Mysticism a Critical Analysis, of the Timelessness, Language and Ineffability

Mysticism a Critical Analysis, of the Timelessness, Language and Ineffability MARTYN AMUGEN ________________________________________________________________ Abstract The following thesis is refutation of the rationalist approach that there can be a true knowing of God in the sense that other things can be known. The primary focus of the argument is on the grounds of mysticism. Which is both timeless and as relevant as when man first sought out the divine, the author would hope that the reader will both enjoy and be enlightened; in turn perhaps questioning his/her own conceptualisation of God/Absolute.  Contents Chapter I Introduction All knowledge is but remembrance and the mind of man by nature knoweth all things, and hath but her own native and original notions, which by the strangeness and the darkness of the tabernacles of the body remain sequestrated, and are again revived and restored. Plato as quoted by Sir Frances Bacon, Bart, when commenting on the death of James I (James I by His Contemporaries by Robert Ashton) ‘Divine Darkness by way of unknowing’, as he says: ‘But do thou dear Timothy, in the diligent exercise of mystical contemplation, leave behind the senses and the operation of the intellect, and all things sensible and intellectual, and all things in the world of being and non-being, that thou may arise by unknowing towards the union, as far as is attainable, with Him who transcends all being and all knowledge. For by the unceasing and absolute renunciation of thyself and of all things though mayest be borne on high, through pure and entire self-abnegation, into the superessential Radiance of the Divine Darkness’ (Dionysius the Areopagite, Mystical Theology and the Celestial Hierarchies))  1.1 Objectives of Study One of the most fundamental problems in the Philosophy of Religion, is the understanding of God, a problem which man has contended with since the dawn of time, as time has progressed man has grown in the boldness of his assertions with the advancement of science. Too such an extent that in the modern age he has began to believe that he has found a rationale for the most mysterious question that confronts all Christians, the understanding of God. The purpose of this dissertation is to defend the Mystical argument and to examine the mystical experiences of some of the greatest practitioners in particular Meister Eckhart and where necessary show the similarities between him and other Christian mystics; as well as where necessary making comparable analysis, between similar mystical experiences of non Christian mystics. It is the purpose of this paper to show that Mysticism is not merely the domain of cloistered medieval saints and holy men. Therefore we will argue that Mysticism is timeless and to that end, examine the mystical experiences of Padre Pio (1887-1968). We shall examine the various arguments for and against, and seek to examine mystical experience, philosophically, we will also analyse the relationship between mysticism and language. The dissertation will ask the question is God beyond the understanding of mortal man, is he limited in his field of knowledge to the extent, where any understanding of God is limited by language or perhaps beyond language? The Observer I shall here break with accepted convention in keeping with the Pythagorean, view that the philosopher is the one who observes and contemplates at the Games. For all that is known or can be known is done by observation. Thus I shall refer to myself as the Observer. will seek to show using the mystical argument that the mind of man is limited with certainty to knowledge that is quantifiable and physical, and the application of logic and rationality to that which is the mystery of mysteries, is on the whole an illusionary exercise, as mysticism is quite apart from any form of empirical knowledge, and must be as such treated wholly differently from the latter, even though a rational approach is needed to help quantify some knowledge. 1.2 Thesis Statement In light of the different approaches to knowledge about God, mysticism shows that there is no true knowing of God in the sense that other things can be known. The mystical philosophy of religion constitutes yet one other unique source about the knowledge about God/Absolute Reality 1.3 Research Outline The outline of this thesis will consist of five chapters. In the following outline the titles of those chapters are given, however, subtitles will be added as the researcher will take the research forward in depth. 1.4 Limitations and Overview of the Study This paper will neither seek prove the existence of God or deny the existence of God, through Mysticism, nor will it seek to argue that Christian mysticism is superior to that of any other religion. Its purpose is to undertake a critical examination of mysticism and ask does it give us a clear view of God? 1.5 Background and Definition of Mysticism It might therefore be useful to begin with some background information on mysticism and its origins and definition, it is perhaps best to start with Evelyn Underhill’s definition of mysticism, “The direct intuition or experience of God,” (Clarke, 1925, p.9). Or to put it another way, “every religious tendency that discovers the way to God direct through inner experience without the mediation of reasoning,” (Fanning, 2001, p. 2). The Observer has noted that all religions, as Williams James once, put it are founded on mysticism, and all that we have now is the second hand version of those religions. It is said that Siddharatha Guantama, the founder of Buddhism entered into a mystical trance like state, both at his enlightenment and at his death, before entering the final peace of Nirvana, the latter has been described as the centre of Buddhist mysticism by Spencer, in his book Mysticism and World Religions, and as an immediate apprehension or supreme reality. In China the Taoist sought union with the Tao, which is the Infinite and Eternal, that is Supreme Reality. Therefore the mystical union of the individual to some ultimate form of reality is an aspect of most if not all religions, for the purpose of this paper, the Observer will endeavour to deal with mysticism from a Christian perspective and in regards to the monolithic God, of Christianity, and will only make reference to other forms of religious mysticism where the Observer believes that they show a commonality with Christian Mysticism, and follow a perennial theme. The Observer will firstly give some background as to the origin of Christian Mysticism. 1.6 Background and Origin of Mysticism The early origins of Christian Mysticism, begin with the decline of the early Greco-Roman pantheon of Gods, who had been in decline since the middle of fourth century BC, when the conquest of Alexander the Great, reduced the significance of the Greek city-states and in turn their public pulpits which were based on the worship of state gods. With the erosion of the latter and the changes brought about by Alexander, we find that, people began to identify with other similar ethnic groups and cultural groups rather than cities, and in turn religions began to appeal to people on an individual basis, throughout the Hellenistic world, often blending both Greek and Non Greek elements. The significance of this is that, these new religions, which strengthened as the Roman Empire expanded and rendered less potent the regional or national cultures that had existed before. Thus what the new altered religions offered was a salvation from the sufferings of this world, immortality in the next world and direct communication with salvific deities. These new religions offered esoteric teachings that were known only to their intimates, who took oaths of secrecy pledging never reveal their secrets to outsiders. Hence the above cults were known as the Mystery Religions, the word mystery, being etymologically related to mysticism. Like mysticism, the Greek word mysterion, “mystery,” was derived from myein, to close, in this case indicating the closed mouths of the initiates of the cults. (S Fanning, p 6) As these new religions spread from the eastern world to the western world, becoming somewhat universal cults, for example the mysteries of Eleuis, developed out of an agricultural cult, celebrating the restoration of Demeter’s daughter Persephone, from the Lord of Hades. The significance of this is that the subsequent annual celebrations, symbolised a cult, of what Fanning refers to as a “Vernal renewal of life,” The allogorisation into a symbol of the triumph over death. Which the participants in the Eleusis mysteries, believed would give them immortality. There were a number of other religions that sprang, up along the same theme, the Cult of the Great Mother, which was prevalent throughout Asia, there was also the Persian cult of Mithra, the significance of the above was that they all offered triumph over death and immortality. All of these religions existed on two levels, a public side and one for those that were initiated. “All of them, including Mithras, existed on two levels, one was a public side for the purpose of proselythization and evangelisation by which the essentials of the cult were explained and the potential initiates were recruited. At the same time there was the private aspect of the cult, wherein its inner, hidden and secret face was revealed only after the aspirants underwent elaborate ritualistic initiation ceremonies. One of the most important functions of the initiation was to bring the initiate to direct contact and communion with the deity.” (Fanning p. 9) Part of the initiation into these hidden realms was, achieved by various stages of fasting, vigils and meditation. These were all designed to produce a state of ecstasy that would result in the participant encountering or experiencing the deity, in the form of visions or dreams. For example when Isis, came to Lucius in the Golden Ass of Apuleius, reassuring him “I am here to take pity on your ills; I am here to give aid and solace. Cease then from tears and wailings, set aside your sadness; there is now dawning for you, through my providence, the day of salvation.” (Griffiths & Brill, 1975, pp.75-7) These ceremonies might lead the believer to some form of transformation, into a divine being through divine indwelling or the bestowal of immortality. At the climax of the initiation in the Golden Ass, Lucius reports the following: “At the dead of night, I saw the sun flashing with bright effulgence. I approached close to the gods above and the gods below and worshipped them face to face. Behold, I have related things about which you must remain in ignorance. (Griffiths & Brill, p. 99) Thus the observer notes that this marriage between the initiant and the deity would sometimes result in union which, is often expressed in terms of brightness and light and the reception of unutterable revelations, and mystery, or put another way, mysticism. Yet to obtain this state, of sublime and virtually inexplicable exultation the mystic, must purify his/herself of self of worldly desire in order to bath in the light; as Margaret Smith puts it, in her Nature and Meaning of Mysticism: Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy place? Even he that hath clean hands and a pure heart," sang the Hebrew Psalmist, and the Greek philosopher Plotinus says also that as the eye could not behold the sun unless it were itself sunlike, so no more can the soul behold God unless it is Godlike. So the mystics both in East and West have maintained that the stripping from the soul of selfishness and sensuality is essential for the beholding of the Vision of God. Self-loss, withdrawal from self, self-annihilation, these are essential to those who would approach the Absolute. Only when all images of earth are hushed and the clamour of the senses is stilled and the soul has passed beyond thought of self can the Eternal Wisdom be revealed to the mystic who seeks that high communion with the Unseen. (Woods,1980, p. 21) We are given some further illumination of the God like being beheld by the mystical vision, when Plotinus tells us that the final stage to the Unitive Life, is from becoming to being. “Man beholds God face to face, and is joined to Him in a progressive union, a union which is a fact of experience consciously realised. In terms of the most beautiful and glowing imagery have the mystics--who alone are qualified to speak, since they alone have seen and known that of which they speak--sought to describe the Beatific Vision and the Union to which it leads.” We are further told by Plotinus, that, "Beholding this Being--resting, rapt, in the vision and possession of so lofty a loveliness, growing to Its likeness--what beauty can the soul yet lack? For This the Beauty supreme, the absolute and the primal, fashions. Its lovers to Beauty and makes them also worthy of love." (Plotinus, 1991, Ennead i. 7.) In this introductory section of the paper, setting out the definition of the term mysticism, the observer has noted that the Christian mystic has been unable to give a rational and logical definition of God, for example if we take Francis of Assisi, who in his mystical revelation was unable to define God. For whilst praying in the house of Bernard of Quintavalle, was heard to say again and again, "My God! my God! What art Thou? And what am I?" (Woods 1980 p. 27) St Francis mystical conundrum is further given weight, in that the genuine mystic finds it almost impossible to quantify and apprehend the un-apprehend able. The Observer in seeking to define the term mysticism and the concomitant aspects it entails, wishes to show that any definitive logical quantification of the monolithic Christian God, is almost virtually impossible. Take for example the following passage from Wood’s book Understanding Mysticism: “The all-inclusive One is beyond all partial apprehensions, though the true values which those apprehensions represent are conserved in it. However pantheistic the mystic may be on the one hand, however absolutist on the other, his communion with God is always personal in this sense: that it is communion with a living Reality, an object of love, capable of response, which demands and receives from him a total self-donation. This sense of a double movement, a self-giving on the divine side answering to the self-giving on the human side, is found in all great mysticism. It has, of course, lent itself to emotional exaggeration, but in its pure form seems an integral part of man's apprehension of Reality. Even where it conflicts with the mystic's philosophy--as in Hinduism and Neo-Platonism--it is still present. It is curious to note, for instance, how Plotinus, after safeguarding his Absolute One from every qualification, excluding it from all categories, defining it only by the icy method of negation, suddenly breaks away into the language of ardent feeling when he comes to describe that ecstasy in which he touched the truth. Then he speaks of "the veritable love, the sharp desire" which possessed him, appealing to the experience of those fellow mystics who have "caught fire, and found the splendour there." These, he says, have "felt burning within themselves the flame of love for what is there to know--the passion of the lover resting on the bosom of his love." (Wood p 28) The above clearly shows that mysticism, places God beyond mortal rationality and logic, which has so often been employed by men of intellect to explain the world around them and at times to explain the metaphysical and to devise a system to satisfy their own rationality. In terms of the mystical perception of God, we are told by Richard of St Victor ""the soul gazes upon Truth without any veils of creatures--not in a mirror darkly, but in its pure simplicity."" (Underhill, 1980, p.39) Thus for the mystic perception of God is about losing the self in God, a God beyond rational or logical quantifications and ineffable, This self-loss, says Dionysius the Areopagite, is the Divine Initiation: wherein we "Pass beyond the topmost altitudes of the holy ascent, and leave behind all divine illumination and voices and heavenly utterances; and plunge into the darkness where truly dwells, as Scripture saith, that One Which is beyond all things."(Underhill, 1980, p. 39) The Observer further notes, that a lot of the great mystics when, they finally come to union with God (the Godhead), find that what they had previously believed to be God was really a symbolisation of God, a rationalisation for the consumption of mans’ rationality. Underhill in her comprehensive book on understanding mysticism put the above point thus: ‘Some recent theologians have tried to separate the conceptions of God and of the Absolute: but mystics never do this, though some of the most clear-sighted, such as Meister Eckhart, have separated that unconditioned Godhead known in ecstasy from the personal God who is the object of devotional religion, and who represents a humanization of reality. When the great mystic achieves the "still, glorious, and absolute Oneness" which finally satisfies his thirst for truth--the "point where all lines meet and show their meaning"--he generally confesses how symbolic was the object of his earlier devotion, how partial his supposed communion with the Divine. Thus Jacopone da Todi--exact and orthodox Catholic though he was--when he reached "the hidden heaven," discovered and boldly declared the approximate character of all his previous conceptions of, and communion with God; the great extent to which subjective elements had entered into his experience. In the great ode which celebrates his ecstatic vision of Truth, when "ineffable love, imageless goodness, measureless light" at last shone in his heart, he says: "I thought I knew Thee, tasted Thee, saw Thee under image: believing I held Thee in Thy completeness I was filled with delight and unmeasured love. But now I see I was mistaken--Thou art not as I thought and firmly held." So Tauler says that compared with the warm colour and multiplicity of devotional experience, the very Godhead is a "rich nought," a "bare pure ground"; and Ruysbroeck that it is "an unwalled world," "neither this nor that." "This fruition of God," he says again, "is a still and glorious and essential Oneness beyond the differentiation of the Persons, where there is neither an outpouring nor an indrawing of God, but the Persons are still and one in fruitful love, in calm and glorious unity. . . . There is God our fruition and His own, in an eternal and fathomless bliss."(Underhill, 1980, p. 40) The Mystic is one who, sees that which is hidden from other men, who according to Underhill, he lives at different levels of experience from other people: and this of course means that he sees a different world, since the world as we know it is the product of specific scraps or aspects of reality acting upon a normal and untransfigured consciousness. Hence his mysticism is no isolated vision, no arbitrary glimpse of reality, but a complete system of life -- a Syntagma, to use Eucken's expressive term. As other men are immersed in and react to natural or intellectual life, so the mystic is immersed in and reacts to spiritual life. In this paper the Observer will try to show, fluidic descriptive mysticality (ineffability) of God, from the Mystics perspective and in so doing to argue the non rationality, relativity and process of the Divine, in contrast to that of the rationalistic analytical position. One final point to highlight this ineffability let me refer to Underhill again: Over and over again the mystics insist upon this. "For silence is not God, nor speaking is not God; fasting is not God nor eating is not God; onliness is not God nor company is not God; nor yet any of all the other two such quantities. He is hid between them, and may not be found by any work of thy soul, but all only by love of thine heart. He may not be known by reason, He may not be gotten by thought, nor concluded by understanding; but he may be loved and chosen with the true lovely will of thine heart. . . . Such a blind shot with the sharp dart of longing love may never fail of the prick, the which, is God." (Underhill, 1912, p. 101). And in continuing the above theme, Ruysbroeck, in his L'Ornement des Noces Spirituelles, "Come down quickly," says the Incomprehensible Godhead to the soul that has struggled like Zacchæus to the topmost branches of the theological tree, "for I would dwell with you to-day. And this swift descent which God demands is simply an immersion by love and desire in that abyss of the Godhead which the intellect cannot understand. Here, where the intelligence must rest without, love and desire can enter in." (Ruysbroeck, 1966) Chapter II Arguments in Favour of Mysticism 2.1 Language Epistemology and Mysticism the absolute, can it be truly defined? If mystical experience is ineffable, how then can that which is experienced be conveyed in terms which are understandable to the un-experienced, surely language must fail in that regard if it fails to convey that which is beyond words? Or should silence reign? In this Chapter I will be looking at Mysticism from the Augustinian position that it is better to speak rather than say nothing. Whether it is possible for man to construct a meaningful world through language, for whilst it is said that God made all the animals, it was Adam that gave them names which we consider meaningful. Or is Mysticism and mystical experience beyond words and as such should just be left as acknowledged but unspoken and can it truly be defined? I will briefly attempt to examine whether the secondary nature of language from a Platonic point of view, in regards to mysticism is it of secondary nature in regards to grasping reality? In response to Thomas Aquinas’s argument that religious language is analogical, that it conveys truth, but not literal truth, John Duns Scotas argued that the Thomasian view was incoherent, being of the belief that there were only two possible views on the matter, Equivocal and Univocal, for example the word “Peer” could mean friend or contemporary or simply to take a glance at something. Now according to Scotas should we not know to which it refers then it is equivocal and if we do know to what it refers then it is univocal. What is the significance of this in relation to religious language? Well since scripture is generally held to be meaningful, it must be either univocal or analogical, there seems to be a rejection in regards to religious language of the equivocal position. Where then is this argument leading? All words must be denied or negated in-order to understand the Ultimate reality truly, this is a view that is often referred to as the Negative Way (Stiver, 1996, p.15). The latter view was one that was echoed by a number of leading Christian theologians, among whom, Eckhart (1260-1327, whom the Observer will examine later).This view itself is not original for it stems from the Platonic view of the world that, language is a reflection of a more ultimate, eternal forms or eternal ideas, of course these ideas were influenced by Pythagorean philosophy. Here then is the one of the fundamental pillars of my argument, echoed by the master himself: ‘Seeing over speaking, speaking over writing, and direct speech over figurative speech, this last despite the fact that Plato himself was one of the greatest artisans of figurative speech.’ (Stiver 1996, p 9) Further credence can be given to the secondary nature of language in religious experience, and experience in general, but much more so in mystical experience, from the following passage from the Master: ‘Let us suppose that to any extent you please you can learn things through the medium of names, and suppose also that you can learn them from the things themselves- which is likely to be the nobler and clearer way: to learn of the image and the truth of which the image is the expression have been rightly conceived, or to learn of the truth whether the truth and the image of it have been duly executed?’ (Plato, 1952, p. 113) The above suggest that language is secondary in nature to experience, as in the same way that reality is secondary in nature to the ultimate and perhaps that too might be too generous a comparison. The matter will be explored later by the Observer. How then does religious language the language of mysticism, differ from that of normal language? According to Stiver in his book on the philosophy of religious language, there are five fundamental features of language. Firstly he tells us that meaning lies in individual words, that figurative language must be translated into literal language in-order for it to be understood. The second is the relegation of figurative language to secondary status, the Aristotelian approach is that figurative language can only be grasped if it is translated into the literal, hence the substitutionary theory of symbolic language. The third point being that thinking is somehow separate from speaking, thinking and trying to find the right word comes to mind. The next point being Clarity, the clearer we are the better, again this has Platonic overtones, with the allegory of the Cave coming to mind. The fifth and final one being certainty, Thomas Aquinas, distinguished between knowledge that with certainly could be demonstrated, and faith which is a form of opinion, but nevertheless allows firm assurance due to it’s reliance on God’s authority. (Aquinas, 1952, 1a, 1, 1-8; 1a, 12, 12-13: 1a2ae, 57, 1-2; 2a2ae, 1, 1-6) Thus religious language when looked at in regards to the five criteria above, it is evident that it does not fit: Religious language tends to be shrouded in imprecision and mystery. It can hardly be verified and is profuse with symbol and imagery. The characteristic response has been to segregate religious language as the language of faith from the language of reason in various ways such as reason preceding faith (Aquinas) or faith preceding reason (Augustine) Stiver, 1996,p.12). Thus the Observer has sought to show that religious language differs from that of normal language, in that it need not affirm certainty in that normal way that language is expected to, especially in this modern age of scientific verification. Let us now examine further this difference between religious language and the normal expectation of language as set out above. The real difference is that the religious language seeks to convey, that which is beyond verification, and in doing so reduces the effectiveness of language in comparison to what we expect from it. How then is this so, when examining the views of Pseudo-Dionysius. Probably a Syrian (circa 500) monk who, known only by his pseudonym, wrote a series of Greek treatises and letters for the purpose of uniting Neoplatonic philosophy with Christian theology and mystical experience. These writings established a definite Neoplatonic trend in a large segment of medieval Christian doctrine and spirituality—especially in the Western Latin Church—that has determined facets of its religious and devotional character to the present time. Historical research has been unable to identify the author, who, having assumed the name of the New Testament convert of St. Paul (Acts 17:34), could have been one of several Christian writers familiar with the Neoplatonic system of the 5th-century Athenian Proclus. In the 9th century Dionysius was confused with St. Denis of France; but this was disproved in the 12th century by Peter Abelard. www.britannica.com The latter argues in his Divine Names, that names of God do not literally describe God, but point to God as the cause of all things, and as such that the higher we ascend towards this cause the more restricted language becomes, until we reach the point where words have no meaning, thus Dionysius argues that the way we must follow to this highest point is Via Negativa, which mean that all terms must be denied of God, the following example from his Mystical Theology, should help to illustrate the point: Once more, ascending yet higher we maintain that It is not soul, or mind, or endowed with the faculty of imagination, conjecture, reason, or understanding: nor is It any act of reason or understanding: nor can It be described by the reason or perceived by the understanding, since it is not number, or order, or greatness, or littleness, or equality, or inequality, and since It is not immovable, nor in motion, or eternity, or time: nor can it be grasped by understanding, since It is not knowledge or truth; nor is It kingship or wisdom: nor is It as Spirit, as we understand the term, since It is not sonship or Fatherhood; nor is It any other thing such as we or any other being can have knowledge of; nor does It belong to the category of non-existence or to that of existence; nor does existent beings know It as it actually is, nor does It know them as they actually are; nor can the reason attain to It to name It or to know It; nor is It darkness, nor is It light, or error; or truth; nor can any affirmation or negation apply to It; for while applying affirmation or negations to those orders of being that come next to It, we apply not unto It affirmation or negation, inasmuch as It transcends all affirmation by being the perfect and unique Cause of all things, and transcends all negation by the pre-eminence of Its simple and absolute nature- free from every limitation and beyond them all. (Dionysus, 1940 p.5) In religious language is God then beyond all words, are we to remain silent in the face of that which we can not know? After all words have been used above to talk about something that is supposed to be beyond language, yet they have been used in a non-cognitive way. No describing content is used in the above passage, but it seeks to be evocative, rather than be descriptive, the latter being more commonly found in the normal use of every day language. Moses Maimonides, in his Guide for the Perplexed, put the matter clearly, for he says that we can not know God by the use of religious language: ‘There is great danger in applying positive attributes to God. For it has been shown that every perfection, we could imagine, even if existing in God…would in reality not be in the same kind as that imagined by us, but would only be called by the same name, according, to our explanation; it would in fact amount to a negation.’ (Maimonides, 1904, 1.60) In light of the above would it be sensible to ask are some experiences beyond words and if such are mystical experiences beyond words? In his fascinating essay, Mysticism and Ineffability: Some Issues of Logic and Language, Bimal Krishna Matilal, asks, can a very personal and intensely felt experience, such as love, hate or some other kind of acute sensation/experience be described or expressed in language. (Katz, 1992, p.144) He asks what is language for, is it solely a means of communication, can we communicate our most private and intensely felt experiences? It is the Observer’s view that we all have a private language that needs to transcend self and manifest itself in shared experiences. The 6th century Eastern writer Bhartṛhari Bhartṛhari is the name of a 6th or 7th century Sanskrit grammarian, and of a Sanskrit poet of roughly the same period. It is not known whether the two are identical. advances a theory that, as soon as sensory reaction penetrates the cognitive level, it also penetrates the linguistic level, thus one may experience the most profound sensations and will be able to express them in words, but like a child, who has not yet learnt to speak, who shall understand them? Would it then be a language at all? Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations, sec. 302, says that it would be impossible to have such a language. Matilal argues in his above mentioned essay, advances the theory that the ineffable can be interpreted in several ways, that the ineffable should be a warning signal for us not to interpret too literally what the mystic says, to be alert to misunderstanding and that the words of the mystic are generated by a flash of inspiration. In fact Matilal has reduced the ineffable to a level where it is no longer a mystery but merely a matter of correct understanding, which is perhaps best illustrated thus by the following quote: ‘The description of the alleged mystical experience in ordinary language, when treated as a description of just another (ordinary) experience, appears to be banal or even nonsensical. A poetic expression, if it is treated as a "prosaic" description of some ordinary state of affairs, would appear to be equally banal: "If my beloved is with me, the scorching rays of the sun would be as cool as the moon. But if my beloved is away, the moonbeams are as scorching as the sunrays." If we take the emotional content away, this becomes almost a nonsensical statement. But in the context of poetry, where the emotion is transmitted to the readers, this expression dons a new cloak of meaning, which is both beautiful and enjoyable. The language of the mystics has to be contextualised in the same way.’(Matilal, 1992, p. 151) Yet further still he argues that what we grasp epistemologically is first characterised by a uniqueness that is hardly conveyable to another in language. This adds further credence to the view that language captures shared similarities and experiences, but all uniqueness belongs to the one who has undergone the experience. Therefore the Observer will argue that whilst God may be ineffable and beyond words, mystical experiences as a collective study of experiences are not beyond, words, as they are shared experiences, and therefore within the scope of language, but what is experienced in the experience may be beyond language due to its uniqueness to the one experiencing it, and moreover the experiences will have no epistemological comparison, with which to fully convey his/her experience of God. The matter is more clearly expressed in the following: ‘What we grasp as the "epistemologically first" is characterized by such uniqueness that it is hardly conveyable to others in language. Language captures similarities and shared characteristics between experiences. Hence what is conveyed by a linguistic symbol is the shared or shareable part of the experience. Uniqueness belongs to the particularity of the experiencer. (Matilal, p. 145) What then of the private language, surely such a thing defies the definition of language, which is surely to communicate meaning from an individual or group of individuals, can what ever is said be understood by others? If so then it would destroy the notion of Wittgenstein’s idea of a private language. (Wittgenstein, 1958, sec. 243). Let us take for example Bharthari example of non sensory reaction (in fact, he gives an example of a man who, running along a village path, may have tactile sensation of the grass, which may be nonverbal), (Bhartṛhari, 1963, pt. 1)). The point is that the mystic along with the Buddhist would regard verbalisation or description by language to be a sort of distortion, of what is experienced, has somehow had its purity contaminated by language, yet the mystic normally uses a natural language, therefore is ineffability a natural language? Alfred Tarski’s view on the matter is that: ‘"true in L" may not be defined in L, and no language is universal if there is any concept that is expressible in some language but cannot be expressed in the language in question. In this strict sense, then, as a consequence of a strict Tarskian notion of universality as well as of the preponderance of semantical paradoxes, no language can be universal’. (Martin, 1976, pp 271-91) Perhaps the non universality of any language means that there are concepts and certain semantic truths that remain ineffable. What then of the platonic view that language is merely symbols expressed in words, symbols reflecting a higher world, surely the mystical experience is of higher world, than the platonic world and as such with no comparative epistemological equivalents, which renders even the platonic symbolistic view, ineffective in expressing mystical experiences? Not all that is knowable is expressible, yet is God knowable through mystical experience? This is a question that the Observer will seek to answer in the next chapter. Words describing mystical experience when treated as just another experience in ordinary language, can come across as being banal or nonsensical take for the example the following: "If my beloved is with me, the scorching rays of the sun would be as cool as the moon. But if my beloved is away, the moonbeams are as scorching as the sunrays." (Matilal, 1992, p.151). If we take away the emotional content, this statement becomes rather absurd, as to would a lot of poetry, but with the emotional content added the words take on a new meaning, which is both beautiful and sublime. Thus the Observer would argue that the words of the mystic must too be so contextualised, but of course mystical experience is so much harder to contextualise, than walking hand in hand with ones beloved. This point about language and it nonsensical qualities is further emphasised in the koan a seemingly nonsensical riddle that is to be the means of Satori or enlightenment of Zen Buddhism. A well know example is what is the sound of one hand clapping? It is said that the disciple of the Zen Master, may puzzle and ponder for years over this conundrum, and at last, when the disciple comes to the end of all rational approaches to the meaning of the riddle, perhaps precipitated by a blow from the master, at an opportune time, then the Satori occurs, this goes to show how language can be valuable in the negative way, as a means rather than a description. Stiver puts the matter more succinctly when, he warns against the idolatry of language: ‘Language is notoriously unstable when applied to God, we are stretching it to breaking point-and perhaps beyond. It is a warning against the idolatry of language. Even religions centred on writing and speaking can see how language functions to protect the transcendence of God. An obvious example in the Jewish tradition was the earlier refusal to speak or write the name of God, with the result that today we still are not sure of what the name was’ (Stiver, p. 20) Let us now briefly analyse some of the paradoxes brought about, when using language to describe the mystical experience of God. Is it possible to use language with out concept? The Mystic argues that since God is limitless, that anything that we attribute to God, is to limit God to one concept or another and to deprive him of one quality or another, if we say that he is A, that is to say that God lacks the characteristic Not A, which is therefore to limit God. Of course we may find ourselves in a position where we can not speak of God for to do so is to conceptualise him in one way or another, therefore does the true Mystic have to remain silent? As stated at the beginning of this chapter, St Augustine, tells us that it is better to speak than to remain silent. Hospers in his introduction to Philosophical Analysis, asks how is Mysticism to be distinguished from Agnosticism or Scepticism? ‘The consistent mystic must be silent- he says that God is beyond any description, that no words can be used to characterise God, including ultimately, even the word ‘God’ itself. Is this not, if anything, more radical than the position of the sceptic, who doubts that God exists, or of the agnostic, who says that he does not know?’ The Observer would argue to the contrary, for Hospers’ position is a comparative one, the Mystic is never in doubt as to God, but how to express his experience of God and awe of God that the experience has brought about. Whereas the Sceptic and Agnostic are doubters in the real sense, of course the Mystic can argue that he uses language figuratively rather than literally. Thus when referring to the ineffability of his/her experience of God, it is a symbolic reference so that those who have not had that experience might have some kind of conceptualisation on their level of understanding, which the mystic has transcended through his experience. For example one might seem to tell a child about some misfortune in the world, but one would have to use symbolic references that pertain to the level of understanding that the child has acquired. Thus if statements about God are taken symbolically rather than literally, they may be true, as the child in his mind who has limited concept of the world in comparison with an adult, might take the symbolic statement that fairies represent the unseen good in the world and that Wolves represent the unseen evil. Just to expand a little more on the figurative/symbolic argument concerning language and mysticism. Symbolic language ordinarily has a literal reference with which to back it up. If one says that someone looks like the walking dead, I of course do not mean that he is dead and walking, but may be referring to a terrible appearance that would suggest that he is very unwell and looks like one of those corpses that one may have seen. Of course then again this creates a paradox, for mysticism. For when one uses figurative/symbolic language to talk about mystical experience, where is the literal reference to back up the symbolic? Hospers argues that: ‘The only answer that seems possible is that there is a certain analogy or resemblance that is felt to exist between things referred to in the symbols and the inexpressible, non-conceptualisation X which the symbols are said to be the symbols for.’ (Hospers, 1967, p.483). He further argues that if it were not so then one might come out with absurd statements, that God is a Donut or God is Green and there would be no grounds for saying that God is Love. To admit even the above is to compromise the purity of the Mystic’s position, for using an expression X, is a symbolic way of referring to an inexpressible, non – conceptualisable X. Of course one could use X W Z or whatever, if so why is X more effective in referring to X than say Z is? If one statement is taken as a better symbolisation of the inexpressible than another, Hospers argues that we must know something of the inexpressible in order to make some kind of symbolic reference to it, and that if one knows nothing about it, then one is not entitled to say that X is a better symbol for X than say Y is for X. Most theologians have had to attribute some form or rationality when talking about God, and as such have taken a middle road, between the silence of Mysticism and anthropomorphism. They could of course not be theologians if they accepted the mystical view of silence, for what could they theologise about? They have rather held that the words used to speak of God are analogous, analogical. The Observer is here expounding the position of St Augustine that it is better to speak rather than to remain silent. The Doctrine of Analogical Prediction, is best explained in the following quote from John Hicks’ Philosophy of Religion: When a word such as ‘good,’ is applied both to a created being and to God, it is not the being used univocally (i.e., with exactly the same meaning) in the two cases. God is not good, for example, in identically the sense in which human beings may be good. Nor, on the other hand, we apply the epithet ‘good’ to God and man equivocally (i.e., with completely different and unrelated meanings), as when the world ‘bat’ is used to refer to both the flying animal and to the instrument used in baseball. There is a definite connexion between God’s goodness and Mans’, reflecting the fact that God has created Man. According to Aquinas, then, ‘good’ is applied to creator and creature neither univocally nor equivocally, but analogically. What then are we to understand from the use of this term, Hick goes on to use the example of a dog and his faithfulness in comparison with the faithfulness of man, to highlight this point. We sometimes say of a pet dog that it is faithful, and we may also describe a man as faithful. We use the same word in each case because of a similarity between a certain quality exhibited in the behaviour of the dog and the steadfast voluntary adherence of a person or a cause which we call faithfulness in a human being. Because of this similarity we are not using the word ‘faithful’ equivocally (with totally different senses). But, on the other hand there is an immense difference in quality between a dog’s attitudes and a man’s. The one is indefinitely superior to the other in respect of responsible, self-conscious deliberation and the relating of attitudes to moral purposes and ends. Because the difference were are not using ‘faithful’ univocally (in exactly the same sense). We are using it analogically, to indicate that at the level of the dog’s consciousness there is a quality which corresponds to what at human level we call faithfulness there is a recognisable likeness in structure of attitudes or patterns of behaviour which causes us to use the same word for both animal and man. Nevertheless, human faithfulness differs from canine faithfulness to all the wide extent that man differs from a dog. There is thus both a similarity within the difference and the difference with the similarity of the kind that led Aquinas to speak of the analogical use of the same term in two very different contexts. (Hick, 1963, pp.79-80) Therefore then it could be argued that the properties of the dog to man, are as those of man to God, but the distance being immeasurably greater, the dog being visible, and quantifiable whilst God of course is not. What then can be said of this, surely it lends strongly to the Augustinian argument to speak is better than to remain silent. Of course the above doctrine is riddled with difficulties, in what way are the properties of man and those of God supposed to be similar? It is on this point that the matter is juxtaposed! Whilst it can be argued that God’s nature is to God’s nature and man’s to man’s, how can the two proportions be linked, can they be linked? Hospers argues that the more that we say that the Goodness of man is like the Goodness of God, the more the ‘otherness’ of God is compromised. He further adds that, to preserve this otherness, we need to say that the properties of God’s good are to God’s nature as mans’ is to his. Of course we can not truly know God’s nature. We can only speak of course without truly knowing as God’s nature is an incomprehensible attribute of an incomprehensible subject, according to Mill. The Observer would argue that there is no knowing when we speak of God, for there is nothing to which we can truly compare that which we do not know, nor can ever truly know, and even the great mystics, such as St Francis of Assisi, despaired at knowing, God, as illustrated by the quote above. Therefore, whatever concept of God, we might have is derived only from human understanding and comparison we can not know God’s properties and compare them to our own, unless we could observe them independently of our own. Suffice it say that we only know of God’s properties what we think, we know. The matter is summed up nicely by Hospers: ‘Knowledge of an alleged fact about God is cut off by the epistemological fact that we can speak meaningfully about something unknown only to the extent that it is like, or analogous, to the known. And it is surely man and his properties that we know and from which we try to make some meaningful assertion about God and his properties and not the other way round.’ (Hospers, p 487) The Observer would argue then, that the essence of mysticism may be beyond words, and is best acknowledged, but attempts must be made to speak of it, if it is to have any place in the scheme of religious thought. For to remain silent would rob, the wider religious community of an essential part of religion and spirituality, after all Christianity celebrates the mystery of God everyday through the mass, and the turning of water into wine, if all that is religious is to be rationalised and categorised in order to satisfy the empiricalistic modern urge of man, what then is left of religion? Language is inadequate to convey the mystery of God, by those that have had a glimpse of it first hand, for language is limited to that which is in the remit of human understanding. Even the Platonic world of form is within the remit of human understanding and, as such experience of such a world can be adequately conveyed in language, for all that is needed are words to speak of that which was seen, and is imitated in our material world, but when what is seen elsewhere is beyond the ken of our understanding, then words will not adequately convey it. Thus in answer to the question posed at the beginning of the chapter, can the absolute be defined? The Observer would argue no, not when language is inadequate to convey what the absolute truly is, and when definition, means reference to one thing or another to define another. An improvised version of the statement of an Indian mystic (Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa) is as follows: "I am like a doll made of salt. I went to measure the depth of the ocean full of saline water. I was dissolved completely and became one with the ocean. How can I measure the immeasurable?"(Matilal, 1992, p. 151) 2.2 Mysticism in Scripture & Cross Religious Similarities ‘The bible is a book of secrets, and the key to understanding it is an awareness that it reveals ultimate truths while concealing them and conceals them while revealing them.’ (Katz, 2001, p. 44) In this chapter I shall argue that Mysticism in Christianity is impossible without the acknowledgement of sacred scripture, and moreover, equally impossible without the acknowledgement of the suffering of Christ, as shown in the Christian Bible. As Christ is acknowledged by all the great Catholic mystics as being the ultimate mystic. In addition the Observer will also seek to argue that sacred scripture is itself full of paradoxes that have hidden meaning, in addition I will argue that Christianity is not unique in its use of scripture as a foundation for mysticism, by examining the perennial philosophical The notion of perennial philosophy (Latin: philosophia perennis) suggests the existence of a universal set of truths and values common to all peoples and cultures. The term was first used in the 16th century by Augostino Steuco in his book entitled: De perenni philosophia libri X (1540), in which scholastic philosophy is seen as the Christian pinnacle of wisdom to which all other philosophical currents in one way or another point. The idea was later, and more famously, taken up by the German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, who used it to designate the common, eternal philosophy that underlies all religions, and in particular the mystical streams within them. The term was popularized in more recent times by Aldous Huxley in his 1945 book: The Perennial Philosophy. The term "perennial philosophy" has also been used as a translation of the Hindu concept of Sanatana Dharma, the "everlasting or perennial truth, or norm". (Wikipedia, Perennial Philosophy) aspect of mysticism in scripture, with reference to Buddhism and Indian scripture. Perhaps the following quote will help illustrate the significance of the above statement: Inwardly every religion is the doctrine of the one Self and its earthly manifestation, as also the way leading to the abolition of the false self, or the way of the mysterious reintegration of our ‘personality’ in the celestial prototype; ‘externally’ the religions amount to mythologies, or to be more exact, to symbolism designed for differing human receptacles and displaying by this limitation, not a contradiction in divinis, but on the contrary, a mercy. (Aymard & Moore, 2004, p.24 In his book Christian Mysticism the Future of a Tradition, H.D Egan argues that, mysticism is inseparable from biblical Christianity: The writings of the Christian mystics abound with references to the scriptures because they found there paradigms and exemplars of their own lives and experiences, as well as suitable imagery, language, and symbolism to express these. To be sure, the word ‘mysticism’ is not found in the Bible. Still, the reality is there, and not merely by way of exception. Mysticism is a reality connected intimately with the very essence of revealed biblical religions. (Egan, 2002, p.17) 2.2.1 The Bible and Perennial Aspects of Scripture Biblically it can be argued that the Mystics are simply seeking the reunion with God that Christian scripture tells us, was ours originally. For we are told in scripture that God created man in his own image and likeness, and that Adam and Eve knew God before their fall from Grace, into sin. ‘Adam and Eve enjoyed without interruption God’s intimate presence.’ (Egan, p 17) Thus it can be argued that the purpose of our existence here is to return to the One, the Ultimate from whence we sprang, this is a perennial theme throughout religious scripture and the underlying tone of mysticism. Here in these two following short quotes from Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy: The Lankavatara Sutra, from which the following extract is taken, was the scripture which the founder of Zen Buddhism expressly recommended to his first disciples. Those who vainly reason without understanding the truth are lost in the jungle of the Vijnanas (the various forms of relative knowledge), running about here and there and trying to justify their view of ego-substance. The self realised in your inmost consciousness appears in its purity; this is the Tathagata-garbha (literally, Buddha-womb), which is not the realm of those given over to mere reasoning.... Pure in its own nature and free from the category of finite and infinite, Universal Mind is the undefiled Buddha-womb, which is wrongly apprehended by sentient beings. Lankavatara Sutra (Huxley, 1946, p. 14) The universal theme is echoed again in the following lines from Mahayana Buddhism: One Nature, perfect and pervading, circulates in all natures, One Reality, all-comprehensive, contains within itself all realities. The one Moon reflects itself wherever there is a sheet of water, and all the moons in the waters are embraced within the one Moon. The Dharma-body (the Absolute) of all the Buddhas enters into my own being. And my own being is found in union with theirs.... The Inner Light is beyond praise and blame; Like space it knows no boundaries, Yet it is even here, within us, ever retaining its serenity and fullness. It is only when you hunt for it that you lose it; You cannot take hold of it, but equally you cannot get rid of it, And while you can do neither, it goes on its own way. You remain silent and it speaks; you speak, and it is dumb; The great gate of charity is wide open, with no obstacles before it. Yung-chia Ta-shih (Huxley, p. 15) As S.H Nasr argues in his Knowledge and the Sacred, ‘Man’s sense of the scared is none other than his really is, for he carries the sacred within the substance of his own being and most of all within his intelligence which was created to know the Immutable and contemplate the Eternal. (Nasr, 1989, p.76) This theme of seeking the ultimate is echoed in the Indian text of the Vedas & Upanishads, which predate Christianity by nearly 1500 years. The search for Brahman, which means that which is great, that which is recorded as being the ultimate external reality; the Brahman is indefinable, and thus could only be spoken of in a negative way: ‘Invisible, incomprehensible, without genealogy, colourless, without eye or ear, without hands or feet, unending, pervading all and omnipresent, that is the unchangeable one whom the wise regards as the source of beings. (Koller, 2002, p. 20) 2.2.2 Interpretations of Scripture and Scripture as Guide to the Mystic. The perennial interrelation of scripture and mysticism is given further credence, in the Upanishads in the quest for Ultimate Self, the Atman. It is the seeking which underpins the Mystics efforts to be free of the bondage of this world and all that it has to offer and distract. It not unlike the Kingdom of God is within (Luke 17:21). In the Upanishad VII.7.1 we are given a glimpse of the innermost essence. ‘The Self (Atman) which is free from evil, free from old age, free from death, free from grief, free from hunger and thirst, whose desire is the real, whose thoughts are true, he should be sought, him one should desire to understand. He who has found out and who understands that Self, he obtains all worlds and desires. (Huxley, 1946) As defined above by Underhill, Mysticism is the union of the self with the God, the ultimate, just as the Atman seeks union with Brahman. In seeking to argue that the mysticism is fundamentally underpinned by scripture, the latter plays a dual role of both guiding and warning the would be seeker of the ultimate, the following passage from Upanishads illustrates the point, that there are many conceptions of salvation as there are degrees of spiritual knowledge: That Self who is free from impurities, from old age and death, from grief and thirst and hunger, whose desire is true and whose desires come true—that Self is to be sought after and enquired about, that Self is to be realized. The Devas (gods or angels) and the Asuras (demons or titans) both heard of this Truth. They thought: 'Let us seek after and realize this Self, so that we can obtain all worlds and the fulfilment of all desires.' Thereupon Indra from the Devas and Virochana from the Asuras approached Prajapati, the famous teacher. They lived with him as pupils for thirty-two years. Then Prajapati asked them: 'For what reason have you both lived here all this time?' They replied: 'We have heard that one who realizes the Self obtains all the worlds and all his desires. We have lived here because we want to be taught the Self.' Prajapati said to them: 'The person who is seen in the eye— that is the Self. That is immortal, that is fearless and that is Brahman.' 'Sir,' enquired the disciples, 'who is seen reflected in water or in a mirror?' 'He, the Atman,' was the reply. 'He indeed is seen in all these.' Then Prajapati added: 'Look at yourselves in the water, and whatever you do not understand, come and tell me.' Indra and Virochana pored over their reflections in the water, and when they were asked what they had seen of the Self, they replied: 'Sir, we see the Self; we see even the hair and nails.' Then Prajapati ordered them to put on their finest clothes and look again at their 'selves' in the water. This they did and when asked again what they had seen, they answered: 'We see the Self, exactly like ourselves, well adorned and in our finest clothes.' Then said Prajapati: 'The Self is indeed seen in these. That Self is immortal and fearless, and that is Brahman.' And the pupils went away, pleased at heart. But looking after them, Prajapati lamented thus: 'Both of them departed without analysing or discriminating, and without comprehending the true Self. Whoever follows this false doctrine of the Self must perish.' Satisfied that he had found the Self, Virochana returned to the Asuras and began to teach them that the bodily self alone is to be worshipped, that the body alone is to be served, and that he who worships the ego and serves the body gains both worlds, this and the next. And this in effect is the doctrine of the Asuras. But Indra, on his way back to the Devas, realized the uselessness of this knowledge. 'As this Self,' he reflected, 'seems to be well adorned when the body is well adorned, well dressed when the body is well dressed, so too will it be blind if the body is blind, lame if the body is lame, deformed if the body is deformed. Nay more, this same Self will die when the body dies. I see no good in such knowledge.' So Indra returned to Prajapati for further instruction. Prajapati compelled him to live with him for another span of thirty-two years; after which he began to instruct him, step by step, as it were. Prajapati said: 'He who moves about in dreams, enjoying and glorified—he is the Self. That is immortal and fearless, and that is Brahman.' Pleased at heart, Indra again departed. But before he had rejoined the other angelic beings, he realized the uselessness of that knowledge also. 'True it is,' he thought within himself, 'that this new Self is not blind if the body is blind, not lame, nor hurt, if the body is lame or hurt. But even in dreams the Self is conscious of many sufferings. So I see no good in this teaching.' Accordingly he went back to Prajapati for more instruction, and Prajapati made him live with him for thirty-two years more. At the end of that time Prajapati taught him thus: 'When a person is asleep, resting in perfect tranquillity, dreaming no dreams, then he realizes the Self. That is immortal and fearless, and that is Brahman.' Satisfied, Indra went away. But even before he had reached home, he felt the uselessness of this knowledge also. When one is asleep,' he thought, 'one does not know oneself as "This is I." One is not in fact conscious of any existence. That state is almost annihilation. I see no good in this knowledge either.' So Indra went back once again to be taught. Prajapati made him stay with him for five years more. At the end of that time Prajapati taught him the highest truth of the Self. 'This body,' he said, 'is mortal, for ever in the clutch of death. But within it resides the Self, immortal, and without form. This Self, when associated in consciousness with the body, is subject to pleasure and pain; and so long as this association continues, no man can find freedom from pains and pleasures. But when the association comes to an end, there is an end also of pain and pleasure. Rising above physical consciousness, knowing the Self as distinct from the sense-organs and the mind, knowing Him in his true light, one rejoices and one is free.' From the Chandogya Upanishad (Huxley, p.236) The points being argued above are that without the guidance of scripture the mystic is all at sea, and engaged in a speculative and possibly self deceiving exercise. 2.2.3 Christ as the Central Figure and the Paradoxical Nature of Scripture Having trifled with a few morsels of Eastern scripture so as to lend credence to the argument of the perennial nature of scripture in the pursuit of mysticism, the Observer, now wishes to return to the Christian scripture and mysticism, in the opening part of this chapter; it was stated that Christ is the ultimate Christian mystic and moreover that all Christian mysticism stems through him. Egan in his excellent book on Christian mysticism argues that Christ is the sacrament of what mysticism is all about. ‘Total union and oneness with the God of love.’ It must be emphasised, however, that the union and oneness proclaimed by Jesus are not fusion with or dissolution into God, but indwelling in Him, this is the mystery of mystical love.’(Egan, p 22) This point is illustrated in scripture, to see Christ moreover is to see the Father (Jn 14:19). To hear him is to hear the Father (Lk 10:16). To know Christ is to know the Father, and this mystical knowledge of the Father and the Son is eternal life itself (Jn 17:3). To love Christ is to be loved by the Father, a God revealed by Jesus as Love itself (Jn 14:21; 1 Jn 4:8). Jesus promised that those who believed would become one with Him and the Father, experience the divine Love that existed between Him and the Father, ‘that they may all be lone,’ just as he and the Father were one (Jn 17:20). And finally on this point of Christ being the gateway to mysticism in Christianity the following elucidates the matter with equal weight of the above: There is no other path but through the burning love of the Crucified, a love which so transformed Paul into Christ when ‘he was carried up to the third heaven’ (2 Cor. 12.2) that he could say: ‘With Christ I am nailed to the cross. I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me’ (Gal. 2:20). This love also so absorbed the soul of Francis St. Francis of Assisi, 1181-1226 that his spirit shone through his flesh when for two years before his death he carried in his body the sacred stigmata of the Passion. The six wings of the Seraph, therefore, symbolise the six steps of illumination that begin from creatures and lead up to God, whom no one rightly enters except through the Crucified. For ‘he who enters not through the door, but climbs up another way is a thief and a robber.’ But ‘if anyone enter’ through this door, ‘he will go in and out and will find pastures’ (John 10:1, 9). Therefore, John says in the Apocalypse: ‘Blessed are they who wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb that they may have a right to the tree of life and may enter the city through the gates; (Apoc. 22:14). It is as if John were saying that no one can enter the heavenly Jerusalem by contemplation unless he enters through the blood of the Lamb as through a door.) (Suso, 1330) Thus Christ is the central figure in all Christian mysticism, and he can not be denied by any Christian mystic, for to do so would be to be indulged in a task of self delusion; not dissimilar to that of Virochana. In her guide to mystical union with God, the great Catholic mystic, St Teresa of Avila; In the Interior Castle the principal source of mature Teresian thought on the spiritual life, says that without Christ the mystic is lost. The following passage from Egan’s Christian Mysticism, highlights the point: Teresa grasped implicitly that all graces, especially contemplative ones, are the grace of Jesus Christ. She taught explicitly, moreover, that neglecting his sacred humanity was the principal reason why so many failed to get beyond the prayer of union. No matter how advanced a person considers himself to be, for Teresa, meditation on Christ’s humility will never hurt him. In fact, without Jesus as his ‘Guide,’ he will never enter the last two mansions. Concerning the alleged evidence from John 16:7 (..’it is to your advantage that I go away’).’ (Egan, p 141) What is being argued here by Teresa, is that only the angles are permanently enkindled in love and for human beings it is impossible to love only, therefore the mystic most constantly think about Christ’s Passion. Finally on this point another great Catholic mystic, St John of the Cross, argues that Christ is the way to perfect union with God. For he says that like Christ the contemplative must be stripped both inwardly and outwardly of all things, in order to die in self imitation of Christ’s self sacrificing death. (Egan, p 180) A slight counter argument against the above is that scripture is paradoxical and symbolic, and is not necessarily a literal guide to mysticism, but yet without it mysticism, could not really be placed in the religious pantheon. Moreover this paradoxical nature of scripture with its use of symbolism lends further credence to the ineffable nature of God. Again this is not limited to Christianity but is perennial in nature. In this section of the chapter I shall try and expand on these points. For the purposes of our study here, we shall define paradox as, that which are two contradictions that result in two true propositions that do not agree; and that the disagreement between them can not be resolved in any rational manner. If we take Meister Eckhart’s view on the Bible, he regards it as a book that both reveals and hides at the same time, as S Katz puts it, ‘The Bible is a book of secrets, and the key to understanding it is an awareness that it reveals ultimate truths while concealing them and conceals them while revealing them.’ (Katz, 2000, p. 44) A perennial like theme that runs through the sacred scriptures of all the great religions, Katz continues along the same theme thus; ‘By speaking of X and then denying X, leaving some grace of the meaning of X while not describing X. Through simultaneously affirming X and denying X, paradoxical language in his (Eckhart) understanding of it paradoxically gives some direction toward which to look for X but does not picture X or literally attribute qualities or characteristics of X, though paradoxically the indescribability of the absolute becomes an inverted way a description.’ (Katz, p.44) As stated above Paradoxes are found in the scriptures of every religion, take for example Islam and Sufism, Janayd in trying to develop his theory of the pre existence of the soul and the final goal of mystic assent, is full of paradox, he says that the Soul is ‘as was when was before was.’ (Kader, 1962). This paradoxical theme is continued with Ibn Arabi’s commentary on some specific verses and suras, complied and published by Mahmud Ghurab: He pushes those who deserve that toward which they are being pushed by means of the wind from the west, with which he makes them die unto themselves. He seizes them by their forelocks and the wind- which is only their passion- pushes them toward Gehnna, toward the separation that they imagined. But when he has thus pushed them toward this place, they in fact arrive at proximity. The (illusionary) distance ceases, as does, for them that which is called ‘Gehenna’ by this name, namely, an abyss, as place of exile, has change its nature. (Chodkiewicz, 1993, p 43) This significance of this is that Allah’s love transforms all relations with mankind according to a rule of divine mercy, which means that everything is turned on its head here and it not what is seems and thus we have a kind of alternative reality. Men who through sin who were thought to have been distance from Allah, are now brought back to their creator, thus we could argue that distance now becomes closeness, judgement becomes compassion, divine causation now equals human sin, death equals eternal life, separation equals proximity and Gehenna now equals Heaven. As Katz puts it, ‘Things are not what they appear to be.’ (Katz, p 47) Paradoxes in Sufism are used to help point us to truth and to help turns us away from the superficial and the mundane, from the limited to the unlimited al haqq. It can be argued that this paradoxical theme that seems to run through scripture is not dissimilar to that of the conundrum like nature of mysticism and language itself as examined in the previous chapter. In the canonical literature of the of Hindu tradition of the Upanishads vast commentaries are laced with paradoxes, take for example the following passage from the Isa Upanishad : ‘The One, the Self, though never stirring, is swifter than thought;… though standing still, it overtakes those who are running…It stirs and it does not stir, it is far and likewise near. It is inside all this and it is outside all this.’ The Chandogya Upanishad, insists that Brahman ‘moves, it moves not, it is far and near, it is in, it is out.’ The Kena Upanishad says when talking about Brahman, ‘He who knows not, knows; he who knows, knows not.’ (Kena Upanishad, 1, 2, 3). The point here is that scripture is logically indeterminate when employed in relation to the absolute. Scripture obviously can be interpreted in many ways and the knowledge in scripture is not meant for all, take for example the following from the Celestial Harmony, where Pseudo-Dionysius had told his readers: ‘It is most fitting to the mysterious passages of scripture that the scared and hidden truth about celestial intelligences be concealed through the inexpressible and the sacred and be inaccessible to the hoi polloi. Not everyone is sacred, and, as scripture says, knowledge is not for everyone.’ (Dionysius, 1987, p.149) Thus paradoxes are useful means to both reveal and conceal in the literature of mysticism. Touching on the point on the Hoi Polloi as mentioned above, it could be argued that whilst the mystic is initially guided by scripture, he reaches a point where scripture is only symbolic; in that it is now rendered as a guide for the uninitiated. The following passage from Huxley’s, the Perennial Philosophy, in which he quotes from Monkey, helps to highlight the point: 'Listen to this!' shouted Monkey. 'After all the trouble we had getting here from China, and after you specially ordered that we were to be given the scriptures, Ananda and Kasyapa made a fraudulent delivery of goods. They gave us blank copies to take away; I ask you, what is the good of that to us?' 'You needn't shout,' said the Buddha, smiling. '... As a matter of fact, it is such blank scrolls as these that are the true scriptures. But I quite see that the people of China are too foolish and ignorant to believe this, so there is nothing for it but to give them copies with some writing on.' ( Huxley, p.147) Wu Ch'êng-ên The above is useful as it shows that mystics are able to worship God without symbolism and through an inner knowing of God, even though they could not have began to do so without the symbolism that religion offers. If we were all to approach God in that way, it might have been impossible for religion to have any ground or hold, when we have a God that of such an un-symbolic nature, most certainly refutes Dean’s views, about knowing God through the bible. In this chapter we have seen that scripture is a guide to the mystic, as to what pitfalls he or she should avoid. But it is not an absolute due to it paradoxical nature, which in turn merely highlights the ineffability of God and the impossibility of truly knowing him through scripture. In turn for the Christian mystic Christ is essential to his or her mysticism and without acknowledging this is to do away with the corner stone of Christian mysticism. 2.3 Mystical Experience In the first part of this chapter I shall be examining what mystical experience is and if it can be truly conveyed to a second party, are mystical experiences that are reported in different cultures and religious traditions the same, what are the characteristics of mystical experience, how can they be defined? Are mystical experiences purely subjective the reductionalist arguments against mystical experience, mysticism as erroneous attribution, mysticism as heightened awareness, mysticism as an evolved form of consciousness? For the purposes of this paper, the Observer will be confining himself to the higher forms of mystical experience and therefore excluding visions of non mystics (i.e. visionaries) or numinous experiences, as these do not further the argument of the ineffability of God through mysticism. The Observer will argue that the mystical experiences are possessed of an underlining perennial nature, and differentiation where it exits is only due to cultural or religious characteristics. 2.3.1 Perennial Philosophy The divine Ground of all existence is a spiritual Absolute, ineffable in terms of discursive thought, but (in certain circumstances) susceptible of being directly experienced and realized by the human being. This Absolute is the God-without-form of Hindu and Christian mystical phraseology. The last end of man, the ultimate reason for human existence, is unitive knowledge of the divine Ground—the knowledge that can come only to those who are prepared to 'die to self' and so make room, as it were, for God. Out of any given generation of men and women very few will achieve the final end of human existence; but the opportunity for coming to unitive knowledge will, in one way or another, continually be offered until all sentient beings realise Who in fact they are.(Huxley, 1946, p. 29) In this section the Observer will attempt to give a brief outline of the Perennial Philosophy theory and its main proponents. So as to set the frame work in which higher mystical experience takes place. Perennial Philosophy is primarily concerned with the one, divine Reality substantial to the manifold world of things and lives and minds. But the nature of this one Reality is such that it cannot be directly and immediately apprehended except by those who have chosen to fulfill certain conditions, making themselves loving, pure in heart and poor in spirit. The perennial philosophy works on the premise that man has two natures that of himself and that of an inner nature, it is this inner nature that can be united with the divine ground of reality, providing he is prepared to undertake certain steps to quash and put aside his egotistical nature; which stifles his ability to see beyond self and the illusionary world which surrounds him. The idea of a perennial philosophy is by no means a new idea, and may well be lost in antiquity. The Roman philosopher Cicero when talking about the existence of the soul after death, said that he spoke with authority of ancient times and that these things are of old date and have the sanction of universal religion. (Sunrise magazine, April/May 1984) The term perennial philosophy was first used by Leibniz, who popularised the Latin phrase philosophia perennis. He used it to describe what was needed to complete his own system. This was to be an eclectic analysis of the truth and falsehood of all philosophies, ancient and modern, by which he believed that, he could separate the gold from the dross and the diamond from the mine and the light from the shadows. Which would then have given him a perennial philosophy a similar aim, with the goal of reconciling differing religious philosophies, was pursued by Ammonius Saccas in Alexandria (3rd century A.D), the inspirer of Plotinus and the Neoplatonic movement. Leibniz, however, laid no claim to inventing the phrase. He said he found it in the writings of a 16th-century theologian, Augustine Steuch, whom he regarded as one of the best Christian writers of all time. Steuch described the perennial philosophy as the originally-revealed absolute truth made available to man before his fall, completely forgotten in that lapse, and only gradually regained in fragmentary form in the subsequent history of human thought. Some well know proponents of the perennial philosophy include René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon. The Indian scholar and writer Ananda Coomaraswamy, associated with the Traditionalists, also wrote extensively about perennial philosophy. St Thomas Aquinas has been labelled as a perennial philosopher and Thomism is a body of philosophical and theological ideas, which in their 19th and 20th century revivals have been labelled as perennial philosophy. Due to its suggestion that there is a central and enduring philosophical questions about reality and knowledge and that Thomism offers a relevant set of answers to these questions and that their answer constitute an integrated philosophical system. It is against the background of the perennial philosophical system that we shall examine the higher levels of mystical experience and argue that timelessness of these experiences constitute a continuing testimony to the perennial philosophical system and the ineffability of the absolute. 2.3.2 What are mystical experiences and their characteristics? What then mystical experiences and their characteristics as conveyed to us by those who have undergone them? How far can they be examined philosophically? According to Underhill in her magnificent book The Characteristics of Mysticism, she argues that there are two directions to the full mystical experience: ‘The vision of consciousness of Absolute Perfection. The inward transmutation of which that Vision compels the mystic in order that he may be to some extent be worthy or that which he has beheld and takes his place in the order of Reality. He has seen the Perfect; he wants to be perfect too. The ‘third term,’ the necessary bridge between the Absolute and the Self, can only, he feels, be moral and spiritual transcendence in a word, Sanctity for ‘the only means of attaining the Absolute lies in adapting ourselves to It.’ She further adds: ‘The moral virtues are for him, then, the obligatory ‘ornaments of the Spiritual Marriage’ (Ruysbroeck), though far more than their presence is needed to bring that marriage about. Unless this impulse for moral perfection be born in him, this travail of the inner life begun, he is no mystic: though he may well be a visionary, a prophet, a ‘mystical’ poet. (Underhill, 1990, pp 90-91) The above are certainly the objectives of mystical endeavours but how far can we say that they are mystical experiences? Well, we can’t! We can only examine accounts of mystical experience by those who have gone through it rather than the actual experience itself though with mystical experience there are little if any empirical rational reference points with which to recreate that experience and depict it clearly to a second party. All we know of mystical experience on the whole comes to us by written account, save with the few of us who are fortunate enough to meet a living saint. What then are the categories of mystical writing our primary sources for such experiences? In his essay on Mystical Experience, Mystical Doctrine, Mystical Technique, Peter Moore distinguishes three types of mystical writing, autobiographical, impersonal accounts and accounts of a mainly theological or liturgical kind, the latter not necessarily referring to mystical experience directly, but may refer to some kind of mystical object or reality (Katz, 1978, p. 103) The Observer shall be making use of all three categories of text, in this chapter as far they are useful in furthering the argument of the ineffability of God, through mystical experience. What must be remembered is that mystical experience when conveyed to the non mystic, is done so by those who at one time or another were non mystics themselves, therefore whilst language is limited in what it can convey of their experiences, they are on the whole aware of the limitations of the non mystic. Thus one might equate it with a sighted person leading one who has but a glimmer of the light as the following from St Teresa of Avila helps to illustrate the point. I have only said what is necessary to explain the kind of vision and favour which God bestows on the soul; but I cannot describe the soul’s first feelings when the Lord grants it an understanding of His secrets and wonders- a joy so far above joys attainable on earth that it fills us with a just contempt for the joys of life, all of which are but dung. (Peers, 1960, p 174) The mystic is a lover of the absolute and the enemy of self which he or she seeks to put aside, knowing that it is an obstacle to divine union. In the following passage Underhill argues that as mysticism is the striving to do away with self and transcend to that ultimate reality that the mystic is so in love with, the absolute; and that without this passion the mystic cannot succeed, the matter is best put by Underhill: Mysticism, whose great name is too often given to these super sensual activities, is utterly different from this. It is non-individualistic. It implies, indeed, the abolition of individuality; of that hard separateness, that "I, Me, Mine" which makes of man a finite isolated thing. It is essentially a movement of the heart, seeking to transcend the limitations of the individual standpoint and to surrender itself to ultimate Reality; for no personal gain, to satisfy no transcendental curiosity, to obtain no other-worldly joys, but purely from an instinct of love. By the word heart, of course we here mean not merely "the seat of the affections," "the organ of tender emotion," and the like: but rather the inmost sanctuary of personal being, the synthesis of its love and will, the very source of its energy and life. The mystic is "in love with the Absolute" not in any idle or sentimental manner, but in that deep and vital sense which presses forward at all costs and through all dangers towards union with the object beloved. Hence, where the practice of magic -- like the practice of science -- does not necessarily entail any passionate emotion, though of course it does and must entail interest of some kind, mysticism, like art, cannot exist without it. We must feel, and feel acutely, before we want to act on this hard and heroic scale. ( Underhill,1912, P.85) Of course one of the most fundamental aspects of mysticism is the ineffability of the experience itself. "The highest and most divine things which it is given us to see and to know," says Dionysius the Areopagite plainly, "are in some way the expression of all That which the sovereign Nature of God includes: an expression which reveals to us That which escapes all thought and which has its seat beyond the heights of heaven." (Underhill p 94) Below we find the outlines of some of the intrinsic characteristics of mysticism, in which she points out that it is not passive in its nature and that the mystic is still concerned with this world in so far as he/she wished to improve the lot of their fellow man. It also echoes the Observer’s that rationality and intellect need to be put aside for the union with the ultimate to take place. An argument that the Observer will advance again and again, especially against those who take too much of a rationalist approach to the matter of mysticism. 1. True mysticism is active and practical, not passive and theoretical. It is an organic life-process, a something which the whole self does; not something as to which its intellect holds an opinion. 2. Its aims are wholly transcendental and spiritual. It is in no way concerned with adding to, exploring, re-arranging, or improving anything in the visible universe. The mystic brushes aside that universe even in its most supernormal manifestations. Though he does not, as his enemies declare, neglect his duty to the many, his heart is always set upon the changeless One. 3. This One is for the mystic, not merely the Reality of all that is, but also a living and personal Object of Love; never an object of exploration. It draws his whole being homeward, but always under the guidance of the heart. 4. Living union with this One -- which is the term of his adventure -- is a definite state or form of enhanced life. It is obtained neither from an intellectual realization of its delights, nor from the most acute emotional longings. Though these must be present, they are not enough. It is arrived at by a definite and arduous psychological process -- the so-called Mystic Way -- entailing the complete remaking of character and the liberation of a new, or rather latent, form of consciousness, which imposes on the self the condition which is sometimes inaccurately called "ecstasy," but is better named the Unitive State. (Underhill, p 96) Another characteristic of mystical experience is that of heightened awareness in which the senses and reason are suspended and a form of super sense seems to take over, yet not for perceiving what it around us in the normal manner, but to see that which is hidden from the normal fields of perception. Perhaps the following from the Dutch mystic Ruysbroeck will help to elucidate the point, where he argues that reason must be put aside. Here our reason must be put aside, like every distinct work; for our powers become simple on love, they are silent and bowed down in the presence of the Father. This revelation of the Father, in fact raises the soul above reason to an imageless nakedness. The soul there is simple, pure and spotless, empty of all things, and it is in this state of absolute emptiness that the Father shows his divine brightness. To this brightness neither reason nor sense nor remark nor distinction may serve; all that must remain below’ for the measureless brightness blinds the eyes of the reason and compels them to yield to the incomprehensible light. (Wood, p.454) This theme of senses being suspended is not confined to Ruysbroeck alone, it is echoed again and again by many of the great Mystics both Christian and otherwise. St Teresa speaks of the inner castle, Catherine of Siena, of the interior home of the heart, Eckhart of the little castle, Tauler of the ground of the soul, the author of the Cloud of Unknowing of the closed house, Plotinus of the innermost sanctuary in which there are no images; St John of the Cross elucidates the matter as follows: “In darkness and secure, by the secret ladder, disguised-oh happy chance-In darkness and in concealment, my house now being at rest. (St John of the Cross, 1959, p.34) The soul must ascend beyond images and understanding and move towards a new state of consciousness and that ordinary psychic activity is suspended, this is not just a theme of Christian mysticism but a perennial theme amongst mystics of the major religions. In the Katha Upanishad we read that: “Atman is not to be obtained by instruction, nor by intellect, nor by much learning. He is to be obtained only by the one whom he chooses, to such one Atman reveals his own essence. (Wood p 454) Another characteristic of mystical experience is the passivity of the mind. It may be likened to a man embracing a lover and knowing nothing anything else whilst he is in her embrace. The embrace of the intelligent soul knows nothing within or without. Again turning to the Upanishads this time the Mandukya, it states therein that the fourth state of being in which all awareness and multiplicity vanish. “Into the Dark beyond all light we pray to come and unseeing and unknowing to see and to know Him that is beyond seeing and beyond knowing precisely by not seeing, by not knowing. (Wood p 455) It can therefore be argued that the main characteristics of mystical experience are the perennial theme of the man fulfilling his spiritual immortal heritage and seeking to establish a conscious relation with the Absolute! Now, how do these statements square with the practice of the great mystics; and with the various forms of activity which have been classified at one time or another as mystical? How far are mystical experiences reported by Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhist similar or different? 2.3.3 Mysticism and Interpretation The Parable of the Chameleon Once a man went into a wood and saw a beautiful creature on a tree. Later he told a friend about it and said, "Brother, on a certain tree in the wood I saw a red-coloured creature." The friend answered: "I have seen it too. Why do you call it red? It is green" A third man said: "Oh, no, no! Why do you call it green? It is yellow." Then other persons begin to describe the animal variously as violet, blue, or black. Soon they were quarrelling about the colour. At last they went to the tree and found a man sitting under it. In answer to their questions he said: "I live under this tree and know the creature very well. What each of you has said about it is true. Sometimes it is red, sometimes green, sometimes yellow, sometimes blue, and so forth and so on. Again, sometimes I see that it has no colour whatsoever." Only he who constantly thinks of God can know His real nature. He alone knows that God reveals Himself in different forms and different ways, that he has attributes and, again, has none. Only the man who lives under the tree knows that the chameleon can assume various colours and that sometimes it remains colourless. Others, not knowing the whole truth, quarrel among themselves and suffer. (Sri Ramakrishna, 1885, p. 859) If mystical experience is accessible to philosophical analysis, then the principal methodological requirement of this analysis is proper understanding of the distinction between mystical experience and the modes of its interpretation. For the purpose of this work, we shall use Stace’s interpretation of the word. “I use the word interpretation to mean anything to which the conceptual intellect adds to the experience for the purpose of understanding it whether what is added is only classificatory concept or a logical inference, or an explanatory hypothesis” (Stace, 960, p. 37) Or as put by Katz interpretation being defined as anything which the conceptual intellect adds to the experience for the purpose of understanding (Katz p. 108) There can be no mystical experience without interpretation and the question will have to be asked how far such interpretation is coloured by cultural and religious background, does this in itself diminish the ineffable nature of God or the absolute or is mysticism an interpretive experience like any other? The Observer will look at the argument that a mystical experience can not be interpreted as such until it is put in the concept of experience, religious experience; employing Schachters’s and Proudfoot’s theory as a basis by which to begin with. Schachter’s theory is that any emotional experience requires both physiological arousal and a cognitive framework within which to identify the meaning of the arousal. (Spilka, Hood, Hunsberger, & Gorsuch, 1985, p) Neither alone is sufficient to determine an emotional experience on its own, therefore it may be argued that a mystical experience requires both an cognitive frame work, i.e. religious as well as a stimulus of some kind and that only when the two of them are put together can it any mystical experience be called mystical as it requires the background of some religious knowledge or training. The Observer wishes to argue that on the whole mystical philosophers with the exception of one or two. Are really stepping stones to the higher ground of mysticism, and really help interpret to our ordinary minds rounded in this empirical reality of sense, the visions of those who speak from the dimensions of reality. The likes of Plotinus have helped us on the way to understanding mysticism, but there are not necessarily mystics in the highest sense, in which that word can be understood. In the following passage Underhill echoes similar sentiments: But they are no more mystics than the milestones on the Dover Road are travellers to Calais. Sometimes their words -- the wistful words of those who know but cannot be -- produce mystics; as the sudden sight of a signpost pointing to the sea will rouse the spirit of adventure in a boy. Also there are many instances of true mystics, such as Eckhart, who have philosophised upon their own experiences, greatly to the advantage of the world; and others -Plotinus is the most characteristic example -- of Platonic philosophers who have passed far beyond the limits of their own philosophy, and abandoned the making of diagrams for an experience, however imperfect, of the reality at which these diagrams hint. (Underhill p 98) Thus for the purpose of this paper the Observer will be focusing on those who are universally acknowledged to be true mystics in the sense of the definition set out above. For the remainder of the chapter we shall focus on mystical experiences of Meister Eckhart and St Thomas Aquinas and in addition to add weight to our argument we shall analysis their experiences comparatively with other great Catholic mystics and in addition we shall continue the perennial theme by looking for similarities between their experiences and those of mystics of other traditions. Chapter III Thomas Aquinas & Meister Eckhart This overcoming of all usual barriers between the individual and Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition hardly altered by differences of clime or creed. In Hinduism, in Neo-Platonism, in Sufism, in Christian Mysticism, in Whitmanism, we find the same recurring note, so that there is about mystical utterances an eternal unanimity which ought to make the critic stop and think. (James, 1955, p. 410) Who then is Meister Eckhart and what is his importance in the scheme of the ineffability of God? Meister Eckhart of Hocheim (c.1260 -1329, a Rhineland mystic and spiritual theologian. Who was posthumously condemned by the church in 1329, which led to his brand of this worldly spirituality going underground, where it fed many of the significant movements in Western cultural and intellectual history, he deeply influenced his fellow Dominican mystics Suso and Tauler, who both drew extensively from his thinking. Nicolas of Cusa in the fifteenth century commented on his works and Luther by way of Tauler drew heavily on Eckhart. Jakob Boehme (1575-1629) owed much to Eckhart, as did the radical mystical poet Thomas Munzer, Thomas Müntzer (1489 or 1490 – 27 May 1525) was an early Reformation-era German pastor who was a rebel leader during the Peasants' War. Cf. Radical Reformation, Protestant reformers. who was born in the same German province as Eckhart and Luther; the author of the Cloud of Unknowing, as well as Julian of Norwich Julian of Norwich (c. November 8, 1342 – c. 1416) is considered to be one of the greatest English mystics. Little is known of her life aside from her writings. Even her name is uncertain, the name "Julian" coming from the Church of St Julian in Norwich, where she was an anchoress, meaning that she was walled into the church behind the altar during a mass for the dead. At the age of thirty, suffering from a severe illness and believing she was on her deathbed, Julian had a series of intense visions. (They ended by the time she overcame her illness on May 13, 1373.)[1] She recorded these visions soon after having them, and then again twenty years later in far more theological depth. They are the source of her major work, called Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love (circa 1393). This is believed to be the first book written by a woman in the English language (Wikipedia) demonstrates a significant debt to Meister Eckhart. Even great catholic mystics such as Teresa of Avila, St John of the Cross and Ignatius of Loyola are said to have recognised and known Eckhart’s theology The connexion between the Rhineland Mystics and the Spanish Carmelite school preoccupied Prof Louis Cognet. See Louis Cognet, Introduction au Mystiques Rheno-Flamands (Paris: Desclee et Cie, 1968p 343 and also Walter Nigg, Warriors of God, New York 1959 p 338. Eckhart’s influence is not just confined to mystics from the distant past, Hegel admits an indebtedness to Eckhart, likewise too do Marxist scholars like Enrich Fromm and Ernst Bloch, invoke Eckhart as a forerunner of the spirit of Karl Marx. Heidegger calls Eckhart as “master of letter and life” and took one of the words that Eckhart invented, Gelassenheit (Letting be), as a title for an address in 1955. Eckhart’s influence also extends beyond the West to the East, Suzuki speaks of closeness of Meister Eckhart’s way of thinking to that of Mahayana Buddhism, especially of Zen Buddhism. Thus in Meister Eckhart we have a towering figure in the annals of Mysticism, as both a writer and a practitioner, hence his inclusion in this modest paper. 3.1 Eckhart’s Experiences In what way can Eckhart’s mystical experiences and writings add to the theme of this paper for the ineffability of God through mysticism? In this section the observer will be looking at the arguments for and against Eckhart’s position. What must be borne in mind is that Eckhart is that rare breed of mystic whom Stace classifies as extrovertive which is making more use of the senses rather than the introvertive kind which is which is less sensuous and more non intellectual. According to Stace, the extrovertive kind is very rare indeed. The Observer mentions this because at times, it would seem that Eckhart uses his own intellectual rationality paradoxically and at times appears to contradict himself, yet he does not deny the ineffability of the absolute. What then of the views of this great German master on God. In sermon III How Creatures Are Gods and How God Becomes Where Creatures Express Him. Eckhart distinguishes between what he calls the Godhead and God, and refers to them as being different as say Heaven and Earth. He further adds that God becomes and ceases to become, God waxes and wanes. The distinction between God and the Godhead is an effort at the via negative, the God beyond the God, The Godhead tradition is an effort to restore the transcendence of the name God to an ineffable Deity. Eckhart argues a perennial theme in that he says that the soul whilst not being God, but its reflection is God in God, and yet the soul is what it is, and is no more God than the sun in the mirror is the sun. Why then is the theme that he pursues here perennial? Eckhart further adds that: “The Godhead is utterly ineffable and there is no talking, no words, in the Godhead, Everything within the Godhead is no talking, and we cannot speak about it. But in leaving the Godhead and being born or as Eckhart puts it, when we flowed out from there, all the creatures of the world could stand up and shout “God!” Why? Now we are told by Plato that the soul fell from a great heavenly height and seeks to reunite itself with that fallen height moreover the body is a prison for the soul. Here however unlike a heavenly world of form, Eckhart tells us that we have fallen from the unspeakable the ineffable that which is beyond concept. Yet God remains in us. (Eckhart, 1980, p.79) Moreover in Sermon X Eckhart likens God to one who is hidden but yet makes a noise as though clearing his throat to let us know that he is there. “Where is this God? In eternity! No one can ever discover God, as the wise man said” “Lord you are a hidden God” (Eckhart, p.153) In sermon XII Eckhart warns us about talking about God, the more we do so the more we lie about him for we can not know him. “God is a being beyond being and a nothingness beyond being. This is why St Augustine says that the most beautiful thing which a person can say about God consists in that person being silent from the wisdom of an inner wealth. “So be silent and do not flap your gums about God, for to the extent that you flap your gums about God, you lie and you commit sin…..Nor should you want to know anything about God, for God is above knowledge.” Eckhart likens knowing God to God not being God, for God is like nothing that you can know and that with the business of knowing about God, you run into a total lack of knowledge. (Eckhart p. 174) Mentioned above is that the highest mystical state requires that the mind be free of all that might inhibit it from the absolute. This is a theme picked up by Eckhart in the same sermon, when the says: “You should love God mindlessly, that is, so that your soul is without mind and free from all the mental activities, for as long as your soul is operating like a mind, so long does it have images and representations. But as long as it has images, it has intermediaries, and as long as it has intermediaries, it has neither oneness nor simplicity.” (Eckhart, p 180) It may be argued here that we must stop projecting our concepts onto God and saying what God is, in doing so we destroy God, we create our own God which is not God, for God is hidden, as mentioned in the previous sermon. The matter is argued succinctly in the following passage: “When we talk about God we are in fact talking about ourselves, for God is beyond all expression and understanding. Language is radically insufficient for naming God.” (Eckhart, p. 182) The words better, best and wise, wiser & wisest are human concepts for which God is beyond and above all of these. Thus we may argue that rationality when it speaks about God leads us to create a false image and an image that may be symbolically necessary for worship, but that such an image should not be taken as an absolute definition the following passage warns against using our terms of reference to talk about God. If I were to say that God is good, I would be wrong; it is more correct to say that I am good and God is not good. The point I am making is that I end up saying that I am better than God, because whatever is good can become better and what is better can become best. But God is not good and therefore cannot become better. And because God cannot become better he cannot become best, for all three of these terms good, better and best are far from God’s reality, for his exalted above everything. If I go on to say that God is wise, it is not true- I am wiser than God. If I further say that God is a being, that is not true. God is a being beyond being and a nothingness beyond being” (Eckhart, p.182) If the unfathomable God is without name or concept how then are we to call him, what can we say? For all words fall short of what he is and he is beyond words. We are advised to remain silent by Eckhart. As stated earlier, for to talk about him is to sin for we would be lying by doing so. It seems that God is beyond our knowledge and this is why he remains a hidden God. We are further told that if we wish to know God in a divine way then any knowledge that you have will have to become pure ignorance and forgetfulness of yourself and all creatures. How far then is Eckhart being contradictory and to what extent can the above be argued as fitting in to the classical perennial theme of mystical experience? Eckhart’s intellectualism, leads him dangerously towards rationality in speaking of God, and paradoxy. “Like Saint Augustine and many others before him, the Meister was fully conscious of the paradox involved in attempting to speak about what by definition could not be spoken about. This paradox by no means reduced him to silence, any more than it did his predecessors and successors in the tradition of negative or apophatic theology.” (Eckhart, 1981, p. 31) Yet as we have argued before it is better for us to speak rather than remain silent. The absolute ineffability of God provides the motive for the, at times confusing variety of ways in which the Meister speaks about the divine nature. Eckhart used a number of verbal strategies or approaches to fit different circumstances and audiences. None of these strategies, taken in themselves are final; all of them taken together exhibit an inner coherence and unity of purpose as ways to explore those "limit-situations" in which God becomes present to us in a more conscious way. These strategies at times led the Meister to insist with force that it is impossible to apply any predicate of ours to God. If my life is God's being, then God's existence (sîn) must be my existence, and God's is-ness (isticheit) is my is-ness, neither less nor more." To the unwary such expressions—and they are frequent in Eckhart—may look like a species of pantheism, but such is not the case. The Meister is always anxious to maintain the totally transcendental character of the divine reality. In response to objections to such passages brought up against him during the Cologne proceedings, he invoked the distinction between the "absolute existence" (Esse absolutum) of God and the "formally inherent existence" (Esse formaliter inhaerens) of creatures, that is, that God is the existence of all things (esse omnium) in an absolute sense, but not as formally inhering in them. Thus whilst Eckhart seeks to talk about God he is always fully conscious of the ineffability of God, yet his intellectual rationality is merely trying to convey this. Unlike others since and past who have used or have sought to use their rationality to deny this. The following passage from the great Catholic scholar Nicolas of Cusa Nicholas of Cusa (1401– August 11, 1464) was a German cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, a philosopher, jurist, mathematician, and an astronomer. He is widely considered as one of the greatest geniuses and polymaths of the 15th century. He is also referred to as Nicolaus Cusanus and Nicholas of Kues. (Wikipedia) perhaps illustrates Eckhart’s position, when speaking of God. Also in keeping with the Observers argument that Human knowledge wonderful though it is, is limited in some aspects when speaking about God, as set out in the Plato quote at the beginning of this paper. Cusa argues that knowledge may seem without limit, we need to be aware of our limitation if we wish to speak about God as he is beyond limit whilst our knowledge is not. “All human knowledge is conjectural and accompanied by unknowing. The human mind's venture in quest of knowledge is justified only if, conscious of its limitations, it recognizes the infinite greatness of God. Hence the essence of things remains unknown, but intuition, where love and knowledge are united, goes beyond all contradictions, which are resolved in God.” He then further goes on to add: He is 'desert' and 'silence', 'unfathomable abyss', and 'Nought'. (Ancelet-Hustache, 1957, p.170) 3.2 Meister Eckhart position examined comparatively and perennially. How then does Meister Eckhart’s position compare with that of some of the other catholic mystics, could it be argued that his position is unique in addition what perennial themes underlay his position on God/the Absolute? In this section of the paper we shall examine the argument that Meister Eckhart is merely arguing about the ineffability of God along perennial lines. Meister Eckhart has had to be symbolic in his use of language when talking of the ineffability of God and is it may be argued that this is a theme of scripture itself, as mention earlier in this paper. For example he who loses his life shall gain it etc. The purpose of paradoxical symbolism is that God may be worshiped, for to know and not to speak would be to deprive those, who can not know or do not know the opportunity to worship. So in some ways this is an Augustinian theme. In Dionysius Areopagite’s the Divine Names, the latter argues that. “That God is but an appearance of the Absolute, and this is after all merely a bold way of stating the orthodox truism that the Ultimate Godhead is incomprehensible.” (Dionysius the Areopagite, 1983) Dionysius argues that in theology this is accepted but then is prone to be ignored. Therefore it can be argued that if Eckhart were to accept implicitly his own doctrine that we must not talk about God for to do so would be sinful, then he would likely have written nothing and we would be the much poorer for it. Yet what he has written does not detract from the ineffability of God, but simply goes to show that we can not know God in the way that we can know other things. Thus it may be argued that the various names of God are merely the symbolisms that allow us to have something tangible to worship. “The various Names of God are thus mere inadequate symbols of that which transcends all thought and existence.” (Dionysius, 1983, p. 7) This argument is reinforced in the following passage in which Suso as pupil of Eckhart’s is visited by the Meister (after death), in which the later continues to speak of the incomprehensible manner in which those who dwell in God, are transformed-further giving weight to symbolism when talking about God, for we can not truly know the unknowable. In another vision he (Suso) saw "the blessed master Eckhart," who had lately died in disfavour with the rulers of the Church. "He signified to the servitor that he was in exceeding glory, and that his soul was quite transformed, and made Godlike in God." In answer to questions, "the blessed Master" told him that "words cannot tell the manner in which those persons dwell in God who have really detached themselves from the world, and that the way to attain this detachment is to die to self, and to maintain unruffled patience with all men." (Inge, 1899, p. 175) When Eckhart talks about a total lack of knowledge when dealing with God, this highlights that what we seek to know is beyond knowing and what we know will not help us to come to know it, if know is indeed the correct word to use; but perhaps the inadequacy of languages prevents the use of another word. This too is a theme argued by Dionysius, when he talks about “Dear Timothy,” as quoted in the introduction to this paper. This need to put the intellect aside is theme that we encounter time and time again in mystical experience and in the wider context it can be argued that it merely echoes the putting aside of self. Dionysius says: “For unceasing and absolute renunciation of thyself and all things though shalt in all pureness cast all things aside and be released from all, and so shalt be led upwards to the Ray of the divine Darkness which exceedeth all existence.” (Dionysius, 1983, p. 192) Moreover this theme of putting knowledge aside to know the unknowable on the grounds of the limits of human knowledge is continued by Dionysius, when he specifically warns philosophers not to attempt to rationalise God, a warning also given by Eckhart, Dionysius says: “These things though must not disclose to any of the uninitiated, by whom I mean those who cling to the objects of human thought, and imagine there is no super-essential reality beyond, and fancy that they know by human understanding Him that has made Darkness his secret place.” (Dionysius, 1983, p. 192) Perspective contemplatives are again warned not to take the philosophical approach when seeking God through mysticism and contemplation. The Cloud of Unknowing castigates the intellectually curious who with their “Scholarly knowledge” and those who move in conceited intellectual circles” where we are warned about those who love to quote scripture and follow the latest theological positions and those who rely too much on their natural intelligence. For the author of the Cloud warns us that the contemplative must put his natural faculties to sleep (Egan, 2002, p. 108) For St Teresa of Avila the soul must be made "completely foolish" in order to receive divine wisdom. The fact of being made foolish, by which she means both unknowing and powerless, may allow the soul to be completely absorbed in the divine presence, but it begs the epistemic question of certitude and truth. Teresa forthrightly asks herself, "How does the soul see it and understand it if it can neither see nor understand?" “Her answer is that the experience of divine presence in the center of the soul is self-verifying (i.e. without need of external criteria of truth), "because of a certainty (certidumbre) which remains in the soul and which can be put there only by God." Her claim seems to be that she has entered a realm of being within the soul that is both ontologically and epistemic- ally free of all non-divine interference or determination from finite sources. She means, then, that her mystical experience is certain just because it is so radically different from any experience which might be compatible with the hypothesis of self-deception or demonic influence. (Walsh, 1995, p. 251) Similar perhaps to what Eckhart explained to Suso in his vision of the latter. We can argue then that the ultimate ineffable dwelling in God is perhaps a foretaste of what is experienced through higher mystical experience. It can be argued that one dominant theme in Christian mysticism, is that of an active life after having been in union with God, rather than leading a life of contemplation for the sake of contemplation. In the words of Delacroix the Christian mystic moves from the infinite to the finite, in other words undertaking deeds to help ones fellow man seems to be the overriding theme of the Christian Mystic. (Underhill, 1913, p.172) St Teresa of Avila says "You may think, my daughters," says St. Teresa, "that the soul in this state [of union] should be so absorbed that she can occupy herself with nothing. You deceive yourselves. She turns with greater ease and ardour than before to all that which belongs to the service of God, and when these occupations leave her free again, she remains in the enjoyment of that companionship." (Underhill p 172) The record of the mystical saints on the whole tends to show that after their union with the God they have not neglected this world, and seek to concern themselves with the spiritually dead, people like St Francis of Assisi, rebuilding churches and preaching to the poor, St Ignatius of Loyola, Eckhart, Suso, Tauler. This point is raised because whilst there may be many perennial themes between various forms of mysticism across the religious divide in particular the higher Eastern religions. On the whole the latter seem to lead the mystic to a life of contemplation, though of course there are a few exceptions. We shall see a later example of this in the great 20th century mystic Padre Pio, who will be examined the in penultimate part of this paper. Thus we have argued and sought to show that Meister Eckhart’s position is a perennial one when he talks about the ineffability of God, for this is demonstrated when looking at the likes of Avila, Dionysius and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing amongst others who take a similar position. 3.3 Absolute and mystical experience, cross cultural interpretation, a perennial philosophical position What about mystical experience and cross cultural similarities, what question can be asked about this, how far does it give weight to the perennial philosophy and what are the arguments against it. The position of the Observer is that there is a common mystical core of experience, which is tainted by cultural baggage, but this does not in itself change the experience of the ineffable, thus we are here in agreement with Walter Stace and the advocates of the "perennial philosophy (whom I will call "perennialists") respond affirmatively and identify an experience of something like "pure consciousness" or "undifferentiated unity." For W. T. Stace (1960), this "undifferentiated unity is the essence of . . . mystical experience." Likewise, Huston Smith, a perennialist, holds that in such an experience the traditions converge indistinguishably. Now we shall examine the arguments of Katz who’s position contrasts somewhat with that of the Observer. According to Katz, the second error made by Stace, by perennialists, and (implicitly) by many transpersonal psychologists is primarily epistemological. They have not recognized that experience always comes, as it were, through a series of cultural and personal "filters," (as mentioned when talking about Proudfoot) that all experience -- even mystical experience-is necessarily "mediated" and (at least in part) "constructed" from within a tradition. Hence, the answer to the question of a common core" to mysticism is, Katz argues, simple -- there is not and could not be such a common core. Rather, all experience and knowing always show contextual traces and never somehow escape from such influences: (Rothberg, 1989, p.15) The Observer here will argue slightly for, but primarily against the Katz position, by using the perennial philosophical argument, being of the view that whilst experiences are different, and tainted with cultural and religious traits. The ineffable is perennial and transcends these cultural boundaries. The ineffable quality of the absolute is the same cross culturally, but the context in which these experiences are held is different, so just like we might all look at a pencil and each of us might call it by a different name, using our own languages yet it is still the same thing, but the trouble with the ineffable is that it can not be quantified in the same way as the pencil and as such this is where the difficulty lies. Yet over the ages things have changed cross culturally and various mystics have independently given similar accounts of the ineffable absolute. Above Proudfoot’s theory was mentioned that no religious experience can be quantified as such until it is put in the context of a religious experience. It may therefore be argued that all mystical experience has to be put into some kind of context for it to be so and that without this context it can not be known as a mystical experience save perhaps by the person who experienced it first hand. Yet if that person wishes to speak of it then it must be put into context of some kind. Thus from this perspective mystical experiences cross culturally will be different as they will be bringing the contexts of their various languages, religions and cultures. The matter is put as follows by Katz: A proper evaluation of this fact leads to a recognition that in order to understand mysticism it is not just a question of studying the reports of the mystic after the experiential event but of acknowledging that the experience itself as well as the form in which it is reported is shaped by concepts which the mystic brings to, and which shape his experience. (Katz, 1978, p. 28) Katz in his essay Language, Epistemology and Mysticism, takes the position that differentiation of mystical experience takes place in the experience itself and not just in the post experience analysis. The Observer here will argue that the experience of the ineffable is perennial. Katz argues that the word ineffable has a surface value which has mislead the likes of Stace and Underhill. He further argues that language in itself is contextual: They do not because language itself is contextual and words mean only in contexts. The same words-beautiful, sublime, ultimate reality, ineffable, paradoxical, joyful, transcending all empirical content, etc. –can apply and have been applied to more than one object. Their mere presence alone does not guarantee anything: neither the nature of the experience nor the nature of the referent nor the comparability of various claims is assured by this seemingly common verbal presence alone. (Katz, p 47) In addition Katz further argues that the words Paradox and Ineffable function in such a way to as to cloak mystical experience from investigation and that these terms to not provide data for comparability and that they further more eliminate the logical possibility of comparability. This rationalist approach is not without merit, but it must be remembered here that we are really seeking to speak of that which countless times above has, been said to be beyond knowledge; and as such to equate it with any normal form of knowing it to really miss the point. Moreover Katz argues that if the terms paradoxical and ineffable can mean anything, doesn’t this then cancel out all descriptive claims of mystical experience? (Katz, p 55) Well no is the answer it merely adds credence to the ineffability of the absolute, of course we have established above there are other forms of mystical experience that do not necessarily lead to the experience of the ineffable. In speaking of these one might more effectively apply Katz’s argument. Yet when speaking of the highest forms of mystical experience which usually lead to the un-quantifiable, his argument then losses weight It is not the purpose of the Observer to enter into the realms of philology and hermeneutics, but the question that needs to be asked is, does every mystic see a different thing, if so, then there can not be the absolute that of which they all universally speak. Whilst the word ineffable may be applied to many different contexts in the realm of mystical experience, it is being applied universally to the unspeakable, and as such is not being debased for there can be only one absolute, otherwise the term itself becomes meaningless. Let us explore this point further, by looking at what the mystics of various traditions have said about ineffability and what characteristics of it are universal. In Hinduism Brahman is spoken of as having neither name nor form, transcends merit and demerit, is beyond time, space and the objects of sense-experience. Katha Upanishad, Brahman is invisible, incomprehensible without genealogy colourless, without eye or ear, without hands or feet, unending pervading all and omnipresent, that is the unchangeable one whom the wise regards as the source of beings (I.1.6) Again we have to use the Via Negativa, for we can not speak of the unknowable in any other terms. The Upanishads contain innumerable statements expressing or reflecting the un-know-ability and intangibility of ultimate reality. Brahman is "without beginning, without end, eternal, immutable, beyond nature, is the Self" (Katha Upanishad). The Self is to be described as neti, neti ("not this, not this"). The ignorant do not know Brahman, for Brahman remains hidden behind names and forms. To know Brahman is to know what is beyond knowledge, and one who knows Brahman becomes one with Brahman (Mundaka Upanishad). Having attained the ultimate reality, the sage declares: "I am life" (Taittiriya Upanishad). The Tao of Taoism, like Brahman of Hinduism, is ineffable, indescribable, indefinable, ungraspable. The Tao is action less, yet active. The Tao, the way of all life, is "beyond the power of words to define." The terms applied to the Tao are all relative, "none of them absolute" (Bynner, 1944, p. 25) The Tao gives life to everything, yet it is humble and lowly: "Existence, by nothing bred, breeds everything" (Bynner, p. 27) Via Negativa also permeates the Buddhist view of nirvana. According to the Theravada teaching, nirvana is a state into which one enters by achieving victory over craving through the extinction of desire. The nature of nirvana is beyond ordinary human existence; no images or concepts derived from the world of human experience are adequate for describing or analysing it. By using only negative terms, such as "unborn, not become, not made, uncompounded," the Buddha pointed to the nature of nirvana. Something very positive is conveyed in this negative way, for these negative terms overcome limitations that are implicit in positive terms. Now above we have descriptions from various major religions each describing some form of Absolute that is beyond any form of rational knowing, whether it be called Brahman, Nirvana, Tao or even just the absolute, now we should ask ourselves, in the vastness of time and distance, that have separated various cultures and people, how is it that some many of the major religions have been talking about the what seems to be the same thing. The same things because, it is always being described as being beyond the realm of human knowledge. Did they all invent it make it up, so that there could be some kind of perennial unifying theme, so as to hoodwink future theologians and philosophers? We should have to argue that in all probability no! Therefore whilst Katz’s argument is without doubt a sound theory for talking about mystical experience from different cultural backgrounds, and that the interpretation of those experiences is bound to be coloured by such cultural or religious baggage. It fails to take into account the glaring theory that perhaps all of these great mystics are talking about the same thing. Moreover it can be argued that his theory fails to take into account the difference between higher mysticism, and mysticism of other varieties. For as we have seen it is only the highest kind, that is ordinarily equated with some form of union with the absolute. It is reasonable to argue that there is only one absolute and those that have union with it are likely to be experiencing the same absolute, unless of course there is one designated for each religion, in which case the whole framework of perennial philosophy falls down. As other critics have pointed out, Katz seems to assume rather than prove the ‘constructed’ character of all experience, and makes his case more by way of persuasive examples than conclusive demonstration. Pressed to its limits, his radically pluralist, contextual and constructivist approach would seem to have the counterintuitive consequence of making all mystical states (and indeed all experiences) unique and incommensurable. (Routledge) 3.4 Thomas Aquinas All my works seem like straw after what I have seen! In this final part of this chapter the Observer will seek to examine briefly and modestly some of St Thomas Aquinas’ writings on God and then to argue that even though St Thomas was perhaps one of the greatest minds in the history of Philosophy and Theology, he himself acknowledged at the end of his life that we can never truly know anything of God for He is beyond our rationality. This the Observer believes will be the strongest argument for mysticism and the ineffability of the Absolute/God. In addition it will be argued that St Thomas’ views on God fit in with the perennial philosophical argument. When we speak of Thomas as a mystic we do not mean that he had frequent ecstasies or visions or that he was a little introverted or overly concerned about his own experiences. There seems to be nothing of this in his writings. Yet Thomas was a mystic. He knew about "the hidden Godhead," Adoro te devote, latens deitas (Devoutly I adore thee, hidden Deity). He knew the hidden God. He spoke of the God who pervades and determines everything in silence. He spoke of a God beyond everything holy theology could say about him. He spoke of the God he loved as inconceivable. And he knew about these things not only from theology but from the experience of his heart. He knew and experienced so much that in the end he substituted silence for theological words. He no longer wrote, and considered all that he had written to be "straw." As he lay dying, he spoke a little about the Canticle of Canticles, that great song of love, and then was silent. He became silent because he wanted to let God alone be heard in lieu of those human words he had spoken for us. What then of these words? It would be possible to write volumes on Aquinas and God, but neither space nor time permits such a thing to be done here, all that the observer seeks to do is give a brief over view. In attempting to explain divine simplicity, Aquinas explains what God is not. For example God is not a body, not composed of matter, and form and so on. But in doing so Aquinas relies a great deal on positive claims about God, for example he argues that God is the first Mover, God is pure actuality, God is the first being and God is the most noble of beings. He further argues that names do not signify what God is, because none of them explains perfectly what God is, but each of them signifies God imperfectly; but because we can not know Quid Est, does not mean that we can not know positive things about God. In fact it might be argued that Aquinas is somewhat indebted to the Via Negativa of Dionysius and his theory of incomprehensibility of God. He acknowledges someone knows that he does not know God, inasmuch as he realises that God exceeds everything we understand about Him. It could be argued that Aquinas softens the Dionysian stance on not knowing God by simply arguing that God exceeds human knowledge, but this does not leave us in total ignorance and then proceeding to write about God, providing we acknowledge that fact that God does exceed human knowledge. For example if we say that God is good, it is only good as we understand it and not good in the sense that might be good for God, because we as human beings struggle with ourselves to be good, but God would not have to do so, therefore in Aquinas theory on God, His goodness is not the same as ours. Aquinas seems to believe that the more negativity we use to talk about God the more “knowledge” we acquire about God. The closer we then approach to the Divine mystery of God, by denying our imperfect conceptions of God and that we can not impute our finite perception on Him. (Rocca, 1979) The Observer will argue then that St Thomas has sought to take a middle road, a balance between negative and positive talk about God, on the one hand deny what He is in terms of our human knowledge and on the other saying that He can be known to a certain extent. This position contrasts somewhat to that of some of the mystics that we have seen above who on the whole seem to follow the negative route. This of course would ultimately be St Thomas’ path. What must be remembered when we speak of St Thomas and God, is that here is a man who did have levitational experiences and did receive Divine communication, for example when he was visited by The Virgin Mary and told that he would not be a bishop. Yet he still wrote of God, and he would be closer to God than most others who have written of God, and possessed of an intellect that very few could come near and none have really yet to surpass. Therefore we can say that if such a man with all the gifts that he possessed were to ultimately confess that what he had written was straw, how then can others speak as though they know more, surly the adage that to know a little is to assume that one knows much, shows the limits of rationality and that which is beyond rationality. Yet let us continue a while with St Thomas and his writings on God, before we come to that fatal day in Dec 1273. Now it may be argued that Aquinas when reading the like of Maimonides and his negative theology which asserted that God is good to mean that God is not evil. Felt that this was too negative and that we could make some positive assertion of God, like God is good and not simply to say that by being good he is not evil. For Aquinas goodness in God means that which we call goodness pre-exists in God, but in a higher mode and disseminates it to other creatures rather than that he cause goodness, but simply that by being good this rubs off on other creatures. (Rocca,1983, p.641) We will conclude this brief section on Aquinas and God, but looking at the five ways that he sought to prove the existence of God, not so as to argue for the existence or non existence of the Deity, as that is beyond the scope of this work as stated at the beginning. But merely to demonstrate analytically the depth that St Thomas possessed when speaking of God, and to reflect that upon the opening quote at the start of this section, as well as to argue for St Thomas’ perennial credentials. God is simple, without composition of parts, such as body and soul, or matter and form. Everything moves, but God does not move, everything changes but God does not. What then makes this argument valid or possessed of validity in philosophical terms? This process cannot go on to infinity because there would not be any first mover, nor, because of this fact, anything else in motion, as the succeeding things would not move except because of what is moved by the first mover, just as a stick is not moved except through what is moved from the hand. Therefore it is necessary to go back to some first mover, which is itself moved by nothing---and this all men know as God. God is perfect, lacking nothing. That is, God is distinguished from other beings on account of God's complete actuality. There must be some mover behind what is moved, there must be some kind of first cause, there must be something behind the coming and going of things; a hidden reality behind the change. The case of efficient causes, can the chain go back indefinitely, because in all chains of efficient causes, the first is the cause of the middle, and these of the last, whether they be one or many? If the cause is removed, the effect is removed. Hence if there is not a first cause, there will not be a last, nor a middle. God is infinite. That is, God is not finite in the ways that created beings are physically, intellectually, and emotionally limited. This infinity is to be distinguished from infinity of size and infinity of number. There are entities which can or can not be, at one time these entities did not exist and there must have been a time in which nothing existed and in which nothing came to be, there must be an Entity which is necessary in itself, and that is called God. God is immutable, incapable of change on the levels of God's essence and character, by degrees of perfection there are things that are more perfect than others therefore there must be a degree of absolute perfection. Or various beautiful things, leading to more beautiful things and then we come to that which is the absolute beauty in which all other beauty is but a pale reflection. God is one, without diversification within God's self. The unity of God is such that God's essence is the same as God's existence. In Aquinas's words, "in itself the proposition 'God exists' is necessarily true, for in it subject and predicate are the same." Things are ordered not by chance but because of intelligence that gives them an order, a hidden direction. The above have perennial overtones, a hidden reality behind the illusion of reality, yet when he wrote of this reality, Thomas was still trying to rationalise that reality, until of course he was able to have a glimpse of it directly in Dec 73. Naturally of course the above arguments have objectors and critics, but it is not the objective of the Observer to go into them, as we are not seeking to prove the existence of God, but merely to show how well Thomas wrote about God, and the fact that his arguments are still considered significant and by some valid after nearly 800 years, is itself testimony to that. 3.5 Conclusion for Chapter. One would hope that the above clearly shows that there is perennial theme going through the mystical experience of the Absolute that transcends cultural and religious divide, as least when talking of the highest mystical experiences, as conveyed to us by those that have experienced them. We have argued that in order to access or experience this ultimate reality we have to put aside or feeble rationality and intellect, which in the delusion of self seems so great and all conquering, especially with the progress of science. Yet the Observer would remind his readers to bear in mind the Plato quote at the beginning of this paper which, clearly argues that Mans’ knowledge is limited to certain things. Thus the Observer will beg his readers’ indulgence to journey with him through a couple more chapters to complete his argument for the ineffable. It is the chief end of man's earthly existence to discover and identify himself with his true self. By doing so, he will come to an intuitive knowledge of the Divine Ground and so apprehend Truth as it really is, and not as to our limited human perceptions it appears to be. Not only that, he will enter into a state of being which has been given different names, eternal life, salvation, enlightenment, etc. Chapter IV Padre Pio A 20th Century Mystic 4.1 A Brief Outline of Padre Pio’s Life It is the purpose of this final chapter to examine one of the most extraordinary mystical saints in the Catholic Church, a man who bore the stigmata of Christ for over 50 years. The purpose of examining Padre Pio, is to argue for the continuing vibrancy of mysticism in our modern age, moreover the weight for the arguments in favour of mysticism are given more ground. When we can speak of someone to whom there are living witness to testify to his extraordinary levels of sanctity and holiness, moreover, such an individual has now been beautified and canonised by the church. The Observer will argue that with the passing of time, those parts of knowledge that are not verifiable facts in the rational sense, tend to be forgotten or doubted and then sometimes dismissed by the passing of time. Medieval and Renaissance saints are fine, but it is difficult for us to relate to them in our modern times, in the same way as they may have been related to by their contemporaries or near contemporaries. We now live in a world governed more by rationality than perhaps at any other time in human history. Therefore it is the purpose of the Observer is to show and to argue that even in such times, mysticism and the ineffability of the absolute remain perennial, this will be argued through the verified experiences of a great mystic who only died 39 years ago. We shall just begin by giving some background and introduction to the Padre’s early life. Padre Pio was born May 25, 1887 in Pietrelcina, Italy, a small country town located in southern Italy. His parents were Grazio Mario Forgione (1860-1946) and Maria Guiseppa de Nunzio Forgione (1859-1929). He was baptized the next day, in the nearby Castle Church, with the name of his brother, Francesco, who died in early infancy. Other children in the family were an older brother, Michele; three younger sisters: Felicita, Pellegrina and Grazia; and two children who died as infants. Padre Pio’s parents first learned of his desire to become a priest in 1897. A young Capuchin friar was canvassing the countryside seeking donations. Padre Pio was drawn to this spiritual man and told his parents, "I want to be a friar… with a beard." His parents traveled to Morcone, a community thirteen miles north of Pietrelcina, to investigate if the friars would be interested in having their son. The Capuchins were interested, but Padre Pio would need more education than his three years of public schooling. In order to finance the private tutor needed to educate Padre Pio, his father went to America to find work. During this time, he was confirmed (September 27, 1899), studied with tutors and completed the requirements for entrance into the Capuchin order. At age 15, he took the Habit of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin on January 22, 1903. On the day of his investiture, he took the name of Pio in honor of Saint Pius V, the patron saint of Pietrelcina, and was called Fra, for brother, until his priestly ordination. He was eventually ordained a priest in August 1910, it was in 1911 that he first received his Stigma whilst praying and having seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary and Jesus, at which time he earnestly prayed that they be taken away. The stigmata would appear again in May of 1918 and remain with him for the next 50 years. Such was the popularity of the Saint that at one time he was banned from saying mass in public in 1931 and an attempt so transfer him from his local monastery met with such fierce local opposition that it had to be abandoned. The monastery was surrounded by armed locals fearful of losing their saint. This was as early as 1919 when the news of his stigmata had become general knowledge amongst the local populace of San Giovanni. He died 23rd Sept 1968 in his cell at the Monastery of San Giovanni. On September 26, 1968, over a hundred thousand people gathered at San Giovanni Rotondo to pay their respects to this holy man. He was buried in the crypt prepared for him in the Church of Our Lady of Grace. In 1982, the Holy See authorized the archbishop of Manfredonia to open an investigation to discover whether Padre Pio should be considered a saint. The investigation went on for seven years, and in 1990 Padre Pio was declared a Servant of God, the first step in the progression to canonisation. Beginning in 1990, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints debated how heroically Padre Pio had lived his life, and in 1997 Pope John Paul II declared him Venerable. A discussion of the effects of his life on others followed, including the cure of an Italian woman, Consiglia de Martino, which had been associated with Padre Pio's intercession. In 1999, on the advice of the Congregation, John Paul II declared Padre Pio Blessed. After further consideration of Padre Pio's virtues and ability to do good even after his death, including discussion of another healing attributed to his intercession, the Pope declared Padre Pio a saint on June 16, 2002. Half a million people were estimated to have attended the announcement ceremony. 4.2 A Philosophical Examination of His Experience. The Observer feels that examining the life of so recent a saint philosophically, is a most difficult task, as having been canonised only five years ago, and having been dead for less than 40, means that there just isn’t as much critical and philosophical examination as say of St Thomas or St Francis Assisi who have both been dead for centuries. Nonetheless it is an important undertaking of this paper to argue that mysticism is as extant now and relevant as it was in the distance past, therefore such a study must be undertaken. It is not really the purpose of the Observer to go over all the arguments previously presented in this paper, if they merely lead along the same road. However the Observer will try to make a brief philosophical comparative study of Padre Pio and St Francis of Assisi who like the Padre bore the stigmata of Christ, though unlike Padre Pio he bore these for the last four year of his life, rather than the last 50. We will also seek to argue here that rationality has lead to a decline in the belief in the Divine, but in this section we shall do so from a religious point of view and mainly dealing with church attendance. A slightly wider scope will be undertaken in the concluding chapter of this paper. 4.3 Arguments for the Padre’s Mysticism How then can it be argued that these two saints of the Catholic Church can be considered to be mystics? No doubt the case of St Francis of Assisi is well known to most of the readers of this paper, but that of the Padre is less known. It will be well recalled that at the beginning of this paper, the terms mysticism was defined, as having union with God. It is for this reason that both Padre Pio and St Francis were considered to by mystics. They both experienced ecstasies/union with God and there is ample documentary evidence of this in letters and writings about both saints. Of course one could write anything about anyone and one could write anything about oneself, but as they have both been sanctified, beatified and canonised, which is in itself a rigorous and lengthy process, it will be taken here that what is said of them is genuine and written by them is genuine. In the following letter dated April 1912 from himself to his spiritual advisor Father Agostino, Padre Pio, relates how he underwent union with God and of the indescribability of what he experienced and saw and he spoke of a Celestial Paradise which is beyond the ability of the human language to describe: O how gentle was the conversation that I had with Paradise that morning! Even if I wanted to try to tell everything I would not be able to. Things were said that cannot be translated into human language without losing their deep and celestial meaning. The heart of Jesus and my heart were if you will permit the expression fused. There were not two hearts beating, but one. My heart had disappeared as a drop of water in the ocean. (Padre, 2002, p.31) In another letter the Padre likens the union of the soul with God, to that of a shepherd boy, entering a grand palace and setting his eyes such fine things the like of which he had never seen before and as such lacking the words with which to describe them and though he might speak to others of what he has seen, his intellectual powers and reasoning fail him. Believe me my father, all this is not an easy grail for the soul to bear. In this case, what happens is similar to what would happen if a poor shepherd boy were ushered into a royal chamber, where a clutter of precious objects were gathered, the likes of which he had never seen. When he leaves the royal chamber, the shepherd will surly have all those objects precious and beautiful, before his mind’s eye though he cannot know their number nor be able to assign them their proper names. He might wish to speak with other about what he has seen. He might gather all his intellectual and scientific powers to attempt this task, but realising that all of his efforts would fail to make understood what he intends, he prefers too remain silent. (Pio, p 66) In the case of St Francis of Assisi it was said that he was lifted in a state of ecstatic contemplation which was beyond human understanding and in being in this state he was unaware of what was going on around him. Francis himself left no personal account thus we have to rely on the reports of this 13th century biographers. He was accustomed not to pass over negligently any visitation of the Spirit. When it was granted, he followed it and long as the Lord allowed it, he enjoyed the sweetness offered him. When he was on a journey and felt the breathing of the divine Spirit, letting his companions go on ahead, he would stand still and render this new inspiration fruitful, not receiving the grace in vain. Many times he was lifted up in ecstatic contemplation so that, rapt out of himself and experiencing what is beyond human understanding, he was unaware of what went on about him. (Fanning, 2001, p. 86) With St Francis we are limited what we can say about his mystical experience directly as he left very few writings about it. Though as mysticism in this paper is defined as the union with God, it may well be argued that one of his greatest claims to mysticism is the receiving of the Stigmata and the union with Christ that is implied thereof. It was during a retreat to a cave contemplating on a mountain, in Verna, in the upper valley of the Arno, as he had already done many a time and whilst undergoing intense fasting that on emergence from the cave he experienced the Stigmata of Christ. The account says that he saw a Seraph with six flaming wings of dazzling brightness descending from the high heavens, and Christ was attached to the seraph, crucified on a cross. This was then followed by lancing pain, with the emergence of the stigmata shortly afterwards. Now let us just briefly examine the experiences of Padre Pio and this receiving of the stigmata. In 1918 whilst hearing confessions Padre Pio was wounded by a mysterious being which, struck by a long blade with a tip of fire, which John of the Cross have called the assault of the Seraphim. In a letter to his spiritual advisor dated 22nd October 1918 Padre Pio describes what took place, and how he acquired the Stigmata. There suddenly arose a sense of great peace and abandonment to the complete loss of all things and a peace in the very collapse itself. All this happened in a flash. And while all this was going on, I saw before me a mysterious Being, like the one I saw on August 5th, only now he was bleeding from his hand, feet, and side. Seeing him terrifies me. I cannot tell you what I felt inside at that instant: I felt I was dying, and I would have died……The vision of that Being retreated and I noticed that my hands, feet, and side were pierced and bleeding. Imagine the torment that I experienced then and the experience continuously almost every day. (Pio, p. 13) Both St Francis and Padre Pio, sought to keep their Stigmata a secret, fearing to show these wounds without the explicit approval of God, least the showing of them too often diminish their effectiveness. When Fr Nazzareno (1885-1960), asked to see the wounds, Pare Pio replied quoting scripture said that, “it is good to keep hidden the secret of the King.” It can be argued of course that being a stigmatic is not necessarily a sign of mystical holiness, there have been several hundred stigmatics listed since St Francis out of which only 61 have been canonised or beautified. Father Herbert Thurston, an authority on the phenomenon of Stigmata, was extremely reluctant to attribute stigmatisation to a miracle (Thurston, 1933, p. 223) Moreover, it has been pointed out by C. Bernard Ruffin, a Lutheran minister, that "for every genuine stigmatic, whether holy or hysterical, saintly or satanic, there are at least two whose wounds are self-inflicted" (Ruffin, 1991, p. 145). In the case of Padre Pio the stigmatic wounds were subjected to intensive scientific scrutiny and it was concluded that for the wounds to have remained open and bleeding as they did for 50 years without infection was a miracle in itself. Cardinal Merry del Val, having read the initial report of a Dr Romanelli, and dismissing them because the latter had been known to Padre Pio previously, sent a Prof Amico Bignami, a professor of medical pathology at the University of Rome, this professor was well known for not believing in supernatural phenomena, the wounds were subsequently examined by Prof G Festa, who made three examinations of the wounds the last being in 1925 and then they were examined by Prof Guiseppe Bastianelli, personal physician to Pope Benedict XV, and by Dr Mera, all of the latter concluded that the wounds had nothing to do with any kind of medical condition. Therefore it may be argued that the Stigmata of Padre Pio did not fall into the category of the self inflicted, moreover that of St Francis neither, having been canonised and they most certainly do not come under the satanic variety. It should also be remembered that in the case of St Francis he was canonised two years after his death, and that well within living memory of his holiness, moreover he was pronounced a Saint by Gregory IX a man who had been witness to his holiness. It has just come to the attention of the Observer the publication of a new book by Sergio Luzzatto, Padre Pio and 19th Century Italy, the historian, draws on a document found in the Vatican's archive. The document reveals the testimony of a pharmacist who said that the young Padre Pio bought four grams of carbolic acid in 1919. "I was an admirer of Padre Pio and I met him for the first time on 31 July 1919," wrote Maria De Vito. She claimed to have spent a month with the priest in the southern town of San Giovanni Rotondo, seeing him often. "Padre Pio called me to him in complete secrecy and telling me not to tell his fellow brothers, he gave me personally an empty bottle, and asked if I would act as a chauffeur to transport it back from Foggia to San Giovanni Rotondo with four grams of pure carbolic acid. "He explained that the acid was for disinfecting syringes for injections. He also asked for other things, such as Valda pastilles." The testimony was originally presented to the Vatican by the Archbishop of Manfredonia, Pasquale Gagliardi, as proof that Padre Pio caused his own stigmata with acid. It was examined by the Holy See during the beatification process of Padre Pio and apparently dismissed. (Source Daily Telegraph, 24th October 2007). It will be pointed out that the Archbishop had long been an enemy of the Padre and had sought to bring false accusation against him, and was himself subject to scandal. According to Ruffin’s Padre Pio: The True Story, a landmark book about the mystic. Records show that "Gagliardi was on several occasions publicly accused of sexual molestation and unchastity," says the author, Bernard Ruffin. "Although there is no solid evidence for any practice of homosexuality on Gagliardi's part, it was beyond question that he showed a preference for priests who had been convicted of this crime. Gagliardi appointed as archpriest in the town of Vico a man who had been arrested and convicted three times for sodomy. In the same town, the archbishop appointed another priest who had an extensive police record for `continued and habitual pederasty.' Several witnesses testified that many of these homosexual priests sent Gagliardi expensive gifts after he gave them positions in his archdiocese." Thus hardly a credible source, moreover it must also be pointed out that the saint himself never said a word against the archbishop and acted with magnanimity towards him, even saying a mass for him at his death. The Observer brings this matter to the attention of his readers, for no doubt there will be those amongst them that will seek to dismiss the veracity of Padre Pio’s stigmata. Therefore the Observer feels that he must look at both sides of the argument even though he feels that the one against is extremely weak and lacking in credibility. Therefore then having argued for the credibility of the mystical status of the two saints, and in doing so we have sought to argue that mysticism is in itself still alive and well in 20th/21st centuries. Before returning to the theory espoused at the beginning of this section that non rational unverified knowledge is doubted with the passing of time. The Observer would just like to highlight some mystical characteristics that have not really been touched upon so far, for example bi-location, prophecy, miracles etc. And argue how far Padre Pio manifested them, the purpose of this is not to convert or to convince, but merely to argue that those mystical qualities that were manifested by Christ, who you will recall was argued as being a pivotal figure for Christian mysticism, are to some extent those found in other Christian mystics, more importantly in 20th century they are still alive, and none more so than in our case of study Padre Pio. 4.4 Padre Pio’s Commonality with the Mysticism of Christ Jesus possessed clairvoyance (seeing Nathaniel sitting under a fig tree), knew the thoughts of others (especially the plots of the scribes and Pharisees against him), as well as the state of their souls (the Samaritan woman with five husbands), and of course he had foreknowledge of events, such as his own death, Peter's denial and Judas's betrayal. Like so many other mystics, Jesus displayed advanced learning and understanding despite his lack of formal study. Like Moses on Mount Sinai, Jesus experienced a transfigured appearance as "his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light" when he was on a mountain top where he encountered both Moses and Elijah. Moreover, the accounts of Jesus walking on the water could be interpreted as a manifestation, albeit exceedingly spectacular, of mystical levitation. There are two famous incidents amongst many concerning the Padre’s bi-location, the first being how he was seen by some American pilot bombers whom he prevented from dropping their bombs on a local Italian town and an incident in which he appeared at the feet of Pope Pius XI, both incidences witnessed by numerous people and both have been well documented. During the summer of 1923, when Pius XI was about to suspend Padre Pio a divinis – from all priestly functions – "suddenly, while he was speaking, a Capuchin friar appeared, knelt, and kissed his feet, saying only, 'Your Holiness, for the good of the Church, do not take this course of action.' He then asked the Pope's blessing, kissed his feet again, rose, and left." When the Pope asked who let the friar in, no one knew. The guards strenuously denied having seen any friar either enter or leave. When this was reported to the Pope, he grew silent and ordered no one to speak of the incident. Pius did, however, ask a cardinal to find out where Padre Pio was at the precise time – and learnt to his bewilderment that the holy Capuchin had been in the choir of his friary, which was more than 150 miles to the east, saying his daily Office. After this, there was no further talk of suspending Pio from his priestly faculties, at least not by Pope Pius. The second incident of bi-location, was the preventing of the bombing on San Giovanna. When General Rosini an American commander wanted to lead a squadron of bombers to destroy a German arms depository that was located at St Giovanni Rotondo, as they approached the target they saw a figure rising in the sky of a monk with his hands held outward. General Rosini relates that, “The bombs released of their own accord, falling in the woods, and the planes completely reversed course without any intervention of the pilots.” Someone told the commanding general that in a convent at this little town of San Giovanni Rotondo, there lived a saintly man, a friar in the odour of sanctity. At war's end, the general wanted to go meet this person. “He was accompanied by several pilots,” Rosini continued. “He went to the convent of the Capuchins. As soon as he crossed the threshold of the sacrisity, he found himself in front of several friars, among whom he immediately recognised the one who had 'stopped' his planes. Padre Pio went forward to meet him, and putting his hand on his shoulder, he said, `So, you're the one who wanted to get rid of us all!'” (Ruffin, 1991) There are a vast and almost inexhaustible amount of stories concerning Padre Pio’s mysticism, but the Observer in the interest of brevity and keeping line with the thesis, will only relate one more, so as to add weight to his argument, in speaking of miracles, in the following tale, which has been documented and verified and is relayed in Ruffin’s book, as well as in other sources. We are told of how a man who had lost an eye and had his faced shattered by a dynamite accident, was fully restored by visit from Padre Pio, moreover the eye specialist who was witness to the case was a proclaimed atheist. Giovanni Savino, who was severely injured on February 15 1949 in a dynamite mishap. When Dr. Guglielmo San- guinetti, a physican, and Padre Raffaele, another Capuchin, and Father Dominic Meyer rushed to the injured man's side, “all three men noted that among Savino's numerous injuries, his right eye was gone entirely. They agreed that 'the socket was empty',” reports biographer Bernard Ruffin. Other doctors confirmed that the eye was completely annihilated and the other one badly damaged. It looked like Savino was also going to be totally blind. For three days, the worker lay on a hospital bed with his head and face bandaged. When a surgeon entered the room three days later, Savino reported that Padre Pio had visited him — something Savino recognised because he had detected the beautiful aroma so often reported around the priest. A week later, at about one a.m. on February 25, 1949, Savino felt a slap on the right side of his face — the side where the eye was completely gone. “I asked, 'Who touched me?'” testified Savino. “There was nobody. Again I smelled the aroma of Padre Pio. It was beautiful.” When later the ophthalmologist — an atheist — came to examine the remaining eye, there was a shock. “To their amazement,” writes Ruffin, “the doctors found that his shattered face was fully healed and covered with new skin. Savino, however, was most delighted at the fact that he could see. 'I can see you!' he said excitedly to the eye specialist.” And indeed, as is medically documented, the doctor saw, to his “utter astonishment”, that Savino had his right eye back. Somehow, the eye had materialised. (“Now I believe too,” exclaimed the doctor, “because of what my own hands have touched!”) It should be noted that it is very rare if at all for miracles to occur where missing limbs or body parts have been restored, we have heard of cases where cancer is in recess or diabetes or arthritis are completely cured, but this case is most remarkable for a missing limb to be restored. The Observer wishes to state once again that it is not his purpose to convert or to convince, but merely to argue that that Divine is manifest perennially and there is no better documented example of this than Padre Pio, a 20th century saint, not one who lived in the middle ages, an age in which we might argue that people were more prone to superstition and in which science was derided by religion, but one who lived in our own century, a century of reason and rationality with all the benefits of science at its finger tips. Yet here we have a figure in the Padre who like the founder of Christian mysticism, Christ was and is performing miracles. In a recent survey undertaken in Italy, it was said that more people pray to Padre Pio than to Christ or the Virgin Mary (See Daily Telegraph articled, titled Italy’s Padre Pio “Faked His Stigmata,” 24 Oct 2007) Whilst such incidences are not necessarily confined to Christianity, the Observer feels that he needs to underpin his arguments with most clearly documented and verified examples, which the central authority of the church is able to give. 4.5 The Decline in Belief of the Divine It may well be agued that the rise in rationality has lead to a decline in belief in the divine, and such figures as Padre Pio, are sent to us to arrest such a decline. Earlier the Observer advanced the hypothesis that, the knowledge of a non rational religious nature declines in its vibrancy with the passing of age, and we are less ready to believe in that hidden perennial reality that the mystic so clearly sees, but has difficulty relating to on the whole to what are our closed minds. The Observer will argue for this hypothesis, briefly on the basis of declining church attendance in England and Wales. In the Census for Religious Worship, which was taken in 1851, it was reported that half the population attended mass on Sunday, by the close 20th century around 1/12th were attending church. (Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2006, 45(4): 567-584. It is not the purpose of the Observer here to ask why this is so, but merely to argue that it is and being thus, there is bound to be an accompanying decline in the belief in the Divine. In order to add similitude and weight to this theory, we shall only deal with the statistics pertaining thereunto. In regards to the Roman Catholic Church in England & Wales, mass attendance rose to its peak in 1966, after Vatican II at 2,114,219 and then fell steadily to 1,071,975 in 2002 falling again by 200,000 in two years to 876,613 in 2004 (According to Official Church Statistics, http://zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=95720) The Chicago Tribune newspaper, last May, noted that 72% of people called themselves Christian in Britain, but only 8% regularly attended church, according to the 2001 census. Therefore decline in organised religion has been statistically proven. There have even been attempts to reverse the trend by placing images of Christ on beer glasses and there has even been another tactic of the campaign, reported the Telegraph on Sept. 15, is setting up a page for Jesus on the MySpace Internet site, a social networking page very popular among adolescents. The point being argued here is that in a secular Western society increasingly moving away from religion, there is bound to be a decline in the belief in the Divine and it’s ineffability, even despite it’s perennial nature, yet the likes of 20th century mystics such as Padre Pio and St Faustina Mary Faustina Kowalska, commonly known as Saint Faustina, born Helena Kowalska (August 25, 1905, Glogowiec, Poland, then in the Russian Empire – Died October 5, 1938, Kraków, Poland) was a Polish nun and mystic, now venerated in the Roman Catholic Church as a saint amongst others, are a reminder that the ineffable is perennial even if we choose to ignore it. It may yet further be argued that in keeping with the decline in Religion, there is a concomitant academic decline in Perennial philosophy and its divine nature. The Observer will not pursue that argument here. One of the principal arguments against the ineffability of God, is that of analytical philosophical approach in trying to rationalise and understand God. For the purposes of this paper, we shall be looking at David Hume and his discourse in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and then to examine how he has sought to rationalise through various analytical observation in the world around him. It is not the purpose of the Observer to do a full study on every analytical approach to God, as that would be beyond the scope of this work, what is sought here is merely to outline one of the principal arguments against the ineffability of God, which is always likely to run counter to that of the one espoused in this paper. In addition the Observer will not seek to be looking at those aspects of the argument that seek to prove the existence or non existence of God, as that is beyond the scope of t his work. Chapter 5 Arguments against Mysticism 5.1 Analytical Rationalisation of God background. Let us therefore begin with Hume and his rational analysis of God. At the time that Hume was writing, the argument from design was the most popular basis on which to rest a belief in empirical theism. According to the argument from design we can use the evidence of the natural world to arrive at knowledge about the nature of God in the following way: We see that the universe is like a machine insofar as it is perfectly and intricately ordered so that every part, from smallest to largest, fits harmoniously with every other part. We take note of the fact that every machine we have ever come across in our experience has been the product of intelligent design. Seeing the similarity between the universe and machines, we reason that since they are so analogous, they must certainly have analogous causes. We conclude, therefore, that the universe must also be caused by an intelligent designer. We thus arrive at knowledge about God's nature: we know that he resembles human intelligence. Hume wrote his book against the background of fear of persecution and did not have it published until after his death in 1779, having been delayed by fear on the part of his friend Adam Smith, whom he had instructed to publish it, it was eventually left to Hume’s nephew to undertake the task. Though Hume was a notorious atheist, the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion has a strong fideist bent to it. Fideism has been a popular position in the philosophy of religion. It claims that religious belief cannot be based on reason, but must be based instead on faith. According to fideism, therefore, the first fundamental step toward Christianity is skepticism: it is not until we undermine our trust in the power of reason, that we can come to worship God in the proper way, by opening ourselves up to revelation. In the context of the Dialogues fideism can be thought of as the opposite of empirical theism. The fideist position is best represented in the Dialogues by the character of Demea. Demea is an orthodox Christian, who believes that God cannot be comprehended or understood at all, much less through reason. But the skeptical Philo also adopts a fideist position, particularly in the last chapter of the book. Whether this means that Hume himself was sympathetic to fideism has been a huge topic of debate among scholars ever since the book was first published. Hume is basically asking can we rationally come to any conclusions about God’s nature, it is this aspect of the Dialogues that we shall be focusing on. In the book there are there are three characters Demea, Philo and Cleanthes. Demea argues for the position of religious Orthodoxy, and insists that we cannot possibly come to know the nature of God through reason. He believes, in fact, that we cannot ever know the nature of God at all because God's nature is inherently beyond the capacity of human comprehension. Philo, the philosophical skeptic, agrees with Demea that God is incomprehensible and provides the most convincing arguments for this position. Cleanthes argues the position of empirical theism—the position that we can come to know about God by reasoning from the evidence afforded us by nature—against these two opponents. In part II of the Dialogues Philo having taken the position that we can not know of what God is like, for when we speak of his attributes etc, these are based on our own experience and we ourselves have no idea of what the divine attributes might be or not be, this position is countered by Cleanthes who thinks that he can prove that even though we do not have any direct experience of God’s attributes and operations; there is enough evidence in nature to allow us to draw justified conclusion as to what God is like. He likens the universe to a machine and says like all machines, it must have some intelligent designer and that intelligent designer is God, moreover that the author of nature has similar attributes to man but on a much grander scale. The Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed. By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity and his similarity to human mind and intelligence. (Chappell, 1963, p 518)   5.2 Anthropomorphic God The Observer will not seek to look at the strengths of whether the universe is akin to a machine or not, but only to look at those attributes of the argument that pertain to the rationality of God, the attempt to anthropomorphise Him. In part III Demea complains about the comparison of the mind of man with that of God on the grounds that all we know can never enter the mind of God, in the same way that we can know that of the author of a book, as previously raised by Philo. Demea objects to this because he says that we can not know God from our position in the world, the human ideas of sentiment are just that human and that all ideas that we obtain from sensation are illusionary and therefore they can not have any place in a divine mind. Either the acceptance or rejection of the above arguments is an attempt at rationalisation of God. Hume argues that the idea that we can equate God with the universe is flawed somewhat as the universe itself is not infinite and therefore we can not conclude that God’s attributes are infinite either, therefore whoever created the universe must be limited in the same way. No doubt an excellent speculative argument but one based on no foundation but speculation; moreover is such an argument were somehow proven it would mean that we could not believe in an infinite God. 5.3 Argument from design more than one God Even when continuing with the design argument for the characteristics of God the evidence we have available to us cannot support the claim that there is only one God. There is nothing to prove that the creation of the universe was the work of one designer. In fact, if the universe is so closely analogous to works of human artifice, then we have good reason to think that the design of the universe was a group project performed by several deities, for many machines and systems are made by more than one person. And if, in fact, the design of the universe was the result of teamwork, it only further diminishes the amount of skill we need to assign to each individual deity. The design argument could just as easily lead us to posit that the cause of our universe was a pack of barely competent gods, as it could lead us to posit that the cause of our universe was a single all-powerful Deity. Finally, if we take the analogy between God and man seriously, we can even infer that God's mind is contained in a body. After all, the mind of every intelligent designer we have ever experienced has been contained in a physical body. What reason do we have to believe that God's is not? Also, why not believe that gods are mortal and reproduce, if they are so similar to man? As always, it is helpful to compare this type of reasoning to a more familiar example from everyday life. Imagine that you see a man who is able too run at 60km per hour, you could say that such a man was fast, but you could not say that he was infinitely fast, or that there was no speed to which he could not obtain. All that you could conclude from the evidence was that he was fast. When we reason from effects to causes, we are only justified in inferring what is necessary to explain the effect. All that is necessary to explain the effect in the case of the man is that he is fast enough to run at 60km per hour. All that is necessary to explain the effects in the case of the designed universe (assuming, for the sake of argument, that the universe was even designed) is that there be some intelligent designer or designers behind it. Any further conclusions are pure conjecture, with no basis in any evidence. The Observer would further add that the ineffability of God, means that nothing can be inferred from His “works,” for if it were possible to do so, one could then argue that He were both good and evil for both of these are found in the universe. Moreover good and evil are terms that we understand through our own experiences and stand point in the world, therefore it might be argued we would be imposing our view points on what God is. We see a continuation of this by Hume in part VI here, Hume trying to rationalise God pan theistically by saying that the world is a body and that the body must need a mind, and that mind is the deity. Philo does not believe that God is the soul of the world, which is His body; his point in raising this analogy is to show how easy it is to think up analogies for the universe, all of which are moderately supported by the evidence. In addition it could be argued that the universe itself is not eternal and if God is to be equated with the universe in the fashion set out above, then He too would not be eternal. IX Here Philo is trying to argue that God can be known but that we just don’t know enough about God for him to be know, and he is making this argument by talking about Algebra and that some one who did not know of the subject might think certain mathematical truths mysterious, but when he knows the rules these truths are no longer mysterious. Therefore based on this argument, it is firstly possibly to know God and secondly if we have not done so it is because we have not discovered the rules that might govern his existence and that are such rules and that they are discoverable. These rational ontological arguments have been used time and time again. The rationalists, such as René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and G.W. Leibniz all used some version of the ontological argument in order to support their philosophical systems. This is because they believed that there is a reason for everything that happens in the world and that all of these reasons can be discovered just by thinking really hard. In other words, they thought that if we started with certain innate concepts (i.e. concepts they believed we were born with, such as the idea of God, the idea of infinity, the idea of matter and so on) we could use our faculty of reason to understand why everything in the world is the way it is. But in order for this to be the case, there must be some final cause that is its own reason for existence. If there is no such final cause then either there is an infinite chain of causes (in which case we can never understand everything, because we could never get to the end of this chain) or else there is some arbitrary end to the chain and so there is not really a reason for everything (i.e. there is no reason for the first link in the causal chain). Of course as stated at the beginning of this thesis the Observer does not wish to touch upon proofs for the existence or non existence of God, that is a matter beyond the scope of this work, therefore, we shall only confine ourselves to those matters touching on the “nature” of God. 5.4 Rationalisation of God through the problem of evil In the examination of the final two parts of Hume’s dialogues, we deal with the rationalisation of God through the problem of evil, it is not the Observer’s position to refute the nature of evil, but merely to attack the rationalisation of God through the problem of evil, in addition this is not an in depth study of the problem of evil. Having portrayed a bleak picture of the universe, where life for all living things is a struggle, man may be able to dominate other species, but he invents his own enemies such as guilt and shame. Man is his own greatest enemy being constantly engaged in war, oppression injustice etc. Cleanthes wants to claim that by looking at the natural world we can draw conclusions about Gods nature, we cannot conclude that that he is infinitely good and infinitely powerful, the point being claimed here is that God is not possessed of the moral attributes such as goodness. Philo also offers an answer to the traditional problem of evil. He appeals to the position that he has been pushing all along: we simply cannot comprehend God or his plan. So long as we do not try to compare God to man, Philo claims, we do not really run into a problem. Judged by man's standards of morality God certainly seems to fail; but there is no reason to believe that God's standards of morality are anything like our own. So long as we admit that we cannot comprehend God, we can allow that God's infinite perfection and the evil of his creation can be reconciled in some unknown way. Philo argues later that there are four attributes in the world that he deems unnecessary and could easily be removed by God, this is a response to Cleanthes sacrifice that God might not be finitely perfect rather than infinitely so and that this might explain why he can not make the universe exactly as he wants it to be. Philo says that pain is unnecessary as a motivator and it could be supplemented by pleasure and that when we need to do something, we might have diminution of pleasure, by degrees rather than pain. Then next point raised is that the world is run by natural laws, that it would be better were this not so, that the laws of nature were run on a more arbitrary bases, that a falling innocent child would suddenly find his or herself floating in the air and gently coming to the ground or that bullets fired might change their trajectory. Philo continues in this vain, but saying that the world might be better ordered so as to have perfect weather and no natural disasters etc and that man and other species might be given those attributes which allow them to survive. All of this is an attempt to rationlise God to man’s concept of what he should be. These are the four possible hypotheses about the moral nature of God: God is perfectly good. This, naturally, is what the empirical theist wants to conclude from the evidence. God is perfectly malicious. God is both good and malicious. (Or, alternatively, there are two different forces in the world, one good and one evil). And finally, God is neither good nor malicious. Again all of these are attempts to rationlise the unknowable, not the unknowable from the point of view, of the way that the world is, but the unknowable from the point of view that God should be this or that because of the way the world is. And even attempting to rationlise God by saying that he has two natures both good and evil and that these might be struggling with each other, is as pure a speculative conjecture, and is merely an attempt for man to understand the un-understandable. Thus in trying to equate God’s nature with mans’ or with that of the world, Hume has sought to rationalise God, when he has no firm basis for doing so beyond his own speculative intellect. 5.5 The exclusivity of mysticism In this final part of the thesis the Observer will seek to criticise mysticism along lines of its own being. For example why is it hidden and open to so few? The Observer will argue that due to hardships of an extraordinary nature and what seems to be a special calling mysticism is open to very few of us. One of the principal criticisms of mysticism is that it is not available to all, it is by its very nature mysterious and therefore hidden, save to a very fortunate few who are able to overcome the veil of this world and discover what is hidden, that in and off itself excludes the majority. Does it need to be hidden? Might it not then be argued that the general public are therefore deprived of an important part of their religions? Let us begin with the exclusivity of mysticism, a great deal of catholic saints who have been acknowledged as mystics, seem to have been selected for the task from an early age. Either being cloistered in a monastery since early childhood, or blessed with visions from an equally early age, thus making the general public marvel in awe at such precocious holiness, and in turn believing rightly or wrongly that such attainments are beyond them and on the other side of the coin, those who are not so blessed early on, have to undergo severe hardship, before reaching the mystical state. The Observer will seek to argue the point with a number of examples amongst the Christian mystics. No doubt such examples exist within other religions, but the Observer feels that the documentation for those of the Catholic faith is more readily available and verifiable due to it having a central authority. Let us then begin with looking at the exclusivity of mysticism from the angle, that it seems that it is only for the chosen few. Marie of the Incarnation (1599-1672), who from her extensive writings showed that it was mysticism that led her from the safety of her convent in France, to the wild frontiers of Canada, even though she did not begin her veiled life until she was in her twenties after being widowed, yet she said that she had been having dreams of her future religious and mystical career since the age of seven. In the following account she describes how at that age she pledged herself to Christ. I was looking upward when I saw the heavens open and Our Lord Jesus Christ in human form emerge and come toward me…As this most adorable Majesty approached me, my heart felt on fire with love for him and I started to open my arms to embraced him. Then he, the most beautiful of all children of men, took me in his arms and with a look full of indescribable sweetness and charm, kissed me with great love and asked me, “Will you be mine?” I answered “yes!” (Fanning, 2001, p.165) In Poland with have the example of a twentieth century mystical saint, Sister Faustina Kowalska, she was said to have lived constantly in the presence of God and communicated freely with Jesus Christ who not only revealed her great mission in life but also guided her in her daily life. Even though she did not come to holy orders till her twenties, she was seven when she first heard God’s voice calling her in her soul towards the religious life. Mechthild of Magdeburg (ca 1210 to ca 1282), was a mystical Beguine who’s mystical experience began when she was only twelve, when she said that she was greeted by the holy spirit, she said that she was greeted thus for thirty years. Though she did not enter ecclesiastical life directly until the age of 64, thus it may well be argued that even those who enter into some form of mystical ecclesiastical life seem to have had some previous calling to do, so even though it may have been years before. Even the mystical likes of Joan of Arc experienced visions and voices as a child, where she claimed to have encounters with angels and especially St Michael and with saints, especially St Catherine and St Margaret, and at around the age of 13 she started hearing voices. Catherine of Siena (1347-80) was said to have had signs of her future saintly life, at about the age of six, when she beheld a beautiful bridal chamber. And hanging in the air in front of her over the roof of the church of the Friars Preachers, she saw a most beautiful bridal chamber decked out in regal splendour, which, on the imperial throne, dressed in pontifical attire and with the tiara on His head, sat the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world….Then gazing straight at her with eyes full of majesty, and smiling most lovingly, He raised His right hand over her, made the sign of the cross of salvation like a priest and graciously gave her His eternal benediction. The grace of this gift was so immediately effective upon the little girl that she was taken right out of herself. (Fanning, p 129) Having been thus inspired as mentioned above, the young Catherine sought to scourge herself, and vowed to dedicated herself to virginity and a life of prayer. And finally for this side of the argument with have the case of Birgitta (1303-73) who was a cousin of the daughter of the king of Sweden, according to her biographers, her mystical life began at the age of six, when she saw a lady shining in clothes of white, above the altar of a church; offering her a crown and asking Birgitta if she wanted it? Having nodded in the affirmative it was placed upon her head. Thus the Observer has sought to argue that mysticism seems to be for an exclusive few and that the ordinary lay religious person, and perhaps even those in ecclesiastical orders may feel somewhat daunted and paled at the gifts of the great mystics. How many have had such vision at the age of five or six any stage in childhood. Therefore whilst mysticism may be uplifting in some respects it is on the other hand daunting too, to those who may feel that they can never reach such exalted standards. Another argument against mysticism is the extraordinary suffering that mystics seem willing to undergo, the Observer will argue that such hardships undertaken willingly are beyond the remit of must of us, and therefore mysticism is again limited. St Christina of Trond (1150-1224) often called Mirabilis (“the astonishing”) is a perfect example of a mystical saint wishing to undergo extraordinary hardship for others. Having already been ill due to undertaking severe bodily hardships, she grew sick in body due to inward contemplation and died. She was carried to the church for the funeral Mass, where her first marvel was to occur. Right after the Agnus Dei, she flew up out of her coffin like a bird and perched herself in the rafters of the church (it was said that she desired to escape the stench of human sin). The priest finished the Mass with remarkable equanimity, and then made her come down. She reported that she had been to Hell, and had recognised many people there. She was then shown Purgatory, and recognised many more. After this she was taken to Heaven where she was offered the choice of remaining with God, in one-ness with Him, or returning to earth in order to suffer the torments of the damned on behalf of the souls she had seen in Purgatory, who would then be released. She chose the unselfish course, and so startled her mourners by returning to life in the little church. (de Cantimpré, 1999) Not only did Saint Christina delay here passage to eternal life, but she also went on to suffer greatly for doing so, in the service of others, she suffered suspicion at the hands of those who thought her mad or possessed by the devil. She was put in chains, from which she was miraculously freed, she was forced to dwell in tree tops. It is also said that she would crawl into hot ovens or suffer herself to go into boiling cauldrons and suffer no harm. The extraordinary willing suffering of this woman continued when it was said that she would whirl like a hoop, with such extreme violence that her limbs could not be seen. She would speak of Christ and suddenly and unexpectedly she would be ravished in the spirit and her body would roll and whirl like a hoop, She whirled around with such extreme violence that the individual limbs of her body could not be distinguished. When she had whirled around for a long time in this manner, it seemed as if she became weakened by the violence of the rolling and all her limbs grew quiet. Then a wondrous harmony sounded between her throat and the breast which no mortal man could understand nor could it be imitated by any artificial instrument. (Fanning, p. 98) No doubt the Observer could cite many examples of hardship willing undertaken by saints and other holy men of other religions, but we shall suffice with one more, there will be fewer mystical saints who undertook a greater and deliberate suffering than, the Blessed Henry Suso, a pupil of Meister Eckhart and a contemporary of Tauler. For twenty five years he did not take a bath, though no doubt some of us will not view that a suffering in itself. He observed virtual total silence for thirty years, during which time he ate only one meal per day and abstained from eating meat, fish or eggs and he practised poverty so completely that he would not touch the smallest coin. If this were not austere enough he punished his body with every device the medieval monastic mind could think of, sleeping in winter on an old door so that his body froze over. He wore gloves with tracks so, that should he try to relive his body from the annoyance of the biting vermin or the itching of his hair shirt, he would rip into his skin. He would wear a wooden cross with iron nails and needles sticking out of it, he carved into his own skin the name of Jesus in the form of IHS. These austere practises continued until he had a heavenly vision which told him to desist. It is said that he came to understand that all that he had done was nothing but a good beginning. Thus in light of the above extraordinary hardships and sufferings undertaken by the above mystical saints, it is no wonder that mysticism is for the few, for how many of us would willingly undertake such hardships? This in addition to the seemingly exclusivity of the mystical calling, renders the practise of mysticism and its undertaking to the hands of the very few. No doubt of course there is great suffering in the world, which we read of each day, but very little of it is undergone willingly and moreover not over a period of years, rather than one or two particular events. Chapter 6 Conclusion 6.1 Final thoughts Throughout this paper the Observer has sought to argue for the ineffability of God through mysticism which in itself comes under the frame work of perennial philosophy as mentioned above. Whilst the highest known form of mysticism is on the whole exclusive due to the suffering and exclusivity of the calling of those who have undertaken to practise it. The Observer would argue that it serves as a guiding light to established religions, though in this particular case we shall confine ourselves to talking about the Catholic Church. We have the Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, Carmelites, Benedictines, amongst other whose founders have been in direct communication with God and carried out His wishes in founding these orders. Mysticism is a reminder to us about the spirituality of our religions, that whilst we pray we should not neglect our charitable duties, and contemplation alone is not enough. In addition mysticism reminds us of what the early Catholic Church was like, in that saints were proclaimed locally, and their holiness was visible to all, Hildegard von Bingen, who never went through the formal process of beautification and canonisation, but was proclaimed locally as a saint and acknowledged as such by the powers that be. A reminder that all saints and especially mystical saints are sent to us as an example to remind us of the ineffable qualities of God and not too lose ourselves too much in dogma. They are they are the North Star, without which our ships may stray too far off course. Though since the middle ages, the number of mystical saints in the Catholic Church have been in decline, for as Nasr puts it after the middle ages the church was no longer the guardian of esoteric current, but the one that sought to put them down. So that they also became marginalised (Journal of Philosophy & Scripture, vol 2 issue 1, p 42) Naturally of course the Catholic Church has to guard itself against absurd claims, but the Observer feels that the church has become over protective of it’s dogma, to the point where it will not tolerate anything that it perceives as a threat to it. Recently in the English newspaper the Daily Telegraph there appeared an article about Patricia De Menezes, 67, who has developed an international following since she first began “seeing” the apparition, dubbed “Our Lady of Surbiton”, in 1984. The freelance jeweller has recently been dismissed as fraud by the Vatican, after claiming that the Virgin Mary had been appearing in a pine tree in her garden for twenty years. Her Community of Divine Innocence, which has devotees in nearly 50 countries, has now suffered a significant blow to its credibility. The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly the Inquisition, has crushingly rejected her appeals for formal recognition by the Pope. Archbishop Angelo Amato, the Congregation's secretary, said that he found Mrs. De Menezes's claims to be “exaggerated” and “hysterical”. He said inappropriate words and phrases had been attributed to Jesus and “intemperate language” used in attacks on Church authorities. "Given the supposed revelations which ground the spirituality of the Community of Divine Innocence are highly questionable, it follows that the community's spirituality is flawed at its root,” he said. The archbishop added that the message that Mrs. De Menezes claims to have received about the “martyrdom of all the innocent children deliberately killed before birth” was highly suspect. (Daily Telegraph 24th Sept 07) The article goes on to mention that the Vatican is keen to crack down on mystical seers around the world and that Pope Benedict XVI regards the rise of such charismatic visionaries as a risk to Church unity because they create sects at odds with the local bishops. Thus highlighting the above argument as to why mystics have been in decline in the Catholic Church since the Middle Ages. Though the Observer feels that the mystical message is needed now as much as it has been in any age, and is part of the perennial nature of reality that, can not be dismissed merely for the sake of dogma. 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