On the Mystical Expeirence

Iamblichus, in his discussion of theurgy in De Mysteriis, talks about three different kinds of theurgic practice, each fitting for different kinds of people. The first level is the physical theurgy, or theurgic rituals using physical symbols for an anagogic purpose. The third level is non-physical theurgy, the theuryg of silence, that uses nothing physical as its purpose to contact the hypercosmic gods or divine thoughts. There is, of course, a median, one that combines, in varying ways, material and non-material theurgy and works as a transition from the lowest level to the highest. There is, I think, a direct connection between these modes of theurgic praxis and mysticism.

Typically, when one thinks of a "mystical experience," we think of the epiphanal moment. The blinding flash of light that changes everything. A review of the lives of various mystics demonstrates that such things do happen, but that they are also not what defines their lives or experiences as mystics. I suggest that, much as there are three modes of theurgic practice, there are three modes of mystical experience. Further, just as each mode has its proper time and place, so do the varieties of mystical experience. Finally, I suggest that each mode/experience is of equal importance within the context they occur.

One of the difficulties of discussing mystical experiences is the language which we use. English, for example, is an excellent quantitative language. It is somewhat horrific when it comes to the qualitative. The use of the word "experience" is an example. Part of what I will discuss as a "mystical experience" will bare almost no relation to what is commonly understood by an "experience." It is simply the only word I have to use.

The first kind of mystical experience correlates well to material theurgy. We might even call it "material mysticism," but that sounds less than poetic, so how about everyday mysticism? Or, if we want to engage a little more in a mystical style of language, "mundane mysticism," which is nicely contradictory. In De Mysteriis, Iamblichus discusses what are called symbolon (symbols), sunthemata (tokens or signatures), and a host of other things. These signatures are imprinted directly into physical reality by the gods and Demiurgos so that we may use them to go back to the gods and, ultimately, the One. The tokens are the means through which theurgy work because the tokens are objective divine symbols, not subjective human symbols. And they are everywhere and we can learn to see them and understand them for what they are. Through this way of thinking about the cosmos we can bring ourselves closer to the purposes of creation and the forces that are behind it, which is, ultimately, God. It is the beginning of the theurgy and demiurgy. But it is physical and so, though based on non-physical, divine and objective reality, subject to our subjective experiences and discursive reasoning. So, mundane mysticism is both objective and subjective, just as material theurgy is, as it a human performance of divine rites.

What is most interesting about mundane mysticism is that, first, it is learnable. We can learn to see the divine signatures and engage in them as diving signatures, not simply natural or scriptural phenomena. Second, an ephiphanal experience is not necessary to do this. Finally, reading the autobiographies of mystics suggests they spend most of their time in this objective/subjective mode. This mode is spiral in form. It is circular in that the mundane mystical experience informs the everyday life of the mystic, but is also informed by that everyday life. They are dependent upon one another. But this mode is not simply circular. The continued mundane mystical experience moves our interpretation and lives not so much forward as upward, closer to the divine. Our interpretations refine the experience and the experience enriches the interpretation and the spirit is moved.

The third mode (I'll keep to traditional Iamblichean writing style here and discuss the extremes before the median) is more difficult. It does not consist of an experience, per se, because experiences require bodies and minds and thoughts and this mode goes beyond that. It is henosis, union with the divine. The divine, however, at least within Neoplatonism, and within classical Gnosticism, exists beyond the level of Nous, Intellect (please insert here a lengthy discussion on the intelligible triad of Being/Life/Intellect common to Neoplatonism and at least Sethian Gnosticism that is otherwise off topic). By Nous I mean the divine mind or intellect, which is the lowest part of the mental world. Above it are the Platonic forms, the gods (or Aeons in Gnostic terminology), the pre-essential Demiurgos (in the Neoplatonic sense) and then the Good/One (i.e., God).

Henosis is a hyper-intellectual "experience." Yes, there's that word, "experience." Henosis isn't experience, per se, as it exists beyond the thing we usually mean when we talk about having those experiences. Henosis occurs beyond the soul (which is a product of Nous) and beyond even the divine intellect, occurring at the level of divine ideas . . . which is a little strange. How do ideas exist prior to the mind? Plato held that the contents of the mind pre-exist the thinking of them: our minds are not blank slates and learning is in fact remembering (this took me some time to understand, as Plato says the second part but doesn't really directly say the first). This level of the noetic realm reflects that ideology. The divine thoughts, the gods or Aeons, exist before the mind that experiences them. When henosis occurs it does so outside of time and space and material reality and, ultimately, we, the subjective human creature, may be entirely unaware of it occurring.*

The second kind of mystical experience is perhaps closer to what we generally think of when we hear the word "mysticism." This is the ecstatic moment, the ephiphany, the ah ha! But remember, this is a median mode. This is what we might call theosis, becoming god-like. Neoplatonically, we might say this level corresponds to a kind of union with the material gods, symbolized by the seven classical planets, but existing far beyond them. It can even include the soul's union with its source, Nous and a glimpsing of the the noetic realm or pleroma. It is a combination of gnosis on the one hand, and an dealing with that gnosis in the phsycial realm on the other. Gnosis might be liked to a complete, intuitive knowing. Gnosis, like henosis has its origins beyond the intellect. It does not require thought or discursive reasoning. It is simply knowing. But because it is experiential, because the conscious human being in a material body can have gnosis, maybe we should think of gnosis as a byproduct of henosis or its experiential component that falls to the level of Intellect, if not intellect.

But gnosis must be put into context. By "must" I mean we, as discursive creatures, do this, do it automatically and without necessarily realizing we are doing so (which, admittedly, is a poor use of one's discursive ability, a give from the Demiurgos, but that's a different post). We employ our moments of gnosis in practical and material ways. Our life experiences put help us put it in context and so make it "useful." When we read the writings of a mystic, even something like the difficult poetry of Rumi, this is what we're reading. It is an attempt to keep the gnosis as gnosis-like as possible while simultaneously attempting to come to terms with that gnosis in a way that makes sense. It is an attempt to understand the Universal in the mode of the particular.

Though the highest* form of mystical experience or mode of theurgy is the rarest, in some ways the median level is the most difficult. The highest mode is utterly ineffable. Not only is there no need to discuss it, there is no way to discuss it. But the median mode is with us, it is extreme, ecstatic and not only can be dealt with, it must be. This experience changes our lives even while being informed by our lives. By placing it in the genre of the particular the universal becomes understandable. But how the Universal comes to be understood is at least somewhat dependent upon who we are, where we live, how we grew up, i.e. our personal background. In order to mitigate this some mystical schools develop teachings to make sure everything moves in, what is for them, the right direction. Sufism created the doctrine of makamat, "spiritual stations," for this reason.

The key to surviving this, in my own humble estimation, is recourse to mundane mysticism, the most basic form of mystical endeavor, and so the foundation of an overall mystical praxis. And this is precisely what mystics in the past appear to have done.


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*I fully understand that I am presenting mysticism and mystical modes in a very particular, largely Western, chronology, suggesting an ontological superiority of henosis over gnosis over mundane mysticism. I also fully understand that this reflect my personal experiences and Western, Neoplatonic and Kabbalistic background and is not meant to reflect a Truth or a Zaehnerian approach to mysticism.

Wherein I talk about doing stuff

Last night I "participated" (read: hardly said a thing) in a Gnostic skype conference call that some of you reading this may have also participated in. We talked about the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, which, as it turns out, may or may not actually have been written by Gnostics. As you probably know, I'm neither a Christian nor a Gnostic, but a second cousin twice removed, a kabbalist and a Neoplatonist (it's up for grabs which of those should be listed first). That isn't entirely relevant, except perhaps an excuse as to why I seemed to approach the text as a relative outsider to it, because I am.

If you're not familiar with the Gospel, a translation can be found here (thanks to the conference call coordinator for the link): http://www.maryofmagdala.com/GMary_Text/gmary_text.html

At any rate, there were a few things that really interested me in this Gospel. First, there is some interesting political infighting it seems, between Peter and Mary/Levi. We see this sort of thing in other Gospels. For instance Kelber suggests Mark has a current of anti-Jerusalem Church (i.e. Jewish Christian Church) polemics in it. It was pointed out that the inter-community bickering in Mary is a little different, the disciples themselves are doing the fighting here. I point this out only because we often forget that our scriptures, though derived through divine inspiration, are certainly also products of humanity.


Second, there is a brief segment, surrounded by missing pieces, that mentions soul, mind and spirit. This is a very interesting, likely Platonic use of the terminology. The Gospel, through the mouth of Christ, tells us that visions are seen not my the soul but the mind. The Platonic mind, the Nous, is not the mind as we think of it today. The Nous, analogous to the Neoplatonic Demiurgos (but not the Gnostic Demiurgos), exists far beyond our conscious, rational, dialectical mind. That it is the mind that experiences the visions, not the soul, tells us something about the role of these logoi in the spiritual community of the Gospel's author, as well as the spiritual level whereupon Christ may be found.

Finally, there is a section, of which several pages are missing, that appears to describe the soul's spiritual ascent through . . . somewhere. In this description the soul encounters opposition; Desire, Ignorance and the seven forms of Wrath. The soul must overcome each opponent before ascending further. I was instantly reminded of Jewish merkavah mysticism, which would have predated the gospel but still existed while it was in circulation. More than this, though, I recalled the scholarship of Moshe Idel on ecstatic kabbalah and William Harmless on Christian mysticism. Both discuss how descriptions like these do not exist solely as theosophical texts; which is to say they are not simply descriptions of theological or philosophical constructs. Instead they typically represent the product of what we'd call mystical experiences. I.e. they are not just about talking, they are about doing.

It was brought up (not by me, by our esteemed coordinator) that the older Greek version of the MS (late 1st century or early 2nd century) is somewhat different from the later Coptic edition (5th or 6th century). The Coptic version puts the visions in the voice of Christ; it was he who described the experiences of the soul. The older version, however, gave Mary the experiences. Now, there are several possible reasons for the differences. I think that one of them is perhaps a change in Christianity between the 1st and 5th centuries. Not regarding the role of women (though that too probably happened to some extent) but the role of the practitioner in general. To me, and this is entirely speculation on my part, the differences in the texts demonstrates a difference in attitude as to who is capable of these experiences. The older text seems to tell us that you can (read: should) have these experiences. That having these visions, first of the ascending soul, then the Mind's beholding of Christ (in the context of the Gospel, your mileage may vary). But the important thing is to go out and do it, that living the spiritual life is living an active spiritual life, not a passive one. It suggests that we can sit and wait for revelation all we want, but, as per the kabbalistic axiom, action below stimulates action above.

Oh, and there's some interesting stuff on sin, and how it only seems to exist when we do it, but not in and of itself (sin is not ontological?).

Anyway, those are my muddle thoughts on last night's discussion. I think next time we'll be discussing part of the Gospel of Thomas.