Mysticism and Spiritual Experience

David Lorimer

Mystical experience has always been found at the heart of all spiritual traditions, whether East or West. It is usually defined as a transcendent experience of unity, light, love, peace and joy that is ineffable, timeless and yet transient. W.T. Stace (see below) draws the useful distinction between introvertive or inward-looking mysticism and extrovertive or nature-mysticism when the subject is unitively identified with a tree or other feature of the landscape. Cognitively, there is a universal sense of knowing and the barriers between self and other, subject and object are dissolved, while affectively there is an experience of intense elation and overwhelming love.

Scholarly interest in mysticism arose in the late 19th century at around the same time as early anthropologists, psychologists and the rise of comparative religion as a discipline. It was Richard Maurice Bucke and William James who put the subject of mystical experience on the map, especially the latter with his seminal Gifford Lectures published as The Varieties of Religious Experience. This was followed by Evelyn Underhill's classic study in 1911. The dominance of behaviourism in psychology and logical positivism in philosophy left the field to scholars of comparative religion and seems to have created a gap until the publication of Huxley's Perennial Philosophy in 1945. Huxley pursued his interest through his experiences with and books about mescalin, which gave rise to scholarly controversies, fronted by R.C. Zaehner, about the authenticity of drug-induced experiences. Huston Smith has written recently about this matter in Cleansing the Doors of Perception (2000). Huxley's interest fed into the drug experiences of the 60s with Timothy Leary and the Beatles. The Beatles' contact with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi helped stimulate an interest in meditation and Eastern philosophy as people began to wish to experience altered states of consciousness for themselves.

At the end of the 1960s, retired Oxford Professor of Zoology Sir Alister Hardy set up a unit in the tradition of William James to study the nature of religious experience and collected more than 5,000 accounts. Two of his main findings were that spiritual experience was much more common than had previously been supposed, and that the vast majority of those who had undergone these experiences were mentally healthy. This finding provided ammunition against the school of thought that defined all mystical experience as pathological. The debate in this field continues with recent conference (and a forthcoming volume) on psychosis and spirituality. Freud's theory of infantile regression to an oceanic state has been shown by Wilber and others to be a small part of a much larger and more complex story.

The 1970s saw a more rigorous engagement between philosophy and mysticism that had been pioneered by W.T Stace in the early 1960s. Steven Katz and his colleagues put forward a post-modern constructivist interpretation of the core of mystical experience, but these views were countered by Robert Forman in his own and his edited works. My own view coincides with Forman but Katz advanced some powerful arguments against earlier oversimplifications. In the same period, the mystical experience became a well-known feature of NDE's

The current widespread interest in experiential or Gnostic techniques marks a shift away from purely rational considerations towards a more integrated overall understanding of human consciousness at various levels of functioning.

Key texts

Underhill, Evelyn (1911) Mysticism. London, Methuen.
One of a series of classic works to appear in the first decade of the last century including Baron Friedrich von Hügel's 2-volume study of St. Catherine of Genoa. Evelyn Underhill went on to write extensively about mysticism but this is without a doubt her masterpiece. Subtitles 'a study in the nature and development of man's spiritual consciousness, it considers the interface between mysticism and other disciplines before moving on to a detailed consideration of the stages of the mystic way.

James, William (1902) The Varieties of Religious Experience. London, Longmans, Green. Also Fontana, 1960, ISBN 0-00-642520-8.
The most classic of studies and brilliantly readable. Should be on the reading list of anyone claiming to be cultured! James wrote extensively about psychology and psychical research as well as spiritual experience. Also forms the best starting point to a consideration of religious experience as James inspired, among others, Sir Alister Hardy (qv)

Bucke, R.M. (1901) Cosmic Consciousness. New York, Innes.
Another classic and still much quoted work contemporary with James. It is also worth reading Robert May's Cosmic Consciousness Revisited as an exploration of spiritual psychology.

Hardy, Sir Alister (1976) The Spiritual Nature of Man. Oxford, OUP.
Sir Alister Hardy set up the Religious Experience Research Unit in 1969, and this book represents the culmination of his own work in the field. His Unit continues and is now located in the University of Wales at Lampeter.

Cohen, J.M and Phipps, J-F (1979) The Common Experience. Rider, 1979. ISBN 0-09-136810-3.
Surveys the characteristics of the mystical path such as Light, The Void, Time and Eternity, drawing both on classic sources and contemporary accounts emanating from Sir Alister's Unit.

Huxley, Aldous (1945) The Perennial Philosophy.
A book that hardly needs an introduction but which is criticised by many more recent scholars in books annotated below. Initially, much criticism came from R.C. Zaehner, especially in his Mysticism Sacred and Profane after Huxley had published accounts of his mescalin experience.

Stace, W.T. (1960) Mysticism and Philosophy. London, Macmillan.
Examines the implications of mysticism for philosophy and formulates the distinction between introvertive and extrovertive mysticism. An acute analysis that I have always found invaluable and to which I frequently return. Treats the problem of the universal core, the problem of objective reference, and the relationship between mysticism, logic and language.

Happold, F.C. (1963) Mysticism. London, Penguin. ISBN 0-14-02-0568-3.
A wonderful introduction which is both a study (Part 1) and an anthology (Part 2). An excellent starting point as the reader can understand the characteristics of mysticism so as better to appreciate the first-hand accounts.

Woods, Richard (1980) Understanding Mysticism. New York, Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-15117-9. A superb collection of essays by the foremost writers in the field, both historical (Underhill and James) and contemporary.

Katz, S.T. (ed) (1978) Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis. London, Sheldon. ISBN 0-85969-116-0.
Represents a challenge to the 'orthodox' interpretation of Stace and Huxley that mystical experience is basically the same or similar. Focuses on actual mystical texts as a starting point. For the more advanced student.

Forman, Robert K.C. (ed) (1990) The Problem of Pure Consciousness. New York, Oxford UP. ISBN 0-19-505980-8.
Takes up the same theme as Katz and challenges his constructivist view that mystical experiences are primarily formed by the mystic's cultural background. Argues that the experience of pure consciousness does transcend language, belief and culturally conditioned expectations.

Forman, Robert K.C. (1999) Mysticism, Mind and Consciousness. New York, SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-4170-9.
Returns to the theme of his edited volume and in my view argues conclusively against any constructivist interpretation of pure consciousness.

Dean, Stanley R. (ed) (1975) Psychiatry and Mysticism. Chicago, Nelson Hall. ISBN 0 88229-857-4.
An early but classic collection of essays on the interface of psychiatry and mystical experience.

Johnstone, William (1995) Mystical Theology. London, HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-628002-1.
The magnum opus of a writer who has written widely on mystical themes and who creates a dialogue with Buddhism and a science of love.

Wilber, Ken (1997) The Eye of Spirit. London, Shambhala. ISBN 1-57062-276-0.
The whole of Ken's work is a critical elaboration of the world's perennial mystical traditions from his first book The Spectrum of Consciousness onwards. This book conveys his mature understanding in a series of brilliant essays. See also The Marriage of Sense and Soul (1998).