Mysticism and the Psychology of Christian Religious Experience (original) (raw)

A critical consideration of contributions of mysticism to the Christian-Muslim Dialogue

Ursula King defines a "mystic" as "a person who is deeply aware of the powerful presence of the divine Spirit: someone who seeks, above all, the knowledge and love of God and who experiences to an extraordinary degree the profoundly personal encounter with the energy of divine life." 1 Although King uses deep words to describe mysticism, one of its characteristics is that it keeps an inscrutable and 'mysterious' side, thus the origin of the word itself. The fact that a deep spiritual experience is part of mysticism might not take all spiritual experiences to the level of mysticism. Nevertheless, since a mystical experience cannot be entirely defined, on account of its mysterious side, it might be difficult to deny any genuine spiritual experience the status of mystical experience. That is why this paper does not try to put a clear demarcation line between mysticism and spiritual experience.

The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism

Medieval mystical theology, 2017

View related articles View Crossmark data straightforward for the reader, as one read in the modern masters of doubt, for example, Marx, Freud, Sartre etc. then the intellectual framework Feser builds, while still intellectually and aesthetically pleasing, is unlikely to persuade. If you come to this text looking for an easy way to revise the metaphysical framework behind the world of many of the Mystics our journal is dedicated to studying you may be disappointed. What you will find instead is an attempt to seriously engage anew with a framework they would have recognized but which has become strange to many of us. Feser purposely lays out his wares as a challenge and to respond to that challenge involves a very serious read indeed and a great deal of rigorous thinking.

How Christian is Christian Mysticism?1

Irish Theological Quarterly, 1999

How Christian is Christian Mysticism? 1 Introduction The problem raised by the question: 'How Christian is Christian Mysticism?' is contained in the combination of the adjective 'Christian' and the noun 'mysticism'. By talking about 'Christian mysticism', one seems to be assuming that there is a general religious reality, called 'mysticism', and that 'Christian mysticism' is one variety of it. 2 If that were so, what would become of the uniqueness of Christianity, in any strong sense? To be what it has always claimed to be, namely a final and unsurpassable revelation of God to the human race, Christianity cannot allow itself to be subsumed under any general rubric, such as 'mysticism'. That is to say, if Christian mysticism were what made Christianity Christian, then, assuming mysticism to transcend religious differences, it is difficult to see how Christianity could, as a form of mysticism, continue to maintain its unique identity. It would surely risk being absorbed and swallowed up by a larger reality, thus losing its specific savour, and eventually disappearing. Precisely this, of course, is what many feel has already begun to happen to it in the modern age, i.e. since the Enlightenment. Perception of such a possibility may have been why Karl Barth made the dramatic claim that Christianity was not a religion at all, but 'revelation'-religion (and mysticism) being for Barth 3 a human construct, revelation a divine work.

Christian Spirituality and Religious Mysticism: Adjunct, Parallel or Embedded Concepts

Reflections on Christian spirituality today are profoundly shaped by the fact that there has been a move away from perceiving a dualistic split between the inner and outer journey, the natural and supernatural, matter and spirit, self and other, humanity and nature. At the heart of contemporary Christian spirituality, then, is an awareness and experience of relationality. This is not to deny the fact that writers who have recorded their personal spiritual experience throughout the ages consistently do so in relational terms. Instead this statement of the current situation simply seeks to draw attention to the fact that the awareness and interpretation of relational experiences will differ substantially when one lives within a worldview of oppositional dualism rather than one informed by a vision of interdependence. Philip Newell, in his book, The Rebirthing of God: Christianity's Struggle for New Beginnings eloquently presents the emerging relational consciousness that characterises Christian spirituality today1.

Christian Mysticism: A Meta-Theoretical Approach – Part I

Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 2014

In this paper the work of three outstanding representatives of poetical (type III) mysticism is briefly considered. Although exemplars of speculative and systematic mysticism also engage in quasi-poetical prose in their formulations and sermons, they do not do so in the same highly expressive, direct and emotionally intense manner that is typical of the type III mystic. For this reason Richard Rolle, Henry Suso and Madame Guyon were selected as exemplars of poetical mysticism, and discussed in section 1. The poetically-inclined Christian mystic is not interested in either metaphysical speculation, or in Aristotelian analyses of the nature and elements of the mystic life (see paper 2). It is a deeply personal matter of the heart, of recounting one's experiences on the mystic journey and singing the praises of the divine, rather than merely a matter of the intellect. In section 2 the pragmatic (type IV) theologies of John Tauler, the anonymously authored Cloud of Unknowing, and the work of the Spanish mystic, Miguel de Molinos are reviewed. Their mystical writings and activities have a much stronger practical focus and action-orientation (in the subjectivist-empyrean mode), compared to the other mystics.

Psychological and Sociological Aspects of Mysticism

Mystical behavior has some companions. We cannot deny the place of superstitions, myths, and legends in our daily lives. Who can assert that Noah and his ark would not take the place of Gaia of 2300 years past 2500 years from now? How would those from other cultures consider the blue beads, used against the evil eye that we, in Turkey, have around our houses and offices? We can observe mystical behaviors of even scientists whom we can define as rationalist individuals. If we approach the issue from Abraham Maslow's observation, we can say that most of those who are spiritually healthy and successful rely on mystical beliefs and behaviors. Thus, this phenomenon deliberately ignored by some scientists is scrutinized in this paper, examining the psychological and sociological depths of those elements that can be termed mystical using Güleç's framework and a wider literature review to understand how they have become indispensable for societies.