Mystical Experience
October 27, 2017 § 1 Comment
I wonder how open Friends are to mystical experience? How many of us have had a mystical experience? How do we treat those of us who have had mystical experiences? How equipped are our meetings to minister to members or attenders who’ve had such an experience?
Maybe “mystical” isn’t the best word. Mystical in its traditional usage implies union with the divine, a la Jacob Boehme or Theresa of Avila. “Transcendental” might be a better word. By transcendental, I mean experiences that transcend normal consciousness, that transcend our understanding, that transcend the senses. But I also mean experiences that are positively inwardly transforming, that deepen your faith, make you a better person, inspire compassion, empathy and love, give you direction, and awaken greater spiritual awareness.
That’s not to say that mystical experiences aren’t disruptive. When an experience changes your life, it disrupts your life, and sometimes the lives of others, of people who are attached, or at least used to, the old you.
Mystical experiences fall along a spectrum of intensity and affect on a person. I suspect that many Friends have had “milder” versions of “mystical” experience, and may not even think of them as such. But what about those of us for whom the experience has been earth-shaking, truly transforming—and therefore disruptive?
We are fewer in number, I suspect. Maybe one person in a medium-sized meeting? Or maybe not even one. I know of at least one other in my meeting, which has roughly 60 worshippers on a given Sunday. But I bet there are others. My point is that we are not likely to know.
We don’t share these experiences lightly, or with just anyone. It’s too precious, we feel too vulnerable, and we have had some bad responses. I know I have. Some people can’t imagine such an experience and feel somehow threatened by it. Many people just don’t understand it and are mystified and feel awkward. Some will think you’re deranged or somehow delusional. Sometimes our passion and self-consciousness makes us talk about it with a combination of avid intensity and nervous withholding, especially early on when we haven’t finished processing what’s happened to us, so we do come off as a little deranged.
What would happen if someone came to your meeting with such an experience? Would your pastoral care committee or worship and ministry committee be equipped to provide some help and support? Would you know of any other mystics in the meeting to whom you could turn, who might be able to serve as an elder to this person?
I was lucky that, when I had my formative experience in a sweat lodge at the first North American Bioregional Congress, I knew a fellow there who had studied with an Aboriginal medicine man for a while. He was able to elder me, to help me understand what had happened to me in the experience’s own terms. That is, he gave me an indigenous spiritual understanding for an experience that had presented itself through an indigenous spiritual technology, the sweat lodge, and that was rife with the symbolic elements of indigenous spirit-ways. And I already had some background in that worldview and I had had transcendental experiences before, so I wasn’t totally freaked out.
But some of us have to work out the meaning of a mystical experience on our own. In fact, you still have to even if you have an elder, like I did. But at least I had some psychic, spiritual, and intellectual tools to work with and a little help.
My message here is that our meetings should try to create an environment that is open to mystical experience. We should somehow encourage those who have had transcendental experiences of any intensity and import to share those experiences with the rest of us, or more likely, to feel comfortable at least seeking support privately, either through a committee or an individual. We should be ready to listen with open hearts and minds.
And if the experience comes from outside the Quaker tradition, as it is very likely to have done, we should help the Friend integrate the experience with their Quaker faith and practice, if that’s what they want. Or be ready to point them in some other direction for support, if that seems appropriate, or if we’re not equipped to be of service.
I might share more about this last point in a subsequent post.
Through the Flaming Sword 
I’m puzzled. I thought all Quakers were mystics. What else can we call people who expect to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit whenever they seriously set about listening? Mysticism is the basis of Quaker belief. Christ has come to teach His people himself is a one line summation of our faith. It is surprising that this idea would be foreign to anyone who is a Quaker.
I have had that life changing experience. Why did it happen when it did, and in the way that it did? Because that’s when I was finally ready to listen. Because it took those circumstances to make me ready. If it hasn’t happened for you yet, maybe you just aren’t ready yet. By that I don’t mean that maybe you’re not good enough. It might be the opposite. As long as life is tolerably good and we don’t have many spiritual challenges it’s fairly easy to cruise along without really listening. But God has ways of getting our attention, some of them less pleasant than others.
Anyway, it is surprising to me that we have to ask these questions, we who expect to hear the voice of God when we try to listen.