you probably disagree) - it is something which functions to develop
conformity with God, 'theosis' - what you call divinisation. I have to say,
the idea of theology being about 'believing without hope' is as far from
what I understand as it is possible to get. (I think that is the essence of
'first degree' thinking, as I described it in my recent post to Scott)
BTW Eckhart was influenced by the Beguines - many of his extant writings are
in fact sermons to communities of women religious, like the Beguines -
especially one named Marguerite Porete, who was burned at the stake in 1310.
(The Inquisitor who condemned Porete was in fact a Dominican monk in the
same priory where Eckhart was based.) Porete draws a distinction between
'Holy Church the Great' and 'Holy Church the less' - the former are those
whose souls are entirely free because they have been conformed to the love
of God, and they lie 'hidden' within the latter, "the Church of those who
are not yet free, of those whose actions are dictated by their finitely good
desires, who love God with reasons and purposes and ends of their own, who
live under the obligations of the moral law, who will what is virutous
because constrained by the demands and obligations of virtuous living,
constrained by their dependence on the sacramental and devotional economies
of the Church. They are good, Christian souls; Holy Church the Less is not
the 'less' because it is corrupt, but because unliberated souls seek the
good without freedom of spirit and for reasons of their own, out of their
own wills: and they are therefore unliberated because the good which they
seek is the finite good which a finite human capacity can make its own. They
live therefore not as those free souls live who will out of the infinite
capacity of the divine love itself, for they are captive within the limits
of their own wills." One of her particular phrases was that we must learn
to 'live without a why' - ie without a static intellectual justification of
following DQ (including all the descriptions of 'experience').
"Love: once a soul has reached this state [of abolishing self-will], she can
say to the virtues: 'I have no further need of you, now I have served you
all this time'.
The Soul: I agree, dear Love. I was their servant, but your kind courtesy
has set me free from enslavement to them. Virtues, I leave you behind
forever! My heart is now freer and more at peace than it has ever been. It
was hard work being your servant, that I know well. For a time I put my
heart inseparably into your service and you knew it: I was completely given
over toyou, thereofre then I was your slave, but now I am released, and I
wonder how I was able to escape.
Love: This soul knows no care, has neither shame nor honour, neither poverty
nor riches, neither joy nor sorrow, neither love nor hate, neither hell nor
heaven.
Reason: For God's sake, Love, what are you saying?
Love: What I mean can only be understood by those to whom God has given
understanding and by none other; it is not taught by scripture, nor can
human reason work it out... It is a gift received from the Most High, in
whom all knowing leads to a loss of understanding...So this soul that has
become nothing possesses all and possesses nothing, knows all and knows
nothing, wills everything and wills nothing.
Reason: Lady Love, how can this be, you said before that this soul has no
will? How, then, can she will everything and will nothing?
Love: Because, dear Reason, it is not the soul's will that wills, but God's
will willing in her; the soul does not rest in love as if led to it by any
desires of her own. Rather, love rests in her, takes over her will, and has
her will of her. So now love can work in the soul without the soul's will,
and the soul will be freed from all cares."
(Elements in "" taken from 'How to be a Heretic', Denys Turner)
One last irony: Marguerite Porete's major writing was 'A mirror of simple
souls', which was condemned as heretical in 1306. It was circulated
anonymously after that time, and over time the authorship was forgotten
whilst the text remained. In 1926 it was granted an official Catholic
'imprimatur' (ie approval) because it was seen as being written by 'an
unknown male of the fourteenth century'. Porete's gender and language were
more objectionable to the hierarchy than her theology.
Sam
"Ask yourselves when are we going to see the first journal of bio-hacking
oriented toward teenage males, so they can create molecules in their
bedroom. Well, that journal came out in 1998. Be very afraid." (Bill Joy)
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Dec 02 2002 - 12:22:22 GMT