Examples Of Mysticism

In the dawn of the modern age, the western European society that had once revered mysticism and allowed it to shape and recreate Christianity began to see mystics as a hostile force against reason and science. While many ideas held by the medieval mystics echo still in many protestant and even some Catholic churches, much of society has dismissed the revelations and visions seen by these mystics as nonsensical and a likely result of several psychological disorders. Those who experience the abstract, fantastic visions and spiritual phenomenon in today’s world are subject to much more scrutiny than those of medieval Europe, as the general individualistic populace cannot quite comprehend the idea of the experiential union between God and man that

Christian mysticism seeks and those who would be called mystics describe. With the development of psychiatry, many mystics of the past were analyzed and diagnosed with psychosis and schizophrenia as a result of frequent fasting and withdrawal from society. Yet, even though many scholars of the twentieth century are eager to vehemently discredit mysticism as a purely psychological, renewed interest in Christian mysticism has begun to emerge over the years.
There indeed seem to be a large number of women in modern Christianity and Catholicism who could be described as the female mystics of this century. Once well-known example is Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Even after her death in 1997, Mother Teresa is still regarded as one of the most influential women in modern Church history but only after her death was it publicly revealed that she had recorded her own mystical experiences. While her mystical experiences were not quite as dramatic as those of the medieval women before her, in her letters to Archbishop Perier, Mother Teresa writes about experiencing strange thoughts and feelings that plague her mind as well as hearing a very distinct voice during long hours of prayer, “‘I want Indian nuns, victims of my love, who would be Mary and Martha, who would be so very united to me as to radiate my love on souls. I want free nuns covered with my poverty of the Cross. I want obedient nuns covered with my obedience of the Cross. I want full of love nuns covered with the charity of the Cross. Wilt thou refuse to do this for me?’” Throughout subsequent letters to Archbishop Perier, Mother Teresa records the words of the voice as she heard it, recording directions from who she could only describe as Christ instructing her to proclaim His name on the streets of India, particularly to the depraved females of Indian society.
But even with such records an aura of skepticism remains, especially among modern Protestants.

With Christian mysticism being defined as a primarily Catholic in origin and some of the visions so abstract and nonsensical that surely they cannot possibly be a true divine message from God. In protestant theology, mystical and divine experiences are lost. W.H Stace, a protestant philosopher, even remarked once that “there are no protestant mystics”. However, in the defense of Stace, it is very likely that those who could come close to the definition of a mystic in protestant communities would never refer to themselves as such. C.S Lewis himself explicitly disclaimed himself as a mystic in his “Letters to Malcolm”, even though his spiritual experiences could very easily fall under the mystical category. Even female spiritual leaders like Beth Moore even demonstrate female mystic attributes but likely would never declare herself one. In the wake of the Reformation, Protestants discarded mysticism because it seemed too “Catholic”, while Catholics discarded mysticism because it seemed too “Protestant”. (McColman) So the question arises: Should the protestant community even accept mysticism as a reality? Or should it be discarded as obsolete and unnecessary? Most Protestant theologians will agree upon the goal of mysticism without necessarily referring to it as such, i.e. seeking an intimate and experiential union with God that transcends beyond the intellectual and the physical. In fact the defining mark of a Protestant mystic seems to be “an experiential and direct knowledge/relationship with God, informed almost exclusively by scripture, and completely unconcerned to label itself as ‘mystical’ or ‘contemplative.;” (McColman) On the Catholic side of things, mysticism became increasingly associated with persons who had little to no ecclesiastical power and with typically obscure women post-reformation. In modern Catholic society, mysticism survives as a non-threatening

private devotion and so-called messages by latter-day Catholic mystics all revolve around the general theme of “pray the rosary and obey the Church”, a large contrast to the radical visions experienced by men and women centuries before. In the usual tradition, when a Catholic mystic does indeed emerge with more transformational messages they become quickly marginalized by the Church, the same way the Church might have attempted to do centuries before.
However, despite the marginalization, mysticism continues to have a large impact of on the evolution of modern Christian thought. While it is difficult to look back upon the writings of medieval mystics with the same objective mind-set that they might have adopted in their time without immediately identifying symptoms associated with schizophrenia and psychosis it is important to note that echoes of mysticism continue to ring throughout modern Christian thought. The idea of seeking a spiritual connection with God that transcends all thought and reason certainly seems beyond our predominantly left-brained society perhaps in order to experience the full, raw power and beauty that is God and achieve the union that He describes in the Bible abandoning reason is necessary.