Thomas, you have raised a bigger question for me now. What exactly is that which differentiates a common christian for a mystic christian.
Christianity is essentially a mystical religion. If you're a liturgical Christian, then you are engaged in the practice of 'the Mysteries'.
Or put another way, if one traces the line of Christian mystics, what do they do that's different? Nothing... Prayer. The Liturgy. The Sacraments. Maybe their hearts are in the right place, or they are in their hearts ...
But we are wary of technique. Especially when the commentaries speak of risks and dangers. If it's risky, or dangerous, it's more likely a psychodynamic technique, rather than an authentic spiritual practice.
Becasue throughout my studies, I have seen mysticism is associated with some specfic practices, from as simple as watching over one's actions to hardcore chakra/energy stuff. Are you saying that there is no such thing in Christianity.
Not quite. The core of 'the mystical pursuit', if you like, is the disposition of the heart towards God. The idea that it is God who transforms us, not we who transform ourselves. So really, the core 'technique' is being mindful of God ...
Christianity believes God is self-communicative, and the idea is to put oneself in a position to 'let Him get on with it', be receptive, but not to try and control or organise the situation ourselves. As St Paul says, the highest form of prayer is when God prays in the soul ... our job is to sweep out and polish the woodwork, as it were.
Technique is helpful to settle in preparation for prayer. Meditation is a useful method of stilling the mind, but meditation in itself is not a 'spiritual exercise', nor is it a technique to attain enlightenment, It's just meditation, a means by which one still the mind.
I was taught by Buddhists. "You don't get to be Buddhist by meditating," he said. "Nor does meditating turn you into a Buddhist." But there is a tendency to see meditation as a
technique to attain enlightenment.
Likewise there is a tendency to assume one is praying when one is meditating, or by meditating one is praying. They're not the same thing at all.
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The Liturgy of the Mass is a series of symbolic presentations that basically encompasses the whole Christian life. Traditionally the catechumen, once baptised, would enter into an ongoing process of spiritual formation called
mystagogy, but that's largely fallen out of practice and favour in the West.
Vatican II and the popes since have tried to re-instill the spirit of
mystagogia, but there is some resistance as, from the Reformation on, Christianity has gone through the process of rationalisation and explaining away its mystical roots.
It's there in liminal form in High Anglicanism, still there in the more traditional Catholicism (the Mass as a solemnity and not a 'happy-clappy' celebration, the symbolism of the new mass is all wrong), in shedloads in Orthodoxy ... but of course most people today see nothing beyond 'the bells and smells' and assume it's all old hat superstition ...
There can be no higher nor more mystical nor more occult nor more esoteric rite than the Eucharist – it's an archetype, really. What bugs the modern practitioner is they want all the trappings of 'secrecy' and 'elitism'.
I could talk about saints having a certain charisma, a certain
presence, but then I have seen tv personalities have the same apparent effect ...
There is the 'mystical' of the individual
psyche operating at its limit, as it were, and there is much 'esoteric' and 'occult' training to attain that, but that's still within the bounds of human potential. The 'real deal' for me is at the level of
pneuma, not
psyche.
Regarding Diyonysis, I read him long time ago, and his teachings seemed a mixture of neoplatonic and christian traditions. What do you say? Although I realize that there is this problem with neoplatonism that its found everywhere in all abrahamic mystic traditions.
Well I would say nigh-on the whole Patristic Tradition is Christianity explained through Greek philosophy, of which Platonism is the most suited.
As one Orthodox scholar noted, 'when the Fathers thought, they Platonised.' That was the best philosophical language of the day, but it did lead to problems when one made Christ fit Plato, Origen stumbled a bit there, Arius did, with disastrous consequences ...
The genius of St Maximus the Confessor (inspired by the likes of Dionysius, Gregory of Nyssa and others) is he took the basic Platonic schemata of
stasis-kinesis-genesis – 'rest-movement-becoming' ...
(Platonism holds that souls are immortal and eternal and existed in a kind of choir around God (rest), but for some inexplicable reason turned away and thus instigated a fall away from the divine state (movement), the world and matter being created (becoming), a 'necessary evil' to arrest their descent.
... and turned it round to match Scriptural revelation:
genesis-kinesis-stasis.
(Christianity holds that in the beginning (genesis) God brought being out of nothing (movement – from nothing to something) and the 'direction' of that movement is toward its end, which is the rest in God (stasis).
Keep that in mind and Platonism offers a useful lexicon to explain Christianity. The only significant difference is Christianity is not 'the flight of the alone to the Alone' as it is for Plotinus. Christianity is a collective religion – aimed at man as such, not individual men.
So we regard 'the mystic' as someone who is accorded a certain grace or spiritual presence or insight for the benefit of all, not as a reward of individual advancement. Some could be more advanced but apparently show nothing ...
Really, a mystic is someone who practices the 'presence of mind' of the 'Presence of God' ... and practice makes perfect!
