Mysticism is a bad word among the majority of Christian churches, and for the most part it should be. The latest mysticism to capture Christians is "contemplative prayer," which is associated with the Emerging Church movement. Not knowing much about this movement I've been watching some You Tube discussions of the phenomenon, by both its leaders and its critics. After some acquaintance with these sources it becomes clear that contemplative prayer is only one of the errors of the movement, that the whole thing is gross apostasy. Brian McLaren, for instance, maybe the main leader of the movement, quotes the Bible quite freely, but makes its words mean something altogether different from what the traditional Church believes. Without going into his viewpoint it can be said that he's made the otherworldly religion of Christ into a formula for worldly action of various sorts. Instead of being taught how to put off the old man and put on the new man we're treated as able to engage with the world on social and political issues apparently just as we are.
I haven't found a video of McLaren discussing contemplative prayer, but there are some Catholic priests who discuss it, and consider themselves to be part of the Emerging Church movement. I've always associated the idea of contemplative prayer with the Catholic mystics of five or six centuries ago, such as Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross, though I don't have a clear idea of how they would define it. One thing that was true of them, however, is that they taught a very rigorous practice of dying to self, taking up your cross, mortifying sin and "inordinate desires," the works of the "old man" or fallen nature, as the essential work of a contemplative Christian. The 'mysticism" was something that happened in response to that work, that is, it was something that God did, that they themselves didn't bring about, various experiences of God.
That is a very different sort of mysticism, a very different sort of contemplative prayer, than what I've been finding in connection with today's Emerging Church movement. The rigorous death to sin and self is exactly what is missing from all the Emerging Church presentations. They use language more like "finding your highest Self" which is the exact opposite of losing yourself for Christ. I haven't heard one mention of sin or the problems of dealing with sin, it's all how to have an experience, and their "mystical" practices are definitely their own seeking of an experience, not something given by God that you can't control.
There is a superficial similarity with the old mystics in one respect, in that they sought to subdue the fallen nature in order to be open to God. This involves mortifying our love of the world, our love of the creature rather than the Creator, the quelling of our selfish passions, The subduing the current mystics do is an attempt to silence the mind in order to hear from the spirit world. If that sounds similar, it's not: it's a mechanical practice rather than a moral work. Whereas the old mystics sought to be conformed to the character of Christ, today's Emerging Church mystics just want to empty their minds.
As many of the critics pointed out, this is really eastern religion, Hinduism or Buddhism, rather than Christianity. Silencing the mind can open a person to the work of demonic spirits, but not to God. It's a method practiced in shamanism and the seeking of occult powers.
One of the Catholic priests who described the method made it sound exactly like Transcendental Meditation, the method of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who was popularized by the Beatles back in the seventies. I went to a TM class myself in those days and learned the method, which was promoted as a "scientific" way to manage the stresses of life. To believe that it's scientific you have to do some mental gymnastics, at least ignore all the religious trappings that go with it, such as the altar with the large picture of Maharishi over it, the offering of fruit and flowers you are asked to bring to lay on the altar alongside everybody else's offerings. But the method is very simple. You are given a strange word or sound that one of the leaders whispers in your ear, which is to be your own personal "mantra," to be kept private. Then you are instructed to spend twenty minutes every day sitting in meditation and focusing your mind on your mantra. You are told to go about this quietly and calmly, to quiet yourself before introducing the sound into your mind, and if your mind wanders, to quietly and calmly resume focusing on it.
This is exactly how the priest on You Tube (Keating I believe) described the practice of "contemplative prayer" in today's Emerging Church context. Only he instructed people to choose their own "sacred word" to meditate on, in the place of the foreign-sounding Hindu mantra.
Let me tell you my own experience of Transcendental Meditation. I'd only done the twenty-minute sitting for a few days when on the next occasion, soon after I began to focus on my mantra, that strange sound that had been whispered n my ear, I had a very startling experience. My eyes had been closed and I was concentrating on my mantra when it was as if a curtain parted behind my closed eyelids, or a sliding door slid open with a sudden whoosh, and I was in another place. Or I was seeing another place. I was facing a vast landscape with a city barely visible in the far distance. There was a feeling associated with the vision, something otherworldly, maybe in a sense beautiful, though I was so startled I didn't continue in the experience. There was nothing frightening about the image or the feeling, it could have been interpreted something like "You are beginning your journey toward the far celestial city" or something like that, but just the fact of being so vividly "transported" (it was that real) to this other place was frightening in itself. I jumped up and never practiced TM again.
That all occurred at least a decade before I became a Christian and I had no categories for understanding it, except to say that it was a "vision" or something definitely "transcendental" or otherworldly. Why was I frightened? Others might have welcomed such an experience and pursued it. All I can think is that God protected me from continuing into something that was surely demonically inspired. (A similar experience of being protected occurred some years later when a friend who was practicing Zen Buddhism took me to "sit zazen" with her, which means sitting cross-legged facing a wall for something like forty-five minutes, and my legs fell asleep so that I was unable to bow down to the Buddha statue afterward, thus being spared that act of idolatry. From some things my friend told me about her experiences in Zen meditation they were definitely otherworldly in a similar way to the one I'd had through TM.)
I'm glad I had that experience of what meditating on a mantra can do because it puts reality to the sense that practitioners of "contemplative prayer" are opening themselves up to something dangerous, something supernatural that is not God. These are Christians, or nominal Christians at least, sheep to the slaughter, far from the disciplines of a follower of Christ.
All that certainly accords with the criticism and warnings about "mysticism" so many church leaders are giving these days. There are some very thorough presentations at You Tube of what these practices are and how they are dangerous deceptions that Christians should avoid. Ray Yungen is one of the most thorough, worth listening to.
There is a false mysticism for sure. Is there also a true mysticism?
I'm writing this on the blog intended to explore such experiences, the "higher" Christian teachings including mysticism, because I still think there is a valid mysticism and that the blanket dismissal of all unusual spiritual experiences by so many good Christian teachers risks losing something important.
But I'll write this much for now, about the false mysticisms, hoping to follow it with some thoughts about true mysticism, or at least questions about it.
