the Cross.163 It would be strange if he could not; since their finite passions are but the feeble images of his infinite one, their beloved the imperfect symbol of his First and only Fair. “I saw Him and sought Him: I had Him and I wanted Him,” says Julian of Norwich, in a phrase which seems to sum up all the ecstasy and longing of man’s soul. Only this mystic passion can lead us from our prison. Its brother, the desire of knowledge, may enlarge and improve the premises to an extent as yet undreamed of: but it can never unlock the doors.
(4) Mysticism entails a definite Psychological Experience.
That is to say, it shows itself not merely as an attitude of mind and heart, but as a form of organic life. It is not only a theory of the intellect or a hunger, however passionate, of the heart. It involves the organizing of the whole self, conscious and unconscious, under the spur of such a hunger: a remaking of the whole character on high levels in the interests of the transcendental life. The mystics are emphatic in their statement that spiritual desires are useless unless they initiate this costly movement of the whole self towards the Real.
Thus in the visions of Mechthild of Magdeburg, “The soul spake thus to her Desire, ‘Fare forth and see where my Love is. Say to him that I desire to love.’ So Desire sped forth, for she is quick of her nature, and came to the Empyrean and cried, ‘Great Lord, open and let me in!’ Then said the Householder of that place: ‘What means this fiery eagerness?’ Desire replied, ‘Lord I would have thee know that my lady can no longer bear to live. If Thou wouldst flow forth to her, then might she swim: but the fish cannot long exist that is left stranded on the shore.’ ‘Go back,’ said the Lord, ‘I will not let thee in unless thou bring to me that hungry soul, for it is in this alone that I take delight.’”164
We have said165 that the full mystic consciousness is extended in two distinct directions. So too there are two distinct sides to the full mystical experience. (A) The vision or consciousness of Absolute Perfection. (B) The inward transmutation to which that Vision compels the mystic, in order that he may be to some extent worthy of that which he has beheld: may take his place within the order of Reality. He has seen the Perfect; he wants to be perfect too. The “third term,” the necessary bridge between the Absolute and the Self, can only, he feels, be moral and spiritual transcendence — in a word, Sanctity — for “the only means of attaining the Absolute lies in adapting ourselves to It.”166 The moral virtues are for him, then, the obligatory “ornaments of the Spiritual Marriage” as Ruysbroeck called them: though far more than their presence is needed to bring that marriage about. Unless this impulse for moral perfection be born in him, this travail of the inner life begun, he is no mystic: though he may well be a visionary, a prophet, a “mystical” poet.
Moreover, this process of transmutation, this rebuilding of the self on higher levels, will involve the establishment within the field of consciousness, the making “central for life,” of those subconscious spiritual perceptions which are the primary material of mystical experience. The end and object of this “inward alchemy” will be the raising of the whole self to the condition in which conscious and permanent union with the Absolute takes place and man, ascending to the summit of his manhood, enters into that greater life for which he was made. In its journey towards this union, the subject commonly passes through certain well-marked phases, which constitute what is known as the “Mystic Way.” This statement rules out from the true mystic kingdom all merely sentimental and affective piety and visionary poetry, no less than mystical philosophy. It brings us back to our first proposition — the concrete and practical nature of the mystical act.
More than the apprehension of God, then, more than the passion for the Absolute, is needed to make a mystic. These must be combined with an appropriate psychological make-up, with a nature capable of extraordinary concentration, an exalted moral emotion, a nervous organization of the artistic type. All these are necessary to the successful development of the mystic life process. In the experience of those mystics who have left us the records of their own lives, the successive stages of this life process are always traceable. In the second part of this book, they will be found worked out at some length. Rolle, Suso, St. Teresa, and many others have left us valuable self-analyses for comparison: and from them we see how arduous, how definite, and how far removed from mere emotional or intellectual activity, is that educational discipline by which “the eye which looks upon Eternity” is able to come to its own. “One of the marks of the true mystic,” says Leuba — by no means a favourable witness — “is the tenacious and heroic energy with which he pursues a definite moral ideal.”167 “He is,” says Pacheu, “the pilgrim of an inward Odyssey.”168 Though we may be amazed and delighted by his adventures and discoveries on the way, to him the voyage and the end are all. “The road on which we enter is a royal road which leads to heaven,” says St. Teresa. “Is it strange that the conquest of such a treasure should cost us rather dear?”169
It is one of the many indirect testimonies to the objective reality of mysticism that the stages of this road, the psychology of the spiritual ascent, as described to us by different schools of contemplatives, always present practically the same sequence of states. The “school for saints” has never found it necessary to bring its curriculum up to date. The psychologist finds little difficulty, for instance, in reconciling the “Degrees of Orison” described by St. Teresa170 — Recollection, Quiet, Union, Ecstasy, Rapt, the “Pain of God,” and the Spiritual Marriage of the soul — with the four forms of contemplation enumerated by Hugh of St. Victor, or the Sufi’s “Seven Stages” of the soul’s ascent to God, which begin in adoration and end in spiritual marriage.171 Though each wayfarer may choose different landmarks, it is clear from their comparison that the road is one.
(5) As a corollary to these four rules, it is perhaps well to reiterate the statement already made, that True Mysticism is never self-seeking. It is not, as many think, the pursuit of supernatural joys; the satisfaction of a high ambition. The mystic does not enter on his quest because he desires the happiness of the Beatific Vision, the ecstasy of union with the Absolute, or any other personal reward. That noblest of all passions, the passion for perfection for Love’s sake, far outweighs the desire for transcendental satisfaction. “O Love,” said St. Catherine of Genoa, “I do not wish to follow thee for sake of these delights, but solely from the motive of true love.”172 Those who do otherwise are only, in the plain words of St. John of the Cross, “spiritual gluttons”:173 or, in the milder metaphor here adopted, magicians of the more high-minded sort. The true mystic claims no promises and makes no demands. He goes because he must, as Galahad went towards the Grail: knowing that for those who can live it, this alone is life. He never rests in that search for God which he holds to be the fulfilment of his highest duty; yet he seeks without any certainty of success. He holds with St. Bernard that “He alone is God who can never be sought in vain: not even when He cannot be found.”174 With Mechthild of Magdeburg, he hears the Absolute saying in his soul, “O soul, before the world was I longed for thee: and I still long for thee, and thou for Me. Therefore, when our two desires unite, Love shall be fulfilled.”175
Like his type, the “devout lover” of romance, then, the mystic serves without hope of reward. By one of the many paradoxes of the spiritual life, he obtains satisfaction because he does not seek it; completes his personality because he gives it up. “Attainment,” says Dionysius the Areopagite in words which are writ large on the annals of Christian ecstasy, “comes only by means of this sincere, spontaneous, and entire surrender of yourself and all things.”176 Only with the annihilation of selfhood comes the fulfilment of love. Were the mystic asked the cause of his often extraordinary behaviour, his austere and steadfast quest, it is unlikely that his reply would contain any reference to sublime illumination or unspeakable delights. It is more probable that he would answer in some such words as those of Jacob Boehme, “I am not come to this meaning, or to this work and knowledge through my own reason or through my own will and purpose; neither have I sought this knowledge, nor so much as to know anything concerning it. I sought only for the heart of God, therein to hide myself.”177
“Whether we live or whether we die,” said St. Paul, “we are the Lord’s.”
