How to recognise a mystical experience

by various Western author

Mystical Experiences – criteria for identification

Source: May R M (1991) Cosmic Consciousness Revisited; Element 

Ineffability – the handiest of the marks by which I classify a state of mind as mystical is negative. The subject of it immediately says that it defies expression, that no adequate report of its contents can be given in words. It follows from this that its quality must be directly experienced; it cannot be imparted or transferred to others. Noetic quality – Although so similar to states of feeling, mystical states seem to those who experience them to be also states of knowledge. They are states of insight into the depths of truth unplumbed by the discursive intellect. They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance … and as a rule they carry with them a curious sense of authority for after-time. Transiency – Mystical states cannot be sustained for long. Except in rare instances, half an hour, or at most an hour or two, seem to be the limit beyond which they fade into the light of common day. Passivity – Although the oncoming of mystical states may be facilitated by preliminary voluntary operations, as by fixing the attention, or going through certain bodily performances, or in other ways which manuals of mysticism prescribe; yet when the characteristic sort of consciousness once has set in, the mystic feels as if his own will were in abeyance, and indeed sometimes grasped by a superior power.

The above list is that of William James who himself had no mystical experiences. [Comment: "One of the experiences described by James in The Varieties of Religious Experience and attributed there to an anonymous source was later admitted by James to be his own mystical experience". - Thanks to Ian Robinson, President, Rationalist Society of Australia for the clarification (more)]

Those who have had a mystical experience would add a fifth: 

• Oneness – a sense of the Oneness of all Creation, of the One behind the many.

Triggers for spontaneous mystical experience

As reported in Coxhead N (1985) The Relevance of Bliss; St Martin's Press; New York

Sir Alister Hardy found over 3000 people who claimed to have had spontaneous mystical experiences. He asked what had triggered these experiences. The results are given below in terms of average number of mentions per 1000 experiences: 

Depression, despair 183.7 Prayer, meditation 135.7 Natural beauty 122.7 Participation in religious worship 111.7 Literature, drama, film 82.0 Illness 80.0 Music 56.7 Crises in personal relations 37.3 The death of others 28.0 Sacred places 26.0 Visual arts 24.7 Creative work 20.7 The prospect of death 15.3 Silence, solitude 15.3 Anaesthetic drugs 10.7 Physical activity 09.7 Relaxation 09.7 Childbirth 08.7 Happiness 07.3 Psychedelic drugs 06.7 Sexual relations 04.0

Note that these items are the ‘triggers’ rather than the ‘substantive cause’ of the experiences. The preconditions and contexts would have to be investigated on a case by case basis. Some interesting points emerge nonetheless:

Despair is 25 times more likely to ‘produce’ religious-mystical experiences than happiness and the distractively potent combination of sex, drugs and rock and roll rates very low on the scale!

Five Stages in the Development of Mystical Consciousness

Based on Underhill E (1993) Mysticism - the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness; Oneworld, Oxford

The following are the five stages in the development of mystical consciousness as described in Evelyn Underhill's epochal book, first published in 1891, Mysticism - the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness.

The first three stages represent the first mystic life which culminates, after much trial and tribulation, in 'illumination' which is a state of 'happiness'. This is shared by many seers and artists who are not commonly ranked as mystics. Those who go beyond stage three are the great and strenuous seekers.

A brief description of the first three stages follows:

• The awakening of the Self to consciousness of Divine Reality. This experience, usually abrupt and well marked, is accompanied by intense feelings of joy and exaltation.
• The Self, aware for the first time of Divine Beauty, realizes by contrast its own finiteness and imperfection, the manifold illusions in which it is immersed, the immense distance which separates it from the One. Its attempts to eliminate by discipline and mortification all that stands in the way of its progress towards union with God constitute Purgation: a state of pain and effort.
• When by Purgation the Self has become detached from the "things of sense", and acquired those virtues which are the "ornaments of the spiritual marriage", its joyful consciousness of the Transcendent Order returns in an enhanced form.

  Mysticism

More - Ian Robinson (2000) Can an Atheist Have a Religious Experience (18 pages)
For a 64Kb pdf file CLICK HERE
see also http://www.rationalist.com.au/

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