You can listen to the post read aloud or read it for yourself below:
When I first heard the word “mystic,” a friend was sharing with me about something she was studying in spiritual direction. Maybe I’m strange, but my first inclination when I heard the word was something to do with magic. Mystical. Magical. The words seemed similar enough. It was also something unknown and mysterious. [I should also add that I grew up in a house where unknown magical forays such as Harry Potter were banned, so magical might not always be okay.] While my initial reaction wasn’t one of fear, I also internally thought, nah. That’s fine for you, but I’m not interested. Sounds kind of weird.
Maybe that’s why every time I speak the word “mystic” in a circle of people who aren’t familiar with the term, I have this niggling fear they will think I’m some kind of heretic or envision me tucked away in a prayer closet performing rites akin to Christian voodoo. This fantasy of what other people think is probably completely unfounded, but perhaps—like me—you’ve read this word in my writing, or you’ve heard it somewhere and really have no idea what it means, the context it comes from, or the invitation it offers. I’d like to demystify the mystics for you—at least a bit.
My same friend who first mentioned mystics to me was also the person who suggested I try seeing a spiritual director. At the time, I thought that sounded crazy and unnecessary as well. But she wore me down and I decided to give it a try. Seven years later, I can tell you it’s been a wonderous transformative journey. I wouldn’t be who I am now without it. The mystics took me longer to find, but once I realized who they actually were and how they approached their faith, I’ve been insatiably hungry to absorb from their lives and teachings.
Some Definitions
In his podcast, Turning to the Mystics, James Finley describes mystics as those “who feel interiorly drawn toward this deeper unitive experience of God’s presence in their life.”
Richard Rohr writes, “Now do not let the word ‘mystic’ scare you off. It simply means one who has moved from mere belief systems or belonging systems to actual inner experience” (The Naked Now, 29-30).
Shannon K. Evans describes a mystic simply as “someone who has experienced a glimpse of the eternal and has chosen to pursue more” (The Mystics Would Like a Word, xv).
Here are some of my own humble observations about what it means to be a mystic, interlaced with some thoughts of others on the journey.
Mystics emphasize experience of God over belief about God.
Hopefully this is already clear to you as a theme from the definitions I’ve provided above. It’s not that mystics throw out all beliefs or think that accessing God is all relative. Rohr states explicitly in his book that “[n]on-dual thinking [another aspect of mysticism] is not ‘relativism.’ […] It is not postmodern nihilism” (129-30). It’s not a free-for-all where each individual makes up their own truth or religion to live by. But the mystics would say that all the “right” thinking in the world won’t matter if you don’t know how to be with and experience God in a more intimate visceral way.
Rohr has an entire chapter in his book The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See that is entitled “Faith is More How to Believe than What to Believe.” He writes, “Our faith is not a faith that dogmas or moral opinions are true, but a faith that Ultimate Reality/God/Jesus is accessible to us—and even on our side” (117).
Finley emphasizes mysticism as “human experience illumined by faith, and specifically as revealed in Christ and all of the Scriptures, that we’re living our life in a relationship with God, and that God’s in a relationship with us, and God’s in this related state of oneness with us. And God’s oneness with us is the reality of us. That is, God’s perpetually creating us breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat. And so, the ultimate meaning of our life is found in that.”
I see mysticism as a way of cultivating space for that intimacy and oneness with the Divine. I read a lot of books, but it’s ultimately not about the knowledge. It’s about learning to embody learned principles in a tangible way that bring about transformative fruit in my life. Because once you’ve been touched in a visceral way by the Divine, or a million small ways throughout the mundanity of our daily lives, then nothing is left mundane anymore. It all contains possibility and essence of the Divine. It leaves us changed.
Mystics cultivate an embodied faith.
Mystics believe faith is about being present now with what is. It’s not about finding the right doctrine or belief to secure a spot in the afterlife. It’s not about winning debates. It’s not about earning salvation. It’s about sinking into the abundance of the Divine Presence that is available to us here and now.
Often contemplative practices go hand-in-hand with mystical approaches to faith, largely because they both invite a type of experiential presence. Ones I’m aware of and have explored some include:
- Lectio Divina (sacred reading of sacred texts)
- Centering prayer/The Welcoming Prayer
- Yoga
- Buddhist Tonglen breathing practices
- Sufi Turning Prayer
- Chanting of the Psalms or Quaker sayings
This list is by no means complete. Anything can invite mystical awareness or contemplative presence if it is approached in a meaningful and intentional way.
Cynthia Bourgeault is a living mystic. She teaches on many of these above practices and she’s also introduced me to the teachings of Gurdjieff, which include Three-Centered Being. In brief, each of us has three centers: the Intellectual Center, the Moving Center, and the Emotional Center (with this one don’t just think of feelings; it’s more about spiritual sensitivity and perception). The Wisdom traditions teach that to attain true wisdom, all three of the centers must be activated and online—only then are you truly awake. Operating out of only one of these centers means that you are asleep. In the West, we often gravitate towards being stuck only in our Intellectual Center. We can think things to death, but then completely miss body awareness, and the subtilties of the Imaginal Realm. I can’t help but think that all the doctrinal disputes and rationalization and “defenses” of faith that happen on the intellectual level are not true wisdom. They may be well-meant, but without the integration of the other two centers they remain empty, combative, or superficial—often driven out of the ego.
The list of practices above seeks to bring additional centers online, especially the Moving Center. Tuning into the body is often the easiest way to bring a second center online. These practices seek to bring the mind, with its handicaps, into a more experiential space where God can speak in ways he can’t when you are just analyzing him on an intellectual level.
Mystics allow room for complexity.
There is very little for mystics that falls in the category of black-and-white or absolute. Many call this non-dual thinking. It invites holding tensions or apparent contradictions. Embracing mystery. Admitting there is a lot we don’t know, that God is bigger and more glorious and mysterious than we’ve ever imagined before now. It invites you to let the box you’ve held God in up to this point to break. Further down the journey, it will probably break again. And again. And again.
Complexity also allows for being human. We are each unique and often messy. We each will relate to God in a different way, unique to our own journey, woundings, revelations, weaknesses, temperaments, and ways God has met us thus far. That’s all okay. Unity does not require conformity at all. Finley states that mystics assume “several things, that first of all, there’s the dignity, and the reality, and the complexities of the human experience. You have your life, I have mine, and just what does it mean to be a human being day by day in our life with each other, in our passage through time?” Mystics would say half the journey is learning to ponder and hold questions such as these.
Leaning into the mystics has challenged me to more deeply accept myself where I am at in any given moment. Be gentle. Be kind. Acknowledge this process often takes a long time. It has also challenged me to meet others with that kind of gentleness. This often involves holding tension and grief over what I wish would be true in my relationships with others and what I perceive them able or unable to see or understand. But they are each on their own journey and must not meet them with judgement or condemnation or superiority. That is not how I desire to be met. I need to do unto others what I long for to be done unto myself. The mystical journey has room for us all.
Anyone can be a mystic.
When my husband describes me to myself or other people, sometimes he says I’m a Christian mystic. My reaction is often to laugh it off insecurely. “You don’t even fully know what a mystic is,” I tell him. The truth is that I have a hard time owning it. I look to these pillars of the faith who have gone before me and put in deep work, and I feel like a shadow in comparison. I’m not like that, I think. Or at least not yet. But this is faulty thinking.
I’m slowly growing in confidence, so I’m going to be bold and state aloud to you, “Yes. I am a mystic.” Because the mystics would tell you that comparison has nothing to do with faith. It’s not a matter of arriving or accomplishing something with faith. It’s a matter of learning to be. It’s about the hunger for the journey and cultivating the insatiable desire to dive deeper. It’s about wanting to experience oneness with God. All those things are true of me. And all those things can be true of you—if you want them to be. Evans writes, “Mysticism is not reserved for the select few but is an invitation extended to each of us. Only one lifetime ago, the Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner said, ‘The Christian of the future will either be a mystic or will not exist’” (The Mystics Would Like a Word, xv).
So ultimately, mysticism is just an invitation. Jesus was the greatest mystic of all. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Personally, I think this statement has a lot more to do with a mystical approach to being with God than with correct doctrine. The invitation is there. He beckons us to follow, to embody what he embodied. It will always be there. The question is whether or not we get curious, accept, and dive in.
Resources:
There are a lot of resources out there about the mystics. I’ve barely dipped my toe into the stream of what is possible to be explored, but here are the resources that I’ve been able to engage with already and have been helpful to me thus far.
- Previous posts of mine related to mystical or contemplative approaches:
- The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See by Richard Rohr (this was my inaugural book that I read)
- James Finley’s podcast Turning to the Mystics. Each season provides a focus on a different mystic, with opportunities for reflection and meditation. I recommend beginning with this episode that gives a lovely overview to Finley’s perspective of what mysticism means: https://cac.org/podcasts/turning-to-thomas-merton/
- The Center for Action and Contemplation has a wealth of resources and courses on these topics: https://cac.org/about/what-we-do/
- A list of people, both historical and current, that can be considered mystics include (but is not limited to):
- Historical Christian mystics: St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Margery Kempe, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Francis of Assisi, Brother Lawrence, Rainer Maria Rilke.
- Modern Christian mystics: Thomas Merton, James Finley, Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault, Henri Nouwen, Kathleen Norris. I’d also put Parker J. Palmer and Gerald G. May in this vein.
- A more complete list can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_mystics. Most of these mystics have books or original writings that can be explored.
- The Mystics Would Like a Word: Six Women Who Met God and Found a Spirituality for Today by Shannon K. Evans has just released. I’m only a few chapters in, but so far it’s a wonderful read.
- Writings by Mirabai Starr, including translations of older mystic writings: https://mirabaistarr.com/books/
If you’d like to receive my writing delivered direct to your inbox, subscribe below. To contact me with any thoughts, questions, or response, feel free to use the contact form on my website.
Shalom.
Danielle Klafter 