mysticism

(1) A frame of mind and a teaching based on the idea that true reality is beyond reason and is perceived only in an intuitive, ecstatic (that is, mystical) way. As a philosophical doctrine, mysticism is a type of intuitionism and irrationalism.

(2) A religious practice whose goal is the ecstatic experience of direct “union” with the absolute; also, the totality of theological and philosophical doctrines that seek to justify, explain, and regulate this practice.

The world views on which mysticism is based differ sharply, depending on social conditions and religious practices. In orthodox theistic systems, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the absolute is a personal god, and union with him is a dialogic “communion” which requires the consent of the partner and which, therefore, cannot be mechanically attained by unilateral efforts.

“Communing” is often reinterpreted by heresies as “becoming one with.” In the tenth century the Muslim mystic al-Halladj was executed for saying, while in a state of ecstasy, “I am the Truth” (that is, “I am god”). In nontheistic mystical systems an impersonal, transcendent principle (for example, the Tao of Taoism, the Sunyata of Buddhism, and “the One” of Neoplatonism) takes the place of the personal god.

However, all mystical doctrines have certain common features. They all tend toward irrationalism, intuitionism, and deliberate paradoxicality. They express themselves not so much in the language of concepts as in the language of symbols, focusing on death, which symbolizes an experience that destroys the previous structures of consciousness. Mystics from all historical periods, all peoples, and all faiths insist in almost the same words on the complete impossibility of conveying the meaning of mysticism except in inadequate metaphors or utter silence (the “noble silence” of the Buddhists, for example). In Christianity the theology of mysticism is termed negative, or apophatic, because it describes god by means of negatives, excluding any mention of positive characteristics.

The practice of mysticism presupposes a system of psycho-physical exercises, such as dhyana and yoga in Indian mystical systems or the umnoe delanie (inward activity) of Russian Orthodox monks. Usually, these exercises involve hypnotic concentration on very simple figures (the yantra and mandala in Indian tradition and the cross in Christianity), on simple combinations of words (the mantras of Hinduism, the “Jesus prayer” in Russian Orthodoxy, and the short prayers [ejaculations] repeated thousands of times in Catholicism), or even on individual words. Optimal body positions and breath control are also recommended for meditation in some mystical systems, such as yoga and hesychasm. Techniques are extremely diverse, ranging from the frenetic dance of the dervishes to the serenity of Christian ascetics. In any case, mysticism cannot do without the psychological techniques of asceticism, or of asceticism turned inside out, as in satanism and some forms of gnosticism and tantrism, in which the ritualized violation of ethical and sacred prohibitions is supposed to create the preconditions for psychological shock and entry into a trance. Since mysticism presupposes the experiencing of unfamiliar psychological states, the novice has only to entrust himself blindly to the guidance of the “initiated.” Thus, teachers play an important role in mysticism (the guru in Hinduism, the pir in Sufism, the starets [an old monk] in hesy-chasm, and the zaddik in Hasidism).

The shamanistic, orgiastic cults of remote antiquity, the goal of which was the ecstatic elimination of the distance between man and the world of the spirits or gods, are the historical analogues and prototypes of modern mysticism. Nonetheless, mysticism proper did not originate until religious speculation approached the concept of a transcendent absolute and the development of logic made possible the conscious retreat from logic into mysticism. Therefore, mysticism flowered first in countries that had a philosophical and logical culture: India (the Vedanta), China (Taoism), and to some extent, Greece (Pythagoreanism and Platonism). Later waves of mysticism, which generally crossed national and official religious boundaries, were characteristic of periods of social crisis. The fall of the Roman Empire in the first centuries A.D. was marked by the rise of mystery cults, Neoplatonism, early Christianity, gnosticism, and Manichaeism; the end of the Middle Ages in the 13th and 14th centuries, by the spread of Sufism, cabalism, hesychasm, and the teachings of Joachim of Flora and of J. Eckhart and his followers; and the development of early capitalism in the 17th and 18th centuries, by the rise of circles of Jansenists, Quietists, Methodists, Pietists, Quakers, Hasidim, and flagellants. Under certain historical conditions mysticism was a form of protest against the clerical and social hierarchy. It played such a role in the world view of the plebeian sects during the Peasants’ War in Germany. Under other social conditions the paradoxes of mysticism have inspired idealistic dialectics. For example, commenting on the development of mystical ideas in classical German idealism, F. Engels referred to the German mystic J. Boehme as “the forerunner of future philosophers.” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 18, p. 574).

Confronted with the crisis of contemporary bourgeois society, many semi-intellectuals have adopted eclectic, pseudoscientific systems of mysticism unrelated to any organized religion (theosophy and anthroposophy), as well as extremely vulgarized practices of obtaining “mystical experience,” ranging from old-fashioned spiritualistic seances to the frenzies of the hippies. Mystical motifs are characteristic of many schools of contemporary idealistic philosophy and are encountered even in such rationalistic, scientistic schools as logical positivism, which is defined by L. Wittgenstein in a number of his statements as a type of apophatic mysticism analogous to the “noble silence” of the Buddhists.

Marxism-Leninism regards mysticism as a flight from the contradictions of man’s social existence and as a perverted reflection of the real world that is irreconcilable with a scientific, materialistic world view.