We are, for want of a better phrase, physical creatures living on material world. As such there is a degree of rationality and pragmatism we can apply to our current situation.
Our developmental history has been defined by the technological advances we have made and whilst some of those advances have resulted in less than positive events, for the most part civilization has advanced because of science. This website exists and you are able to access it and read it because of human kinds ability to learn, innovate and invent.
These developments would not have been possible if science had not replaced superstition or if rational and critical thinking had not overcome folk magic. Making this statement does not mean that I worship at the altar of science, far from it, but simply recognises that there is a process through which practical (material) discoveries are made. On the whole the public misunderstanding of science (and hence distrust of it) is about the inability of scientists (as a whole) to engage with the general public and the fact that it is easy to point at technology as being something that has enabled humans to be ever increasingly cruel to one another.
Bombs and guns do not kill people – it is the people using them and building them for their own motives that do the killing. Human kind has always found ways to be in conflict with others just because the come from somewhere else, speak a different language, have different belief systems or simply look different. We have become very good at justifying the use of science and technology to build our armies and arsenal that can be used against other armies and arsenals. The arms trade relies upon conflict and we as people are often happy to oblige.
Science and Technology has added to the understanding of how we function; our bodies; our minds. So we may not have all the answers (science never claims it does unlike some New Age thinkers), but we’re moving forward through a process of based within the structure of the scientific method. It is this method which allows us to focus on specific questions; generate specific hypotheses and the test them.
As Betrand Russell pointed out:-
“It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition.”
This is the RATIONAL path. It is the path which accepts the need to question and challenge; to find evidence and assess the quality of evidence; to be able to move from the known to the unkown.
In the rhetoric of the conspiracy theorists and New Age Thinkers and Fundamentalists we often find the statement that, for example, “evolution is just a theory, it’s not proven and not a fact!”
Such a statement underpins the lack of scientific literacy which exist in such groups who have an obvious agenda in finding a reason to dismiss scientific criticisms of their pet ideas and ‘facts’.
Now, least I lose half my readership here, we have to accept that as human beings there is a ‘sense’ of something more than just practical pragmatism. Even the most sceptical of individuals could not deny the subtle senses and feelings of mind and body which define other aspects of human experience. Of course they may be able to tell you what chemicals are doing what to which brain cells to produce the experience of, say love, but that still doesn’t detract from the human behaviours that feeling inspires.
So accepting that we, as bio-chemical organisms, respond to our environment (a rational view) there is a sense in which ‘there is more’. This is where mysticism and metaphysics takes over.
Here we are talking the language of symbols and metaphors; words which do not attempt to ‘define’ reality perhaps, but to ‘explore’ it. In many instances we, as a race of people, have allowed religious dogma and practices to fill this void - for void it is. It is the empty space which we can find when we consider deeper issues of ‘purpose’, ‘value’ and ‘point’. It is the void we experience when we cannot explain why terrible things happen to good people, to loved ones. Religion as a political structure feeds upon the fear and uncertainty loss and bereavement create. Some awe full and awesome natural disaster which apparently has no purpose leaves us feeling ‘out of control’, ‘reasonless’. Of course if it becomes part and parcel of some plan, perhaps a ‘creators plan’, then we may be able to reconcile the fear and place ‘hope’ and ‘belief’ in some unseen story that we are merely a part of.
The problem here though, is this path of ‘blind faith’ and ‘fatalism’ is not the true path of the mystic. In many ways the mystic asks as many questions as the scientist, but they are different and certainly have a different vocabulary.The Mystic seeks to question the very nature of existence and how we, as individuals, relate to the cosmos.
Some ‘mystical folk’ become satisfied with ‘earth bound’ descriptions of a ‘spiritual realm’ that is a mirror of the ‘here and now’ only more ‘perfect’. They accept the reality of ‘the Summerland’, ‘angels’, demons’, ‘entities’ and so on. They may well be right. But I can’t help thinking that it’s all to easy to put human labels on mystical (metaphorical and symbolic) experiences and so miss the point.
How we, as people, integrate what we know and learn about objective reality, our rational experience of the world, with our inner sense and need to explore and explain, is what Rational Mysticism is all about. The recognition that we can ask questions and interrogate what we learn about the mechanisms behind the universe whilst still having a personal connection with it.
The mystical journey is about discovering the ways in which we can question experience, set against how we define ourselves by those same experiences. Belief and spiritual dogma create far more closed minded, accepting people than does the rigour of honest rational (scientific) approaches. Of course devotees of some spiritual disciplines, alternative practices and advocates of conspiracy theories won’t see it that way.
In terms of Rational Mysticism then, we are talking about accepting two parallel, and perhaps overlapping, perspectives on the world. Being able to have a ‘foot’ in both camps, as it were, is not about fence sitting (as some have said), but more about a desire for learning, exploring so as to frame personal and “transpersonal” experience.
Transpersonal Psychology, is really about the spiritual, ‘other self’, and attempts to understand it as part of a whole rather than as a discreet and separate ‘thing’. Issues considered in transpersonal psychology include spiritual self-development, self beyond the ego, mystical and trance experiences, altered states and other occult (hidden) experiences of living. These are the very issues we are concerned with within the Transforming Minds – Mind Alignment programme.
How do we bring together these, at times, conflicting ideas of ‘self’ and ‘cosmos’?
How do we bring behaviours in align with values?
How do we explore the meanings of personal symbolism within the context of our culture, our humanity and what could be considered as ‘the collective unconscious’?
How does an understanding of specific mystical traditions and esoteric teachings relate to us in the here and now?
How can we explore our own potential for growth and development?
These are the questions that we are concerned with here; this is the journey we are embarking on now!
