The mystics offer us their personal testimonies that this hunger can be satisfied through a direct experience of the mystical dimensions of life

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Mysticism begins with the extraordinary experience of the ancient

shamans of the primal people who, through the use of ritual and

psychedelic plants, began an exploration of the mysteries of

consciousness. In India this wisdom flowered into a profound

philosophy which gradually influenced the whole of the ancient world.

Ancient Egypt also developed a similar mysticism, which gave birth to

the Mystery Schools – spiritual `universities' for mystical

initiation. The philosophies of India and Egypt came together in

ancient Greece. Here, the Mystery Schools flourished as a religion

for a thousand years, and left a legacy that would inspire all

subsequent Western mystics.

 

The relationship of mysticism to religion has been characterized by a

cycle of living revelation bringing life to dead tradition, only to

fall in turn into religious orthodoxy. In sixth-century BC India, the

Buddha experienced enlightenment and challenged the authorities of

the Hindu religion, becoming the founder of a new mystical faith. In

China, his contemporary Lao Tzu revitalized the Taoist tradition with

profound mystical ideas. In the first century AD the Jewish mystic

Jesus challenged the spiritual authority of the religious hierarchy

in Israel, and initiated the Christian religion. Whilst the mystical

spirit can still be found in all these faiths up until the present

day, they have all to a greater or lesser degree slipped into the

dogma and superstition of religion.

 

Each mystical tradition has gone through different high points and

low points. Jewish mysticism reached its heights with the Kabbalists

of the Middle Ages and the Hasids of the eighteen century. Christian

mysticism was most vibrant among the early Gnostics of the first

century AD and the Friends of God of the thirteen and fourteen

centuries. Islamic mysticism flowered with the Sufis of the tenth to

twelfth centuries. All traditions have had their great saints and

sages, who directly experienced the eternal truth and left a legacy

of spiritual inspiration for those who followed. However, it is only

India, the mother of mysticism, which has continually produced

numbers of great enlightened masters. India's influence has once

again been felt in the modern West. After the explosive increase in

the use of mind-altering drugs in the 1960s, huge numbers of people

looked again to the East to find spiritual context for their strange

experiences, inspiring the new wave of mysticism we are experiencing

today.

 

In the modern world, there is growing disillusionment with orthodox

dogmatic religion and scientific materialism: neither can satisfy the

deep inner yearning of the soul. This has led to a profound spiritual

hunger. The mystics offer us their personal testimonies that this

hunger can be satisfied through a direct experience of the mystical

dimensions of life. This vision may be glimpsed through the window of

any one of their accounts of rapture and their inspired insights.

These are the gifts of wisdom that we have inherited from those great

souls who have pierced the veil of everyday reality, and beheld the

timeless mystical truth.

 

The Complete Guide to World Mysticism (Paperback)

by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, page 16-17

Paperback: 160 pages

Publisher: Piatkus Books; New Ed edition (October 1998)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0749917768

ISBN-13: 978-0749917760