Rational Mysticism: Spirituality Meets Science in the Search for Enlightenment in UU Mystics in Community

Oct 16, 2007 Paul rated it really liked it

Shelves: about-mysticism

John Horgan, erstwhile science writer, invites his reader on a tour of current opinions about mysticism. Taking a journalistic stance - with one foot in a storyteller's motley boot and the other in a gumshoe's sneaker - he is mostly distracted from reflection. As he tells about his experiences writing the book, he displays his reporter's skepticism and disguises his biases as conclusions (to his credit, he also flags those biases with phrases like "to my mind"). He has done his research, down to John Horgan, erstwhile science writer, invites his reader on a tour of current opinions about mysticism. Taking a journalistic stance - with one foot in a storyteller's motley boot and the other in a gumshoe's sneaker - he is mostly distracted from reflection. As he tells about his experiences writing the book, he displays his reporter's skepticism and disguises his biases as conclusions (to his credit, he also flags those biases with phrases like "to my mind"). He has done his research, down to reading old books and talking with living opinion-makers. He is detached enough not to involve the reader in others' confusions and is frank about his own. He shares his personal journey, and how his views have changed. To my mind, while his insights are hindered by an inadequate grasp of religion (and therefore of mysticism and spirituality), he does paint an informative portrait of American cultural currents around mysticism, and focuses in the end on the right concerns.

Relating mysticism to religion is, to my mind, crucial to understanding it. Bernard McGinn, the leading scholar of Western mysticism, said as much to Horgan in an interview. One old book that might have helped Horgan is Friedrich von Hügel's "The Mystical Element in Religion," cited in McGinn's "The Presence of God." (Dennis Tamburello also uses it in his bite-sized "Ordinary Mysticism" [Paulist Press, 1996].) Von Hügel describes religion as having three elements: experiential (mystical), speculative (theological) and institutional (traditional). Horgan's bias that "a sense of absolute knowledge is the sine qua non of mystical experiences" causes him to conflate these elements. He asks: "What sort of truth would a rational mysticism give us? What sort of consolation?" These questions address the speculative and institutional elements of religion, respectively, not the mystical. Mysticism is about what sort of presence we hold in the world, our awareness of what is present to us (within and beyond ourselves), and how we move in the world. It is about what we do to hold that presence and awareness and way of moving - spiritual practices. Once experience, awareness and ways of being cross the threshold into words, we are out of the mystical and into the speculative element of religion, where truth is sought. Mystical theology - what Horgan pays most attention to - is speculation that strives to stay connected to mystical experience. Consolation, as he discovers on his journey, comes from our compassion for one another. And that is what religious institutions are meant to shelter and nourish, cultivate and encourage and preserve.

Horgan, like many others today, gives undue respect to a more-than-century-old popular error that imagines religion and science in irreconcilable conflict. This error is rooted in two perceptions: that religion depends upon the concepts and forms and stories preserved by religious institutions (and challenged by science), and that abuses of religious institutions invalidate religion (but not spirituality - hence the popular stance, "I'm more spiritual than religious" or "I'm spiritual, not religious"). His categorization of today's religious critics into "perennialists" and "postmodernists" reflects how this error divides us. Yet he sees the way out. He sees that the speculative and institutional criticisms of religion apply equally to science. And he sees that the mystical element in religion can be found in the wonder of science. Far from being in conflict, religion and science are complementary, respectively exploring interior and exterior worlds. To my mind, our main challenge is distinguishing between the psychological and the spiritual, so as to define the threshold between science and religion. ...more

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