“Mystical Prayer” *— image by Dalmo Mendonça*

Mysticism Today

Pew research from 2009 revealed that 49% of Americans say they have had a religious or mystical experience, defined as a “moment of sudden religious insight or awakening.” Fourteen years later, that number is most likely higher. It has been climbing steadily from only 22% in 1962. The percentage may actually be greater, considering that many may have had such experiences but wouldn’t want to put the term “religious” on it for a variety of reasons.

Have you had a mystical experience?

Many people who have are often hesitant to speak about them. They may feel that talking about it reduces or cheapens the experience. They may be concerned about how something so personally meaningful to them will be perceived by the other. Or have a fear of coming across as “holier-than-thou,” boasting from the ego. Or they may simply not have the words to describe an experience that is often beyond our general lexicon.

In an oft-quoted remark, Catholic theologian Karl Rahner said, “In the days ahead, you will either be a mystic or nothing at all.”

What does it mean to be a mystic? And if it is so vital, how can our practice of spirituality serve us in better pursuit of mystical living? While this word gets thrown around a lot, it’s important to emphasize that a mystic is not just someone who prays, someone with higher consciousness, or even someone who is contemplative. Here are three orienting generalizations about mysticism:

A mystic is someone who engages in the direct experience of the divine.

Mystical experience can be transcendent, intimately relational, and/or deeply personal within.

Mystical engagement can happen in both form and formlessness, in silence and in substance. This can be through felt sensations, impressions, visions, inner words, and conversation—experienced as spiritual knowing.

Before we go much further though, we need to leap over some common pitfalls people fall into when thinking about mysticism. Let’s look at three helpful distinctions:

1. MAGICAL VS TRANS-RATIONAL

The kind of mysticism we are talking about here is not a regression into a magical perspective. Magical thinking makes for great stories, but there is a reason we stop believing in Santa Claus. We don’t want to live in fantasy land. Unfortunately, fairly often what gets claimed as mysticism is more like charlatan magic.

Rational thinking has greatly helped humanity move beyond many of these illusions (even as they’re still fairly prevalent). But in doing so, as is often the case with any evolutionary growth, there was an over-correction. Rationalism often became strict materialism, which denies any reality that is not observable by instruments designed to observe material reality.

It can take time to accept our experiences that aren’t rooted or explainable in the traditional scientific worldview many of us were brought up in. Quantum mechanics offers a scientific breakthrough beyond many of these Newtonian understandings. And there is still much of reality that science cannot account for. We embrace the helpful corrective of rational discernment beyond fuzzy magical fabrications, but we don’t stop there.

The trans-rational goes beyond this materialism to acknowledge reality that is not confined to narrow rational thought. This includes a reintegration of the best of indigenous practice, shamanic wisdom, ancient mystical/religious forms, and more from the healthy, conscious magic structure of consciousness. It also opens up into new vistas of consciousness development on pioneering frontiers in spiritual, philosophical, and scientific fields.

2. IMAGINED VS REAL

Often influenced by this materialist underpinning in our culture, we perhaps find our mind objecting, “Oh, you’re just imagining this.” Especially if the experience isn’t overwhelmingly powerful to the degree we can’t deny it. We may think, “Am I just making this up because I want it to be true?” Or “Is this just happening in my head?”

To which the great wise Professor Dumbledore says, “Of course it’s happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” Or, to quote prominent transpersonal psychology scholar Jorge Ferrer Ph.D.:

“[We] should also scrutinize the neo-Kantian assumptions lying beneath skepticism and agnosticism toward the ontological status of certain spiritual realities. It is fundamental to be aware that such a stance, far from warranting neutrality or impartiality, is the fruit of Western, dualistic, and arguably disembodied epistemological ethos that automatically renders suspect many spiritual claims about the nature of knowledge and reality.”

In other words, those voices of self-doubt are probably far more suspect than thousands of years of spiritual experiences across the entire globe. Our culture’s denial of spiritual realities that we have (often unconsciously) absorbed is not rooted in proven scientific data but rather a perspective shaped by cultural limitations rather than superior knowledge.

We should also say, forgiving Dumbledore, that mystical experiences don’t totally happen just “inside your head.” There is a visionary quality, but even more mystical accessibility comes through engaging with our whole body—especially our hearts.

3. PASSIVE VS PARTICIPATORY

“Participatory Time” - Image by Paul Fryer

Too often, mysticism is thought of as an almost entirely passive experience, that it is simply something that happens to you or it doesn’t. You can’t control it, force it, or make it happen.

Part of the reason people do not have more mystical experiences is because they think these moments only come in given form. And all we can do is posture ourselves and wait passively, hoping, as if deep spiritual reality was only doled out in sparse amounts to a few special individuals lucky enough to be deemed worthy of receiving.

Rather than docile submission wherein such an experience could happen, participatory practices actively cultivate and develop our mystical intelligence. The more we engage with holistic rigor and dedication, the more we learn and grow into mystical reality being a part of our natural aptitude.

Ferrer again: “Participatory approaches, that is, seek to enact with body, mind, heart, and consciousness a creative spirituality that lets a thousand spiritual flowers bloom.”

Tuning into Mystical Awareness

In Whole-body Mystical Awakening, we are cultivating mystical awareness. Another way of saying this is that we are learning how to see, how to listen, how to sense at a different, deeper level. We enter into a consciousness that transcends our normal mental state, which is usually preoccupied with material reality and self-referential thoughts.

While there are many contemplative methods of practice to clear the mind and shift into a state of letting go, many of them take years of training to “recode” your mind so to speak. Often, they are, in a sense, trying to master the mind with the mind.

We have found it much easier and more effective to simply drop into your heart space. This is not thinking about your heart but experiencing from it. When moving from the energetic awareness from our heart space back to the mind, our head often becomes surprisingly cleared with a vibrant stillness.

If you learn to dwell in this heart space, your awareness opens to a depth of perception you may not have experienced before. You’ll probably first start to notice a frequency of heart energy that is different. As you cultivate this awareness, you’ll also start to experience further sensations and awakened perceptions.

Mystical Sensing

Depending on what type of person you are, these sensory responses might be visual: images, pictures, colors, or flowing energy fields. These are usually seen in the mind’s eye, but sometimes open-eyed as well. The sensations may come somatically, felt in bodily awareness as energy, tightness, or even shaking. You may get intuitions from your spiritual womb that speak insightful truth and wisdom into your life or for others. You may even get smells or tastes.

One of the most common and primary mystical emergences is a heart-burning that feels intensely energetic, almost painful at times. We call this bliss. It is an “ecstatic” state of being and awareness.

It is common, especially in Christian mysticism, for mystical experiences to happen between you and other beings present in non-physical spiritual form. For example, this could be engaging with the mystical person of the Living Jesus, as many people did in the New Testament after the Resurrection and throughout history. It may be engaging with Mary or other spiritual guides. And it may be sharing in this mystical communion with one another.

Our expressions and understanding will always be shaped by our culture, experiences, and limitations. And that is ok. That is the nature of co-creation. We don’t claim absolute truth or power from mystical engagement. Just experience with the divine for the blessing of ourselves, those around us, and the entire universe.

If we are in a group space dedicated to cultivating and experiencing this consciousness together, we share and watch the dance unfold. If we are alone, we might respond with gratitude or even reply in some way. There is an almost playful dynamic here. It’s not all buttoned-up reverence but a joyful inter-play.

If we allow ourselves to, we each may respond differently according to our creativity and personality. Let it emerge from within yourself. Embrace the playful. Be curious.

“Don’t be afraid to talk to me,” Jesus says.

Beginning Mystical Realm Experience in WeSpace groups

Group members may have difficulty expressing their experiences, embodied insights, and spiritual knowing in verbal terms. Spiritual knowing is not always easily reduced to language. But that doesn’t mean we should retreat to silence. We express what we can for the purpose of encouragement, comfort, and strengthening one another. And we discover together better ways of expressing our experiences together.

Usually, one of the first points of connection is through a felt experience of a shared energy field as we engage in relational spirituality. There is often a non-ordinary experience of increased union or softening and even dissolving of boundaries between group members.

ICN WeSpace groups actively engage in this energetic flow in its mystical, spiritual dimensions.

Embracing Our Mystical Nature

No longer seen as fringe or divergent factions of oddballs and eccentrics, many are now looking more and more to the mystics for guidance and genuine spiritual embodiment. Done with performative religion and unbeguiled by rank, position, or institutional credentials as markers of spiritual power and authority, people are seeking the real deal. And not just to learn about the mystics of old but also to seek to be the mystics of today.

This is not as exclusive as it might sound, for the mysticism that is emerging is not only for the spiritual elite, for those who live in the caves, the cloisters, or the clouds—but for all those who are trying to live from their embodied presence and loving spirit in all manner of life situations.

ICN is decidedly focused on the mystical. Our approach to mysticism is deeply informed by the mystical life and teachings of Jesus and the experiences of the early church, which began in a blaze of mystical experiences. We take seriously the transforming power of spirit-breath-consciousness that awakened in the disciples and the first communities. We follow the scripture that we are all “participants in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). And learn from the many Christian mystics through the centuries who have taken that seriously themselves.

It is also at the heart of how we are Integral, seeking not just to outline the progression and movements of evolution and consciousness but to embody and engage in integrative processes of becoming those new realities.

The mystical, with its emphasis on applied experience, is necessary to come into the evolutionary, spiritual transformations that have been spoken about and outlined by great minds. The future will be most decidedly and lovingly shaped not by more great minds alone—but by great people. Those who are great not because of their many accomplishments but because they are holistically embodying the fullness of these new ways of being.

Questions for Reflection:

1. How do you feel about the word “Mystical?” Do you consider yourself a mystic?
2. What does it mean to you to embrace the mystical? What are the qualities you discover in your unique union and communion with God in the world?
3. How do you actively participate in your mystical awareness and sensing? How have you grown in this capacity?

The *Mystical* in Whole-Body Mystical Awakening