A Contemporary Mystical Experience?
The highlight of the weekend was the Saturday night communion service. With all one hundred or so of the participants present, we’d have a long, comfortable, folk-style service, with plenty of singing as we stood arm in arm, swaying to the music. Although I had participated in such acoustic-guitar-driven worship services before, this one seemed different, from the start. As we sang, and eventually shared the bread and wine of Holy Communion, it seemed to me as if the entire room began to glow. Not a physical glowing, as if someone had turned on additional lights, but a radiance, a presence—words fail to describe. Slowly, but suddenly and obviously, things were different. Only words associated with light seem to capture the experience. Luminous, resplendent, glowing. It’s as if everything—the walls of the room, the various people within it, the bread and the wine being passed from hand to hand—shimmered with a light that I could still perceive even when I closed my eyes. Call it energy, perhaps. It wasn’t just as if there were a nonphysical light, it felt as if a new kind of love or joy had become manifest for the first time ever. I felt loved like I never had before.It seemed to me as if every person in the room became radiant with a visibly miraculous glow. Once I noticed it, I felt simply carried along by this serenity and joy that I had never felt before. It wasn’t ecstasy, for I didn’t feel like I left my body; nor was it a vision, for physically things appeared just as they always had. It had nothing to do with drugs; indeed when at a later date I experimented with LSD or cocaine or magic mushrooms, those substances always seemed pale and physically jarring in comparison to the loveliness I had known that night in Massanetta. Nor was it any kind of psychological breakdown—it had no ill effect on me physically or emotionally, other than to leave me with a sense of serenity and a feeling of connection to the God whom we were worshipping that evening.This supernatural energy was so gut-level real to me, and so far beyond anything I might have imagined or tried to concoct, that I thought something objectively miraculous had happened in the room, some sort of profound moment in which God chose to reveal himself. By “objective,” I mean I thought everyone must have experienced what I did. Honestly. It never occurred to me that this might have been just a subjective experience! But I soon discovered to my surprise—and somewhat dismay—that others hadn’t felt or seen anything at all unusual that evening. After the service ended, I said to two or three people, “Wasn’t that amazing?” to which they replied with a totally noncommittal “Uh-huh.” Soon I realized that, for some reason, I had been given a unique gift.
It happened at church camp, but this wasn’t about church. I’ve been to plenty of church-sponsored events both before and since, and never did the windows of eternity open like they did that evening. No, it was something far deeper, far more profound, than mere religion.
— from The Aspiring Mystic: Practical Steps
for Spiritual Seekers by Carl McColman.
THE WEBSITE OF UNKNOWING is devoted to Christian mysticism, interfaith spirituality, Celtic wisdom, emergent theology, and assorted other topics. Click on the tabs above to explore all that this website has to offer.
August 23, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Enjoyed your Myspace page and came here to look at what your all about. It’s all so very good and cool and I must admit I am envious of your spiritual journey as you seem to “have it all-together” whatever that means. I am very proud of you for writing as I have often aspired to do so but it seems that I must be in the right (for lack of better word) spirit to do so, and then of course when I look at what I have written later I feel so disconnected from it, and then the wolf barks at me and reminds me of how egocentric I am. Anyway enough of that, just wanted to say to keep on I will enjoy reading your work both on and off the net. Thanx
Tom.
September 11, 2007 at 3:56 am
Carl,
What a beautiful experience and beautifully written as well. Like you, I, too, have had amazing experiences of God’s immense love, both for myself and others. I consider myself a mystic because of how many I have had and the fact that they are on-going. I was glas to see that you said on the Amazon. com site that “aspiring” was referring to the desire to be transformed by that love and joy. For we can’t “make” any mystical experience happen for it is simply a gift given by God. No amount of contemplative prayer guarantees such experiences. Do mystical experiences transform”? Yes and no. Yes, because we glimpse God’s reality permeating our universe and lives and so want to align ouselves with God. No, because we have free will and every moment we have to choose love over self-interest. Mystical moments give us an overwhelming desire to choose love and in that sense, we have an advantage over those who have never had that kind of mystical experience. Personally, I like to think of it as the sacrament of the present moment, an idea I once read about. Every moment is a chance to be united with God by consciously uniting our actions with those of Jesus and the saints and using their merits for an intention. That is the mystical body of Christ concept in action. You can “offer-up” joyful or sad moments, loving moments or frustrating ones, etc… That is one of the ways I conconcretely express my union with God. The other part of the idea of the sacramental moment is that you must leave enough time in your schedule for the unexpected. I might have a schedule in my mind for my day, but God sometimes places someone in my path and I need a little extra time to be with that person. If I am too tightly scheduled then I miss an opportunity to serve God by joyfully, patiently, and lovingly serving this person.
October 26, 2007 at 6:36 am
[...] un-anticipated encounter with the mystery of all-pervading loving consciousness that to this day I can only explain as the loving presence of God. When I did return to my home church, I discovered that it was not a place where it felt safe to [...]
February 14, 2008 at 2:05 am
carl, i understand. nancy brought up a point concerning time being in the present moment when one is caught up in god, not the future nor the past, we have to slow down, way down. granted, god gives us consolations, he also rewards our efforts. if a person is truly seeking god or truth and god knows pseudo,believe me, god will manifest himself.god loves to be found. don’t ever give up your search, wail at heaven if you must and eventually in his time he will come. god does not have favorites but he does run the show. if you are really looking for him, just pray and don’t give up. jesus will lead you to the father and his holy spirt will begin the renewing. this can be glorious and difficult. then comes the understanding of eternal life. your salvation must be worked out, your co-operation is necessary. judy
April 30, 2008 at 6:13 am
[...] I had a more thoroughly “mind-expanding” experience of the presence of God, which I recount here. Having experienced the unitive presence of God, and then trying LSD, I can safely say that an [...]
May 12, 2008 at 10:22 am
Hmmm..interesting site. I will explore it more.
Not quite sure how I ended up here today..maybe to see your book? The image on the cover caught my eye..some connections there. Now the subject of the book caught my interest.
On my “about” page I call myself a ~seeker~ and it has always been so..as long as I can remember. Sometimes I consider the seeking a curse, because it tends to consume my thoughts. :O
Thank you for sharing your experiences.
June 1, 2008 at 8:59 am
Having I’m sure met a few like me you’ll know that I am underwhelmed by such things. I’ve experienced such feelings religious types might call ‘divine grace’ or some such buzzword phrase, in my case I get them usually while alone and in natural surroundings, a feeling of serenity beyond the norm, a sense of place within all things and a peculiar ’spiritual’ aspect to the light.
I’ve felt like this more times than I can recount. Yet I am an atheist. Right there goes the theory of the divine unless you are to believe God is more often following atheists around going ‘Hey, hey, hey! Come on, be spiritual!’ I don’t take drugs, I drink in moderation, I don’t embrace anything that would change the chemical make-up of my brain because I rely on it to be stable and filter true from false. I can hardly do that if I throw my constants out of whack.
I would say the experience of grace is an unfamiliar one simply because on the whole we don’t often find ourselves satisfying our hierarchy of needs (according to Maslow) beyond the first rung. this is either because we think too much or in our problem solving minds we conjure a whole plethora of perceived issues where there are none.
Away from the city and in a forest, content with sustenance, feeling unconscious of myself within a greater system I become free of my needs and existential dreads that plague modern man. The cliché of being at one with nature prevails and my perspective swings to one of almost Taoist simplicity. An animal at peace seeing the world as form and light, separate from the constrictive urgency of our human need to label and quantify.
This sense of being ‘one’ with something is akin to relinquishing all anxieties and fears to a greater force. Dangerously close to a Freudian analysis of a child being at peace in the arms of a parent, beyond all question of trust…With adults seeking in their lives all situations that can return them to this state of sublime equilibrium, no longer counting the seconds, tallying the costs or being caught in the hectic flux of day to day life.
It’s no wonder this can be experienced in varied ways, the situation required to create such a phenomenon would likely be highly subjective and related to mental state and connotations of environmental factors. It occurs for people of every religion and is called many things.
June 1, 2008 at 10:29 am
Laurie Anderson sang, “This is the time, and this is the record of the time.” We experience what we experience, and then we talk about it, which of necessity involves interpretation. Any experience can be interpreted in a reductionist or expansionist way. The choice is always ours. Hopefully, though, we can find ways to simply describe who we are, what we see and feel, what we experience, and what it means to us, and let the chips fall where they may.
Certainly, a Freudian or Skinnerian interpretation of my experience will be reductionist. No wonder anyone who holds such an interpretation would find it “underwhelming.”
As a longstanding student of mysticism, I’m always curious about how a mystical experience changes a person’s life, outlook, and ability to find joy and delight through love and service. I am inclined to believe that any so-called mystical or unitive experience that does not lead to a radical restructuring of one’s values and behavior probably is in itself a pretty underwhelming experience, as mystical experiences go.
Lordvore, your comment makes me think you have fallen prey to the pre/trans fallacy. If you’re not familiar with Ken Wilber’s work, it might be interesting for you to explore.