Mysticism

 MYSTICISM

463. Mind the Oneness: The Mystic Way of the Quakers (by Rex Ambler; 2020)
           About the Author—For over 30 years Rex Ambler lectured in philosophical theology at Birmingham University. He now gives talks & workshops on Quaker faith & practice. 2 of his books are: Light to Live by: An Explanation in Quaker Spirituality; (2002, 2008); & The Quaker Way: A Rediscovery (2013). He worked at establishing & developing Experiment with Light meditation groups, which use early Friends' writings & practices to facilitate self-discovery & inquiry. His other Pendle Hill Pamphlets are The Light Within ... (#425; 2013 ) & Living in Dark Times (#447; 2017). This pamphlet's text was 1st published in 2017 by Quaker Universalist Group.

           Therefore all Friends, mind the oneness, and that [seeing light, cleansing fire, and uniting spirit] which keeps you in the oneness.      George Fox, 1653
           Mysticism as Mystery—The word "mysticism" is from the Greek muein (to close the mouth or eyes). Job lays his hand on his mouth. There is nothing he can say to match what he experienced. From the beginning, "mystery" has referred to things which are inherently beyond our grasp, [i.e.] things about life & death. With so much uncertainty and danger, what can we ultimately rely on?      What meaning or purpose can we find in our suffering in life?      How do we recall and share moments of insight when words are inadequate? Our hard work in trying to get to the truth is preparation for the moment in which it just happens. There is already, deep within us, a connection with this ultimate reality we need to know; an inner light shows it to us.
           What made the Quaker Way Possible?—Quakers say, We "wait in the light" [for] a deep source of knowledge we have within us, until we see what we need to know. In the 17th century, mystery was thought to be unavailable to ordinary people, & not to be revealed by waiting to be enlightened. Early Christians accepted that mystery was so elusive it belonged to another world, but they rejected philosophy being needed to get close to mystery. The Word had become flesh, & was therefore accessible to ordinary people, [who found philosophy to be a foreign language to them]. Church authorities wanted to establish Christianity as an imperial religion; they wanted a concrete set of words to explain Christianity's meaning; others felt this was a betrayal of the faith.
           The increasing worldliness of the church drove some people to leave city churches to live a simple, communal life in the desert. It is possible these communities have their roots in Buddhists communities, which followed the sea-trade from India into Egypt. It can be traced further back to Hindu ashrams, & forward to Islamic Sufi groups. People in Europe became dissatisfied with the church & sought freedom of belief [e.g.] "Friends of God" & "Beguines." They picked up what people like Bernard of Clairvaux, Teresa of Avila, and Meister Eckhart had said about religious experience, and began to experiment. They gained insights without having to consult priest or Bible. Bernard wrote: "In matters of this kind, understanding can follow only where experience leads." Evelyn Underhill writes: "The view which regards the mystic as a spiritual anarchist receives little support from history, which shows us, over & over again, the great mystics as faithful sons & daughters of the great religions."
           Luther was inspired by these people and took them as a guide to the kind of experience that would liberate him from church and theological structures. His turning point came in reading the Bible, which explained to him the meaning of Christ's life and death. He said: "My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Here I stand, I can do no other." He pit himself against priests, kings, and the whole tradition of the church. Some 130 years after Luther and the Reformation's beginning, the Quakers offered an alternative to Catholic, Lutheran, [and Episcopalian] theology. Differences over Scriptural authority had [contributed to] a civil war [between established civil and religious authority and the fractured opposition who] tried to establish an alternative to the rule of kings and bishops. What kind of mysticism did early Quakerism offer?      What kind of mysticism does it offer now?      How does it compare to other forms of mysticism?
           How did the Quaker Way Arise & Take Shape?—What could 17th century religious people trust in light of doubts about the Bible, & differences between interpreters of it? As a young man of 19, Fox gave voice to this anxiety: "Young people go together into vanity & old people into the earth ... thou must forsake all ... & be as a stranger unto all"; the reality they faced was a dark one. What reality can a young person trust & find hope in? Fox writes: "I had forsaken all the priests ... & had left the [Separatist] preachers ... I saw there was none among them that could speak to my condition ... I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do ... When all my hopes in them … were gone … I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus that can speak to thy condition’; & when I did hear it, my heart did leap for joy. … There were none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, for all are concluded under sin ... And this I knew experimentally.”
           [He knew enough about his condition to know that others were not speaking to it]. He had to experience it for himself if he was really to trust. Every other way was blocked; he had to turn inward, [as did] other early Quakers. How could they expect to build a [spiritual] life on their own experience? How does one build an understanding of the mysterious source of life? There is a link between letting go and finding. He had to learn to trust his own deeper resources, his own experience of life. If there was a healing and life-giving truth he would have to experience it for himself. He discovered that deep down within him there was a source of wisdom that would give him the truth directly and that it would do so by showing him the reality of his life. Jesus Christ gives light to see by. The Christ who spoke to him was a spiritual reality that he discovered within. He also learned that "they are seducers and antichrists which draw your mind out of the teaching within you [by pointing outward.]" This Christ was the wisdom by which the world was made.
           [Inner Spiritual Wisdom: A Way of Life]—How did early Quaker vision survive a lack of support from Church & State?      How was early Quaker vision translated into people's lives & the world?      How did it become a viable way of life? It isn't wise for us to look for a belief statement, authority figure, or church structure. Even with accounts of sudden & unexpected revelations of light, [the truest image of Friends' practice is] a regular daily, patient, waiting discipline in light & silence, so as to open to their illumination. Joseph Pickvance writes: "The earliest meetings were held in private, 'retired meetings,' in complete silence or almost so, for 3 hours at a time, once or twice a week." They had found a method to access the light within, available to anyone at any time. [It brought] "satisfaction & quietness in one's own mind ... & the weary had rest in Christ."
           The 1st consideration is how one was within one's self, & how one felt about one's self, [i.e.] one's true condition. Their conscience would tell them of conflict or tension they were experiencing, "If all would come to knowledge of truth, they must come to that which doth reprove [& approve of] them, & lead them into truth ... Be still & cool in thy own mind & spirit from thine own thoughts ... Let not any of you in your desires wander from that which is pure in you; then your condition will be kept clear to see things as they are." From this state of mind came amendment of life. [In acceptance of a difficult truth], inner conflict is overcome & there is peace. [Anxiety over] death near them & their own, could be met with "waiting in the light," & they would see their life grounded in an eternal reality that was benevolent. "This is the comfort of Friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal" [Wm. Penn].
           Having recognized the truth, it was necessary to "obey the truth." What does it mean to "obey the truth?" It is necessary to do that which prevents anything that needs reproving, & refrain from that which invites reproving & anxiety. The same dynamic applied to their relations with others. They could recognize conflicts or tensions between people, and then act on that insight. Fox writes: "The light is but one ... and lets them see how they have been strangers and aliens from the life of God." Alienation is based on a false idea of the people involved; they don't "see one another" at all, but instead images, ideas, projections. With insight, they begin to see that we humans are the same & belong together, & can treat other people, even the opposition, differently. We are given guidance when we open ourselves inwardly to something beyond the limitations of our conscious selves. Others have different gifts and experience, so they can help with the knowledge, experience and skills we lack.
           How do we make a difference? People who live a worldly life repress spiritual awareness & desire. When one perceives, tests & lives out life's reality, people will see that. Even if nothing is said, it will be a testimony to the truth & will liberate them. That gives them confidence they can make a difference to the world, & overcome many evils. They have resources within them to resolve conflict, & to learn to live together in harmony. The world and the body are affirmed joyfully as the means by which we can achieve liberation & find oneness.
           Early in Christianity, the Desert Father Antony is believed to have said: "My book, sir philosopher, is the nature of created things, & is always at hand when I wish to read the words of God." & George Fox wrote: “Now I was come up in spirit through the flaming sword, into the paradise of God. All things were new; & all the creation gave unto me another smell than before, beyond what words can utter … I was taken up in spirit to see another or more steadfast state than Adam’s innocency, even into a state in Christ Jesus that should never fall ... in which the admirable works of the creation, & virtues thereof, may be known ... Great things did the Lord lead me into, & wonderful depths were opened unto me ... As people come into subjection to God's spirit & grow up in the Almighty's image & power, they may receive the word of wisdom that opens all things, & come to know hidden unity in the eternal being ... That man may look upon with that which is invisible, & there read himself."
           The prevailing world-view is that at the physical level as rationally ordered but indifferent to human beings, and on the human level as disordered and dangerous, totally dependent on us to bring order. We can't see the whole world and its grounding in eternity because we are anxiously preoccupied with things in time. To get [beyond the ego's preferred reality] to the world as it really is, we have to let go of our precious ideas & "subject" our Self to what is disclosed by the spirit within us. The spirit that inspires & enlightens us is the same spirit, & wisdom, by which the world is made. Earlier Jacob Boehme had used the same phrase. When you let go the world of your imagination, the world as it revolves around you, you can see the world as it is, the unity of everything. You feel your self to be more fully part of the world & not separate from it; you are at home.
           Fox also said: "So God Almighty open your understandings, all people everywhere, that you may see your self. And if you take heed to that light which will exercise your conscience, it will let you see your self, which eye is the light, and this light will let you see God. But if your minds go forth to [things outside], the god of this world cometh in and takes the dominion, and so your minds are blinded and your understandings darkened."
           [Inner Spiritual Wisdom: Reality, Unity, Eternity]—Fox says that "people" generally may "come to know the hidden unity in the eternal being ... With the light you may comprehend time and the world and fathom it, which believed in gives you victory over the world." If we go into the "light," and reflect that everything comes and goes in an openhearted way, we can see that we are part of one vast process in time. If we can accept this face unreservedly, the world makes sense. With this insight into the flow of time, we find ourselves rising above it. In our transcending the time of our life we get a sense of that which transcends all time, the creator of time and the world. Fox writes: "All dwell in the power and spirit of God, with which ye will comprehend all that which is to change, with that which doth not change and hath no end."
           The early Quakers response to their crisis wasn't to draw on some other tradition, not even mystical tradition that might have been congenial, but to look deeply into their self & see if there was anything that could help & give them a basis for life. There is a capacity for insight & love which enabled them to see their self & those around them as they really were, & to recognize a oneness of things. They could trust their own & God's ultimate reality & live by its leadings. Their communities could embody the vision & give meaning & hope in dark times.
           How Does the Quaker Way Compare with Other Forms of Mysticism?—With Christianity being taken over as the [late Roman Empire's] official religion, the church became altogether more worldly and spirituality got squeezed out. Christians for whom the spiritual meaning was everything left cities for the desert. John Cassian lived with and wrote about them. He thought of their monasticism as the Christian alternative to society. There they discovered a sensitivity to the Spirit's stirrings and direct God-encounters.
           The Desert Fathers, of whom St. Antony the Great is the most notable: relied on inner truth to reach God; gave up self-attachment; experienced union with ultimate reality; found freedom and wholeness; responded with love. These 5 elements can be found in most who followed this mystical tradition, [where] unmediated experience [is key]. It stands in contrast with the predominant spirituality, which relies on structure, authority, & mediation. Buddha's mysticism was a reaction against the formal teaching of the Brahmins; Zen was a reaction to formal dependence on the accumulation of scripture in Buddhism.
           Definitions of Mysticism—The practice of the 5 elements mentioned above could be a definition of mysticism. It is also possible that mysticism can't be defined because it is concerned with something undefineable. Mysticism is not a system of belief, but a reaction against systems. It is the whole quest & process that leads to insight, the life that leads from it, and the latter process that makes sense of it. It is a dimension of religious process rather than the practice itself. [Some find mysticism to be an essential part of being Christian].
           Rufus Jones defines mysticism as: "the type of religion which puts the emphasis on immediate awareness of relation with God, on direct and intimate consciousness of Divine Presence." This also applies to evangelism, which cannot fully embrace mysticism. Simply recollecting the Lord and hearkening before Him in company together is fitted to foster inner light and peace. Rufus Jones want to hold mysticism and evangelism together, though I think that spiritually it has to be impossible; too much of mysticism's specific qualities are left out. Elizabeth Gray Vining says of Rufus Jones: He saw the [sometimes evangelical,] pastoral system had come to stay and that it would have to be accepted by eastern Friends ... [who thought] it was not Quakerism ... and that they had abandoned elements of distinctive Quaker practice to return to the Protestant faith. Jones tended to play down [silent meditation] features of Quaker life which made it distinctive."
           Evelyn Underhill writes: "Mysticism is the art of union with Reality. The mystic is a person who has that union in greater or lesser degree, or who aims at & believes in such attainment ...They have succeeded where all others have failed, in establishing communication between the spirit of man ... and that 'one Reality' ... This is the hidden Truth which is ... the only satisfactory goal of his quest." We are normally not in touch with the "one Reality," distinct from our ideas and images of reality, and reality is ultimately elusive, because it is "immaterial.
           How is the Quaker way mystical? The Quaker way is mystical as a quest for reality and an experience of reality, which then becomes the basis of our faith and practice. Why are Quakers hesitant to describe our way as mystical? Many Quakers claim that our faith is primarily Christian; our center is Christianity. Classical mysticism is concerned with another reality than this one; Quakerism is thoroughly grounded in this world. Some believe that mysticism is pre-occupied with paranormal phenomena, with spirits, supernatural, or magical powers. When Quakers turn to Christ to mediate the reality of God, that Christ is a reality within them, not something or someone outside them. This deep [Christ-] reality, is itself divine. We each have within us, whether recognized or not, the wisdom and guidance we need for our lives; it only requires our response to it.
           Quakerism is not otherworldly, whereas mysticism is. Quakers were part of the Reformation, [with its suspicions about] external structures and authorities, which for Quakers included monasticism [and its formalized Rules]. They did not know about the few that developed a rich mystical life. They knew about the more ascetic tradition of classical mysticism and rejected it because of its rejection of the world and the body.
           [Penn and Barclay on Mystics]—Penn writes: "True followers of Christ ... exempt not themselves from the conversations of the world ... That is a lazy, rusty, unprofitable self-denial, burdensome to others to feel their idleness ... [monasticism is] a constrained harshness, out of joint to the rest of creation ... True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavors to mend it." This rather harsh judgment on the monastic life has to be balanced with his appreciation of "retirement" from the world [e.g.] a Princess who was also an "abbess" to a German Protestant order.
           Barclay writes: "Mystics [are] ... a group whose writings abound with explanations & commendations of [spiritual] worship ... [Directing] the mind [away] from images, thoughts & prayers of the will [is seen] as ... Christian perfection, [requiring no other form of worship] ... God has raised a people to testify for it, & preach it, who are refreshed & strengthened in the sight of the world [by it], in spite of opposition ... They don't consider it [something to be] attained only after they have become weary with outward ceremonies & observances." Barclay distances himself from church "mystics," but he fully accepts their basic commitment and practice. They sought God in the silence Spirit, gave up reliance on words, images, and liturgies.
           Quakers have sought "union with reality" not by withdrawing from the world or body, but by embracing them. Howard Brinton writes: "This is ethical mysticism because it retreats, quietistically, to the creative Source of Unity returns to create unity in the world." Vining writes: "Every situation may be turned in an occasion for winning a nearer view of God." What is bad or unacceptable is that humans have asserted themselves against reality, creating their own illusory world, and cutting themselves off from reality. The way back to peace & unity is by [seeking and brightening] our dim sense of reality and follow its leads "trusting them as the leadings of God, whose light shows us our darkness and brings us to new life."
           The problem is not the world, it is the ego which distorts the world. When the ego is sorted, put in its place, we can see the world clearly, and cherish it and love it. I would suggest we call Quaker mysticism Inclusive Mysticism. The spiritual mentor Baron von Hügel quotes Julian of Norwich: "Well, I wote that heaven and earth, and all that is made is great, large, fair and good ... The full head of joy is to behold God in all; truly enjoy our Lord [with] a full, lovely thanking in his sight." Other descriptions of Quaker mysticism could include: Practical Mysticism (Evelyn Underhill); Ethical Mysticism (Howard Brinton); Prophetic Mysticism (Rex Ambler); Affirmative Mysticism (Dean Iage). I have also thought of Ken Wilber's "integral spirituality" in contrast to the [dualism] of separating material and spiritual, emotional and rational.
           Distinctive Elements of the Quaker Way—Fox's knowing something "experimentally" grew out of the meaning "experiment" had acquired in the new science of his time. The Royal Society pioneered an approach to science in which every theory was to be tested rigorously in experience to see if it worked. William Penn wrote: "... It is utterly impossible that anything should bring to the internal knowledge & experience of the work & will of God but the Light & Spirit only by an inward revelation & operation." [Each person's] truth was to be found as one opened one's self up to the experience of one's life & the life around them. Their contemporary Christian leaders found the Quaker alternative preposterous, dangerous, & a threat to the church's and state's foundation.
           [Quakers learned to read the Bible from a new perspective]. It wasn't telling them what to believe, but pointing them to the experience that would give them the light and life they sought; it was "testimony." Fox wrote: "They could not know the spiritual meaning Moses, the prophets, John's [and Christ's] words, nor see their path and travels, or see through them ... into the kingdom unless they had the light and spirit of Jesus." The historical Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, is seen as a witness to the truth ... "The Word became flesh" means that God's word to humans was expressed in a human life; the record of the life bears witness to the "grace and truth available to us.
           Even then its truth had to be acted on if it was to be truly embedded in life. Fox wrote: "Live in the life of truth and let the truth speak in all things ... act truth ...practice it ... ye have truth ... it cometh to be with you as natural." Howard Brinton wrote: "There is a mystical unity with historical events if they are repeated & verified in a similar form in the life of an individual." The goal of the spiritual life isn't simply to see the ultimate one-ness. It is to realize oneness in practice, so bringing the understanding & action together. John of Ruysbroeck wrote: "Understand, God comes to us incessantly, both with & without intermediary; he demands of us both action & fruition, in such a way that the action shall not hinder fruition, nor the fruition action, but they shall reinforce one another reciprocally ... He dwells in God, & yet he goes out towards created things, in a spirit of love toward all things in the virtues & works of righteousness. This is the inner life's supreme summit." The integration of contemplation & action has re-emerged in modern Catholic life in Thomas Merton & Karl Rahner.
           You can see how this integrated approach would affect community life & political life. "Something of God in everyone" leads people to cherish communal life & do everything possible to mend it & make it whole. [In doing "ordinary" work they can retain the mystical vision. There are fields where the oneness can be made real, where hidden possibilities of reconciliation, harmony, & peace can be realized. That is often made clear in those actions which bear witness to the human reality that is being presently denied in the world, [i.e. testimonies]. They have the prophetic role of drawing people's attention to the life that would lead to peace & wholeness.
           I close with a George Fox quotation on truth: Dear friends,/ With my love to you in the holy peaceable truth/ that never changes,/ nor admits of evil,// but makes all free/ that receive it/ & that walk in it ...// & from the truth floweth justice,/ equity, righteousness & godliness,/ merry & tenderness,// that brings a man's heart, mind, soul & spirit/ to the infinite &/ incomprehensible God,// & from it a love flows/ to all the universal creation// & would have all to come/ to the knowledge of the truth,// & it bends every one to their utmost ability/ to serve God & his truth/ & to spread it abroad,// & it brings their minds out the earth,/ which makes them brittle/ and changeable and uncertain,// for it doth not change,/ neither doth it touch with/ that which does change. As to unity it makes all/ like itself/ that do obey it,// universal, to live [outside] of/ narrowness and self,/ and deny it.// So it brings all into oneness/ and answereth the good principle/ of God in all people.
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375. Quaker Views on Mysticism (by Margery Post Abbott; 2004)
           About the Author—Margery Abbott is a "released Friend," writing and traveling in the ministry among Friends [out] of Multnomah MM in Portland OR. "What is a Friend?" is the question that informs much of her work. Who are the evangelicals, unorthodox Christians, Jewish Quakers and occasional atheist among [the "birthright Quakers" that make up] the approximately 300,000 Quakers in the world? [There are] commonalities [to be found] when we listen with God present.
           [Introduction]/ God's Work in My Life—Images of Friends as mystics & a peace church are tightly linked within the Society of Friends. [This pamphlet] has perspectives of Friends I interviewed & of my own on what "mysticism" is for Friends; [paraphrased interviews are at this summary's end]. Mysticism here refers to awareness of God's presence. Evangelical, Liberal, & [Friends in between] react differently to this word. I address the Liberal Friends' perspective, mysticism definitions, divine touch's transformative effect, & traditional Friends' discernment of the Spirit's actions. Spiritual awareness results in lives lived in justice, mercy, & compassion.
           My traveling among Friends in ministry & speaking on mysticism is the result of a mystical experience I had in my mid-40's. [One day, after my father death], God set me on an unlikely path of spiritual vocal & written ministry. [Unlikely] because I had never spoken in Meeting for Worship, never written anything but scientific, technical documents, & disliked poetry. I now write reams of poetry, & I find that modern science & thought can inform how I relate to people & the world. [Though distant in culture or time, ancient believers & early Quakers inform & are inseparable from my spiritual self]. [My need to know good ways to think about spiritual experience led me to read early Friends' writing, & to ask Friends today about faith & God's Presence, i.e. mysticism.
           Defining Mysticism—Friends' definitions focus on knowing God, relating to the Divine, searching for Truth, & a sense of guidance focused by discernment & waiting in the silence. The 60-plus Friends I interviewed in the mid-90's agreed that ours is a mystical faith because of knowing God's presence individually & corporately. Some emphasized that knowing leads to [clear social] action. Others emphasized Quakerism's nature as a prophetic, service-oriented peace church. 2 outstanding definitions are "the breaking through of God into ... everyday life," & "a gradually transforming process putting one's self in God's hand & letting God work on you."
           The importance of spiritual experiences is their power to strengthen faith, to transform lives, or to provide clear leadings for service when properly discerned. Self-indulgent retreat into uplifting, ecstatic experiences or actions inconsistent with Friends' testimony needs to be avoided. Discernment, mutual accountability, and testing leadings with the group are distinctive features of Quaker mysticism. Ecstatic experiences alone are not a sign of holiness. The presence of God is most often found in the still small voice, the quiet, more reliable leadings that are easily overlooked in the throes of daily life. Quakerism is about listening for that which is eternal and bringing the divine word to the world. We cannot forget that living the will of God is the core of our faith.
           The Mysticism of Rufus Jones—Rufus Jones had a clear vision of positive mysticism, "an immediate, intuitive knowledge of God ... or consciousness of a Beyond or a Divine Presence" which inevitably led to service. Quakers were inheritors of the early Christians' positive mysticism. His influence on contemporary liberal Quakers is real & strong. Jones declared that mystical experience isn't an end in itself & doesn't [have to] lead to a quietist stage, but [can] rather lead into a genuine mission in the world; guidance is a slowly ripening fruit. Jones looks to preparation through appreciation of beauty, learning how to love, & cultivation of the Spirit's fruits.
           Jones proposes these stages in "the progress of the soul": essential concentration as a discipline; active meditation; soul-quickening contemplation & unifying all the spirit's powers. Jones also writes: "[Mystics] say with almost one accord that no vision of God is adequate that remains private & isn't translated into life & action [that] pushes back the skirts of darkness & widens the Kingdom of God's area." During the 20th century, mysticism has struggled to find its place within modern thought. Rufus Jones has influenced Friends by emphasizing the importance of engaging with the world's problems & by helping found American Friends Service Committee.
           The Transforming Work of the Spirit—Whether George Fox & 17th century Friends were mystics probably wasn't a relevant question then. George Fox once wrote: "I came up through the flaming sword into the paradise of God." Fox thoroughly integrated biblical expressions into his poetic & visionary language. Human beings could live out the kingdom of heaven on earth if they heard & followed Christ's Light. Images came to me of communion glasses wine glasses in gathered meeting, neon spirals that mark my path toward God in community.
           Early Friends had visions that expressed the deep pain, struggle & transformation that may accompany opening into Inward Light. Life centered in Light can be sudden & full of struggle. My interviews suggest it is more often slower, easier process. Modern Friends rarely speak of how God's presence is experienced; it can happen anywhere. We most often know God's guidance in the still, small voice, nudges or timely phone calls. God's guidance is central.
           Speaking About the Divine Encounter—Poetry comes closest to allowing some sense of the experience to flow in a way that resonates in the soul. All words about the Holy Spirit's touch are difficult to use; any words one chooses will be uncomfortable for some people. God speaks to humanity in multiple ways and in a manner unique to the individual, of lasting effect, & often impossible to articulate. Mysticism is the direct contact with the spiritual. Quakerism adds obedience, service, & action. Mysticism isn't an abstract, free-floating experience.
           Speaking of such experiences can seem risky. It is crucial to have caring people with experience & sensitivity to nurture glimmers of Spirit in those around them as well as to provide a container, witness, & discerning heart for more powerful God-experiences. The Spirit's work in the heart has infinite dimensions. Friends offer people a place to listen quietly for the still, small voice & other [revelations] of Spirit rising out of silence. The stillness of worship nurtures the soul's intuitive stillness within all people; it is not limited by personality or upbringing. Chanting, singing, sacramental rituals, movement, sermons can all open hearts to the work of the Spirit. Integrity draws us to the inward state where no contradictions exist when we are responsive to the Light.
           Unspoken Expectations & Cautions—What are Friends' expectations about communal practice of mysticism & how individuals speak of or act in response to mystical experiences? Liberal Friends' habit of saying there are no "boundaries" to mystical experience makes many evangelicals nervous about mysticism. The liberal's expectation of quietness sets unspoken "rules" about behavior in worship & seems to limit Spirit-awareness to silent practice. Evangelical, more emotional, outward & concretely oriented expressions are distrusted [& dismissed as "not mystical" by liberal Friends]. Yet they show many underlying similarities to Friends' ways.
           For charismatics, the Holy Spirit is in speaking in tongues, movement, & in a deeply personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Many liberal Friends listed these things as outside their understanding of mystical experience. Distinguishing the mystical from mental stability is difficult. Psychosomatic manifestations are wrong; if experiences are loud, they shift into mental instability. & when we distinguish those who have visions as somehow better than others or dismiss gentle, unspectacular ways in which God works in most people's lives, we have lost the way. Visions only have value when they speak of Truth & of God & transform lives in the way of compassion.
           Discernment & Testing—Needing discernment increases as we start responding to inner experience & take action. How do we know when it is really God as the Inward Teacher & not [an old family message about proper behavior]? When is it our desire for glory or another voice distracting us from a right path? Because egos & past get in the way of truly hearing God, we rely on a discernment process to understand a call's source, & what response is right. The community's role is in the Meeting for Worship, business meeting, & clearness committees. The mystical is important [not in its form, but in its execution by] individuals & the community. Discerning nudges involves clearing the mind & heart & getting ego out of the way of the still, small voice.
           Discerning in vocal ministry, involves listening to our bodies (e.g. hearts pounding, bodies quaking) and to intellectual consideration of [the message's intent as either] a personal one, one for the whole group, or one for further seasoning in the heart and later delivery. While at times discernment of a calling may be individual, ones recognition and understanding of a call's dimensions benefits from the community's wisdom. 
           Early Friends had a number of tests and aids for discernment: Fruit of the Spirit (e.g. love, joy, peace, faithfulness, and self-control); "Taking up the Cross" (i.e. a leading contrary to our willful desire, or egocentricity); Unity (i.e. in the love of our community for one another, in love for the world, and in knowing the loving action to be taken; consistency with Bible's Truth; inner peace (i.e. feeling at peace with the rightness of a decision, however hard or life-changing, even if not the one sought or hoped for). Friends expected that inward experience and outward behavior are intimately connected. [No test is perfect for every person and situation]. [Homogeneous] meetings might easily come to unity, yet it may miss important dimensions resulting from a more diverse group.
           Weaving Strands Together/ Individual & Corporate—Some things are crucial to me as I am touched by experiences beyond comprehension. I need others with whom I can talk, [those who have had similar experiences. I need guides from Friends' writings, the Bible, Buddhist writings & elsewhere, for ways to respond to experiences. I need to ask: "What difference do experiences make in my work, behavior & relationships?" I need internal markers, those pointing to avoidance & a need for personal change, & those pointing to God's presence.
           In the confusion that is all too often there for me, I need guidance from others and a structure to hold on to. Friends' radical understanding of the gospel creates a structure for me out of which I can act more clearly and surely. Meeting for Worship [with attention to] Business, [done as mystics], brings us back to the core of what we are about as Friends, namely God's presence, guidance, and [knowing the gifts of wholeness and holiness]. The stillness of unprogrammed meeting holds tremendous power. No one can walk away unmarked from a true meeting with God, [however still and small it is]. The radical message of early Friends is expansive enough to enfold many aspects of modern culture, drawing from them an added richness, [while at the same time] Friends remain apart from our culture and time in ways not always easy to see at the moment.
           Principles of Quaker Mysticism—William Johnston is a Catholic who has spent years in Japan studying the religion of Asia. I modify his words somewhat and add our belief that God can guide our daily lives to use Johnston's approach to describe modern liberal Quaker mysticism. The Light, God, Spirit is available to all people in all times and all places. The indescribable nature of the mystical, of God is such that the response is often one of naked faith without clear assurances. Self-knowledge and emptying are part of enter the unity of nature, humanity, and God. Through God's touch we can hear, experience, know the nature of Love. No one path is right for all. Listening for a still, small voice and responding are central to a Spirit-led life.
           Liberal Friends have pursued or brought with them into our meetings the insights of psychology, the practices of Asian meditation, rituals associated with the rhythm of the seasons, and affinity with the natural world as well as Christian church traditions. Johnston's model recognizes the variety of ways that people experience God and the multiple kinds of experiences that one person may have over time, sometimes full of images, sometimes a contemplative silence impossible to explain. God's touch affects all of who I am what I do, even when I find it difficult to act in accord with what I know. I cannot separate Quaker mysticism from its Christian roots, even as I delight in the infinite ways God works among humankind.
           Conclusion—I have come to know mysticism as a catalyst in developing a relationship with God. Out of this divine relationship grow new relationships with people that reflect the nature of how I know God. It brings transformation. In knowing God's compassion, I see how I can respond to others in a similar way, thus stepping out of the fear and limits of old habits into the "fruit of the Spirit." It brings communication. I have visions-images that tell me something of my relationship with God, and that give me words to share with others.
           It brings discernment. I use my internal markers & create a "guidebook" to help me sort through the confusion of fear, pain, anger, & [chaos] that at times can swamp my head. I have a circle of people that help me sort through the muck. My whole meeting has taught & is teaching me about trust, love, patience, joy, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, & self-control. It brings testimony, which speaks of how we live our faith & give us an understanding of the active nature of a life centered in God. In my growing and changing relationship with God, the testimonies take on a richer focus and become clearer as a natural witness of God's work in our lives and a way of sharing that witness.
           How do You See Quaker Mysticism?
           Maurice Warner—When knowing that isn't by the mind's convincement is experienced, intellectual debate vanishes. Since 99.9% of the time we have to live without this, the real question is how to live. People talking about experiences with no clear change in how they behave towards one another, fall into a Buddhist's "gee whiz," (non-essential) experience. Rather than Biblical authority, clearness committees are a primary way to test leadings. Essential to real experience is a galvanizing effect on ones life, different life-view & irresistable action.
           Andrew Backhouse—Quakerism is about contemplation and action, therefore it is not mystical. The good thing about Quakerism is that it can cope with some who are pure contemplation and some who are pure activism. Divine, reflective revelation of all sorts are mystical by definition; we should all say "yes," we've had those. [On the broad range of language used to describe spiritual experience], I'm not actually very tolerant, but I like to pretend I am, like every other Quaker. We are going back to clearness committees as a discernment aid.
           Patricia McBee—As Quakerism has developed, it has settled into being more rational & more defined by tradition & less ecstatic & mystical than early Friends were. Mysticism is now less of a defining factor. Mystics are greatly aided in discernment by having a supportive, experienced community. [In answering the question of having boundaries to acceptable spiritual experiences: [What would the world be like if Biblical characters & George Fox had responded to their "voices" & visions as unacceptable or even dangerous hallucinations]?
           Peter Eccles—The mystical is rooted in individual or corporate experience of God, not particular belief. How do you recognize a true mystical experience? [It needs to fit in the context of meeting] and have echoes in the community and in readings. We British Friends can be so sheltered from violence and horror that seeking God in others is just sweetness and light. We need to understand what startling and powerful things we are about, [the "unacceptable" people we are asked to love]—but that what we are asking of people and saying is possible.
           Margaret Sorrel—I define mysticism as an individual's direct experience of the Divine, which sometimes are tender leadings and sometimes knocks us over. If we deny the reality of lighter mystical experiences, we close the door to the other. There are [limited] times when it is right to put pure mystical experiences into words; they are incredibly difficult to express. What is now unacceptable [and "crazy"] used to be early Christian ex-pressions; we 20th century Quakers have put restrictive limits on our experiences.
           Janet Scott—Julian of Norwich says that visions are not important. What is important is the recognition that God is communicating with you, then acting on it. [I was not getting clear leadings from God about pursuing a job]. I said: "If I get this wrong, I will kill you." God flashed a picture of the cross and said: "You've already done that." I try to go where God wants me to go; if God wants me to be there, God makes it possible. It is probably wrong for Friends to seek out mystical experiences for their own sake, [instead of that which aids in the] right-ordering of our lives and in being in accord with the testimonies.
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240. 2 Moral Essays: Draft for a Statement of Human Obligations; Human Personality (by Simone Weil; 1981) 
           About the Editor—Born in Casper, Wyoming, Ronald Hathaway did undergraduate work at Harvard, and received his doctorate from Brandeis University in 1965. He has since taught the classics and philosophy at a number of colleges. Of these essays he said: “I have always believed that Simone Weil deserves to be widely read, especially by young people and college students. [These two] are gems of her thinking on moral subjects.” 
           SIMONE WEIL—Simone Weil was born in Paris in 1909 & died in London in 1943, having fled Vichy France. [She was raised in a liberal Jewish home]. She entered into the radical French trade union movement & was regarded as a Marxist; she divested herself of Marxist ideology, [seeing] it as contradictory. Her thought & actions were attempts to solve the concrete problems of public life. These 2 essays were written in exile during her last year of life. She wrote: “Human intelligence falls miserably short of the great problems of public life.” 
           Concrete, harsh, experiences gradually liberated her mind from modern ideologies. Her thinking is free of the ideas of: person & rights; Marxist socio-economic theory. She came upon the ancient sources of the [OT Wisdom literature] and the [un-Jewish] Gospels, Homer, & ancient Greek ideas as something fresh and new. Simone Weil should be listened to with careful attention. Substantive, [liberated] morality rest on a foundation of faith. What is the nature of faith [in a reality outside the world] and what are its logical consequences? 
           DRAFT FOR A STATEMENT OF HUMAN OBLIGATIONS: Profession of Faith—There is a reality outside any sphere that is accessible to human faculties. There is a longing for an absolute good at the human heart’s center. The other reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world. Humans have the power of turning one’s attention and love toward it; [those that pay attention to it] are the only way good can descend from there and come among us. Its power is only real here in so far as it is exercised. 

           When someone] consents to directing one’s attention & love beyond the world, there descends upon one part of the good, [which radiates from one]. [One’s] longing for absolute good & directing one’s attention & love beyond the world constitute a link that attaches everyone to that other reality; every human being is something sacred. This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings. If our attention is entirely confined to this world it is entirely subject to the effect of the world’s inequalities. The only thing that is identical in all men is the presence of a link with the reality outside the world; the link is beyond the reach of human faculties [and direct expression]. The one possibility of indirect expression of respect for the human being is offered by [opportunities] to meet the obligation of [responding] to the needs of the soul and its body in others. 

           Anyone whose attention and love are really directed towards the reality outside the world recognizes [one’s obligation]. No combination of circumstances ever cancels this obligation. The thought of this obligation is present to all. The proportions of good and evil in any society depend partly on the proportion of consent to refusal [of that obligation]. [Anyone with control over people’s lives who refuses that obligation is committing a crime]. Any State, legal system, government, institution, or influential man, who incites this crime or does not protect against or denounce it lacks legitimate power and is at least an accessory to the crime. It is for the intelligence to conceive the idea of need and to discern the earthly needs of the soul and of the body. 

           Statement of Obligations—The needs of a human being are sacred. The limit to the satisfaction of the needs of a human being is only legitimate if the needs of all human beings receive an equal degree of attention. Each need is related to an obligation, & [vice versa]. The needs of the body are food, warmth, sleep, health, rest, exercise, fresh air. The needs of the soul, listed in pairs of opposites are: equality & hierarchy; obedience & liberty; truth & freedom; solitude & social life; personal & collective property; punishment & honor; disciplined participation & personal initiative; security & risk. The human soul needs above all to be rooted in several natural environments & to make contact with the universe through them. Any place where the needs of human beings are satisfied can be recognized by the fact that there is a flowering of fraternity, joy, beauty, and happiness.

           HUMAN PERSONALITY—There is something sacred in everyone, but it is not one’s person or human personality. It is impossible to define what is meant by respect for human personality. The notion of rights, which was launched into the world in 1789, has proved unable, because of its intrinsic inadequacy, to fulfill the role assigned to it. To combine rights and human personality will not bring us any further. Although the whole of one is sacred, one is not sacred in all respects and from every point of view 

           At the bottom of every human being's heart, there is something that expects that good & not evil will be done to one. This profound, childlike, & unchanging expectation of good in the heart isn't what is involved when we agitate for our rights. Every time there arises from the depths of a human heart the childish cry, “Why am I being hurt?”, then there is injustice. In those who have suffered too many blows, in slaves for example, that place in the heart from which the infliction of evil evokes a cry of surprise may seem to be dead; it is never quite dead. 

           Those who most often have occasion to feel that evil is being done to them are those who are least trained in speaking. What is 1st needed is a system of public education capable of providing a means of expression. Then, there needs to be an [attentive] regime [that employs] an attentive silence in which this faint & inept cry can be heard. Power needs to be put into the hands of those who are able & anxious to hear & understand it. Clearly, a political party busily seeking, or maintaining itself in power can discern nothing in cries against evil except a noise. Its reaction will be different according to whether the noise interferes with or contributes to its own propaganda. It can never be capable of the tender & sensitive attention which is needed to understand its meaning. 

           When the infliction of evil provokes a cry of sorrowful surprise from the soul's depth, it isn't a personal thing. It is contact with injustice through pain. It is [universal] impersonal protest. Everything impersonal in one is sacred; nothing else. Above the level where science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply manifestations of personality, far above, is the level where the highest things are achieved; they are mostly anonymous. The sacred Truth of science and the sacred beauty or art dwell on this level of the impersonal and the anonymous. 

           Impersonality is only reached by practicing attention which is rare in itself & impossible except in a mental & physical solitude. Idolatry is that which attributes a sacred character to the collectivity; it is the commonest of crimes. [Likewise, one who places personality above all else] has lost all sense of the sacred. It is precisely artists & writers most inclined to think of their art as [an outgrowth] of personality who are most in bondage to public taste. Scientists are equally enslaved by fashion; the collective opinion of specialists is a dictatorship. 

           The human can only escape from the collective by raising one’s self above the personal & entering into the impersonal. If one can root one’s self in impersonal good so as to draw energy from it, then one can bring to bear against a collectivity, a small but real force. There are occasions when a tiny force can be decisive. [What needs to be safeguarded is] whatever frail potentialities are hidden within them for passing over to the impersonal. 

           The chief danger [of collectives] is in the person’s tendency to immolate one’s self in the collective. If there are some people who feel something sacred in their own person [that others have also] they are under a double illusion. The person in humans is a thing in distress; it feels cold and is always looking for warm shelter. Relations between the collectivity and anyone should be arranged with the sole purpose of removing [any obstacle] to the mysterious germination & growth of the impersonal element in the soul through the opportunity to reach ever higher levels of attention, solitude and silence. What one needs is silence and warmth; what one is given is an icy pandemonium. [That is the case even in modern democratic societies]. 

           Exactly to the same extent as art & science, though in a different way, physical labor is a contact with reality, truth, & beauty of this universe & with the eternal wisdom which is the order in it. It is sacrilege to degrade labor. If the workers felt this sacrilege [in the other reality], as an impulse, a cry of hope from the depth of their being, their resistance would have a very different force from what is provided by the consideration of personal rights. When the focus is on wages, [workers tend to forget that what they are bargaining for is their soul]. Such is the sinister farce which has been played by the working-class movement & its leftist intellectuals. [By settling for personal rights instead], the men of 1789 ensured the inefficacy of their challenge to the world in advance. 

           Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; when this tone is adopted, it must rely on force. [There is a category of notions] which are themselves alien to the supernatural but nevertheless a little superior to brute force. All of them relate to the collective animal while it still exhibits a few traces of the training imposed on it by the supernatural working of grace. To this category belongs rights, personality, and democracy. Democracy offers no defense against dictatorship and is dependent on force. The obscuring of this truth is dangerous because it prevents us from appealing to that other force which is radiance of the spirit. Ancient Rome and Modern Germany invoked the notion of rights, allowing only the right to obedience. The Greeks had no conception of rights. They had no words to express it. They were content with the name of justice. 

           Justice dictates an abundance of love. Rights have no direct connection with love. If you say to someone who has ears to hear: “What you are doing to me is not just,” you may touch and awaken at its source the spirit of attention and love. Thanks to “rights,” what should have been a cry of protest from the depth of the heart has been turn into a shrill nagging of claims and counterclaims, which is both impure and unpractical. 

           The full expression of personality depends upon its being inflated by social prestige; it's a social privilege. To the dimmed understanding of our age, there seems nothing odd in claiming an equal share of privilege for everybody; that's nonsense, because privilege is inequality. Those who speak for the people and to them are incapable of understanding either their distress or what an overflowing good is almost within their reach. 

           Affliction is by its nature inarticulate. Thought revolts from contemplating affliction like living flesh recoils from death. Supernatural good isn’t a sort of supplement to natural good. In all crucial problems of human existence, the only choice is between supernatural good on the one hand & evil on the other. It is only what comes from heaven that can make a real impress on the earth. In order to provide an armor for the afflicted, one must put into their mouths only those words whose rightful abode is in heaven, beyond heaven, in the other world. The only words suitable for them are those which express only good, in its pure state. Rights on the other hand, imply the possibility of making good or bad use of it; therefore rights are alien to good. It is always and everywhere good to fulfill an obligation. Truth, beauty, justice, compassion are always and everywhere good. 

           A mind enclosed in language is in prison. It is limited to the relations which words can make simultaneously present to it, [& doesn’t benefit from a greater number of thoughts]. The mind moves in a space of partial truth. The difference between more or less intelligent men is like the difference between criminals condemned to life imprisonment in smaller or larger cells. The intelligent man who is proud of intelligence is like a [prisonerl] who is proud of his larger cell. One day he wakes up on the other side of the cell. He has found the key; he knows the secret which breaks down walls. He has passed beyond intelligence, into wisdom. The mind which is enclosed within language can possess only opinions. A village idiot is as close to truth as a child prodigy. 

           Just as truth is a different thing from opinion, so affliction is a different thing from suffering. To acknowledge affliction is to say to oneself: “I may lose at any moment, through circumstances beyond my control, even those things dearest to me; there is nothing I might not lose. What I am could be replaced by something filthy and contemptible.” Being aware of this is experiencing non-being. It is a death of the soul. At the stark sight of violent death, the flesh recoils. When affliction is seen [up close] as a mutilation or leprosy of the soul, people shiver and recoil. [Since to truly hear of affliction is to be in the afflicted’s place, the afflicted are not listened to]. The afflicted are nearly always equally deaf to one another. 

           Only by grace’s supernatural working can a soul pass through its annihilation to place where alone it can get the sort of attention which can attend to truth & to affliction, which need the same kind of attention in order to be heard. The name of this intense pure, disinterested, gratuitous, generous attention is love. The spirit of justice & truth is nothing else but a kind of attention which is pure love; everything produced by it is endowed with beauty’s radiance. Beauty is supreme mystery of this world. It always promises, but never gives anything; it excites desire without having anything to be desired. [If we stay with the desire], it gradually transforms into love. 

           Sometimes it happens that a fragment of truth is reflected in words which have so perfect a formal correspondence with that truth that every mind seeking that truth finds support in them. Beauty has no language; she does not speak. But she has a voice to cry out and point to truth and justice. Justice, truth and beauty are sisters and comrades. With 3 such beautiful words we have not need to look for any others.
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132. Obstacles to Mystical Experience (by Scott Crom 1963)
           About the Author—Scott Crom's undergraduate work was math; his doctor's degree at Yale was philosophy. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Beloit College, & clerks Beloit Preparative Meeting. He participates in American Friends Service Committee work camps. This pamphlet was written at Pendle Hill on sabbatical.
           [Introduction]—Dean Inge: "Everyone is naturally either a mystic or a legalist." This pamphlet concerns mystics who know religion as directly experienced. The problem is acquisition of experience. Many people find it hard to be religious. It is sometimes very hard to practice religion in one's daily life. Many seekers encounter serious obstacles to inward searchings through intellect & will. The barriers to religious life rest in heart & will. We say "I can't believe"; the fact is usually "I won't follow & serve." Stubbornness of will often takes place below conscious understanding. Some stop short of belief because of the seeming sacrifice of intellectual honesty.
           Intellectual Obstacles—Psychology, sociology, anthropology, & comparative religion [are used intellectually] to indicate that religion is only cultural conditioning, entirely relative, [& not a source] of objective truth. Religion is conceived of as legalism or institution. The religion of illumination, Quakerism among them, replies that this is a misconception; religion begins in an experiment, to end in an experience. How one lives & responds to one's own illumination and to the world around one matters more than doctrinal formulation of belief.
           [One does not begin with an experiment from scratch], but rather with a framework of previous experience and theory to serve as a guidepost. Do I begin by reading someone's Holy Word or inspiring literature?      How do I know I have found God and not some childhood trauma in disguised form?      Do I seek heightened awareness of self or dissolution of self?      Do I seek communion with: God-person; a Thou; the Brahman at Large (universal spirit), the Void? Some find it impossible to read the Bible or any Christian mystical literature, because the word "God" [conjures up] the legalistic, institutional, doctrinal Christianity at which they balk. It may be impossible to set out on a search with no orientation or direction at all.
           There Are Many Paths—Having several great ways of illumination would seem to make the religious pilgrimage easier; it wasn't for me. If one way yields knowledge of God, & another yields enlightenment with no God, with both claiming to be ultimate, ordinary reason says that someone is profoundly mistaken; perhaps both are untrustworthy. [Some need "one right way," some need alternatives] to increase the chance of success.
           Dissolution or denial of the self seems to be the one great common factor in nearly all world religions, with a wide range in how it is used. [One Quaker compared Zen Buddhism with Quaker experience, speaking of] personal response and being picked up and set on his feet again after the demolition of himself; neither personal response or reconstitution of self is part of Zen Buddhism. Many non-Orthodox mystical scholars claim that the mystical consciousness is everywhere identical; apparent differences lie only in its interpretation.
           Between Time and Eternity—The problem of the identity of the mystical consciousness is connected with time & eternity, & with immanence & transcendence. W. T. Stace's description of "Emptiness, the Void, the One, absolute unity" has nearly identical descriptions in St. John of the Cross & Meister Eckhart. Only fairly recently did I begin to feel what "Because God 1st loved us" & the love & suffering of Christ could mean. The suffering involved is that of the anguish of an infinitely loving & caring father who sees that One's children "know not the things that make for peace," & always take the wrong & selfish path. When the selfish will fears death, the intellect tries to relate the personal God who cares for every soul, to the God above history. If the God who cares is only the projection of of my mental image, it is sheer self-hypnosis & without ground in [what is transcendent].
            Several Possible Solutions—One possible response is saying, ["We can't possibly know the nature of God"]. Or we can say that the laws of logic do not apply to the mystical, so we can say that God cares and is completely untouched by human temporal events, and the mystical experience encounters a personal God and is enlightenment into a thoroughly impersonal Unitary Consciousness. Shankara, a 9th century Hindu, finds different truths at different levels of the truth. I don't find multiple levels of the truth at all satisfactory. Martin Buber suggested that though God cannot be regarded as a person, mutual response person-to-person is the only way intelligible to us. Does God become a person, only take the temporary form of a person, or do we simply see God through personality-colored glasses? 

           [All 3 avoid rather than address the paradox]. Meister Eckhart speaks of God in personal terms, [though he would deny God having any personality. Christian, Hindu and Buddhist mystics have their ways of approaching the Root of their faith in personal ways]. If one cannot be content to remain a few steps back from the summit, one can oscillate back and forth between a personal relationship with a caring God, and recognition that the Godhead is formless and non-discriminatory.
           Another Possibility/ Obstacles in the Will—There is still a point at which the personality of a living God may come together with the impersonal formlessness of the Unitary Consciousness. Only when the immediate consciousness of self is expanded to include [things normally] unconscious, and to pass beyond the limits of separate individuals, can we approach true personality. Human personality may express itself beyond the particular person to include the surrounding area the person influences. [How does God's pervasive influence over and unity with the world indicate or not indicate that personality is at the core of the world]? It is doubtful that this can take place in the total absence of all consciousness of self.
           Perhaps the problems discussed here are created by the will trying to exert a form of mastery or control, trying to somehow get on top of reality, rather than opening one's self to it. The intellectual problems then are only transitory. They are, like a chess problem, a fascinating, and challenging endeavor, but of no real significance. A straightforward discussion of the will is very difficult. It is much closer to the core of our being [than any other aspect]; it is the entity or activity with which we most closely identify ourselves.
           Socrates or Augustine—For Socrates every person automatically and naturally desires the good, and the only problem therefore is one of education. We know those who, and ourselves have done wrong knowing it is wrong. In that case Socrates would say, it is not knowledge of wrongness, but knowledge of other people's opinion that it is wrong. We can say that in these circumstances, the act is right, permissible or necessary to do. To paraphrase Socrates, all men naturally desire the best possible kind of life. He tried to help Athenians to understand the nature and condition of the soul, what made for its health, and what contributed to its decay. Information and book-learning was not knowledge but mere opinion. True knowledge or wisdom sinks deeply enough into the soul to strike into the springs of action.
           Reason's clear light was so dazzling that Greeks couldn't see beyond it to the unconscious; the universe's moral order was impersonal. For Socrates & his Christianized followers, [the goal] is getting us to see [where the spiritual advantage lies], believing that if we only had enough knowledge of our souls' nature, of God, of divine order, then right action will be forthcoming. Yet Freud has shown us that the unconscious mind has powers & drives that can actually lead to a person's psychical or physical destruction against his conscious reason & will.
           In the case of a man who wants to stop smoking, reason & will are at odds. Perhaps this is a case of wishing rather than willing. In willing the end we will the means needed for the end. There needs to be insight, perspective, seeing connections in order to realize the means necessary for the end. There is a nearer known good or pleasure that outweighs a more distant speculative good. The problem isn't one of reason against will, but of desire against desire. Either different desires or different faculties [i.e. reason, will, emotion, etc., are in conflict]. In religion we also want discipline & pleasure at the same time. In seeking the unified personality & the peace that passeth all understanding we often seem to increase the splits within ourselves. The basic problem is that of understanding & unifying reason & will so that they become something which is simultaneously light and power.
           Clearing the Way—The 1st & last lesson we learn in religion is that regard for self is the root of sin. It is a self-defeating paradox to take up one's cross, to deny one's self, to lose one's life, for the sake of one's self, & for the purpose of gaining one's life. Do I want to love God for God's own sake, or do I want just enough aura of holiness, to be seen as saintly? Dean Inge says, "He who tries to be holy in order to be happy will assuredly be neither." [The sticking point] in the Eastern tradition is that only one who gives up all desires, include that for supreme enlightenment & liberation, will be released. The final stages in all religions, are by far the hardest.
           The 1st sacrifices in religion are usually our peripheral selves; we have only given up parts of the lower self in favor of the higher self to which we still cling. As we go further, the sacrifices become greater. When we must sacrifice all, we face a kind of cosmic suicide that is far more horrifying than anything we encounter elsewhere. The assurance of a church or a master may help the disciple go further; it also is one more thing the disciple clings to & will find difficult to abandon. Christians can begin to prepare the ground & achieve a partial union with God. God's spirit completes our purification and unites with us in a full beatific vision. Quakers ask: Is the Inward Light a "not I" who can respond and redeem and save? Or is it a deeper level of the self, with roots below our conscious personalities? Is one really only tapping one's own unsuspected strengths? Belief persists that we can by our own moral efforts obligate and bind God so that our will becomes God's will.
           But Which is the Way?—I still want God to be a person who responds to me while I am "working out my own salvation with diligence." I have known and respected Hindus and Buddhists, and I cannot bring myself to say that there is nothing of truth or value in their way, or that their way [is only] partially true. I would like to incorporate 4 Eastern characteristics: Buddhist tranquility; developed and profound psychologies; universal availability of enlightenment & liberation; freedom from perceptual and intellectual attachment. The last 2 of these characteristics can be found in Western Christianity, outside its main stream in the via negativa of Meister Eckhart and St. John of the Cross. The denial of self can be a genuine desire to become a thin place where God can shine through to this world. The great majority of Hindus and Buddhists do in fact worship a god conceived as personal. No trustworthy conclusion can be reached about the respective social values of Eastern and Western religions because there are too many variables.
           The Personality of God—Is the religious consciousness one of encounter or illumination? If God can be thought of as a person, then the whole created universe as a manifestation of will and purpose is important to us because our own individualities thereby gain a reflected significance. Belief in a transubstantial entity which retains personality and individuality lends to a soul a dignity we could not otherwise envision it to have. Is God conscious of God's self? Our self-consciousness depends on a contrast with other selves. The mature adult's self no longer stops where the other self begins, but is expanded to include the other. As personality grows, self-consciousness diminishes; surely no less could be said of God, who then could hardly be conscious of us, could hardly love and respond to us as anything other than God's self.
           The Final Breaking Point—Love which has an object, even though that object be conceived in the highest terms possible to us, is still a form of clinging and craving, still a projection of self. A God who is beyond self-consciousness cannot be said to be good or evil. The facts of religious experience remain. There is an experience of encounter which carries enlightenment, an experience of confrontation with a "not-I" to which we can respond. The specific vocabulary used at this point depends on [our own spiritual language]. The notion of self can be tremendously useful in both inquiry and worship. At the highest stage of religious consciousness, it has outlived its usefulness. Is God in time or eternity?      Is God personal or formless?      Is our mysterious moment encounter or enlightenment? ...      How much does a rainbow weigh? 
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137. Revelation and Experience (by Carol R. Murphy; 1964)
           [About the Author]—Carol Murphy has written 6 pamphlets for Pendle Hill, including this one; they serve to document her own spiritual progress. Beginning in 1948, she explored religious belief’s philosophical basis in The Faith of an Ex-Agnostic (#46). The Ministry of Counseling (#67) & Religion & Mental Illness (#82) testified to the religious nature of love's power at work in healing minds. Morality and religious living was explored in The Examined Life (#85). Reading Paul Tillich led to A Deeper Faith (#99).
           [Mysticism]—George Fox sought for one who could “speak to his condition.” For many of us today old symbols have lost their vitality, [and we have need of] religion relevant to this condition. The older theology, which began so confidently in heaven rather than on earth, no longer carries conviction. If one turns to experience for a religious answer, he may ask: What experience should I choose? How should I interpret it? And since religious assertions cannot be tested in the laboratory, do they have any meaning at all? Another way of relating religion to experience is a commitment to what is seen as revelatory of the meaning of all experience.
           The glowing account of mystical experience seems to point a way to another and better condition. Religious mystics seem united through the accounts of a beautiful Reality, but mystical consciousness is not attainable by everybody, and there are spiritual dangers to the seeking of experience for its own sake; it is better to take experience as it comes. The poet and artist who deal in words and concrete images, must find another path than the purely mystical. [God seems most often to be absent, so] one must live as though seeing that which is invisible. It is the very ambiguity of the human condition that demands the answer of faith. Religion and theology must begin with this ambiguity and give it meaning.
           [Scientific Empiricism]—There are many philosophers today who assert that [many beliefs] must retreat into the untestable. Modern empirical philosophy pronounces anathema upon every theory that pretends to wriggle out of adverse facts [e.g. Phlogistonists revising their theory so that Phlogiston had negative weight in the face of experiments disproving its existence]. By the same token, scientists outlaw religion, saying: “Positing the existence of God doesn’t make any practical difference to you or me.”
           It must be asked whether science is as empirical as is claimed. The great postulates of science are themselves non-empirical foundations, [that aren't provable]. The body of scientific theory acts as a filter to further experience [by excluding anything thought to be impossible]. The body of science is built on commitments made by scientists, who create, & not merely discover, the web of scientific explanation. Something like a conversion [to a newly rebuilt structure] is required of the orthodox scientist before the new can be accepted.
           The Religious Commitment—Science then works through a perceptual framework which is brought to experience, not merely found there. In the case of religion, the sense of the holy can be found in any experience; but no one kind of experience is necessarily religious, even the mystical. It is important that religious significance isn't confined so narrowly to one type of experience that it can't comprehend other types. The religious system must be able to comprehend all facts, no matter how awkward and doubt-inspiring.
           [The difference between the allegorist and the imagist is that] the allegorist thinks first of the general principle, then finds a concrete illustration of it, while the imagist begins with the concrete symbol in which he discovers the larger meaning. The Biblical assertion that man is made in the image of God is the poetical statement of an imagist vision. The religious vision must be disciplined by the tension between the Affirmative [seeing God in images] and the Negative [seeing God as greater than finite things]. It might be said that piety reminds us that everything is sacred, and humor reminds us that nothing is sacred. Christian theology, truly seen, is the highest poetry, full of illuminating images and brilliant paradoxes.
           The Language of Analogy—All thinking is based on using analogy, which is the use of likeness or partial identity to explore reality. Creative metaphor is a way of making the familiar seem strange, jolting the mind out of customary ruts into new ways of grasping a given problem. From the Negative point of view, our analogies are based on finite qualities which have no counterpart in God, [leaving God distant from us]. The Affirmative way can correct this by conceiving the analogies to run in the other direction—from God to man, [bring God closer]. The Bible is a record of humankind’s experience of the holy that boldly begins with God. Revelation is the experience of receiving & recognizing a symbolic event, [like the Jewish people did in the Bible]. It is only when read as great poetry and not as a literal recital of facts, that the Biblical vision comes through to grasp us.
           The Analogy of Personality—At one point the vision of man as the image of God is turned into an allegory applied to man’s Maker. The religious thinker who pictures the Ultimate as responsive, active and aware as persons are, can believe that his model will continue to have a use in new ranges of his experience. This concept is so subtle and advanced that we have hardly devised a language adequate for its expression.
           An impersonal religion tends to become an aesthetic plaything; a personal religion demands the dedication of the whole self to a personal, responsible relationship. Persons are developed in response to each other, that the self becomes an “I” only when addressed as “Thou” in dialogue. In a true, religious community, there is the experience of the oneness and of the many, each enriching the other. Once another person enters the room, the ethical question arises: How shall I treat them? Are they as important to me as I am to myself?
           To regard anything honestly as a thou means to value it intensely for its own sake, & to accept an interchange of roles with it. Making the other real involves besides a recognition of otherness, a kind of presence in the other. Where love is present, duty is swallowed up in joy; where love is imperfect, a sense of justice supplies a will to extend to the other the same respect one feels is due to one’s self. The prevailing Oriental ethic is one of tradition pertaining to caste or family systems; Taoism or Zen Buddhism is needed as non-ethical supplements. [While this ethic is used in small doses] as a stimulant to Western seekers, it is not wise to use a full dosage of their medicine. The world of individuality is the world of time and history; [the mystic sees the eternal now, the individual sees past, present and future responsibility]. Personality extends along the historical dimension, and is imperceptible on the dimension of the eternal now.
           Trust—The first and major problem that revelation must overcome is the problem of trust. Nothing a person does necessarily proves him trustworthy. Everything seems sinister to one who resolves to mistrust. Religions have been built on our fear of the Ultimate and hope of propitiating it. Even some Christian churches institutionalize fear, not remove it, where they teach a “Christian religion" and not the Christian faith.
           Revelation must also surmount the problem of evil. It is precisely the fact that we are ambivalent towards reality that makes the ambiguity of reality a problem. We must be reconciled to God by God; God is not angry, we are. God becoming one with Job is the most profound and only adequate answer to the problem of evil. It is hard to know who has done more damage to the Christian faith—the skeptic who queries how God can suffer, or the apologist who tries to answer this query in the terms in which it was raised.
           How does God act in this ambiguous world? It is in terms of a personal relationship—that of healer to the sick. As the healing power of nature works in the body, so the Holy Spirit is at work in man, and the beloved community is at work in the world. The Healer sheds the glory of God upon every healing encounter between 2 persons. [As one psychotherapy patient said], “I then began to see, though not very clearly, that your love did not control me and I could not control it [i.e. he trusted].
           Finally, & most acutely, life’s ambiguity challenges our trust at death’s gates. The anxiety aroused by this threat to our meaning persists behind the purely instinctual panic in the face of death which we share with animals. Resurrection does justice to our growing awareness of the unity of the mind-body organism, & it combines respect for the worth & reality of incarnate existence & acknowledges a transcendent, spiritual nature. Lastly, resurrection implies dynamic continuity as contrasted to static preservation. There is always spring & rebirth. We are asked to recognize eternal goodness in a new transformation, & to trust that we will partake therein.
           Revelation Incarnate—We are ambivalent men in an ambiguous world which does not interpret itself automatically. We need an initiative from the creator of our world to tell us what the creator means by it. In a time when Zen Buddhism and philosophies of the “absurd” are popular, adventurous minds can again be challenged by Christianity. Many who have grown up in Christianity have felt a need to emancipate themselves from the tradition. Today, the Christian revelation may regain its fresh, even subversive power over our spirits, just as it did for George Fox. Dare we now trust this revelatory image?
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115. Mysticism and the experience of love (by Howard Thurman; 1961)
           [About the Author]—Howard Thurman (1899-1981) was a pastor & prolific African-American author, writing 20 books on theology, religion, & philosophy. His work, Jesus & the Disinherited (1949), deeply influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. & other leaders, black & white, of the Civil Rights Movement. Thurman mentored King, his former classmate's son & his friends. He was spiritual advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., A. J. Muste, & Pauli Murray. In 1944, he became co-pastor at San Francisco’s Church of the Fellowship of All Peoples. This pamphlet is about the inner life's, or mysticism's religion. It is life affirming & reaches its highest goal in love.
           Mysticism—In 1929, I was a special student with Rufus Jones at Haverford College. He gave me confidence in the insight that the religion of the inner life could deal with empirical experiences of man without retreating from the demands of such experience. Our times may be characterized by a general loss of a sense of personal identity. There is a widespread disintegration of the mood of tenderness, [which hampers] our efforts to understand each other. It seems that togetherness as a muted mass hysteria is more and more a substitute for God; in the great collective huddle, we are lonely and frightened.
           It is the insistence of mysticism that there is within reach of everyone both a defense against the Grand Invasion & the energy for transforming it into community. One can become at home within by locating in one’s own spirit the trysting place where God can be met. I have sought a way of life that could come under the influence of & be informed by the inner life's fruits, [& that could withstand] the brutalities of the social order.
           There are 4 groups of mystics:
               a. Mystics in Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, who stand in a personal relationship to God. The
                   attitude of response is an intensely personal one.
              b. Those in Logos, Tao, Spinoza, Cabala, and esoteric Hinduism who express a relationship of personal
                   response to an Infinite intellectually conceived. The attitude of response is one of contemplation.
              c. Mysticism of the Light within, a knowledge from intuition, with a relationship directed to a Divine
                  Spirit regarded as resident within the mystic. The response is one of obedience and confidence.
              d. Those practicing the occult sciences, including communication with the dead.
           For our purposes, mysticism is the response of the individual to a personal encounter with God within one’s own spirit. [For] the Society of Friends, the witness in the world is an outward expression of the inner experience. Mysticism may seem to be life-denying as over against life affirming. One of the great words in mysticism literature is detachment. A great emphasis is placed on silence, [to] “Be still and know I am God.” God’s presence may not become manifest until the traffic of the surface life is somehow stilled.
           What then is it that the mystic claims was experienced? 1st, the revelation makes no claim to be any private truth. 2nd, it does not claim any novelty; [it is] the rediscovery of the eternal. 3rd, the truth is to be won by impartiality, dispassionateness, sincerity, and a touch of reverence. 4th, whatever truth the mystics have come upon it is not any particular truth; [it is] “the whole working essence ... the meaning of the whole.”
           Mystics can't escape the necessity for giving some “data content” to the experience. [The form this content takes] reflects the religious, cultural, and social heritage in which one finds meaning. We are face to face with what is claimed to be a form of personal communion between two principals; human and God communicate. The mind insists that all experiences fall into order in a system of meaning. What the mystic experiences within must somehow belong to that which is without. The integrity of the personal response does not rise or fall by the degree to which the response is verified from the outside. The mystic will see things, events, nature, and at a deeper level will see what was seen in the inner encounter. The world now becomes pregnant with truth and literally God’s creation. The mystical experience is only life denying on the surface. It becomes in its most profound sense life affirming. I may be exposed to the vision of God’s purposes and participate in them in Life.
           [The Experience of Love]—In experiencing the love of God, one senses that one is being dealt with at a center in one’s self that goes beyond all of one’s virtues and vices. What one has experienced meets the deepest need of one’s life. The need to be understood is a total need of the personality. It is the need for love. 1st, it is necessary to distinguish between love as interest in another person [i.e. interest with ulterior motives] and love as intrinsic interest in another person [i.e. interest in the person for their own sake]. In Philippians, Paul writes: My prayer to God is that your love may grow more and more rich in knowledge and in all manner of insight that you may have a sense of what is vital, that you may be transparent and of no harm to anyone.”
           For an intrinsic interest, there must be a sense of fact where other persons are concerned. The person is dealt with as the person is and in the light of the details of the person’s life. A person’s fact includes more than plight, predicament, or need at a particular moment in time. It is something total which must include awareness of the person’s potential. The area of the other person’s fact is an expanding thing if such a person lives into life and deepens the quality and breadth of experience; this makes love between persons dynamic. So much goodwill in the world is [not intrinsic]. It is uninformed, ignorant goodwill. It does not seek facts.
           Some interpreters of Christianity enjoin us to love humanity. To speak of the love for humanity is meaningless. [It is necessary to develop] acceptance of and openness towards others. By openness I mean an inner climate or sensitiveness to the awareness of others. Some who feel despised exaggerate self-love and become self-centered. There are some people who have the quality of “built-in awareness” of others as a talent or gift. How may such a quality be developed? There must be developed a sensitive and structured imagination.
           We are accustomed to thinking of the imagination as a useful tool in the artist’s hands. But the place where the imagination shows its greatest powers as the angelos, the messenger, is when one is able to put one’s self in another one’s place. We make our imagination corrupt when it ranges only over our own affairs; [it magnifies our faults and can terrorize us. With imagination] we can make accurate soundings which when properly read, will enable us to be to them what we could never be without such awareness. To be to another human being what is needed at a time of urgent need is to participate in the precise act of redemption. [Limitation], segregation works against the love ethic and is bound to make for an increase in ill social health. The sense of the person’s fact must be total. The individual is enjoined to move from the natural impulse to the level of deliberate intent. One has to bring to the center of one’s focus a desire to love one’s enemy.
           Precisely what does taking the other’s total fact into account involve? One has to understand that [the “evil] deed”, however despicable, does not cover all that person is. Love means to place the particular deed in the perspective of the other’s life. If I could see this person in the person’s context and get to the real center of the person’s life, then I would be able to deal with the person in a wholesome and redemptive manner. If I can bring the person to self-judgment, then I must keep on loving and never give the person up. I wish to be dealt with in an inclusive, total, integrated manner [and need to do the same to others]. To love is the profoundest act of religion, religious faith and devotion.
           Sometimes the radiance of love is so soft and gentle that the individual sees themselves with all harsh lines wiped away and all limitations blended with their strength such that strength seems to be everywhere and weakness is nowhere to be found. Sometimes the radiance of love blesses a life with a vision of its possibilities never dreamed of and never sought. It may throw in relief old and forgotten weakness which one had accepted; one may then expect love to be dimmed [if love is seen as] based upon merit and worth.
           But love has no awareness of merit or demerit. Love holds its object securely in its grasp calling all that it sees by its true name. There is a robust vitality that quickens the roots of personality creating an unfolding of the self that redefines, reshapes and makes all things new. Whence comes this power [of love] which seems to be the point of referral for all experience and meaning? There is but one word by which its meaning can be encompassed—God. There is no thing outside ourselves, no circumstance, no condition, no unpleasant change in fortune, that can ultimately separate us from the love of God and from the love of each other.
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21. Reality and the Spiritual World (by Thomas R. Kelly; 1942)
           [About the Author]—Thomas Raymond Kelly was born into an evangelical Quaker family in 1893. He graduated from Wilmington College in 1913 as a chemistry major. He went to Haverford College near Philadelphia, PA where Rufus Jones became his mentor. He came into contact with the mystical vein of Quakerism. He worked with American Friends Service Committee feeding German children, wrote and taught on mysticism at Haverford for 5 years, after receiving his masters of philosophy there. He died in 1941.
           FOREWORD—Throughout his years at Haverford College Thomas R. Kelly entered generously into Pendle Hill’s life. January 1941 he led a conference of Meeting workers on spiritual life's cultivation; he died 5 days later. This pamphlet is from 4 addresses given during the winter of 1940-41. [Thomas Kelly had a] valid mystical experience which made so many of those loved Thomas Kelly as a Friend hearken to him as a prophet.

          The Inner Teacher, the Holy Spirit: speaks within; teaches us things we can’t learn in books; makes vivid and dynamic formerly dead phrases; integrates us and leads us into new truths; lays on us new burdens; sensitizes us in new areas, toward God and toward all.      Thomas R. Kelly 

           [Arguments for the Existence of God]—How can we be sure that God is real, and not just a creation of our wishful thinking? If I could find a Mark worthy to be the aim of the bow of my life, I should be integrated freed, from internal conflicts, those confusions and tangles within which makes me ineffective, indecisive, wavering, half-hearted, unhappy. Maybe the whole conviction of a Spiritual Reality shadowing over us all is a useful, [stabilizing] hoax as long as we believe it intensely. If the Truth is that there is no real God, but only human craving for a God, then we want to know that, and adjust our lonely lives to that awful fact.       
           [First/Second/Third Arguments]—I asked a friend: “Why are are you so sure there is a Reality corresponding to your religious cravings?” [He said that since all other cravings are provided for in this world, the satisfaction of] profound craving for God is to be expected. At best his argument from analogy only indicates the possibility, [perhaps even probability] that there is an objectively real God, corresponding to his hunger for God.
           [When a devout Protestant was asked the same question] he answers, “The Bible tells me God is real, that in God we live and move and have our being.” [I disagree that only one time and special men may provide divine inspiration. He said that Bible is inspired because it says it is. The Bible saying that it is authoritative, and citing the belief of multitudes of people in God is not enough to prove that God exists. The Catholic approach that the Holy Church guaranteed the reliability of the gospel suffers from a similar circular argument, where the 1870 Vatican Council pronounced the Pope infallible. But only the Pope is infallible so the Council is not infallible in pronouncing the Pope infallible or the Bible reliable.
           [Then there is the amazing complexity and interdependence of the world]. And here am I, a complex being, of amazing detail of body & astounding reaches of mind. My parents didn’t make me. There must be a God who creates, maintains and preserves the whole world order. But the argument rests upon only half the evidence. The world is imperfect and you cannot argue from an imperfect effect, the world, to a perfect cause, God.
           Other Arguments Indicated—There are also ontological, moral & universality of religion arguments [that I am not satisfied with]. The fact is that men experience God’s presence. In times of direct experience of Presence, we know God is utterly real; we need no argument. It isn’t enough to believe in God’s love, you must experience God’s love. It isn’t enough to believe Christ was born, you must experience Christ’s birth in your heart.
           Let us notice that his experience of God energizes us enormously, in a way far different from arguments. We love God with a new and joyous love, wholly and completely. We are energized at the base of our being by a Divine Energizing. It isn’t creeds that keep churches going; it is the dynamic of God’s life, given in sublime and intimate moments to men and women and boys and girls. And the experience seems to come from beyond us. It carries a sense of objectivity in its very heart, as if it arose from beyond us and came in as a revelation of a reality out there; we receive it. For the person who experiences God, there is a certainty about God which is utterly satisfying and convincing to oneself. The experience of God brings a new kind of meaning to the reality of God, vivid and doubt-free; it is not transferable to another.
           The testimony of mystical experience is not absolutely logically free from flaws. Mere internal pressure of certainty doesn't prove certainty. Intense inner assurance that something is so does not make it so. We are assured that lives that have experienced God as vividly real are new lives, transformed lives, stabilized lives, integrated lives, souls newly sensitive to moral needs [& committed to action to meet those needs]. There is a logical defect in this pragmatic test. Logicians call it the Fallacy of Affirming the Consequent. This fallacy is shared with every scientific theory that is supported by experimental evidence; science rests upon faith, not upon certainty.
           I am convinced that God is greater than logic, although not contrary to logic, & our inability to catch him in the little net of human reason is no proof of God’s non-existence, but only of our need that reason shall be supplemented by God’s tender visitations, [& by God’s leadings which are] superior to any our intellects can plan.
           THE SPIRITUAL WORLD—[I am doing as Immanuel Kant did]—I am destroying reason to make room for faith. James Pratt’s 3 stages of religion are: [childlike] Credulity; [adolescent] Doubt and Criticism; Faith. The 3rd stage, Faith, is strikingly akin to the 1st. It is the childlike simplicity of the truly great souls. At this stage one can differ radically with other people intellectually, yet love them because they too are basically devoted to feeding upon the Bread of Life, rather than analyzing that Bread.
           By whom is the spiritual world peopled? Humankind has peopled it with more than God; some have added angels, devils, the Devil, souls of the departed, Heaven and Hell. How does the spiritual world behave towards us? [How do we decide in between conflicting views of the spiritual world], rejecting some and accepting others? [The possible methods are]: reason; judgment of spiritually discerning souls; Bible writers; our own inner experience with God. Each of these needs to be supplemented by the others. [Quakers rely] upon the last test, the vividness and vitality of our inner experience and the inward Teacher of Truth.
           This test, because of its privacy & uniqueness, would allow each individual’s insights to be final. A religious anarchy of private opinion would result. Quakers, among others, must face this difficulty. All men are taught within themselves, by the same light & source & teacher. Our knowledge is conditioned by the object’s nature. But it is also conditioned by expectations & convictions of the experiencer. The already accepted & dominant system of ideas in the background of the mind of the experiencer is an active modifier of the report. The vast cultural background in which each of us is immersed sets a pattern of expectation, & furnishes material for interpretation, into the texture of which whatever we might call raw experience is instantly & unconsciously woven. What one hears during inward listening, will be clothed in the system of ideas already current in the mind.
           It seems to me that some of the surprise elements in inner experience can be interpreted in terms of repressions which are released & genuinely seem surprising to the individual who had supposed that one’s daily round of conscious life & beliefs was the whole person. [We come to another kind of surprise, namely the difference between belief in God & the actual experience of God]; God experienced is a vast surprise. Expectations are broken down, discarded, made inadequate, as God invades the knower, & opens to one new & undreamed of truths. We become new as God breaks down the old, inadequate, half-hearted life-molds of religion & conduct.
           [After experiencing God], we find that we have a new alignment of recognition of important souls, and a powerful drawing toward those who have tasted and handled the Word of Life. This is the Fellowship and Communion of the Saints. [Those revealed to us in Scripture are also] a social check upon our individual experience, as a disclosure of kindred souls who have known a like visitation of God.
           The Devil’s history in the Bible is fairly clear. It came from Persia, from Zoroastrian faith, seeped into Asia Minor, & crept into Christian tradition as an alien element from outside, not an indigenous development. [So far as angels are concerned], I have always felt sure that God could deal directly with my soul, without sending intermediaries. Creative epochs of angelology came in days of belief in [God's] excessive transcendence.
           It seems plausible to believe there is a life after death. William Blake said that when I reach the time for dying, I am just beginning to learn how to live. I believe that there are amazing psychological phenomena, not yet under the order of known laws, which may at some time be more systematically ordered & controlled, as science. I should expect only additions to psychology to come from it, not to theology, & certainly not to religion. I believe God continues life after death, in a fellowship of which we have a foretaste of here. I believe that the Eternal Christ is in the world, seeking, knocking, persuading, counseling all to return to their rightful home.
           PRAYER—Within us is a meeting place with God, who strengthens & invigorates our whole personality; fretful cares are replaced by a deep & certain assurance. Something of God’s cosmic patience becomes ours, & we walk in quiet assurance & boldness; God is with us. Dynamic living comes from years of inner mental habits. There is a way of living in prayer at the same time one is busy with outward affairs of daily living. 2 levels are there, the surface & the deeper, in fruitful interplay; creative values come from the deeper into the daily affairs.
           One’s 1st experience of Heavenly Splendor plows through one’s whole being. The experience of the Presence of God is the fulfillment of ourselves. How do you begin this double mental life, [outer and inner]? [Read] these words outwardly. But within continue in steady prayer, offering yourself and all that you are to God in simple, joyful, serve, unstrained dedication. The 1st weeks and months of such practice are pretty patchy, badly botched. Say to yourself: “This is the kind of bungling person I am when I am not wholly Thine. Take this imperfect devotion and transmute by Thy love.” You become God’s pliant instrument of loving concern. You become turned toward God, away from yourself; you become turned outward toward all.
           [A life of prayer includes 5 types of prayer; prayers of: oblation; inward song; inward listening; carrying; infusion. The prayer of oblation is the prayer of pouring yourself out before God. Offer God your triumphs and the rags and tatters of your mistakes; offer God your friends, pray for their increased awareness of God; [offer trees, creatures, and humanity to God]. At 1st you make these prayers in words, repeating them in little sentences. [Eventually] you find yourself living in attitudes of oblation. A gesture of the soul toward God is a prayer.
           The prayer of inward song is inner exultation & glorification of God’s wonders filling the deeper level of mind. Inward fires should burn in the God-kindled soul, fires shining outward in radiant & released personality. We sing & through us the Eternal Lover sings into the world where songs have died. Examples of songs of the soul include: the Psalms, A Chain of Prayers across the Ages, & Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ.
           The prayer of inward listening [reminds us that] prayer is a 2-way process. Creative, Spirit-filled lives do not arise until God is attended to, till His internal teaching becomes real. A listening life & a living silence is often more creative, more re-creative, than verbalized prayers, worded in gracious phrases. When distracting noises come, accept them & weave them by prayer into silence. The soul’s fundamental religious education is conducted by the Holy Spirit, the soul's last & greatest teacher of the, & not in church history [& Bible study]. I will speak of the prayer of carrying in [my closing words having to do with] the experience of group fellowship.
           In the infused prayer there come amazing times when our theme of prayer is laid upon us, as if initiated by God. [Perhaps] there is a giant circle of prayer, such that prayer may originate in God and swing down into us and back up into God. In the experience of infused prayer there seems to be blurring of the distinctions between the one who prays, the prayer that is prayed, and the One to whom the prayer is prayed. I have tried in these words to keep close to the spirit and the practice of Brother Lawrence, St. Francis of Assisi, and John Woolman. It is said of St. Francis that he became a prayer; such lives must be reborn today, if love and power is to be restored to God’s church. [This moment of restoration waits for us to be really willing].
           FELLOWSHIP—When our souls were overturned by God’s invading love, we suddenly find ourselves in the midst of wholly new relationships, enmeshed with some people in amazing bonds of love and nearness and togetherness. Can a new [inward] bondedness be the meaning of being in the Kingdom of God? [New alignments with people take place], with those we had only slightly known, [but who have] been down in the center a long time, and with those we have known for years, but are not down in the center in Christ [and cannot] share life at its depth until they are down in the center of shared love. Now we suddenly see that some quiet obscure persons, whose voices count for little in the councils of the church, are princes and saints in Israel.
           Into this fellowship of souls at the center we simply emerge. When we discover God we discover the fellowship. [Fellowship is more than sociability]. You can’t build a church that is Christ’s church on mere sociability, important & normal as that is. Where the bondedness of souls in a common enslavement [to Christ] is present though you meet in a barn, you have a church. God doesn't respect the class lines which we erect.
           Normal religious development cannot take place in a vacuum occupied solely by you & God. We need friends of the soul. The last depths of conversation in the fellowship go beyond spoken words. People who know one another in God do not need to talk much. [You can meet someone for the first time, & though the social & educational difference seem immense, if you both are concerned with the inner secrets of life at a deep level, knowing & connecting to one another is immediate & at some point words are unnecessary to convey thoughts].
           [I referred earlier to the prayer of carrying. It] is an experience of relatedness with one another, a relation of upholding one another by internal bond of prayer. With some this awareness of being bonded through a common life continues almost as vividly when separated as when together. It is the sense that some people you know are lifting you, & offering you, & upholding you in your inner life. Do you carry some small group of people who rest upon your hearts not as obligations but as fellow-travelers? These are are not a chance group of people. They are your special burden & your special privilege. Each person is the center of radiating bonds of spiritual togetherness. For the sacrament of Communion, no outward bread & wine need be present, but inwardly we feed with our fellows, & meet one another in spirit. This mystic unity lies at the heart of the church.
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59. Quaker Stongholds (by Caroline Stephens; abridged by Mary Gould Ogilvie; 1951)
           Foreword—Caroline F. Stephens (1834-1909), a Friend by convincement, was a member of the prominent Stephen family; Virginia Woolf was her niece. Both Caroline & Virginia made an independent pursuit of knowledge according to their tastes. In Quaker Strongholds (1890), Caroline Stephen seems to always keep in mind the points of view of both old & new Quakers, & makes a bridge between early & modern Quaker thought. Her writings receive major consideration in the Pendle Hill Quakerism course. This abridgement is confined to Caroline Stephen’s explanation of particular tenets she sees as cornerstone & foundation of Quakerism.
           Many people probably suppose that the Society is fast dying out, & the “silent worship” of tradition [to be] impracticable & hardly to be seriously mentioned in these days of talk & breathless activity. On that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday morning, I found myself one of a small company of silent worshipers. To sit down in silence could at the least pledge me to nothing; it might open to me (as it did that morning) the very gate of heaven. It is in hope of making more widely known the true source and nature of such spiritual help that I attempt to describe what I have called our strongholds . . . which cannot fail whatever may be the future of the Society.
           The Inner Light—A cornerstone of belief is that God does indeed communicate with each one of the spirits he has made, in a direct & living inbreathing of some measure of the breath of God’s own Life. In order clearly to hear the Divine voice speaking with us we need to be still; be alone with God, in the secret place of God’s Presence. The Society’s founders weren't philosophers, but spoke of these things from intense & abundant personal experience. Early Friends were accustomed to ask questioners whether they didn't sometimes feel something within them that showed them their sins; & to assure them that this same power would also lead them out of sin. To “turn people to the light within,” to “direct them to Christ, their free Teacher,” was a Quaker’s daily business.
           In our own day the doctrine of light is usually spoken of as a mysterious tenet, indigenous only in Oriental countries, and naturally abhorrent to [the English. The early Friend’s light] was not confined to that innermost sanctuary that none but a few mystic were aware of. The religion they preached was one which enforced the individual responsibility of each one for one’s own soul, and their share in worship and meeting business.
            The perennial justification of Quakerism lies in its energetic assertion that the kingdom of heaven is within us. [Simply that & not] the abstruse distinction between consciousness & being, [etc], which it has been the delight of many of God’s most devoted followers to interweave with the simple expression “within you.” That we may all experience inspiration if we will but attend to the Divine influences in our own hearts, is the cardinal rule of Quakerism. How it will manifest itself will depend chiefly upon our natural temperament & special gifts. George Fox & the other fathers of the Society were strongly mystical, though not in the sense [that] conveys a general vague dreaminess. They were fiery, dogmatic, pugnacious, and intensely practical and sober-minded.
           Mysticism & Quietism—Mystics, as I understand the matter, are those whose minds, to their own consciousness, are lighted from within. They have naturally a vivid sense both of the distinction & the harmony between the inward & the outward. They may have the sight of an eagle, but they see by the same light as the bat.
           The obvious tendency of a vivid firsthand perception of truth or light, is to render the possessor of it so far independent of external teachers. It is easier to do this because of the mystics’ quietness and independence. Mystics are naturally independent of authority and of each other. The duty of looking for and of obeying the light, or voice, or inspiration is a principle that may be transmitted from generation to generation like any other principle. [Quietism is present] because it is instinctively felt that it is only in stillness that any perfect reflection from above can be formed in the mirror of the human spirit.
           Conscience—Faithfulness to the light is the watchword of all who hunger and thirst after righteousness. It is not the same as “obedience to conscience.” Our consciences must be enlightened, and the light must be something purer than this fallible faculty. It must be that power within us which is one with all the wisdom, all the goodness, all the order and harmony.
           I believe that to have our sense exercised to discern between truth and falsehood, light and darkness, order and disorder, the will of God and the will of the flesh is the end and object of our training in this world. We must have settled it in our hearts that everything, from the least to the greatest, is to be taken as God’s language—language which it is our main business here to learn to interpret. The Divine guidance is away from self-indulgence, often away from outward success; through humiliation and failure, and many snares and temptations, over rough roads and against opposing forces—always uphill.
           Worship—That mysterious diversity which is interwoven with all our likeness, & belongs to the nature common to us all makes it impossible for one to judge for another as to the type of worship most likely to be vitally helpful. Before long [in worship] I began to be aware that united & prolonged silences had a far more direct & powerful effect than [unconditional freedom to] seek help in my own way. They soon began to exercise a strangely subduing & softening effect upon my mind. The words spoken were indeed often feeble, & always inadequate; but, coming as they did after the long silences, they went far deeper. I wonder whether some of the motherly counsel I have listened to wouldn't reach some hearts that might be closed to the masculine preacher.
           Silence—It is not only the momentary effect of silence in public worship that constitutes its importance in Quaker estimation. “Silence of all flesh” [and mind] appears to us to be essential preparation for true worship. It seems indisputable that laying aside all disturbing influences, is an essential preparation for receiving eternal truth. Not only at the times set apart for definite acts of worship but also in all the daily warfare of Christian life.
           I don't feel that ours is the only lawful manner of worship, or that it would be for all people & at all times the most helpful. I do believe it to be the purest conceivable. Let no one go to Friends meetings expecting to find everything to one’s taste. But criticism fades away abashed in the presence of what seems to be a real endeavour to open actual communication with the Father of spirits. Why can't you be silent at home? The worthy answer is that we meet together so as to kindle in each other the flame of true worship, & to show allegiance to the Master. Travelling Friends can cause a stirring of the waters & keep up the sense of freedom to take part in the meeting. Silent meeting [doesn't distract with liturgies or hymns, which may] stifle many a cry for help. A silent [unproductive] meeting wouldn't delude anyone into a hollow sense of having been part of a religious service.
           Prayer—I have been speaking of our public meetings for worship. But our worship doesn't begin when we sit down together nor end when we leave them. Where others speak of family prayers, Friends prefer “family reading,” & “religious retirement.” When we penetrate into the inmost chamber of private worship differences of method can no longer be traced by human eye. It isn't possible for anyone to judge the practice of others here.
           Everything, all beauty and rightness, seems to turn upon a [gradual] right subordination of the outward to the inward, the transient to the permanent, in our lives and thoughts. We must secure a space for that which to the devout soul is the very breath of life: the practice of prayer. That prayer which springs from the depths of silence, both of lips and of heart before God, this deepest prayer has in it a power to melt all the barriers which may seem to divide one from another of the upward-looking children of the Father of Spirits.
           We meet daily with open denials of the reasonableness of prayer—communication with the Divine Being. Few amongst us can have altogether escaped the paralyzing flood of unsolved and [“insoluble,”] moral problems. Prayer [has become only] the asking for things, and a means of getting them. The word “prayer” may be used in the restricted sense of making requests; but let it be distinctly understood that it is only part—the lowest and least essential part—of worship or communion with God. Concentration on this lowest form: suggests a test which is not and cannot be uniformly favorable, [because some requests are not going to be granted]; and every heart capable of real prayer [will reject] the idea of using it only for obtaining advantages, be they of what kind they may.
           Prayer is not really prayer—true communion with God—until it rises above the region in which willfulness is possible, to the height of “Not my will, but Thine, be done.” It is not in “remarkable answers to prayer,” or in signs and wonders that the real power and soul-subduing influence of a Divine communication is most clearly felt. It is the still small voice which overcomes, or ordinary circumstances which when combined, acquire the significance of a distinct message.
           To those who in any degree know His voice, it gradually becomes clear that prayer & answer are inseparable. True worship implies inspiration. While we separate worship and inspiration we can never think worthily of either. Let us acknowledge that the simplest, inarticulate cry for help is as sure to be heard by the Father of spirits as the deepest prayer ever uttered by saint or martyr. The one voice which is most sure to [be listened] to by the good Shepherd, is the voice of one who has strayed and knows how far [from God’s path] they are.
           Ministry—Our Ministry may be said to be free because: it is open to all; it is not pre-arranged; it is not paid. The one essential qualification for the office of a minister is the anointing of the Holy Spirit, as much beyond our control as the rain from heaven. It is not necessary that each congregation be placed under the spiritual care of a pastor. It is the right of each Christian to approach the Divine presence in one’s own way; it is a right and duty to take one’s share in worship when called upon by the Head of the Church.
           [A wholly silent meeting] has not failed in its effect as an occasion of united worship. No one should venture to break the silence in which inward prayer may be arising from other hearts except under the influence of “a fresh anointing from above.” [Quaker worship] is a dispensation entirely spiritual in its nature; a state of enlightenment and true worship in which forms and shadows have passed away and substance alone was to be labored for. Quiet meetings [can provide the truest sense] of the words, “baptizing into the Name . . . and the communion of the body of Christ.”
           Cornerstone and Foundation—What is peculiar to us is our testimony to the freedom and sufficiency of the immediate Divine communication to each one, and our witness to the independence of true gospel ministry from all forms and ceremonies, all human imposed limitation and conditions.
           Two main currents have flowed side by side. One upholds the doctrine of the inward light [and “waiting upon the Lord”], and especially the performance of acceptable worship. The other throws themselves heart and soul into active efforts. [Both point to early Friends] for abundant evidence [in supporting their position]. There are, of course, dangers in either extreme. Both functions are surely needed. The secret of the strength of our Society lies in its strong grasp of the oneness of the inward and the outward.
           [More popular attention is paid to] the Quaker tradition of “non-resistance” than to its resolute vindication of each one’s individual responsibility to one’s Maker, to God alone. To experience in our own hearts the harmonizing, purifying, invigorating power of the Divine Will, that truth which alone can make us free, is to be at rest for ourselves and for others.
           It seems to me that the framework of the Society has vigor and elasticity enough yet to be used as an invaluable instrument by a new generation of fully convinced Friends. It is not judicious adapting of Quakerism to modern tastes, [but rather] a fresh breaking forth of the old, unchangeable power of light and truth itself which can alone invigorate what is languishing amongst us. A measure of the ancient spirit is still to be recognized amongst our now widely scattered remnant. [I would revive] amongst our own members and amongst others the Society of Friends’ experience of the power of an exclusively spiritual religion.
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249. Speaking as one Friend to Another: On the Mystical Way Forward (by John R. Yungblut; 1983)
           About the Author—John Yungblut was a graduate of Harvard College & the Episcopal School in Cambridge, MA, and served 20 years in the Episcopal ministry; he joined the Religious Society of Friends in 1960. He has been director of several notable institutions since then, as well as a member of the Pendle Hill faculty. Yungblut has been a lifelong student of mysticism. He offers spiritual guidance, seminars and Quiet Days.

           God is nearest me in me; God is the very Self of my self; we are all members of one God-body, who is the very ground of being. John Yungblut
           THE NATURE OF THE CONCERN—I propose in this pamphlet to offer a message & ministry to the Society of Friends, given by the Holy Spirit or indwelling Christ. This concerns a ministry that the Society of Friends might perform in the world in the uncertain period ahead. Kenneth Boulding believes that the “evolutionary potential.” springs from 2 insights & commitments of early Friends: perfectionism and experimentalism.
           To be perfect, for early Friends, meant living up to the present measure of light within one; this does not preclude the need for further growth & development. The Society of Friends as a whole isn’t currently living up to the measure of light it has historically been given. There is a contemporary movement within the Society which rejects mysticism as an essential element in Quakerism. This is overemphasis or overspecialization, which in evolutionary terms could lead to extinction.
           [Mysticism] is a hardy perennial [with many forms], including Howard Brinton’s “ethical mysticism.” It is an emerging form of higher consciousness in evolutionary terms. It is a human faculty, possessed in some measure by everyone, by virtue of being human. It is essential that we perceive the mysticism of early friends as inherently a part of their emphasis on experimentalism. An important influx of mysticism entered Christianity early on. Jesus of Nazareth was certainly a Jewish mystic.
           QUAKERISM AS A MYSTICAL MOVEMENT—Rufus Jones saw Quakerism as a new movement in Christianity witnessing to mysticism’s validity as the heart & core of all true religion. The mystical element in Quakerism is inseparable from the light that has been in it historically & is even ultimately responsible for its passion for social reform through historic testimonies. Prophetic power springs from & is motivated by mystical experience. Mystical religion stresses God’s immanence without denying transcendence. The Society of Friend’s deep commitment & capacity to love is rooted & grounded at its best in the mystical experience of being loved.
           The Society of Friends needs to “translate its religious and ethical experiences and insights into a conscious understanding of the way in which the kind of love which we treasure and covet can be produced, defended and extended.” Knowledge sanctified by love works for one’s good. Myth is the only language religion can use to speak of the ultimate truth it experiences. Arnold Toynbee writes that the religion of the future would be that religion among them which proved itself capable of so expanding its metaphor and re-interpreting its myths that those coming from other backgrounds would find that they had lost nothing of value in doing so. I believe that Friends are in a unique position to perform this intellectual task. It would be far more loyal to the spirit of Fox that responded to fresh revelation and allowed the Christ myth to evolve than to remain fixed on a 17th century interpretation. The corporate mystical experience, meeting for worship is dependent in part on the number of its members who faithfully practice contemplative prayer in solitude.
           THE DISTRACTION OF “UNIVERSALISM/ THE CORRECTIVE: BECOMING CONSCIOUS OF OUR ROOTS—The other danger within contemporary Quakerism is “universalism.” It is an unconscious attempt to shape a new eclectic religion of the kind Toynbee saw had no future because it is not rooted in the organic historical community of one of the living faiths. It is experimentalism undisciplined and run riot. Quakerism is no longer seen as inescapably part of the Christian tradition with its roots deep in the soil of the Bible. Many Friends have benefited from using Eastern techniques in their centering. As long as these techniques do not become a substitute for Christian meditative prayer, much is to be gained. They are preliminary to the classic forms of Christian prayer. [If instead the techniques become a pseudo-religion], there is in our unconscious a kind of internal denial of our own Christian archetypes that produces psychic imbalance and confusion. The only viable holiness of life, Jung suggests, is wholeness of life in which organic continuity with the past is maintained while new elements are assimilated in the process of integration.
           [Religious truth is one irrespective of the national and cultural background of the individual religionist]. The developed mystics [of all faiths] meet at the summit of their experience as Thomas Merton and the Dalai Lama understood and acknowledged. Rapport and mutual respect are only possible if each remains conscious of being rooted and grounded in one’s own heritage. All mystical religion involves an inward journey to the self and to the Self (God). The subliminal energy and spiritual experience they afford are quite distinctive for each tradition. The elements are not readily interchangeable. There may emerge a fresh mutation within Quakerism itself that retains connection with its Christian heritage while it more profoundly assimilates the fresh revelation still emerging from the study of evolution and depth psychology. There is always the danger of thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought, but it is far better to hear the call and respond with humility than be guilty of a false modesty and fear of the dangers of experimentalism.
           DELIBERATE CULTIVATION OF ETHICAL MYSTICISM—The Society of Friends will have to revive a commitment to cultivating the inward life. One must resolve to be a contemplative in life wherever one finds oneself. Pursuing a course of meditation has evolutionary significance & therefore cosmic significance. Mutations toward more stable forms of life, characterized by higher consciousness, always take place through individual experimentation. Unless, through meditation & contemplation, enough people attain awareness of “not only am I my brother’s keeper, but I am my brother,” we shall exhaust the species’ energies & destroy it.
           Human forms of over-specialization that threaten extinction are: lengthening of life without birth control; prodigal waste of resources; pollution of air and water and earth occasioned by greedy consumption; fierce competition of ideology. Changing direction requires a resolute redirection of one’s own energies in harmony with a sufficient number of other human beings before the point of no return, no reversal is reached.
           There are thousands of men & women the world over in many cultures & belonging to all the living religions who are beginning to awaken to the breakthrough in higher consciousness that is needed. What is required of the Society is effectively to encourage a form of experimentalism among its own members in cultivating the contemplative faculty, along with thousands of other small groups. We need to sit down in an attitude of prayer and experiment faithfully in the wild hope of putting ourselves in touch with the very sources of life.
           The most meaningful experimenting in the human race’s history has directed its resources to the cultivation of mystical consciousness. God is nearest me in me; God is the very Self of my self; we are all members of one God-body, who is the very ground of being. It requires the exercise of a passion, first aroused by the experience of being loved by God. The hope for man & woman’s future on this planet depends on conversion experiences by enough persons who are prepared to follow the required disciplines for becoming a contemplative.
           THE NEED FOR DISCIPLINE—In the early 19th century, 2 Friends compiled a little book entitled A Guide to True Peace. It contained writings by 3 Catholic mystics more than a century old: Fénelon, Madame Guyon, & Molinos; they had been condemned & persecuted. This book proposes a technique in which: “We must silence all desires & wandering imaginations of the mind, that in this profound silence of the soul we might listen [for a still small voice that] is a perception infused by the secret operations & influence of the Divine.
           Prayer, like everything else, must be allowed to evolve. The new perspectives of evolution and depth psychology afford new images. [With sufficient imagination we can trace our thread backwards through the generations and evolution to the beginning with subatomic particles, to star dust. C. G. Jung asserts archetypes of the self and the Self are ultimately indistinguishable. Jung asks “Have I any religious experience and immediate relation to God that will keep me from dissolving in the crowd? … Rigorous self-examination and self-knowledge will be a declaration of one’s own human dignity.”
           There are now many good books on meditation and contemplation that are appearing. All Friends who are embarking on this venture of becoming a contemplative should begin studying the writings of Christian mystics beginning with Paul and John. If we will stay with this study we will find companions and guides along the way, and we will gradually discover what special kind of mystic each of us is. The love of God that we experienced demands that we express our answering love for God in the form of loving others.
           RESTATING THE CHRIST TRUTH—The Christology that comes to us through the New Testament & the variations with the distinctive emphasis of Early Friends must be allowed to evolve in the light of fresh revelation springing from the fact of evolution & the insights of depth psychology. Each Friend must respond to Christ’s query “who do you say that I am? within the evolutionary context. I anticipate a great convergence of convictions once this task gets under way. Teilhard says: “Truth has to appear only once, in one single mind, for it to be impossible for anything ever to prevent it from spreading universally & setting everything ablaze.”
           [My personal revision of John 3:16 is]: “God so loved the world that he implanted … the seed which would one day, through continuing creation by evolution, bear fruit in the Christ-life of one Jesus of Nazareth, thereby quickening the Christ seed in other men and women to their ultimate salvation and fulfillment.” The Christ seed lay mysteriously incarnate in the heart of matter from the beginning of time.
           Robert Barclay writes: “We confess that a seed of sin is transmitted to all from Adam, although imputed to none until by sinning they join it … Whatever real good any man doeth, proceedeth … from God’s seed in him as a new visitation of life.” The emphasis must inevitably pass from salvation theology to creation theology. The ego needs salvation from destructive ways. There is “that of the Devil” within all of us as well as that of God.
           Friends created [or evolved] new imagery, “that of God” in everyone, the “seed,” the “inner light.” Now they need to allow the process to continue, [to evolve &] to make a further contribution. Christ’s image can be seen as an archetype, helping to keep the species on course toward higher consciousness & more profound ways of giving & receiving love. Christ remains a personal savior, one who leads us into higher consciousness by example, including wrestling with the demonic within himself & others. Friends need dialog with other living religions. To keep communication flowing, [Friends need] to see Christ in evolutionary terms as Son of Man, a forerunner to Homo Spiritus, the 1st-born among many, bearing a family likeness to other great mystics & avatars.
           IMPLEMENTING THE MOVEMENT—How will the work [of spiritual evolution] be undertaken? The image I have is of the 1st tender, fragile growth of a new mutation. 3 existing Friends institutions could foster development of this mutation: Pendle Hill; Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology (FCRP); Friends General Conference (FGC). Pendle Hill, as a “Quaker center for study & contemplation,” could offer classes, retreats, & conferences. Members of the faculty could be advocates & exemplars of spiritual evolution. FCRP [could be] a forum for the convergence, integration, [& balancing] of depth psychology & mystical religion.
           FGC, [as a non-partisan] institution, can allow a position of this kind along with other positions in workshops & keynote addresses. FGC is more faithful to the historic form of Quakerism & is more likely to provide organic continuity out of which the new growth may spring. The movement will emphasize the cultivation of the contemplative spirit in solitude & in meeting for worship. It will restate Christ’s truth to speak to the condition of men & women now, & to encourage dialog with members of other living religions. [Join me in this movement].
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156. Ethical mysticism in the Society of Friends (by Howard Haines Brinton; 1967)
           About the Author/[Pamphlet]—Howard & Anna Brinton came to Pendle Hill in 1936 with a background of academic achievement from Mills & Earlham Colleges, & became co-directors of a Quaker fusion of school & community. They retired in the 1950s & lived on campus as Directors Emeritii. Anna died in 1969; Howard continues to lecture, write, & be [present with us]. Ethical Mysticism is “an effort to classify & characterize Quaker religious experience throughout history,” with a depth & perspective which is a hallmark of his work.
           INTRODUCTION—This pamphlet has intimate bearing on the present. Recent writing contains 3 misconceptions: Quakers aren't mystics; Quakers were radical Protestants; Quietism was different from the activism of the preceding or subsequent centuries. The following pages deal primarily with essential Quaker beliefs. The Spirit of Truth works through historical research into the origins of our religion and through inward experience.
           [Things may change but one thing shouldn't]. Quakers shouldn’t abandon their basic method, which is to wait in silence for leadings of the Spirit & to treat other persons as if they had, or could have, the same awareness of divine truth. Quakerism is derived largely from Jesus' ethical teachings, the Christ-mysticism of Paul, & the Logos-mysticism of John. We should cherish the mystical element of primitive Christianity & Quakerism.

           God’s works within and without, even the least of plants, preaches forth the power and wisdom of the Creator and eyed in the spaces of eternity humbles man.      Thomas Lawson (1630-1691)
           [Quaker] Mysticism—By ethical Mysticism, I mean that type of mysticism which 1st withdraws from the world revealed by the senses to the inward Divine Source of Light, Truth & Power, & then returns to the world with strength renewed. [The bonds of love binding all life together] are discovered by this process. Quaker mysticism is a philosophy or perhaps a theology which also has a non-mystical aspect in being based on historical events & ethical concepts. I shall use Rufus Jones’ sense of “mysticism” as that “religion which puts the emphasis on immediate awareness of relation with God, on direct and intimate consciousness of the Divine Presence.”
           The non-mystic is the over-intellectualized person who sees the world in sharp outlines grinding on like a soulless machine. [Without his business or profession], he finds in his world [no height, depth, or life signs]. The Neo-Platoism of Meister Eckhart, Saint Teresa of Avila, & St. John of the Cross is contemplation of & unity with, the Absolute, the One above & beyond the many. Such mysticism experiences or philosophies exist in Quakers, but Quaker writers don’t use paradoxes to describe it. John Woolman says, “my mind was covered with a feeling of awe-fullness.” The most common experience of this sensing of God’s presence is meeting for worship.
           The Call to Service—Friends were not so likely to mention the sense of God’s presence as to mention the absence of it; meetings could also be dark and barren. The call to service can generally be described as a mystical experience in the sense [I am using it (e.g. John Churchman, Job Scott, John Whiting, and Christopher Healy)]. The negative retreat into the Absolute is generally followed by a positive return to the “world.” [Robert Barclay uses this return to distinguish Quakers from those who retreat to a monkish cell. The early Quaker who had a call to service has been mostly] replaced by committees. This increase in planning is in accord with the times but with it comes the serious danger of too much organized structure.
           Group Mysticism—Another [distinctively Quaker characteristic in terms of mysticism], which differentiates it from solitary inward searching is the Quaker habit of meeting together in silence to realize the Divine Presence. We know one another directly & intuitively, & not through our senses only, because we can share in the One Life, God's Life. The retreat to communion with the Divine is an experience considered valuable less for its results than in itself. “Waiting upon the Lord” were the words most frequently used to describe a Quaker meeting. An unprogrammed Quaker meeting, though seemingly inept, may also surpass any prearranged result.
           Nature Mysticism—Nature mysticism is the concept of nature as spiritual reality rather than as a physical one. Modern philosophers like Whitehead, believe that in modern physics the conception of an organic nature replaced older mechanistic conceptions. Thomas Shillitoe, George Fox, Job Scott, & Catherine Phillips found that mystical experiences [brought out a new smell in creation]. For Joshua Evans, Edward Stabler, Thomas Holme, Mary Alexander, John Woolman, & others, the Inward Light would sometimes seem to shine without. Bayard Taylor wrote: “[After meeting] all arose & moved into open air where all things appeared to wear an aspect of solemnity, the poplar trees, the stone wall, the bushes in the corners of the fence looked grave & respectful for a few minutes … Gradually however all [including nature] returned to the outdoor world & its interests.”
           Quakerism and Protestantism—Some confusion has been created by the assertion that Quakerism is a form of Protestantism. Neither the early Quakers nor their Puritan opponents considered Quakerism to be a form a Protestantism. [Barclay equates the sources of authority for Catholicism, Protestantism, and Quakerism to reside in Church, Bible, and the Spirit respectively].
           The words of Jesus presented no ideal impossible of fulfillment to the Catholic saint, nor to the Quaker immersed in the world but not of it. [In comparing Catholic and Quaker worship], Rudolph Otto points this out: “Both are solemn religious observances … and sacramental, both are communion, both exhibit an inner straining to realize the presence of God, and to attain a degree of oneness with God.
           Protestantism until quite recently was a masculine religion, while Catholicism & Quakerism are both masculine & feminine. Joseph Smith wrote: “The greatest adversaries the Society had to contend with in early days were Non-conformist divines [i.e. radical Protestant].” The controversy between 17th century Protestantism & 17th century Quakerism is a conflict as new as it is old—the ancient [OT] conflict between a authoritarian & a prophetic type of religion. However much modern theologians exalt Christ, most are unwilling to accept the Sermon on the Mount as a practicable & attainable code of behavior for moral men immersed in an immoral society.
           Quakers & Quietism—Almost all modern histories of Quakerism speak of a century of “Quietism” different in character from early Quakerism. Quietism means that the human mind must be quieted in order to permit the Divine Light to enter the soul uncontaminated. Rufus Jones, [John Woolman & George Fox] use the word “pure” for the purely divine unmixed with the human. That which is pure is free from conventionalities & prejudices of society. It made them [social] pioneers because it freed them from conventional opinions.
           Barclay gives man a free choice between “natural” & “spiritual”; some good is in him if he makes the right choice. We are saved by the Christ “brought forth in the heart.” In almost every Quaker Journal we find a description of the conflict between what was sometimes called the “2 seeds.” The Journal writer feels himself to be a divided self, but eventually the inward Savior appears, the Light is accepted as guide & peace is obtained, until some new & unfulfilled concern causes the tension to be renewed. [Job Scott speaks of this as a union of wills]. 
           The Road Back to the World—Quietism’s negative road, leading away from the world, is followed by the positive road back to the world, where some requirement discovered in the withdrawal period is carried out. Friends had political control at one time or another of 5 of the American colonies until an oath was imposed by the British government. Quakerism’s powerful influence on colonial America has never been fully assessed.
           Friends carried the unquiet activities of maintaining peace with the Indians, opposition to slavery, reform in prisons & mental institution, & education. Thomas Shillitoe was very active in meeting with people, from the leaders of nations to those in taverns & prisons, in spite of being timid. Arnold Toynbee says that the Quakers could have been an “inward proletariat” [or guide] to civilization but missed it by a becoming a wealthy & prosperous part of Western culture. Although the Church gave up pacificism after 3 centuries, the Church continued to think of itself as potentially the King of God. Some lived at least theoretically by the Kingdom’s ethics.
           Mysticism in the 19th Century—The 19th century was the darkest era in Quaker history. There were 3 separations: Orthodox-Hicksite (1828); Wilburite-Gurneyite (mid-19th century); pastoral/non-pastoral (1875-1900). Wilburites were mystics while the Gurneyites were less so. Joseph John Gurney was a highly cultured distinguished & able Englishman [preaching] for 3 years in America the historical, outward Christ rather than the mystical inward Christ. Robert Barclay supported Gurney’s cause, while the Orthodox Jonathan Evans supported John Wilbur’s “mystical,” Spirit-led position.
           In 1870, Gurneyites developed Protestant forms of worship, professional pastors, and programmed meetings. No part of Philadelphia adopted the “pastoral system.” Those who in the 20th century carry on the practice of worship in silence are probably not as conscious as were their predecessors of the immediate guidance of the Spirit. Meetings which wait in silence for right guidance represent the “wave of the future” for the Society of Friends. There is an increase in silent meetings and intellectualism in modern Quakerism. Reason and spiritual intuition function better together than separately.
           The Theological Basis of Unity—The Quaker withdrawal and return had a basis in mystical feeling and in thought. The Quaker believes that the Inward Light is One and not many, that the same Light illumines all. George Fox frequently speaks of the Light as leading from the one to the many. “If we walk in the Light as He is in the Light we have fellowship with one another.” [Puritans expected anarchy from Quakerism]. Quakers avoided anarchy in at least 2 ways: group mysticism; identification with Christ.
           For Quakers, the Atonement miracle was important as introducing the new covenant, dispensation, outburst of the Spirit, & epoch. The historic Jesus was to introduce a new epoch where new ethics were provided, where the Kingdom of Heaven can be entered here & now through spiritual union with Christ. This new epoch was an age of reconciliation of Christians with God. His death is only effective existentially if it is repeated in the Christian experience with the death of “the old man” & the resurrection of the new. Salvation was by Christ’s life through Inward Light. Salvation is a word not often used by Quakers; they use reached or tendered. Paul Tillich wrote: “Christ isn’t an isolated event which happened once; he is the power of New Being, preparing his decisive manifestation in Jesus as the Christ in all preceding history & acknowledging himself in all later history.
           A Theology of Experience—Quaker theology is unsystematic. It is based largely on experience and on a variety of NT thought. We can find 6 different theologies in Fox’s epistle. The Light: is God; is from God; leads up to God; is Christ; is from Christ; leads up to Christ. We can say that the Light is both within man and also be-yond him. Quaker theology is a combination of Paul’s Christ mysticism and John’s logos and God mysticism. The Christian is crucified in the flesh, or self-will, to be resurrected in the spirit. Their mysticism becomes ethical when it leads them to enter the Kingdom & live according to the teachings of Christ. Isaac Penington wrote: “Whensoever such a thing shall be brought forth in the world it must have a beginning before it can grow and be perfected. It should begin in some individuals in a nation and so spread by degrees.
           Following John, the Quakers used different words to designate “Light which lighteth every man.” [& while] Paul’s union with Christ seems to be a psychological union of will, John seems to include a union of substance, a kind of divinization resulting from rebirth. This is ethical mysticism because it retreats to the creative Source of Unity & returns to create that unity in the world. The earth is a [good] form that God made. Only those forms—[words & actions]—inspired by “godliness” are acceptable. [For Quakers there aren't stages on heavenly ladder], but rather preliminary acts of purging, struggle, seeking & waiting before the Light dawned.
           Science & Mysticism—A [new] dualism or dichotomy has emerged, a dualism between science & mysticism. Arthur S. Eddingtion—eminent scientist & devout Quaker—begins discussion of mysticism by comparing mathematical wave formula with a poem describing “gladness of waves dancing in the sunshine.” The scientist deals with a world of generalities; poets deal with concrete experience. The main difference is in symbols used.
            Science has great prestige because it enables us to acquire extraordinary control of the world. Many people are wandering about aimlessly in a mechanistic world devoid of meaning. The world we actually live in is the world of mystical experience which is both objective and subjective, the within which is also the beyond, the Divine Life coming from beyond our personal self-consciousness out of the depths of being.
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216. O Inward Traveller (by Carol R. Murphy; 1977)

           About the Author: Carol Murphy has written more Pendle Hill Pamphlets than anyone now living; this is her 13th. [She went from approaching the waters of meditation (Available Mind), to 1 step beyond the shore (Sound of Silence); with Inward Traveller she plunged in]. The discipline of inward travel provides a common measure by which her topics of religious philosophy, pastoral counseling & Quakerism, theology of Paul Tillich, comparative religions, and the meaning of death may be tested. 

           Keep to that in thee, O inward traveler, that shuts the wrong eye and ear, and opens the right; then wilt thou be in the number of such as our Lord pronounceth blessed, saying, Blessed are your eyes for they see; and your ears for they hear.”      Job Scott’s Journal 

           Approach—We live in an “occupied” world of nuclear threats, starvation in Africa & Asia, killer diseases lying in wait for one’s family & self. Yet we read in Julian of Norwich: “All will be well, & all shall be well, & all manner of thing shall be well.” After my skeptical college years, I was challenged by the existence of an alternative mode of awareness, through St. Augustine, St John of the Cross, Evelyn Underhill, & Rufus Jones. The great mystics’ experience of God’s presence was as real to them as God’s absence was real to me. If there were a Divine Reality, it had an urgent claim on me, & for a brief while I felt God’s call to live by this vision. This call was the impetus behind all my subsequent return to & study of religious belief. I [soon] saw how empty & “notional” religion could become when God is just talked about or speculated upon. Oriental spiritual disciplines & “altered states of consciousness” sparked a renewed love affair with mysticism. What follows is the story of the encounter between various kinds of meditative approaches & my mind’s particular shape & personality.

           The Alternative Vision—1st, we are dealing with an alternate mode of knowing. Then there is what is known, the ultimate, dynamic matrix of being-existence, a “field” in which we live, move, interact, and have our being. Of the ways of knowing, there is the usual, thing-knowing, and there is the “mystical” way or field-knowing. It is with this mode of knowing that the presence and glory of God is apprehended. The field-seer (or knower) has developed his capacity for this field knowing, and aims at the unselfed life in which his ego is replaced by a deep center united to the Divine matrix. The field seer has episodes of field-seeing, what George Fox called openings. Field knowing is thought to be facilitated by the process of mind-stilling (meditation and contemplation). It has always been a problem whether meditation causes field-knowing or is a response to it. It is perhaps safest to think of meditation as cultivation and watering of a seed that grows by its own laws. Openings come to the prepared mind as seed sprouts in prepared soil. The deeper wisdom knows that we must still the verbal, thing-seeing half of the brain that the latent field-seeing half may be freed for inspiration. 

          The Way Inwards—Christians practiced “meditation” by thinking about God or picturing the life and work of Jesus. The Oriental tradition is the discipline of mind-stilling. The settling of the mind’s roiled-up waters seems neither very holy nor heroic; but it can have a healing effect. You sit and stare into space and you don’t think about a damn thing, but something’s going on. Sometime later you find out what it is. 

           Transcendental Meditation seems to be a concession to the anxious feeling that there is just one correct drill that only Teacher knows. [“Needing”] a special, secret mantra is highly suspect. The mantra has no particular meaning to the meditator. Most of these relaxation methods lack the important ingredient, so important from the religious standpoint, of a disciplined regimen of life. I have noticed that even a few minutes of this self-forgetfulness is tremendously invigorating. [The early Quaker] Penington said: “Lie low before the Lord in the sensible life, not desiring to know and comprehend notionally, but to feel the thing inwardly, truly, sensibly and effectively.” Simone Weil said: “Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” Degrees of Attention: 

           Absorption—I found that the traditional Hindu Yoga, Poulain’s degrees of interior prayer, Claudio Naranjo’s Outer, Inner, and Middle Ways of meditating sorted themselves out into absorption, insight, and dual-focus methods of training the attention. My 1st experience was with Lawrence Leshan’s How to Meditate. He taught himself an altered state of awareness from his scientific research to explain ESP and spiritual healing by using Patanjali’s Yogic Aphorisms and Evelyn Underhill’s Practical Mysticism. Leshan said: “you strive to be aware of just your [breath] counting ... [Conscious] thoughts and feelings are a wandering away from the instructions... You are aiming at being totally involved from your head to your toes.” Full of hope, I plunged into breath-counting and contemplating a pebble, and emerged months later sadly frustrated and self-divided. Watching the World Series, I wondered why God was throwing me such a curve ball. 

           A Wider Awareness—[God then guided] my hand to the writings of Nyanaponika Thera and Chögyam Trungpa, Buddhist teachers, one from the Southern school, one from the Tibetan. Chögyam Trungpa said: Generally one cannot really concentrate . . . One should not try to suppress thoughts in meditation, but one should just try to see the transitory nature, the translucent nature of thoughts.” The Buddha himself failed to find what he needed in absorptive yoga, and turned to self-clarification through insight. 

           I abandoned mechanical breath-counting for simple awareness of drawing in & letting out of my breath, & prepared to watch my thoughts go by. In daily activities like T’ai Chi, the meditator can slow down, & become tranquilly aware of the beauty of the simplest task. [When successful] Sri Aurobindo says: “[thoughts] cross the mind as a flight of birds crosses the sky . . . it passes, disturbs nothing, leaving no trace. Zen meditation can be either wide-angled, or veer to the absorptive end of the spectrum. In my own insight meditations, thoughts still carried me away. I abandoned the expectation of an ideal tranquility; meditation is a search for the real, not the ideal. [Perhaps vocal release of pent-up doubts & fears is necessary before] we can hear the still small voice. 

           The Dual Focus—Complete single-mindedness is not essential all the time; what is essential is that the activity of the mind or body not distract from the central intent directed to the Ultimate. Thomas Merton wrote: “This state of attention to God certainly can co-exist with a simple kind of action. . . [Some people] may find that when they sit down and try to attend to God . . . they become tense and confused, too aware of themselves. . . It is better for a person to be somewhat active and not be aware that anything special is going on.”

           [This then is a kind of active] “Martha” meditation or contemplation. For Merton it is quite legitimate not to be mindful of just the one activity, but to wash dishes for the love of God. A sort of split-level or dual-focus way of meditating can emerge. Possibly the restless modern mind must begin its centering on God in this divided fashion, stilling the mind at one place which can later spread its centeredness to the whole. 

           The Here and Now Presence—What makes the dual focus kind of meditation is not one thought competing with another, but a simultaneity of thought with movement, or imagination with will. The simplest and least “mystical” method is the informal conversation with God or Jesus as recommended by St. Teresa of Avila. It need not be ecstatic. Indeed, it may become sheer emotional indulgence unless it includes all one’s grumbles and aridities. Another method is the continual inner repetition of “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” Even when approached maturely, it may not accord with the workings of one’s psyche. 

           Another approach to the practice of the Presence isn't so much a method as an attitude, one that accepts in faith God's presence hidden in the present moment. For Friends who believe that all life is sacramental, this sacrament of the present moment is a way to make this belief very real. J. P. de Caussade writes: “There is never a moment when God doesn't come forward in the guise of some suffering or some duty, & all that takes place within us, around us & through us both includes & hides his activity. . . You seek your own idea of God, but you have him in his reality.” While mindfulness presses toward enlightenment, faith is content to follow a way of darkness, to find God’s presence in his absence. St. Thérèse of Lisieux said: “My consolation isn't to have any in this life. Jesus never manifests Himself not lets me hear His voice. He teaches me in secret.” As de Caussade puts it, there are those who lose sight of the divine will because it moves behind the soul to push it forward.

           Invitation to Pilgrimage—It may be useful for the journey to ask what sort of person you are. It is better perhaps, to find meditation neither too easy nor too hard. [If they are too easy and rich, they may be] pursued as ends in themselves and not for what they were opening the person up to. In our practice, we must learn how to combine will and surrender. Our [own] temptation to spiritual greed comes with the envy and discouragement we feel in reading the accounts of those more proficient in meditation than we seem able to be. 

           As we differ in the paths taken, we will differ in need for guidance. It is in the more advanced stages of seeing, when contents of deeper psyche may have to be explored. Thomas Merton speaks of “dread”—the necessity of purifying doubt of one’s fidelity & authenticity in the face of God’s total demand for truth in the inward parts & a little death of ego. Meditation mustn't become closed, self-confirming system; another person can be God’s agent in keeping us open. As you journey on the way, you will inevitably feel a certain withdrawal from the trashy values of the “the world,” [along with] compassion for those still in it. You will have to steer a course between the avoidance of separatist priggishness on the one hand and over-assimilation on the other. 

           What good does your inward journey do? It is not so much what good you and I can do, but what good can be done through us. I once was told that my presence in a group was “supportive,” though all I did was sit there. Sometimes just being is the best kind of doing. This is the secret of field-knowing: that we are all par-takers of the divine activity. Jesus was [in effect] saying, “Don’t hold a metaphysical autopsy; do God’s healing work.” We reach a deeper plane when we realize that for Buddhism the poisoned arrow from which we all suffer is our self-protective sense of ego—our thing-seeing blindness from which we have to be awakened. [Those of us who seek field-seeing] by dying to self can play our part in bringing the gift of the eternal, living, all-encompassing works of God made manifest in the growth of Christ in each and all. 

           John Woolman said: “As I lived under the Cross and simply followed the openings of Truth, my mind from day to day was more enlightened. I looked upon the works of God in this visible creation, and an awe-fullness covered me. My heart was tender and often contrite. . . Some glances of real beauty are perceivable in their faces who dwell in true meekness.” You come too.

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