[Opinion] Was mysticism a core part of any religion/spiritual practice? When later followers moved away from this particular aspect, was it detrimental?

[Orbiso]

In my opinion, I truly do believe that Mysticism is what gives religion/spiritual practices/beliefs, their soul/heart. Without it, you see a watering down. You have the structure, and the shell, but you lose the heart/soul. That why I personally think, after doing some research, why Sufi Islam, is quite clearly, the traditional Islam because it kept the core of what Islam was like back in the day, it preaches following the Shariah and Iman, but also holding strong to the Ihsan. This, I gathered from doing my own research, from reading the Seerah and the Quran. These two texts, in my opinion (and some hadith), provided me with enough proof, that early Islam, was quite frankly, very much mystical, and very Sufi. Something that was later lost as time passed.


I would love to hear your thoughts about this. What religions do you think were mystical at their core in the beginning? Do you agree that Mysticism was a core part of religion? etc.

 

[taschr]

Yes and yes. Mysticism is the beginning of all religion and we see a gradual decline towards easily digestible populist teachings over time in all major religions. Axial age Alexandria and Greece had an extremely ecclectic mystic scene which birthed Neoplatonism and Hermeticism, Gnosticm,and various mystery cults that all influenced early Christianity. The Christianity that survived out of this came from the fall of Rome and the consolidation of Orthodox teachings as cultural and political law under the Church. Mystic schools were pushed to obscurity after the fall of Rome and this is where the occult first became the occult.

During the Renaissance we see a return towards more introspective lines of thinking, but this quickly gets muddled with the emergence of scientific discipline and instead of pure mysticism we get lines of thinking that become mixed with mathematics and the physical world.

Your point about Sufism is correct. Islam went through a similar process, but they retained their mystical leanings for much longer. Trying to know the divine directly wasn't as shunned as it was in the Christian world. Part of this comes down to how each tradition understood the relationship between human and divine. Christianity inherited a strong dose of Augustinian pessimism about human nature, i.e., original sin, total depravity, the gulf between creator and creation. The idea that a person could unite with God or directly perceive divine reality without mediation started sounding dangerously close to claiming equality with God. Meister Eckhart nearly got burned for saying the soul could become one with God. John of the Cross had to couch everything in metaphor and paradox to avoid the Inquisition.

In the east we see similar themes, but they retain more of their spirituality. Buddhism turns away from a path of self knowledge toward a devotional practice with Pure Lands teachings where if one just believes in something, one will be rewarded.

Eventually we see mysticism all but die out in Christianity today. Protestantism has entirely lost its mystical spark, and whats left of Christian mysticism is confined to orthodox monasteries.

I often wonder if this was actually a benefit to the surviving mystical teachings. What has been passed down to us has emerged out of a pressure cooker of academic scrutiny. The occult wasn't allowed to become watered down by populist misunderstandings and a desire for easy enlightenment and so through the various surviving traditions we receive maps meant for dedicated practitioners.

Only a small percentage of the population would ever be capable of understanding the teachings anyway. Plato had his tripartite division of souls where he said the best course of action was to simply lie to the producer class about philosophical truths, because they were incapable of understanding. The Gnostics had the hylics, same deal.

 

[AbammonTheGreat]

So i think what really separates the eastern religions from the western ones is the eastern religions take their cues from their mystics instead of leaning heavily into institutional religious authority. Within the Abrahamic faiths mystics have always been outsiders and pariahs as their personal experiences are challenging to institutional authority. Obviously we see mystics at the foundations of movements and doctrines within the Abrahamic faiths but their acceptance amongst the mainstream is almost always post-humously and for branches like the Kabbalists and Sufis they are regarded as outsiders or "lost" by the more accessible but dogmatic institution itself. Christianity is especially notorious for persecuting their mystics only to canonize them at a later date. However in the east we still see a focus on practice centered around gurus and teachers who have direct experience and accumulate followers through their abilities with direct experience. This is how those religions operate on the mainstream scale and why they are more disorganized in terms of dogmatic institutions with the different schools of eastern practice being united mostly through core mystical or philosophical literature.

 

[MorganBlack]

whats left of Christian mysticism is confined to orthodox monasteries

Da hell? Most Anglos, and even many of us Latinos do not know much about the mystical side of the Catholicism. And you can't seperate it from Vodou or Brujeria without breaking those magical systems.

So I'm not a fan of the conservative side, but it might help to think of it as many Catholicisms (plural) - that works as an big umbrella and time capsule for many mystical and magical practices (plus some bullshit), and less as a dogma.

The most influential Catholics have always been it's mystics - St. Teresa of Avila, St. Francis, St. John of the Cross. Sure, they are not part of the temporal power structure of pedophile bankers, but who cares? They left something far more meaningful and enduring.

For those who are interested in learning more about Catholic mysticism I recommend "W" at St. Anthony's Tongue.

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Oh. This is very cool.
I get it's very hard to talk about mysticism when it's hidden inside what many of us liberals think of as a problematic religion. But Art works pretty great to talk more universally:

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