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1 Even this I AM, which has seemed safe ground to most metaphysicians, is of course combated by certain schools of philosophy. "The word Sum," said Eckhart long ago, "can be spoken by no creature but by God only: for it becomes the creature to testify of itself Non Sum." In a less mystical strain Lotze, and after him Bradley and other modern writers, have devoted much destructive criticism to the concept of the Ego as the starting point of philosophy: looking upon it as a large, and logically unwarrantable, assumption.
2 Plato, Phaedrus, § 250.
3 Thus Eckhart, "Every time that the powers of the soul come into contact with created things, they received and create images and likenesses from the created thing and absorb them. In this way arises the soul's knowledge of created things. Created things cannot come nearer to the soul that this, and the soul can only approach created things by the voluntary reception of images. And it is through the presence of the image that the soul approaches the created world: for the image is a Thing, which the soul creates with her own powers. Does the soul want to know the nature of a stone — a horse — a man? She forms an image." — Meister Eckhart, Pred. i. ("Mystische Schriften," p. 15).
4 Thus Edward Carpenter says of his own experience of the onset of mystical consciousness, "The perception seems to be one in which all the senses unite into one sense" (quoted in Backe's "Cosmic Consciousness," p. 198).
5 "A Pluralistic Universe,"p. 10.
6 There are four main groups of such schemes: (1) Subjective; (2) Objective; (3) Transcendental (Kantian); (4) Absolute (Hegelian). To this last belongs by descent the Immanental Idealism of Croce and Gentile.
7 Delacroix, "Etudes sur le Mysticisme," p. 62.
8 E. Towne, "Just how to Wake the Solar Plexus," p.25.
9 "Fondements de la Connaissance Mystique," p. 15.
10 Or, as Aristotle, and after him St. Thomas Aquinas, suggest, a contemplative animal, since “this act alone in man is proper to him, and is in no way shared by any other being in this world” (“Summa Contra Gentiles,” 1. iii, cap. xxxvii., Rickaby’s translation).
11 All the healing arts, from Æsculapius and Galen to Metchnikoff and Mrs. Eddy, have virtually accepted and worked upon these two principles.
12 "De Imitatione Christi," l. ii.cap. vi.
13 “Such as these, I say, as if enamoured by My honour and famished for the food of souls, run to the table of the Most holy Cross, willing to suffer pain. . . . To these, My most dear sons, trouble is a pleasure, and pleasure and every consolation that the world would offer them are a toil” (St. Catherine of Siena, Dialogo, cap. xxviii.). Here and throughout I have used Thorold’s translation.
14 "Philosophy of Religion," vol. ii. p. 8.
15 "Der Sinn und Wert des Lebens," p. 148.
16 "Fondements de la Connaissance Mystique," p. 74.
17 Aug. Conf., bk. x. cap. xxvii.
18 “Phaedrus,” § 250 (Jowett’s translation). The reference in the phrase “he whose initiation is recent” is to the rite of admission into the Orphic Mysteries. It is believed by some authorities that the neophyte may have been cast into an hypnotic sleep by his “initiator,” and whilst in this condition a vision of the “glories of the other world” suggested to him. The main phenomena of “conversion” would thus be artificially produced: but the point of attack being the mind rather than the heart, the results, as would appear from the context, were usually transient.
19 Royce, "The World and the Individual," vol. i. p. 181.
20 The idea of Divine Union as man’s true end is of course of great antiquity. Its first definite appearance in the religious consciousness of Europe seems to coincide with the establishment of the Orphic Mysteries in Greece and Southern Italy in the sixth century B.C. See Rohde: “Psyche,” cap. 10, and Adam, “The Religious Teachers of Greece,” p. 92.
21 Coventry Patmore, "The Rod, the Root, and the Flower," "Aurea Dicta," cxxviii.
22 “The Science and Philosophy of Organism,” Gifford Lectures. 1907-8.
23 “Les Données Immédiates de la Conscience” (1889), “Matière et Mémoire” (1896), “L’Evolution Créatrice” (1907).
24 “Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt” (1896), “Der Sinn und Wert den Lebens” (1908), &c. See Bibliography.
25 The researches of Driesch (op. cit.) and of de Pries (“The Mutation Theory,” 1910) have done much to establish the truth of this contention upon the scientific plane. Now particularly Driesch’s account of the spontaneous responsive changes in the embryo sea-urchin, and de Vries’ extraordinary description of the escaped stock of evening primrose, varying now this way, now that, “as if swayed by a restless internal tide.”
26 The debt to Heracleitus is acknowledged by Schiller. See “Studies in Humanism,” pp. 39, 40.
27 See, for the substance of this and the following pages, the works of Henri Bergson already mentioned. I am here also much indebted to the personal help of my friend “William Scott Palmer,” whose interpretations have done much towards familiarizing English readers with Bergson’s philosophy; and to Prof. Willdon Carr’s paper on “Bergson’s Theory of Knowledge, read before the Aristotelian Society, December 1908.
28 Heracleitus, Fragments, 46, 84.
29 First edition, canto x.
30 E.g. St. Augustine’s “That alone is truly real whichabides unchanged” (Conf., bk. vii. cap. 10), and among modern thinkers F. von Hügel: “An absolute Abidingness, pure Simultaneity, Eternity, in God . . . stand out, in man’s deepest consciousness, with even painful contrast, against all mere Succession, all sheer flux and change.” (“Eternal Life,” p. 365.)
31 S. Alexander, “Space, Time and Deity,” vol. ii, p. 410.
32 See below, Pt. I. Cap. VII.
33 Heracleitus, op. cit.
34 On the complete and undivided nature of our experience in its wholeness,” and the sad work our analytic brains make of it when they come to pull it to pieces, Bradley has some valuable contributory remarks in ho “Oxford Lectures on Poetry,” p. 15.
35 “Liber Specialis Gratiae,” I. ii. cap. xxvi.
36 Meister Eckhart, Pred. lxxxvii.
37 Willdon Carr, op. cit.
38 “It seems as if man could never escape from himself, and yet, when shut in to the monotony of his own sphere, he is overwhelmed with a sense of emptiness. The only remedy here is radically to alter the conception of man himself, to distinguish within him the narrower and the larger life, the life that is straitened and finite and can never transcend itself, and an infinite life through which he enjoys communion with the immensity and the truth of the universe. Can man rise to this spiritual level? On the possibility of his doing so rests all our hope of supplying any meaning or value to life” (“Der Sinn und Wert des Lebens,” p. 81).
39 The essentials of Eucken’s teaching will be found conveniently summarized in “Der Sinn und Wert des Lebens.”
40 “Der Sinn und Wert den Lebens,” p. 121.
41 “De Septem Gradibus Amoral” cap. xiv.
42 Par. xxx. 95.
43 “Revelations of Divine Love.” cap. vi.
44 Ruysbroeck, “Samuel,” cap. viii.
45 Ibid., “De Vera Contemplatione,” cap. xii.
46 Von Hügel, “The Mystical Element of Religion,” vol. ii. p. 132.
47 St. Catherine of Siena, Dialogo, cap. lxxxix.
48 Heracleitus, op. cit.
49 Meister Eckhart, Pred. i.
50 Aug. Conf., bk. i. cap. iv. “What art Thou, then, my God? . . . Highest, best, most potent [i.e. , dynamic], most omnipotent [i.e, transcendent], most merciful and most just, most deeply hid and yet most near. Fairest, yet strongest: steadfast, yet unseizable; unchangeable yet changing all things: never new, yet never old. . . . Ever busy, yet ever at rest; gathering yet needing not: bearing, filling, guarding: creating, nourishing and perfecting; seeking though Thou hast no wants. . . . What can I say, my God, my life, my holy joy? or what can any say who speaks of Thee?” Compare the strikingly similar Sufi definition of the Nature of God, as given in Palmer’s “Oriental Mysticism,” pp. 22,23. “First and last, End and Limit of all things, incomparable and unchangeable, always near yet always far,” &c. This probably owes something to Platonic influence.
51 “Timaeus,” § 27.
52 “A natural craving,” said Aquinas, “cannot be in vain.” Philosophy is creeping back to this “mediaeval’ point of view. Compare “Summa Contra Gentiles,” I. ii. cap. lxxix.
53 Compare Dante’s vision in Par. xxx., where he sees Reality first as the streaming River of Light, the flux of things; and then, when his sight has been purged, as achieved Perfection, the Sempiternal Rose.
54 E. Boutroux, “Le Philosophe Allemand, Jacob Boehme.” p. 18.
55 F. von Hügel: “Eternal Life, p. 385.
56 Op. Cit., p. 387.
57 The wise Cherubs, according to the beautiful imagery of Dionysius, are “all eyes,” but the loving Seraphs are “all wings.” Whilst the Seraphs, the figure of intensest Love, “move perpetually towards things divine,” ardour and energy being their characteristics, the characteristic of the Cherubs is receptiveness their power of absorbing the rays of the Supernal Light. (Dionysius the Areopagite, “De Caelesti Ierarchia,” vi. 2, and vii. 1.)
58 So Récéjac says of the mystics, they desire to know, only that they may love; and their desire for union with the principle of things in God, Who is the sum of them all, is founded on a feeling which is neither curiosity nor self-interest” (“Fondements de la Connaissance Mystique,” p. 50).
59 Par. xxxiii. 143.
60 The Monist, July, 1901, p. 572.
61 “The Cloud of Unknowing,” cap. vi.
62 Op. cit., cap. vii.
63 “De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum,” I. ii. cap. v.
64 See below, Pt. II. Cap. VI.
65 Plotinus, Ennead vi. 9.
66 “Theologia Germanica,” cap. vii. (trans. Winkworth).
67 Aug. Conf., bk. vii. cap. x.
68 A. Schmölders, “Essai sur les Écoles Philosophique chez les Arabes,” p. 68.
69 “De Consideration,” bk. ii. cap. ii.
70 “Summa Theologica,” ii. ii. q. clxxx, art. 3. eds. 1 and 3.
71 Walter Hilton, “The Scale of Perfection,” bk. ii. cap. xl.
72 Ruysbroeck, “De Septem Gradibus Amoris,” cap. xiv.
73 “The Spirit of Prayer” (“Liberal and Mystical Writings of William Law,” p, 14). So too St. François de Sales says: “This root is the depth of the spirit, Mens, which others call the Kingdom of God.” The same doctrine appears, under various symbols, in all the Christian Mystics.
74 Cutten, “Psychological Phenomena of Christianity,” p. 18. James, “Varieties of Religious Experience,” p. 155. For a temperate and balanced discussion, see Pratt: “The Religious Consciousness.”
75 Note to the 12th Edition. During the eighteen years which have elapsed since this chapter was written, much work has been done on the psychology of mysticism. After suffering severely at the hands of the “new psychologists” the contemplative faculty is once more taken seriously; and there is even some disposition to accept or restate the account of it given by the mystics. Thus Bremond (“Prière et Poésie” and “Introduction à la Philosophie de la Prière”) insists on the capital distinction between the surface-mind, capable of rational knowledge, and the deeper mind, organ of mystical knowledge, and operative in varying degrees in religion poetic, and Esthetic apprehensions.
76 An interesting discussion of the term “Synteresis” will be found in Dr. Inge’s “Christian Mysticism,” Appendix C, pp. 359, 360.
77 “La Pratique de la Vraye Theologie Mystique,” vol. 1. p. 204.
78 J. A. Stewart, ‘*The Myths of Plato,” pp. 41, 43. Perhaps I may point out that this Transcendental Feeling — the ultimate material alike of prayer and of poetry — has, like the mystic consciousness, a dual perception of Reality: static being and dynamic life. See above, p. 42.
79 Tauler, Sermon on St. Augustine (“The Inner Way,” p. 162).
80 “Theologia Germanica,” cap. vii. Compare “De Imitatione Christi,” 1. iii. cap. 38.
81 Morton Prince, “The Dissociation of a Personality,” p. 16.
82 Martensen, “Jacob Boehme,” p. 7.
83 Testament, cap. iii.
84 Starbuck, “The Psychology of Religion,” p. 388.
85 See, for instances, Cutten, ‘The Psychological Phenomena of Christianity,” cap. viii.
86 “Singularity,” says Gertrude More, “is a vice which Thou extremely hatest.” (‘The Spiritual Exercises of the most vertuous and religious Dame Gertrude More,” p. 40). All the best and sanest of the mystics are of the same opinion.
87 See E. Gardner, “St. Catherine of Siena,” pp. 12and 48; and E. von Hügel, “The Mystical Element of Religion,” vol. i. p. 135.
88 “Les Maladies des Sentiments Religieux.”
89 “L’État Mentale des Hysteriques,” and “Une Extatique” (Bulletin de l’Institut Psychologique, 1901).
90 “La Psychologie des Sentiment,” 1896.
91 Op. cit., vol. ii. p. 42.
92 For examples consult Pierre Janet, op. cit.
93 Sermon for First Sunday after Easter (Winkworth, p. 302).
94 “Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit,” pt. ii. cap. xxv.
95 Vida, cap. xx. sect. 29.
96 Boyce Gibson (“God with Us,” cap. iii.) has drawn a striking parallel between the ferment and “interior uproar” of adolescence and the profound disturbances which mark man’s entry into a conscious spiritual life. His remarks are even more applicable to the drastic rearrangement of personality which takes place in the case of the mystic, whose spiritual life is more intense than that of other men.
97 Delacroix, “Études sur le Mysticisme,” p. iii.
98 Dialogo, cap. lxxxvi.
99 Quoted by James (“Varieties of Religious Experience,” p. 481) from Clissold’s “The Prophetic Spirit in Genius and Madness,” p. 67.
100 “Mérejkowsky, “Le Roman do Leonard de Vinci,” p. 638.
101 Vida, cap. xv. 9.
102 Meister Eckhart, Pred. i. (“Mystische Schriften,” p. 18).
103 “Three Dialogues of the Supersensual Life,” p. 14.
104 Dionysius the Areopagite, “De Divinis Nominibus,” vii. 3.
105 Pred. xxiii. Eckhart obtained this image from St. Thomas Aquinas, “Summa Contra Gentiles,” I. iii. cap. lxi. “The intellectual soul is created on the confines of eternity and time.”
106 Vie, t. ii. pp. 120, 223, 229. It might reasonably be objected that Madame Guyon does not rank high among the mystics and her later history includes some unfortunate incidents. This is true. Nevertheless she exhibit such a profusion of mystical phenomena and is so candid in her self-disclosures, that she provides much valuable material for the student.
107 G. Cunninghame Graham, “Santa Teresa,” vol. i. p. 202.
108 “Letters of William Blake,” April 25, 1803.
109 This insistence on the twofold character of human personality is implicit in the mystics. “It is” says Bremond, “the fundamental dogma of mystical psychology — the distinction between the two selves: Animus, the surface self; Anima, the deep self; Animus, rational knowledge; and Anima, mystical or poetic knowledge . . . the I, who feeds on notions and words, and enchants himself by doing so; the Me, who is united to realities” (Bremond “Prière et Poésie,” cap. xii.).
110 Julian of Norwich, “Revelations of Divine Love,” cap, lv.
111 See “Varieties of Religious Experience,” p. 387, “The Drunken Consciousness is a bit of the Mystic Consciousness.”
112 Llama de Amor Viva, II. 26.
113 Compare above, pp. 24, 26, 57.
114 J. A. Stewart, “The Myths of Plato,” p. 40.
115 “Descriptive Catalogue.”
116 See T. Rolleston, “Parallel Paths.”
117 Laurence Binyon, “Painting in the Far East,” p. 9.
118 “The Mirror of Simple Souls,” Pt. III, cap. 1.
119 Par. xxxiii. 139. “Not for this were my wings fitted: save only that my mind was smitten by a lightning flash wherein came to it its desire.”
120 In this connexion Godfernaux (Revue Philosophique, February, 1902) has a highly significant remark to the effect that romanticism represents the invasion of secular literature by mystic or religious emotion. It is, he says, the secularization of the inner life. Compare also Bremond, “Prière et Poesie.”
121 I take from Hebert’s monograph “Le Divin” two examples of the analogy between mystical and musical emotion. First that of Gay, who had “the soul, the heart, and the head full of music, of another beauty than that which is formulated by sounds.” Next that of Ruysbroeck, who, in a passage that might have been written by Keats, speaks of contemplation and Love as “two heavenly pipes” which, blown upon by the Holy Spirit, play “ditties of no tone” (op. cit. p. 29).
122 Hugh of St. Victor, “Didascalicon de Studio Legendi.”
123 “Fioretti.” Delle Istimati. (Arnold’s translation.)
124 Richard Rolle, ‘The Fire of Love” (Early English Text Society), bk. i. cap. xv. In this and subsequent quotations from Rolle’s Incendium Amoris I have usually adopted Misyn’s fifteenth-century translation; slightly modernizing the spelling, and, where necessary, correcting from the Latin his errors and obscurities.
125 Op. cit., bk. i. cap. xxiii. Compare bk. ii. caps. v. and vi.
126 “Spiritual Exercises,” p. 30.
127 Op. cit., bk. i. cap. xv.
128 Op. cit., bk. ii. caps, iii. and xii. Shelley is of the same opinion: —
“The world can hear not the sweet notes that move
The Sphere whose light is melody to lovers.”
(“The Triumph of Life “)
129 “Subida del Monte Carmelo,” I. ii. cap. xv.
130 “De Mystica Theologia,” i. 3.
131 Von Hügel, “The Mystical Element of Religion,” vol. i. p. 189.
132 “Varieties of Religious Experience,” p. 380.
133 “Les Fondements de la Connaissance Mystique,” p. 45.
134 Jámí. Quoted in “Jalalu ‘d Din” (Wisdom of the East Series), p. 25.
135 “Through Scylla and Charybdis,” p. 264.
136 Ennead vi. 9.
137 “En una Noche Escura,” Stanza 1. I quote from Arthur Symons’s beautiful translation, which will be found in vol. ii. of his Collected Poems.
138 Schmölders, “Les Écoles Philosophiques chez les Arabes,” p. 55.
139 Cap. xix.
140 “Ignitum cum Deo Soliloquium,” cap. xi.
141 “Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit,” pt. iv. cap, 13.
142 Dialogo, cap. lx.
143 Tauler, Sermon for Septuagesima Sunday (Winkworth’s translation, p. 253).
144 Vita e Dottrina, cap. vi.
145 M. Smith, “Rabi’a the Mystic,” p. 30.
146 Ennead vi. 9.
147 “An Epistle of Discretion.” This beautiful old English tract, probably by the author of “The Cloud of Unknowing,” is printed by E. Gardner, ‘ The Cell of Self Knowledge,” p. 108.
148 Ruysbroeck, “De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum,” I. i. cap. xxvi.
149 Ennead, vi. 9.
150 “The Mending of Life,” cap. xi.
151 “Fondements de la Connaissance Mystique,” p. 7.
152 Dialogo, cap. xxvi.
153 “De Imitatione Christi,” I. ii. cap. v.
154 Jalalu ‘d Din (Wisdom of the East Series), p. 79.
155 Treatise to a Devout Man, cap. viii.
156 Sermon for Thursday in Easter Week (Winkworth’s translation, p. 294).
157 They were printed in 1658, “At Paris by Lewis de la Fosse in the Carme Street at the Signe of the Looking Glass,” and have lately been republished. I quote from the original edition.
158 P. 138.
159 P. 181.
160 Op. cit. pp. 9, 16, 25, 35, 138, 175.
161 Berger, “William Blake,” p. 72.
162 Ibid., p. 74.
163 Contemporary Review, April, 1899.
164 “Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit,” pt. iii. cap. 1.
165 Supra. p. 35.
166 Récéjac, op. cit., p. 35.
167 Revue Philosophique, July, 1902.
168 “Psychologie des Mystiques Chrétiens,” p 14.
169 “Camino de Perfeccion,” cap. xxiii.
170 In “El Castillo Interior.”
171 See Palmer, “Oriental Mysticism,” pt. v. ch. v.
172 Vita, p. 8.
173 “Subida del Monte Carmelo,” I. ii. cap. vii.
174 “De Consideratione,” I. v. cap. xi.
175 “Das Fliessende Light der Gottheit,” pt. vii. cap. 16.
176 “De Mystica Theologia,” i. 1.
177 “Aurora,” English translation, 1764, p. 237.
178 Dionysius the Areopagite. “De Mystica Theologia,” i. 3.
179 “Mystische Schriften,” p. 137.
180 Plotinus, Ennead vi. 9.
181 Op. cit.
182 “La gloria di colui che tutto move
per l’universo penetra, e resplende
in una parte più e meno altrove” (Par. i. 1-3).
The theological ground-plan of the Cantica is epitomized in this introductory verse.
183 “Summa Contra Gentiles,” 1. iv. cap. 1. (Rickaby’s translation).
184 Leben, cap. lvi.
185 Aug. Conf., bk. xiii. cap. xi.
186 Avisos y Sentencias Espirituales, N. 51.
187 “Varieties of Religious Experience,” Lecture vi.
188 Quoted by W. L. Lilly, “Many Mansions,” p. 140.
189 Ennead vi. 9.
190 Thus Aquinas says, “Since God is the universal cause of all Being, in whatever region Being can be found, there must be the Divine Presence” (“Summa Contra Gentiles,” 1. iii. cap. lxviii.). And we have seen that the whole claim of the mystics ultimately depends on man’s possession of pure being in “the spark of the soul.”
191 “De Ornatu Spiritualium Nuptiarum,” I. ii. cap. lxvii.
192 Op. cit., I. iii. cap. i.
193 Relaccion ix. 10. But this image of a sponge, which also suggested itelf to St. Augustine, proved an occasion of stumbling to his more metaphysical mind: tending to confuse his idea of the nature of God with the category of space. Vide Aug. Conf., bk. vii. cap. v.
194 “The Threefold Life of Man,” cap. vi. § 71.
195 Eckhart, Pred, lxix. So too we read in the Oxyrhyncus Papyri, “Raise the stone and there thou shalt find Me. Cleave the wood and there am I.”
196 Compare above, cap. ii.
197 “Revelations of Divine Love,” cap. xl.
198 Boyce Gibson, “God with Us,” p. 24.
199 See A. E. Waite, “ TheDoctrine and Literature of the Kabalah,” pp. 36-53.
200 Par. xxxiii. 137.
201 “Vala,” viii. 237.
202 “Jerusalem,” lxi. 44 and xcv. 23.
203 A. E. Waite, “The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabalah,” p. 35.
204 Palmer. “Oriental Mysticism,” pt. i. cap. i
205 Delacroix, “Études sur le Mysticisme,” p. 75. The reference in the last sentence is to St. Teresa’s “Castillo Interior.”
206 See Tauler, Sermon on St. John Baptist, and Third Instruction (“ The Inner Way,” pp. 97 and 321); Suso, “Buchlein von der Warheit,” cap. v.; Ruysbroeck, “De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum,” 1. iii. caps, ii. and vi.
207 St. Teresa, “El Castillo Interior,” Moradas; Sétimas, cap. i.
208 Julian of Norwich, “Revelations of Divine Love.” cap. lv. Julian here repeats a familiar Patristic doctrine. So St. Thomas says (“Summa Contra Gentiles,” 1. iv. cap. xxvi), “A likeness of the Divine Trinity is observable in the human mind.”
209 “The three Persons of the Trinity,” said John Scotus Erigena, “are less modes of the Divine Substance than modes under which our mind conceives the Divine Substance” — a stimulating statement of dubious orthodoxy.
210 Aug. Conf., bk. xiii. cap. xi.
211 Op. cit., cap. v.
212 Substance is here, of course, to be understood in the scholastic sense, as the reality which underlies merely phenomenal existence.
213 I.e. , the Second Person of the Christian Trinity is the redemptive, “fount of mercy,” the medium by which Grace, the free gift of transcendental life, reaches and vivifies human nature: “permeates it,” in Eucken’s words, “with the Infinite and Eternal” (“Der Sinn und Wert des Lebens,” p. 181).
214 “Revelations of Divine Love,” cap. lviii.
215 Op. cit., cap. lix.
216 “The School of the Heart,” Epigram x. This book, which is a free translation of the “Scola Cordis” of Benedict Haeften (1635), is often, but wrongly attributed to Francis Quarles.
217 “De Consideratione,” bk. v. cap. viii.
218 Ephesians iv. 6.
219 “De Visione Dei,” cap. xvii.
220 Eucken, “Der Sinn und Wert des Lebens,” p. 131.
221 “An Appeal to All who Doubt” (“Liberal and Mystical Writings of William Law” p. 54). Law’s symbols are here borrowed from the system of his master, Jacob Boehme. (See the “De Signatura Rerum” of Boehme, cap. xiv.)
222 Aug. Conf., bk. vii. cap. x.
223 Tauler, 3rd Instruction (“The Inner Way,” p. 324).
224 Par. xxxiii 67, 85.
225 “De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum,” I. iii. cap. iii.
226 Von Hügel, “The Mystical Element of Religion,” vol. i. p. 357.
227 Ruysbroeck, op. cit. ., loc. cit.
228 Supra, Cap. II.
229 Tauler, op. cit., loc. cit.
230 “Summa Contra Gentiles,” I. iv. cap. xxvi.
231 “De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum,” I. ii. cap. iv.
232 Op. cit., I. ii. cap. xxxvii.
233 Aug. Conf., bk. xiii. cap. ix.
234 Introduction to “Three Dialogues of the Supersensual Life,” p. xxx.
235 The doctrine is found in St. Augustine, and is frequently reproduced by the mediaeval mystics. Eckhart is perhaps here quoting St. Thomas Aquinas, a usual source of his more orthodox utterances. Compare “Summa Contra Gentiles,” I. iv. cap. xxiii: “Since the Holy Ghost proceeds as the love wherewith God loves Himself, and since God loves with the same love Himself and other beings for the sake of His own goodness, it is clear that the love wherewith God loves us belongs to the Holy Ghost. In like manner also the love wherewith we love God.”
236 Pred. xii.
237 “De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum “ I. iii. cap. iii.
238 Suso, Leben, cap. lvi.
239 “The Rod, the Root, and the Flower,” “Homo,” xix.
240 “De Visione Dei,” cap. xxiii.
241 “Because by the mystery of the Incarnate Word the new light of Thy brightness hath shone upon the eyes of our mind: that we, knowing God seen of the eyes, by Him may be snatched up into the love of that which eye hath not seen” (Missale Romanum. Praefatio Solemnis de Nativitate).
242 “The Threefold Life of Man, cap. iii. § 31.
243 Ruysbroeck, op. cit ., 1. iii. cap. i.
244 Dialogo, cap. xxii.
245 “Revelations of Divine Love,” cap. lix.
246 Par. xxiii. 37. “Here is the Wisdom and the Power which opened the ways betwixt heaven and earth, for which there erst had been so long a yearning.”
247 “Theologia Germanica,” cap. xviii.
248 “De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum,” 1. iii. cap. v. The extreme antiquity of this idea is illustrated by the Catholic practice, dating from Patristic times, of celebrating three Masses on Christmas Day. Of these the first, at midnight, commemorates the Eternal Generation of the Son; the second, at dawn, His incarnation upon earth; the third His birth in the heart of man. Compare the Roman Missal: also Kellner, “Heortology” (English translation, London, 1908), p. 156.
249 Eckhart, Pred. i., “Mystische Schriften,” p. 13. Compare Tauler, Sermon on the Nativity of Our Lady (“The Inner Way,” p. 167).
250 This idea of re-birth is probably of Oriental origin. It can be traced back to Egypt, being found in the Hermetic writings of the third century, B.C. See Petrie, “Personal Religion in Egypt before Christianity,” p. 167.
251 F. von Hügel, “The Life of Prayer,” p. 24.
252 Supra, p. 53.
253 “The Cloud upon the Sanctuary,” p. 77.
254 The Enochian Walks with God,” p. 3.
255 Op. cit ., p. 81.
256 “De Signatura Rerum,” viii. 47.
257 “De Itinerado Mentis in Deo,” cap. vii.
258 Jámi, “Joseph and Zulaikha. The Poet’s Prayer.”
259 “Theologia Germanica,” cap. x.
260 St. Catherine of Genoa, “ Vita e Dottrina,” cap. xiv.
261 “Vita e Dottrina,” p. 36.
262 This image seems first to have been elaborated by St. Augustine, from whom it was borrowed by Hugh of St. Victor, and most of the mediaeval mystics.
263 “The Scale of Perfection,” bk. ii. cap. xxi.
264 So too Ruysbroeck says that “the just man goes towards God by inward love in perpetual activity and in God in virtue of his fruitive affection in eternal rest” (“De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum.” I. ii. cap. lxv).
265 I need not remind the reader of the fact that this symbolism, perverted to the purposes of his skeptical philosophy, runs through the whole of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám.
266 See Palmer’s “Oriental Mysticism,” pt. I. caps. i., ii., iii., and v.
267 An abridged translation of ‘Attar’s allegory of the Valleys will be found in “The Conference of the Birds,” by R. P. Masani (1924). See also W. S. Lilly’s “Many Mansions,” p. 130.
268 Jundt, “Rulman Merswin,” p. 27.
269 Royce, “The World and the Individual,” vol. ii. p. 386.
270 “The Scale of Perfection,” bk. ii. cap. xxiv.
271 Compare Récéjac (“Fondements de la Connaissance Mystique,” p. 252). “According to mysticism, morality leads the soul to the frontiers of the Absolute and even gives it an impulsion to enter, but this is not enough. This movement of pure Freedom cannot succeed unless there is an equivalent movement within the Absolute itself.”
272 Aug. Conf., bk. xiii. cap. 9. “All those who love,” says Ruysbroeck, “feel this attraction: more or less according to the degree of their love.” (“De Calculo sive de Perfectione filiorum Dei.”)
273 Meister Eckhart, Pred. iii.
274 Ibid ., Pred. xiii.
275 “Revelations of Divine Love,” cap. vi.
276 The Greek and English text will be found in the “Apocrypha Anecdota” of Dr. M. R. James, series 2 (Cambridge, 1897), pp. 1-25. I follow his translation. It will be seen that I have adopted the hypotheses of Mr. G. R. S. Mead as to the dramatic nature of this poem. See his “Echoes from the Gnosis,” 1896.
277 Jalalu d’ Din Rumi (Wisdom of the East Series), p. 77.
278 So Dante —
“ Nel suo profondo vidi che s’interna
legato con amore in un volume
cio che per l’universo si squaderna.”
(Par. xxxiii. 85.)
279 “The Rod, the Root, and the Flower,” “Aurea Dicta,” ccxxviii.
280 “Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit,” pt. i. cap. iii.
281 “Quia amore langueo,” an anonymous fifteenth-century poem. Printed from the Lambeth MS. by the E.E.T.S., 1866-67.
282 Pred. lxxxviii.
283 So we are told of St. Francis of Assisi, that in his youth he “tried to flee God’s hand.” Thomas of Celano, Legenda Prima, cap. ii.
284 Sr. Bernard, “Cantica Canticorum,” Sermon vii. For a further and excellent discussion of St. Bernard’s mystical language, see Dom Cuthbert Butler, “Western Mysticism,” 2nd ed., pp. 160 seq.
285 Vide infra, Pt. II. cap. v.
286 Professor Pratt, by no means an enthusiastic witness, most justly observes “There are several excellent reasons why the mystics almost inevitably make use of the language of human love in describing the joy of the love of God. The first and simplest is this: that they have no other language to use . . . the mystic must make use of expressions drawn from earthly love to describe his experience, or give up the attempt of describing it at all. It is the only way he has of even suggesting to the non-mystical what he has felt” (“The Religious Consciousness,” p. 418).
287 “El Castillo Interior,” Moradas Sétimas, cap ii.
288 “De Quatuor Gradibus Violentae Charitatis” (Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. cxcvi. col. 1207).
289 “In primo gradu fit desponsatio, in secundo nuptiae, in tertio copula, in quarto puerperium. . . . De quarto dicitur, Coucepimus, et quasi parturivimus et peperimus spiritum” (Isa. xviii . 26). (Op. cit., 1216, D.)
290 “Subida del Monte Carmelo,” lii. cap. v.
291 Vide infra , pt. ii. caps. i. and x.
292 “Theologia Germanica,” cap. i.
293 “A Short Enquiry Concerning the Hermetic Art,” p. 29.
294 “Religio Medici,” pt. i.
295 “A Suggestive Enquiry into the Hermetic Mystery,” p. 143. This rare and curious study of spiritual alchemy was the anonymous work of the late Mrs. Atwood. She attempted to suppress it soon after publication under the impression — common amongst mystics of a certain type — that she had revealed matters which might not be spoken of; as Coventry Patmore for the same reason destroyed his masterpiece, “Sponsa Dei.”
296 Quoted in “A Suggestive Enquiry into the Hermetic Mystery,” p. 107. The whole of the “Golden Treatise” will be found set out in this work.
297 Jacob Boehme, “The Threefold Life of Man,” cap. iv. § 23.
298 Boehme, “The Threefold Life of Man,” cap. vi. § 98; cap. x. §§ 3, 4; and cap. xiii. § 1.
299 “The Golden Tripod of the Monk Basilius Valentinus” (“The Hermetic Museum, “ vol. i. p. 319).
300 “A Short Enquiry Concerning the Hermetic Art,” p. 17.
301 “The Hermetic Museum,” vol. i. p. 272.
302 “A Suggestive Enquiry,” p. 345.
303 See “A Short Enquiry,” p. 17, and “A Suggestive Enquiry,” pp. 297 et seq ., where the rhymed Alchemic tract called “Hunting the Greene Lyon” is printed in full.
304 Op. cit.
305 Sir Thomas Browne, “Religio Medici,” pt. i.
306 R. A. Vaughan, “Hours with the Mystics,” vol. i. bk. i. ch. v.
307 In a list published by Papus from the archives of the Martinists, we find such diverse names as Averroes, St. Thomas Aquinas, Vincent of Beauvais, and Swedenborg, given as followers of the occult tradition!
308 See R. Steiner, “The Way of Initiation,” p. 111.
309 Supra, pp. 70 seq.
310 A. E. Waite, “The Occult Sciences,” p. 1.
311 Steiner, “The Way of Initiation,” p. 66.
312 See E. Towne, “Joy Philosophy” (1903) and “Just How to Wake the Solar Plexus” (1904); R. D. Stocker, “New Thought Manual” (1906) and “Soul Culture” (1905); Floyd Wilson, “Man Limitless” (1905). The literature of these sects is enormous. For a critical and entertaining account, see C. W. Ferguson, ‘The Confusion of Tongues.” (1929).
313 It must here be pointed out that the genuine “Hermetica” — a body of ancient philosophic and religious pieces collected under this general title — are entirely unconnected with occultism. Cf. “Hermetica,” ed. with English translation by W. Scott. 3 vols. 1924-8.
314 A. E. Waite, a life-long student of these byeways of thought, gives, as the main channels by which “an arcane knowledge is believed to have been communicated to the West,” Magic, Alchemy, Astrology, the occult associations which culminated in Freemasonry, and, finally, “an obscure sheaf of hieroglyphs known as Tarot cards.” He places in another class “the bewitchments and other mummeries of Ceremonial Magic.” (“The Holy Kabbalah,” pp. 518-19.)
315 For a discussion of the Gnostic and Theosophic elements in Blake’s work see D. Surat, “Blake and Modern Thought” (1929).
316 A. E. Waite, “Doctrine and Literature of the Kabbalah,” p. 48.
317 I offer no opinion as to the truth or falsity of these “occult” claims. For a more detailed discussion the reader is referred to Steiner’s curious little book, “The Way of Initiation.”
318 C. W. Leadbeater, “The Science of the Sacraments,” p. 38.
319 Compare the following: “Imagine that all the world and the starry hosts are waiting, alert and with shining eyes, to do your bidding. Imagine that you are to touch the button now, and instantly they will spring to do the rest. The instant you say, ‘I can and I will,’ the entire powers of the universe are to be set in motion” (E. Towne, “Joy Philosophy,” p. 52).
320 “Rituel de la Haute Magie,” pp. 35, 36.
321 “The Occult Sciences,” p. 14. But references in Mr. Waite’s most recent work to “the puerilities and imbecility of ceremonial magic” suggest that he has modified his views. Cf. “The Holy Kabbalah” (1929), p. 521.
322 “Rituel de la Haute Magie,” p. 71.
323 “Rituel de la Haute Magie,” p. 139.
324 “Dogme de la Haute Magie,” p. 361 et seq.
325 “Rituel de la Haute Magie,” p. 32.
326 “Dogme de la Haute Magie,” p. 129.
327 “Rituel,” p. 312.
328 “Dogma,” p. 134.
329 “Histoire de la Magie,” p. 514.
330 “The Rod, the Root, and the Flower,” “Knowledge and Science,” xxii.
331 Science seems more and more inclined to acquiesce in this judgment. See especially A. N. Whitehead: “Man and the Modern World” and “Religion in the Making.”
332 “Jerusalem,” pt. iii.
333 Quoted by R. A. Nicholson, “The Mystics of Islam,” p. 168.
334 Schmölders, “Les Écoles Philosophiques chez les Arabes,” p. 61.
335 “Études sur le Mysticisme,” p. 235.
336 “The Psychology of Religion,” p. 147.
337 “El Castillo Interior,” Moradas Sétimas, cap. i.
338 Dialogo, cap. vii.
339 “De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum,” I. ii. cap. lxxiii.
340 E. Gardner, “St. Catherine of Siena,” p. 15.
341 S. Catherine Senensis Vitae (Acta SS. Aprilis t. iii.), ii. ii. § 4.
342 See Starbuck, “The Psychology of Religion,” cap. xxix.
343 Op. cit., cap. xii.
344 J. B. Pratt, “The Religious Consciousness,” cap. xiii. The whole chapter deserve careful study.
345 Journal of George Fox, cap. i.
346 Aug. Conf., bk. vii. cap. xvii. We can surely trace the influence of such an experience in St. Paul’s classic description of the “endopsychic conflict”: Rom. vii. 14-25.
347 Plotinus, Ennead vi. 9.
348 “It is certain,” says De Sanctis, “that when we attempt to probe deeper in our study of sudden converts, we discover that the coup de foudre, which in the main is observable in only a small minority of conversions, is in fact the least significant, though the most Esthetic, moment of the conversion.” (“Religious Conversion,” Eng. trans., p. 65. Compare St. Augustine’s Confessions, with their description of the years of uncertainty and struggle which prepared him for the sudden and final “Tolle, lege!” that initiated him into the long-sought life of Reality.)
349 Op. cit., p. 171.
350 “Journal Spirituel de Lucie-Christine,” p. 11.
351 Thomas of Celano, Legenda Prima, cap. 1.
352 Thomas of Celano, Legenda Secunda, cap. v. Compare P. Sabatier. “Vie de S. François d’Assise,” cap. ii., where the authorities are fully set out.
353 Thomas of Celano, Legenda Secunda, cap. vi.
354 “Vita e Dottrina di Santa Caterina da Genova,” cap ii.
355 Von Hügel, “The Mystical Element of Religion,” vol. ii p. 29.
356 It is clear from the heading of cap. x. (pt. i.) of her Autobiography that Madame Guyon’s editors were conscious, if she was not, of some of the close coincidences between her experiences and those of St. Catherine of Genoa. The parallel between their early years is so exact and descends to such minute details that I am inclined to think that the knowledge of this resemblance, and the gratification with which she would naturally regard it, has governed or modified her memories of this past. Hence a curious and hitherto unnoticed case of “unconscious spiritual plagiarism.”
357 For a thoroughly hostile account see Leuba: ‘The Psychology of Religious Mysticism,” cap. iv.
358 Vie, pt. i. cap. iv.
359 Op. cit., pt. i. cap. vi.
360 “Madame Guyon,” p. 36.
361 Vie, pt. i. cap. viii.
362 Op. cit., loc. cit.
363 One of the best English accounts of this movement and the great personalities concerned in it is in Rufus Jones, “Studies in Mystical Religion,” cap. xiii.
364 A. Jundt, “Rulman Merswin,” p. 19. M. Jundt has condensed his account which I here translate, from Merswin’s autobiographical story of his conversion, published in Breiträge zu den theologischen Wissenschaften , v . (Jena, 1854). Our whole knowledge of Merswin’s existence depends on the group of documents which includes this confession, the “Book of Two Men,” the “Vision of Nine Rocks,” and his other reputed works. The authenticity of these documents has been much questioned, and they have doubtless suffered severely from the editorial energy of his followers. Some critics even regard them as pious fictions, useless as evidence of the incidents of Merswin’s life. With this view, upheld by Karl Reider (“Der Gottesfreund von Oberland,” 1905), I cannot agree. A possible solution of the many difficulties is that of M. Jundt, who believes that we have in Merswin and the mysterious “Friend of God of the Oberland,” who pervades his spiritual career, a remarkable case of dissociated personality. Merswin’s peculiar psychic make up, as described in his autobiography, supports this view: the adoption of which I shall assume in future references to his life. It is incredible that the vivid account of his conversion which I quote should be merely “tendency-literature,” without basis in fact. Compare Jundt’s monograph, and also Rufus Jones, op. cit. pp . 245-253, where the whole problem is discussed.
365 Jundt, op. cit., loc. cit.
366 “Leben und Schriften” (Diepenbrock), cap. i. Suso’s autobiography is written in the third person. He refers to himself throughout under the title of “Servitor of the Eternal Wisdom.”
367 Op. cit., loc. cit.
368 Leben, cap. iii.
369 Bremond, “Histoire Littérario du Sentiment Religieux en France.” vol. iv. pp. 359 seq.
370 “Summa contra Gentiles,” I. iii. cap. lxii.
371 The complete test of the Memorial isprinted, among other places, in Faugère’s edition of the “Pensées, Fragments et Lettres de Blaise Pascal,” 2nd ed., Paris, 1897. Tome i. p. 269; and is reproduced in facsimile by Bremond loc. cit. Bremond holds that the Memorial is the record of two distinct experiences: a “mystical experience in the proper meaning of the word,” and an “affective meditation arising from it.” This view does not seem incompatible with my original description, which I therefore retain. (Note to 12th ed.)
372 Brother Lawrence, “The Practice of the Presence of God,” p. 9.
373 “The Way of Initiation,” p. 134.
374 “Letters of William Blake,” p. 62.
375 “The Psychology of Religion,” p. 120.
376 James, “Varieties of Religion Experience,” p. 253. This phenomenon receives brilliant literary expression in John Masefield’s poem “The Everlasting Mercy” (1911).
377 Whitman, “The Prayer of Colombus.”
378 “The Story of My Heart,” pp. 8, 9, 45, 181.
379 Bucke, “Cosmic Consciousness, a Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind.” Philadelphia. 1905.
380 “Fire of Love,” bk. i. cap. xii.
381 Ibid., bk. i. cap. xv.
382 Ibid., cap. xiv.
383 Hilton and the author of “The Cloud of Unknowing” both refer to “sensible heat” as a well-known but dubious concomitant of spiritual experience. Compare the confession of a modern convert, “I was siezed and possessed by an interior flame, for which nothing had prepared me; waves of fire succeeding one another for more than two hours.” (“Madeleine Sémer, Convertie et Mystique,” 1874-1921, p. 71.)
384 “Fire of Love,” bk. i. Prologue.
385 Ibid., bk. i. cap. xv.
386 Ibid., bk. ii. cap. xii.
387 Supra, p. 35.
388 Ibid., p. 128.
389 St. Mechthild of Hackborn, “Liber Specialis Gratiae,” I. ii. cap. i
390 “The Fire of Love,” bk. i. cap. i.
391 Dionysius the Areopagite, “De Divinis Nominibus,” iv. 13.
392 “The Rod, the Root, and the Flower,” “Magna Moralia,” xxii.
393 “The Scale of Perfection,” bk. ii. cap. xxxvii.
394 Dialogo, cap. iv.
395 “Ignitum cum Deo Soliloquium.” cap. xi.
396 Richard Rolle, “The Mending of Life,” cap. i.
397 Ibid., “The Fire of Love,” bk. i. cap, xxiii.
398 “Buchlein von der ewigen Weisheit,” cap. v.
399 Jundt, “Rulman Merswin,” p. 19.
400 Revelations of Divine Love,” cap. lvi.
401 I offer no opinion upon the question of authorship. Those interested may consult Von Hügel, “The Mystical Element of Religion,” vol. i., Appendix. Whoever may be responsible for its present form, the Treatise is clearly founded upon first-hand mystic experience: which is all that our present purpose requires.
402 “Trattato di Purgatorio,” caps. ii. and iii.
403 Purg. ii., 60.
404 “Subida del Monte Carmelo I. i. cap. xiv.
405 “De Imitatione Christi,” I. iii. cap. i.
406 “Theologia Germanica,” cap. xiv.
407 Meister Eckhart, quoted by Wackernagel, “Altdeutsches Lesebuch,” p. 891.
408 “Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit.” pt. vi., cap. 4.
409 St. John of the Cross, “Subida del Monte Carmelo,” bk. i. cap. xiii.
410 “Theologia Germanica,” cap. v.
411 Ennead vi. 9.
412 “Oh Poverty, high wisdom! to be subject to nothing, and by despising all to possess all created things. . . .
God will not lodge in a narrow heart; and it is as great as thy love. Poverty has so ample a bosom that Deity Itself may lodge therein. . . .
Poverty is naught to have, and nothing to desire: but all things to possess in the spirit of liberty.” — Jacopone da Todi. Lauda lix.
413 “Fioretti,” cap. xvi., and “Speculum,” cap. cxx.
414 Ibid., cap. xiii. (Arnold’s translation).
415 Pfeiffer, Tractato x. (Eng. translation., p, 348).
416 “Sacrum Commercium Beati Francisci cum Domina Paupertate,” caps. iv. and v. (Rawnsley’s translation).
417 Op. cit., cap. xxii.
418 So Ruysbroeck, “Freewill is the king of the soul . . . he should dwell in the chief city of that kingdom: that is to say, the desirous power of the soul” (“De Ornatu Spiritalium Nuptiarum,” I. i. cap. xxiv.).
419 Meister Eckhart. Quoted in Martensen’s monograph, p. 107.
420 Schmölders, “Essai sur les Écoles Philosophiques chez les Arabes,” p. 54.
421Schmölders, “Essai sur les Écoles Philosophiques chez les Arabes,” op. cit., p. 58.
422 Richard Rolle, “The Mending of Life,” cap. iii.
423 “Ignitum cum Deo Soliloquium,” cap. i.
424 “Subida del Monte Carmelo,” I. i. cap. iii.
425 Gerlac Petersen, op. cit., cap. xi.
426 St. John of the Cross, op. cit., cap. xi.
427 Richard Rolle, “The Fire of Love,” bk. i. cap. xix.
428 Thomas of Celano, Legenda Prima, cap. vi.
429 “An Apology for Mrs. Antoinette Bourignan,” pp. 269-70.
430 St. Teresa’s mystic states are particularly difficult to classify. From one point of view these struggles might be regarded as the preliminaries of conversion. She was, however, proficient in contemplation when they occurred, and I therefore think that my arrangement is the right one.
431 Quoted by G. Cunninghame Graham, “Santa Teresa,” vol. i. p. 139. For St. Teresa’s own account, see Vida, caps. vii-ix.
432 Sermon on St. Paul (“The Inner Way,” p. 113).
433 Cotter Morison, “Life and Times of St. Bernard,” p. 68.
434 Thomas of Celano, Legenda Prima, cap. xxix.
435 Ibid., Legenda Secunda, cap. cxxiv.
436 Anne Macdonell, “St. Douceline,” p. 30.
437 Vida, cap. ix., p. 6.
438 “In that time and by God’s will there died my mother, who was a great hindrance unto me in following the way of God: soon after my husband died likewise, and also all my children. And because I had commenced to follow the Aforesaid Way, and had prayed God that He would rid me of them, I had great consolation of their deaths. (Ste Angèle de Foligno: “Le Livre de l’Expérience des Vrais Fidèles.” Ed. M. J. Ferry p. 10.)
439 “De Imitatione Christi,” I. i. caps. iii. and ix.
440 Tauler, Sermon on St. Paul (“The Inner Way,” p. 114).
441 Tauler, Second Sermon for Easter Day. (This is not included in either of the English collections.)
442 Augustine Baker, “Holy Wisdom,” Treatise ii. Sect. i., cap. 3.
443