Mystics With Hands
John S. Stokes Jr.
(Second Draft, 1980 - some editing)
CONTENTS
i Preface
1 World Needfor Mysticism
2 Personal Need for Mysticism
3 Inspiration and Insights
4 Recollections
5 Growth Model
6 ConversionPurgative Ascent
8 Affective Ascent
9 Soul
10 Luminous Descent
11 Luminous Ascent
12 Wisdom Descent
13 Soul Ascent
14 Heavenly UnionSpirit Descent
16 Intercession
17 Love of Neighbor
18 Peaceable Ascent
19 Heavenly Descent
20 Re-Creation
21 Pleuromic Ascent
22 Church
23 Society
24 World
MYSTICS WITH HANDS
PREFACE
This book is a testimony to nature, to the material
world, as a mirror of the subtle, spiritual world - a mirror
of its truths and of its life, growth and movement.
More specifically, it is a testimony to the truth that if
nature is seen and loved as such a mirror, we are able to
discern, understand and learn from it the movements and
perfecting of our ascetic and mystical growth in knowledge,
love and service of God, nature's creator.
This came to be understood by me through a thirty years'
intense study of and meditation on religious nature symbolism,
and in particular of the symbolism of flowers and gardens -
focused in the work of Mary's Gardens, a prayerful, religious
work carried forward with Edward A. G. McTague of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Bonnie Roberson of Hagerman,
Idaho.
After some twenty-five years of deep absorption in the
formal religious symbolism of nature - especially as preserved
in the religious names of flowers and plants from the secular
religious traditions from the countrysides of medieval
Christendom - it came to be clear to me that nature, including
the discoveries and inventions of the natural sciences, is
also a mirror of the life of the soul, into which we have only
to learn to look, to make this life visible. .
Prior to this discovery, mystical growth of soul in the
intimate love and service of God had to me only been a remote
possibility suggested by the writings of the saints and
mystics. After it, I perceived that it was evidently a very
real, simple, direct, immediate possibility, realizable
through the daily watching of nature to discern the progress
and next steps of soul life and growth.
Once this discovery became part of consciousness, about
five years ago, an alertness of discernment developed which I
was able apply to both daily sense perceptions and
experiences, and also to the intuitions, imaging and dreams
which arose interiorly - until this became a second sense and
psychological matrix for life.
In this way, a general familiarity with mysticism, from
reading, received an immediacy of focus in daily perceptions
of the mirroring of nature, and of my total human and social
environment . . . the consequences of which, over a five year
period from 1976 to I980, are set forth herein.
The other dimension of this book is the quest to discern
how the fruits of mystical life and growth can be applied to
the building of a peaceful, just and loving social order, the
Peaceable Kingdom on earth. This is seen as a completing of
the circle, where the mystical insights and fullness fostered
by nature are then transformed into discernments and promotion
of the moral uses and governances of nature to be exercised
for the building of the Kingdom.
In speaking of the relationship between the physical
order and the moral order, I am moved to quote from Auguste
Nicolas who, writing in the tradition of St. Anselm, observes:
"It is through images taken entirely from nature that
the Wisdom which created it makes itself intelligible
to men - The poetry of the Gospel has introduced into
the material order the same revolution that the divine
teaching it expresses has made in the moral order. It
has restored sensible nature in the truth of its
creation, just as its teaching has restored human
nature similarity - the physical world is no other
than an admirable symbol of the moral world, just as
the moral world in its turn becomes the symbol of the
physical world. But the starting point of this
reciprocal relationship, the prototype, the seal of
this marvelous correspondence is the moral world, the
universal truth of God, his eternal Word, 'by whom all
things were made, and without whom nothing that has
been made, was made '
"This is why when this same Word was born of Mary to
put his seal on his work, when he remade the moral
world, he remade in a way the physical world, he
created a new heaven and a new earth "
The quotation from Nicolas leads me to expressions of
thanks and appreciation to all those who have contributed so
much to the insights set forth in the present book. That is,
the bringing to my attention of Nicolas' book by Mother
Guadalupe of the Sisters of the Assumption, of Ravenhill
Academy in Philadelphia, typifies the Providential munificence
of God by which so many, many good things have come to me, at
just the right time - as did, also, the giving to me of this
book from the Ravenhill library by Mother Sheila, almost
fifteen years later, so I could check these references.
I wish to give special thanks to my parents, Stogdell
Stokes and May Stokes, who conveyed to me from my earliest
years a concrete sense of the goodness of creation; of the
importance of committing oneself to the discovery of its
truths; and of the possibility for each individual to "make a
difference".
Edward A. G. McTague, my founding partner of Mary's
Gardens, was like a second father to me - a spiritual,
mystical father - for twenty-five years, after my father died
in I947.
I wish to express special appreciation also to Bonnie
Roberson, my partner in Mary's Gardens, who carried on it's
day-to-day practical work and promotion - especially of the
miniature, dish Mary Gardens - for some fifteen years.
Finally, 1 wish to express special appreciation to Marion
M. Stokes, whose intense commitment to building welI-lived
lives and a human world order is an overwhelming inspiration,
challenge and test.
WORLD NEED FOR MYSTICISM
Clearly, additional human resources must be developed to
meet the challenge of the world crisis of the 20th Century
precipitated by the philosophical, psycho-biogical, social,
scientific, technological and political developments stemming
from the Renaissance and industrial revolution of the West.
The specifics of the crisis are so widely recognized that
the barest mention suffices to call them to mind: depletion of
natural resources; unbalancing and poisoning of the natural
environment, unjust distribution of the necessities of life
and of wealth; blocks to equalization and justice because of
national and international power struggles; diversion of
productive capacity and raw materials into military armaments,
the threat of nuclear destruction; terrorism; increasing world
population pressures on food production and distribution,
intense religious and ideological differences and
discrimination, manipulation, exploitation and oppression of
various nations, classes and cultural groups.
FuIIy evident is the need for a remedial response to
these threatening trends, which will bring peace and
cooperation through more just distribution of necessities and
wealth; elimination of discrimination, exploitation and
oppression; healing of the natural environment; protection and
implementation of long term use, conservation and regeneration
of resources; material sufficiency and equal rights for all;
and fullest opportunity of human development and creativity
for all - and, more basically, a basis for unity which will
make such peace and cooperation possible.
The thesis of this book is that an acceptable, emerging,
attainable spiritual basis for the needed unity is contained
in the aggregate of the world's great religious traditions,
and is being clarified by inter-religious and intercultural
communication, interaction, confrontation and dialogue - in
the general context of comparative religion and psychological
study of consciousness - being brought about by the social and
psychological contraction of the world through modern travel,
communications and political confrontation.
More specifically, the thesis is that psychological study
of consciousness is rediscovering empirically the various
subtle or spiritual components of human nature - including
some which the evidently survive the death of the physical
body - and that this rediscovery gives new clarity,
plausibility and imperative to the traditional religious
teachings that the immaterial and eternal realm - from which
revelations have come, to which the mystics have been
elevated, and to which departed souls go - constitutes a
transcendent locus of reality, importance and purpose which
can provide the basis for the religious unity, commitment and
effectiveness necessary for the resolution of the problems of
the material world.
The world clearly is yearning for a universal religious
resurgence which will overcome cultural, regional and
discernable separation, alienation, violence and conflict -
and provide the basis for world peace, justice, love and
prosperity.
The book begins from the belief that the world was
created by a God who had and has an overall discernable will
and purpose, including the establishment of the Peaceable
Kingdom on earth, as well as an overall plan, with
contingencies, for voluntary human participation in achieving
that purpose. It then proceeds to demonstrate that such a
yearning is in the process of being fulfilled, and such a
purpose and plan are in the process of being realized, as
discernable in world trends and events - and that by being
made conscious, the process can be greatly enhanced.
Up until the modern period the differences and isolation
of the diverse revelations, and the mystical experiences
within these revelations, of the present day major religious
traditions (e.g. Tribal, Judaic, Christian, Taoist, Buddhist,
Hindu and Islamic) have appeared incompatible, if not
contradictory or at least psychologically irreconcilable (cf.
Katz, "Mysticism and philosophical Analysis) - especially
across political boundaries.
However, from psychological research into consciousness,
a different approach emerges, which appears to contain a basis
for unity.
While definitive studies capable of universal acceptance
are still awaited, there is a accumulating body of data and
hypotheses from the scientific study of widely reported
phenomena of extra-sensory perception, psychokinesis,
clairvoyance, auras, out-of-body experiences, faith healing,
miracles, psychedelic "trips", Kremlin photography, spiritual
heremetics, mediumship, near-death experiences, particle
physics, etc.. which supports the traditional religious claims
of revelations, saints, mystics, yogis, llluminists,
esotericists, chemists, adepts, initiates, theosophists, etc.
that our human nature has various subtle, spiritual
modalities, extensions and survivals, in addition to our
gross, dense, physical, biological body-brains.
Of the wide diversity of experiences, perceptions,
distinctions, names and modalities reported or hypothesized in
the psychology of consciousness a number have long been
recognized in the asceticism and mysticism of the major
religious traditions, including the:
Physical Body-Brain
Subconscious
Conscious, and
Super-conscious, including
Soul,
Spirit,
Vital Body (Etheric Body, including Aura)
Spiritual Heart (Astral Body)
Mental Body (Spiritual Mlnd or House of Wisdom))
Spiritual vessel (Heavenly Body)
Empyrean Heaven
Angels, and
Divinity
which will be examined in detail in subsequent chapters.
This thesis is not derived from academic scholarship in
comparative religions or parapsychology, but is based on an
intense personal searching of the principle religious
traditions over a lifetime, with recourse to persons and
written sources providentially available or made present to
me, as I sought understanding and illumination as to how
consciously to shepherd the soul's ascetic and mystical growth
and development within and through these various modalities,
in the context of accumulate human experience.
The very fact that the challenges of personal religious
experience and quest led me "outside" my own maturely embraced
religious tradition - Christian, Roman Catholic - to find
needed understanding and answers - but without ever moving me
to reject belief in or fidelity to this tradition - leads me
to the hope that religious seekers from other traditions, too,
are finding answers from traditions other than their own -
remaining anchored in their own traditions, yet discovering
richness in, and unity with, all major traditions.
This leads to the further hope of the wide-spread
discovery of a religious unity among diversity of sufficient
universality to provide the basis for a social transcendence
of religious, racial, cultural, class, national and
ideological barriers to world Unity . - to open the way for
the reconciliation of major world divisions, and for the
building of the Peaceable Kingdom.
This is proposed, concretely out of the conviction that
differences in the particular contents of religious experience
can be demonstrated to be diverse manifestations of the one
and same over-all unfolding of soul growth - in various
dimensions of the subtle, spiritual, human modalities - which
are the endowed potential of all human beings, by nature.
To illustrate this, the following example is drawn from
the immediacy of personal experience (which will be dealt with
more fully ln Chapter 11 on the Luminous Ascent).
To wit, when I read in Carl Jung's "The Secret of the
Golden Flower" some thirty years ago, that the spiritual
lotuses described by the teachings of Hindu Kundalini Yoga, as
opening up at various subtle bodily centers as the Kundalini
force rises from lts generative source at the base-of-spine
center I assumed that they were of a specific, inherent number
and order and composition as to number of petals in specific
association with the experience in Hindu tradition, - just as
all human beings normally have the same number of bodily
parts.
Such reported subtle spiritual phenomena seemed so
remote, irrelevant, and even bizarre, as far as I was
concerned, that I had no inclination or occasion to pursue
this line of inquiry further at the time. Thirty years later,
however, I turned to this material again, intuition an
endeavor to understand and to nurture a number of lotuses or
flowers which I sensed through intuition, inspiration, dreams,
and envisionings were in the process of unfolding somewhere
and somehow within my own subtle spiritual self. Discerning
that for me the subtle flowers and their petals were
spiritually correlated with an intensification of
preoccupation with the Christian virtues, beatitudes,
charisms, works of mercy and divine praises, I became
convinced.- in attempting to reconcile them with what I could
find out about the lotuses of Kundalini Yoga - that spiritual
flowering or inflorescence was a universal human spiritual
potential - and that the particular inflorescences unfolding
in any given instance evidently could vary in accordance with
the religious tradition within which the particular individual
ascetical and mystical growth were taking place. This
conviction was supported by a perusal of a number of
additional books which I found had been translated or
published in English on Kundalini Yoga ln the intervening
years, showing wide variations in the lotuses described, even
within the experience of different Eastern religious
traditions.
Further, the notion of a subtle, spiritual flowering no
longer seemed alien or bizarre to me, for I had by now
encountered many uses of floral imagery to describe ascetic
and mystical growth in Judeo-Christian scriptures and
tradition; for example:
"Open up your petals, like roses planted near running
waters:
send up the sweet odor of incense,
break forth in blossoms like the lily.
Send up the sweet odor of your hymn of praise;
bless the Lord for all he has done." (Sirach 39: 13, 14).
But, more importantly, through this particular spiritual
experience, I arrived at the general insight that for every
ascetic and mystical experience and development there
discernible evidently a corresponding discernible change of
personal subtle, spiritual structure and function, form and
process - just as neurological changes are associated with the
functioning of the brain. I came to see that the language used
by the Mystics was in some way actually descriptive of ascetic
and mystical life and experience, rather than some form of
poetic imagery or figure of speech.
The mansions of St. Teresa's Interior Castle, the pillars
of the biblical House of Wisdom, the steps of the Ladder to
Heaven, the welling up of living waters from the heart, and
the drawing of heavenly, light all appeared to me in a
different light once the key was found in the initial
discovery of the parallel of the soul's flowering in Eastern
religious traditions to the flowers of the virtues,
beatitudes, charisms, mercies and praises of Christian life
and experience.
I reached the conclusion that the ineffability of much
mystical experience, and the divergent images employed in the
writings of different mystics - which have been submitted as
reasons why it is not possible to claim equivalences or even
comparability between the mystical traditions of the great
world religions - can indeed be encompassed in a common
hypothesis and model in terms of the subtle para-psychological
and spiritual structure and function humanly common to them
all.
The existence of a deeper, mystical unity of the major
religions makes it possible to see how each of these religions
in its cultural, historical development has manifested diverse
but equally important characteristics of the one universal
human mystical experience, so that each, with equal dignity
and significance, and without superiority or inferiority, or
prejudice or depreciation to any, can be envisaged and
understood as one part or facet of the whole - but without in
any way blurring or merging the distinctions between them.
ln addition to providing a new basis for world unity at a
deeper psychological and spiritual level, this also opens up
the way for each great religious culture and tradition to
oontribute to all the others' deepening mystical insights and
experience, and thus to the total mystical experience of the
world . , . with an inevitably greatly heightened influx of
the power of divine love into social, national and
international life, with consequent transcendence of divisions
and alienations, as a major break through towards the building
of the Peaceable Kingdom in unity, cooperation, love, justice
and equality.
PERSONAL NEED FOR MYSTICISM
Viewed from a more immediate, practical, every day level,
it is common experience that the present human condition
indignations characterized by an all-pervasive pressure and
weight of disharmony and indignation resulting from feelings
of psychological competitiveness and aggression - or of apathy
and indifference - on the part of others, and of social
contempt, exclusion, unequal opportunity, dominance,
exploitation and injustice - repeated over and over again in
one way or another each day. While this weight is lifted
somewhat where love prevails, and where legal and economic
recognition and implementation of equality, freedom, justice
and human and civil rights are established; even then the
weight still remains of the practical family, political and
social problem of how to reach voluntary agreement or
consensus on group decisions, policies and actions among those
of differing viewpoints, and of the inertia and pettiness
which tend to pervade the bureaucracy required to administer
social programs of justice.
Thus, on the level of everyday personal relationships, as
well as of the relationships between persons as members of
religious, cultural, ethnic, ideological, national, caste,
class or interest groups. there is a universal need and
yearning for unity and peace as in the area of broader group
relationships, alienation in the area of personal
relationships is experienced as the consequence of an
exaggerated personal identification in value with the gross,
mundane, secular, physical, material modality of life - to the
neglect of the development of and articulation in the subtle,
spiritual modalities through which the unltlng and peacemaking
virtues of fidelity, truth, justice. reason, love, freedom and
social responsibility can be nurtured and strengthened to
provide the matrix for harmonious and creative social and
personal life.
While this is widely recognized, it is not adequately
acted upon . . . evidently because of either a lack of faith
in the more enduring spiritual dimension of life, or because
of a lack of sufficient spiritual strength to live this faith.
Here, again, the conclusion seems inescapable that the
over-all remedy to life's problems lies in the nurturing of
the personal ascetical and mystical experience and growth
which corroborate the tenets of religious faith, and provide
the necessary spiritual strength to act according to that
faith.
Once the subtle, spiritual life of the soul is developed
and strengthened, the problems of social and personal
alienation and conflict take on a very different cast. It is
precisely when the life of the soul and spirit are indeed more
real and valued to us than mundane possessions, gratifications
or dominance that we are moved to love our enemies, return
good for evil, turn the other cheek, give our other coat, go
the second mile and refrain from judgement of others ln
mundane life, and to build a just social order, rather than
perpetuating conflict.
We no longer countenance or tolerate the dragging down or
submerging of our souls in the discursiveness and violence of
mundane struggles and conflicts, because this means the loss
and exclusion of the regenerative, peacemaking movements of
the life of the Spirit within us. Yet our increase in love of
neighbor prevents us from withdrawing from the mundane scene
into any kind of personal or social refuge or utopia. We
remain involved and concerned with the life of our time and
place, but without reciprocating or escalating violence.
Always, we seek the soul and spiritual strength of
peacemakers, to enable us to reach out in peace to those with
whom we interact mundanely, to inspire, prompt and assist
others in liberating and strengthening their souls, and to
beseech them to help us do likewise, so that, together, we and
they can live the life of the Spirit "in the world, but not of
lt."
To propose the need for spiritual strength sufficient to
overcome personal and social problems is certainly not novel.
What is proposed here, more specifically, is that there are
discernable, developable unfoldings of structure and function
in the subtle, spiritual modalities of our nature which
correlate with and implement the development of spiritual
strength for peace; and that the understanding of such
correlations provides us with a rational, intelligible matrix
to follow in the effective nurturing of the ascetic and
mystical growth needed for such strength.
Ample classical texts of mystical experience and
autobiography exist to describe the various stages of ascetic
and mystical growth, but they have not been correlated with a
universal model of the subtle, spiritual, para-psychological,
structural and functional development underlying them. The
present endeavor will be to undertake the development of such
a proposed growth model, showing how it correlates with and
unites material from a number of these texts.
To give greater specificity to what is meant by this
correlation, the example given in the preceding chapter is
returned to, namely that of the flowering, or illuminative
inflorescence, of the soul.
As stated, the possibility of a general correlation
between increased spiritual strength, on the one hand, and
subtle, spiritual growth and development, on the other,
occurred to me through the personal experience of a pronounced
strengthening of inclination to act In accordance with the
virtues, beatitudes and works of mercy, which was manifested
concurrently with the discerned opening of corresponding
subtle flowers in my soul and spiritual heart. (How such
discernments are arrived at is described In the following
chapter.)
In examining this more closely, I discerned that the
inflorescence of my soul took place after it had moved through
my subtle members - specifically, after it had overflowed - in
its liberation, mellowing and growth - from my vital body Into
my spiritual heart. After experiencing still further
conscious spiritual growth - with further discerned
correlating movements and inflorescences of my soul and subtle
members, I conceived the general model of personal subtle
spiritual growth which Is set forth here.
I then extended the model to encompass the necessary
contribution of personal spiritual growth, now understood in
this way, to the building of a peaceful and just world order,
and specifically to the overcoming of our present, prevailing
condition of social and personal alienation and conflict, and
resulting paralysis.
Finally, I perceived that subtle growth and development
of soul and our other members was part of all religious, moral
and ethical activity, and not just specifically mystical life
and growth, and therefore was a universal human phenomenon and
potential.
As widely recognized In relation to the life of prayer
and mysticism generally, we are not dealing here with a matter
of cause-and-effect technique, or 'how to", because spiritual
growth Is ultimately a matter of God's work In the soul, with
which we cooperate. Finally, the strength to which God calls
us in his providential wisdom and solicitousness may include
the strength of participation In Jesus' redemptive
mortification, suffering, atonement, purging and expiation -
as well as of overt personal and social peacemaking.
What we are called to, in the most general sense, is an
openness, a self-emptying and an abandonment to providence, as
an act of faith - leaving the growths, diminutions and fruits
to God, whose power operates most perfectly through our
humility and weakness.
It is hoped that this examination of Mystical potential
will provide a basis on which those who seek social solutions
through natural, secular goodness, truth, justice. knowledge
and wisdom will reconsider the contribution of religious
solutions.
It is hoped, further, that it will be helpful to those
who experience mystical stirrings and wonder how to respond to
them in our contemporary world. And above all, this book is
written for 'working' mystics - those totally committed to
seeking ways of opening up personal and world access to God's
love, that the Peaceable Kingdom may come soon.
We all have our opportunities for the continuing
development and use of our potentialities, and we are each to
face our own diminishment and death - the totality of which
can be directed toward the culmination of the salvation of the
world and the building of the Heavenly Kingdom.
INSPIRATION AND INSIGHTS
Since inspiration and insights into mystical experience
are to be promoted through discernment and nurturing of the
growth and development of our subtle modalities with which
such experience can be correlated, it is necessary to
ascertain how such discernment can be made. Hindu tradition
teaches that these modalities manifest themselves in the
"dream state", where we are able to discern them by a gentle
inward turning of the senses and faculties of our ordinary
conscious 'waking state", (Rene Guénon, Man and His Becoming
According to the Vedanta, p. ) discernment of each.
My first discernment of such a subtle growth process was
of an inwardly sensed flowering of heart and soul, as
described in the first chapter. After this initial
experience, I consciously sought to encourage further imagery
disclosing changes in subtle structure and function
correlating with mystical growth, in accordance with the
teaching, "ask and you will receive, seek and you will find,
knock and lt will be opened to you." Such images then began
emerging through waking inspiration, dreams, and moments of
drowsing or awakening.
I felt this approach was corroborated by the reports of
recognized mystics as to how they obtained some of their
insights. For example, St. Teresa of Avila wrote in "The
lnterior Castle":
"An idea occurred to me which I will explain, and
which will serve as a foundation for what I am about
to write. I thought of the soul as resembling a
castle, formed by a single diamond or a very
transparent crystal, and containing many rooms, just
as in heaven there are many mansions."
What gradually unfolded for me was a vision of my vital
or spiritual body, the initial seat of my soul, surrounded by
the envelopes of my astral body or spiritual heart, and my
mental body, or house of wisdom - into which my soul flowed
successively in preparation for its entrance into the
spiritual corridor of heavenly ascent.
With this explanation, the following are in further
detail some of the spiritual perceptions of mystical life and
growth which prompted the writing of this book.
The first perceptions of this spiritual journey were
pre-conversion experiences. These came about after two years
of intensive psychological self-examination and resolve, in
which I had rejected all identifications of my self in value,
that I could discern, with religious, cultural, racial,
national, class, educational and family reflexes, stereotypes,
conventions, norms and institutions, in the belief that if I
opened up my psyche in an embrace of the cosmos, I would then
tap a source of cosmic love which would enable me to help
reach across the institutional barriers to human love and
cooperation, which seemed to be at the root of wars and other
social conflict.
Then, some months after the dropping of the first atomic
bomb at Heroshima, I experienced a vision of the world
floating in space orbited by hundreds of satellites armed with
and triggered to drop atomic bombs at a signal. Facing
psychologically for the first time the possibility of the
destruction of the world, or at least of modern civilization,
I was pervaded with a sense of fear. But almost immediately I
was overwhelmed with a much stronger sense of the supreme
power of love. This heartened me in my belief that somewhere
there was a source of love that was even greater than the
threat of atomic destruction, so I pressed on with my efforts
towards ever more thoroughgoing rooting out of identifications
in value with finite constructs, so that I could open myself
up to universal love.
Contrary to my expectations, however, when I reached the
point where I felt l had somehow liberated my soul for such an
opening, I had a terrifying sense that it was hurtling through
cold and threatening reaches of outer space, in great danger.
But again there was a resurgent sense of love; but this time
more specifically of a loving God who watches over us
providentially, and who therefore must have established some
traditional or institutional truth source on earth to lead all
persons to universal love. Acting on this, I then abandoned my
efforts towards total non-identificatlon, and began a search
for a tradition or institution which I could embrace.
During a period of inability to find such a tradition or
institution, my soaring soul had further threatening
experiences, giving still greater urgency to my quest for a
divinely established repository of the love which can overcome
the world. This finally lead to my experience of conversion
to Roman Catholicism, as described in the chapter on
Conversion.
Shortly after my conversion, I began an extensive reading
of Catholic books and periodicals - with which I had no
previous acquaintance, other than a reading of St. Augustine's
"Confessions". In one magazine I read an article, in 1947,
about a garden at St. Joseph's Church, Woods Hole,
Massachusetts, which was a 'Mary Garden", entirely planted
with flowers which in medieval popular religious traditions of
the European countryside were seen as symbols of the life and
attributes of the Virgin Mary. I was strongly attracted to
this idea, and made several visits to the Woods Hole Garden in
the ensuing years, including one with my friend, Edward A. G.
McTague, whom I discovered had been equally attracted to this
idea on learning that the flower name, 'Marigold", was a
contraction of "Mary's Gold" and was symbolic of Mary's
glorification in heaven.
Ed McTague and I undertook extensive research into the
medieval Flowers of Our Lady, planted Mary Gardens of our own,
and founded an avocational project, Mary's Gardens, to promote
the growing of such gardens by others.
Some years later, I was able to articulate what these
gardens meant to me mystically, after discovering that a new
garden I had planted was radiant in the light of the setting
sun shining through a gap in some trees for several days
around the summer solstice:
"The plants and blooms bring us testimony of the deep
piety of a former age when Christian love and devotion
were mirrored in even the 'little' things of daily
life. With penetratlng clarity and impact we are
struck by the imprint of intimate devotion as out of
the silence of the centuries the bloom clusters once
again come into focus as religious symbols of Mary. . .
Thus composed and recollected, we are moved to lift
our hearts and minds to Mary in contemplation in the
peace and quiet of her garden. As we do, her flowers
seem to glow about her image, filled with the radiance
of her virtues and graces and permeating us with a
sense of the unfolding of spiritual life and growth.
Plunged, as it were, into the interior of Mary in
contemplation, we begin to take root and sustenance in
her as our Spiritual Mother and Earthly paradise."
("Queen of the Missions", May, 1955, p. 44; "Queen of
All Hearts", May. 1960 p. )
Little did I realize at that time that some twenty years
later I would indeed inwardly discern the unfolding of subtle
flowers within my heart and soul (as described in the first
chapter).
After sensing the opening of an infinite-petaled flower
at the apex of my spiritual heart, correlating with an
outpouring of angelic praises of God, and an overflowing of my
soul into my mental body, I experienced a new kind of insight.
I received the strong impression that I was now to experience
the building of a house of wisdom in my mental body, through
the praying of the seven Liturgical Hours each day, and the
Office for the Dedication of a Church. While I was pondering
what form this house might take, and ruminating on the
scriptural passage, "Wisdom built herself a house, she has set
up her seven columns." (Prov. 9:1), one of my sons (who knew
nothing of my preoccupation with this) startled me by showing
me a sketch of a house he had made for his French class (for
affixing the French names for the rooms, features and
contents), based on a Buckminster Fuller geodesic spherical
dome, divided into floors supported by a central column. This
instantly lead to my envisioning that the house of wisdom was
to be formed in my mental body with the floors being seven
concentric extensions, as it were, of the seven daisy-like
flowers dividing my spiritual heart into mansions of the soul.
Some months later I discerned the descent and positioning
of the spiritual vessel for the guidance of my soul's rising
to heaven from this house of wisdom. This occurred while I
was contemplating a tall, thin skyscraper, the Hancock Tower,
visible towards the south from the window of my then residence
in Boston. For some months I had sensed that this building was
like a large needle or pointer which, together with a cross on
nearby Trinity Church in Copley square, swept the heavens as
the earth rotated. As I contemplated it, I would feel the
earth rotate.
Then one night this sense of rotation stopped, and the
tower took on the vertical dynamics of a ladder, corridor or
vortex rlslng to heaven. This conveyed to me that my subtle
bodies, as an aggregate, were no longer rotating in mundane
orientation, but were now affixed to a passageway to heaven.
Immediately the image of the typical Christian church
building, topped with its spire or steeple, became a powerful
symbol for me of the interior subtle house of wisdom, with the
cone or vortex of the spiritual vessel rising from it.
Some months after this (having by then for some them
experienced the welling of my soul upwards by the waters of
grace flowing from my heart), I experienced the soul-raislng
attraction of spiritual light during a seven hour drive from
Philadelphia to Boston on a beautiful, sun-drenched late
summer day. As I beheld the beauties of the golden rod,
yellow daisies and the yellow leaves of the trees, I
experienced awe, and was raised in contemplation to the beauty
of God. This in turn seemed to impart an aura to the flowers
and leaves, serving to raise my soul still further, before the
shining of God's countenance. This brought a new outburst of
radiance to nature, giving me an intuitive sense of the
reflected or mirrored image of God's face, in utter
resplendence. At the end of the journey, I drove onto the
elevated section of the Massachusetts Turnpike in Boston,
towards the Prudential Tower sparkling in the late afternoon
sun. Just as I beheld the buildings of central Boston, like a
heavenly city, bathed in sunlight, the sun burst through the
rear window of the car, reflecting in the rear view mirrors
and the glass of the dashboard in an explosion of glory. I
knew inwardly inwardly that the apex of my soul had risen to
the empyrean heaven.
Three months later I experienced from outward signs a
further development of my subtle spiritual life. The exposure
of the apex of my soul to the interior light of heaven had
made me deeply conscious of all the imperfections of soul
which prevented it from being a spotless prism and mirror.
Moved by this to acts of immolation and annihilation of soul,
I beheld one evening the lighting of the annual giant
Christmas tree erected at the Prudential Plaza as a gift to
the City of Boston from the people of Nova Scotia. That
night, I dreamed that while I was watching the tree, its apex
with lighted star rose and disappeared from view, lost in the
starry sky above - but then descended, gyrating, and returned
to its place.
This told me that from the empyrean heaven, my spirit,
the apex of my soul, had risen to adoptive absorption into the
interior of the heaven of the Trinity, of the Trinitarian
Godhead, even though the imperfections remaining in my soul
prevented more than this apex from doing so.
One evening a year later as I saw the branches and golden
lights of that year's Prudential PIaza Christmas Tree
undulating in the night wind they imaged for me the myriads of
angels and souls rising and descending in their spiritual
vessels between earth and heaven under the overall canopy of
Mary's Mantle.
During a period when I was meditating on and
contemplating the spiration and sending forth of the Holy
Spirit by the Father and the Son, I attended a lecture
demonstration of a large laser while visiting the Boston
Museum of Science. The lecturer's explanation of how energy
originating at one mirror reflected back and forth between it
and a second mirror, building up in intensity until it burst
outwards through an aperture in the second mirror, provided a
basis on which I could envisage the intensity of the Holy
Spirit of love generated between the Father and the Son "ad
intra" and its precessing "ad extra" through the Son to the
world.
In this, I sensed that my soul which had first been
rising to mystical absorption of rest in the Trinity was then
participatively irradiated and strengthened to emerge from
this rest and to return, under the impelling of the Holy
Spirit, from heaven to earth in love of neighbor and of the
building of the Peaceable Kingdom.
While I was pondering how the soul could thus be
instrumentive of the radiance, grace, truth and power of the
Trinity in the world, my eye was arrested at a gallery
exhibition by a pastel drawing, entitled "parallel vision".
This work, which the artist told me was inspired by the rays
of sun breaking through the morning mists on the Maine
seacoast, gave me a vision of the eye of the soul, both
emitting and receiving: diffractingly transmitting rays of
heavenly light to and within the world in accordance with the
envisioning of love; receiving back from the world in radar
fashion loving discernments of soul and kingdom needs; and
then, again, diffractingly emitting transforming light, grace,
truth and power in more finely attuned infusion and action on
souls and world, so as to move them towards Kingdom.
A final instance: while ruminating on how at the Parousia
all fullness would dwell in Christ, I entered the dream state
and envisioned an extension of the laser insight described
above. I envisioned that after its redemption by Christ and
its renewal by the Holy Spirit, the face of the earth and all
dwelling in it, now transformed and transfigured in the New
Heaven and New Earth, are to become one great spotless mirror,
reflecting back the laser beam of the Holy Spirit - emitting
from the Trinity and fanned out through the lens of the Dlvlne
Word onto the world - such that it converged back through the
Word into the laser of the Trinity and then out again, in an
endless circulating flow of light of ever increasing intensity
of love. Further, I envisaged that the eyes of our soul, now
permanently lifted up to heaven with our souls and resurrected
bodies, are to become merged with the lens of the Word,
receiving and then reflecting back the glory of the Father,
face to Face through all eternity.
As Auguste Nicolas percelved over a hundred years ago:
"We do not hesitate to say that if the order of the
natural sciences, without neglecting their scientific
processes, profoundly reflects Jesus Christ and his
mysteries, it soars indeed much higher than nature; it
pushes farther ahead in its secrets, and it arrives,
as though by the formula of a transcendental and
divine alphabet, at marvellous illuminations which
associate it with the vision of angels, and
anticipates some of the answers that are reserved for
us by eternity."
"La Vierge Marie dans le Plan Divin",
Vatan Freres, Paris, I869, p. 437, translated)
Supplementing such pivotal envisaging were myriads of
insights, words and phrases emerging within consciousness
during prayer or rumination, or coming to me through the
Liturgy of the Mass or Hours, from reading, TV, or
conversation with others. These examples are described to
give a sense of the sources of the insights of this book, but,
more importantly, on behalf of the conviction that such
insights are available to us all, as part of our human
potential. Paraphrasing what has been said about artists: a
mystic is not a special kind of person; rather, every person
is a special kind of mystic. Intuition, insights,
inspirations, envisionings and dreams are universally
experienced, and are thus available to provide answers to
questions regarding the unfoldings of subtle spiritual growth.
"Young men will dream dreams, and old men will see visions "
From the outset, however, my faith in God, the Sacred
Scriptures and the Church moved me always to pray for
enlightenment; to search the scriptures, and to look for
guidance from saints and theologians when endeavoring to
interpret my experiences of spiritual growth, and also to look
to parallels in the sacred texts, teachings and insights from
other religious traditions, where applicable - all within the
purview of the teaching Magisterium of the Church.
RECOLLECTIONS
After learning how to discern ascetic, mystical growth
and movements of soul through the gentle inward turning of the
senses and faculties, and then through providentially
presented content of daily waking experience, I then realized
that it was possible also to discern in retrospect mystically
significant unconscious movements and events from my earlier
years which would provide important further self-knowledge,
and knowledge of the over-all process of ascetic, mystical
growth. Accordingly, some autobiographical data is included
here, together with its retrospective interpretation.
When in middle life I asked my mother what was her
recollection of my earliest mystical stirrings as a child, she
raccounted to me the following incident. As a Catholic who
subsequently was converted to the Society of Friends (Quakers)
on marrying my father, a "birthright Friend", she had
instructed me in the life of Christ, but only up to the point
of the Crucifixion. However, when I was about five years old
I came across a picture in a religious calendar depicting
Christ's ascension into heaven, and asked her to explain it to
me. When she told me some people believed that after Jesus
was crucified, died and was buried, he arose again from the
dead and ascended into heaven, I asked her: "By what means was
he propelled, and how fast did he go?" and kept coming back to
this again and again whenever she would discuss Jesus with me.
One of the first books I read was Charles Lindbergh's
"We", which whetted an appetite in me for flying in airplanes.
When I was nine, my father arranged for me to learn model
airplane building from a friend's son who was active in a
chapter of the Philadelphia Model Airplane Association.
Building model airplanes became my passion of those years, and
by the time I was thirteen I had competed in Philadelphia,
Atlantic City, Akron, New York, St. Louis, Boston and Detroit,
and held a number of world records for indoor model airplanes.
As a result of these competitions, I won a number of flights
at local airports, and one flight to Washington as guest of
the National Aeronautical Association.
Also, I became an avid reader of science fiction, and
when I went to boarding school ln Boston at the age of
thirteen, my mother went to considerable difficulty to obtain
for me a mail order subscription for a science fiction
magazine, "Wonder Stories", which I read regularly - normally
distributed only through newsstands. A number of science
fiction stories became for me "morality plays", which I have
kept with me all through life.
Prior to this, I attended a Quaker school in Philadelphia
for five years, where the mystic, Rufus Jones, was a frequent
speaker at the Thursday meetings for worship.
The possibility of "flying" mystically was first
introduced to me when I met a man who had read extensively
about "out of body experiences" in various subtle realms. I
subsequently learned more of this from an associate who
described to me his personal experiences in this area.
Encounter with the breadth of mystical literature came
when I became friends with Hale Sutherland, a Quaker professor
of civil engineering at Lehigh University - where I had taken
up the study of engineering after two years of studying the
sciences and liberal arts at Harvard - and who had an
extensive library of books on mysticism, assembled with a
focus on religious healing.
At the time I was unable to relate to these books out of
my own experience any more than I was able to relate to "out
of body experiences", but I was at least made aware of the
vast body of literature on mysticism. And, it was through him
that I read Carl Jung's book, "The Secret of the Golden
Flower", which thirty years later was to provide,
providentially a most important key for my nurturing of mystic
life and growth, as already mentioned.
After this, I now realize ln retrospect, I was led by
affinity and providence to a number of friendships and
interests which served to cultivate my soul mystically, even
though I did not have the basis for perceiving this or
consciously seeking it at the time.
Thus, an intense interest in hot jazz contributed
significantly to the awakening, quickening and mellowing of my
soul. An interest in general semantics and study with Alfrsd
Korzybski provided a means of loosening some of the discursive
reasoning imprisoning my soul. My friendship with artist,
Richard Pousette-Dart, introduced me to the visual and
conceptual liberation of non-objective and abstract
expressionist art. The poetry of Walt Whitman and the novels
of Thomas Wolf opened up new vistas of freedom and the
fullness of life.
An intense search for sources of love which would make
possible peaceful solutions of world conflicts liberated me
from many religious, cultural, racial, social spiritual and
political stereotypes. As previously mentioned, in my late
twenties, as I embraced Catholicism, the resolution of what
previously had been manifested to me as a contradiction
between God's love and goodness, on the one hand, and the
injustices, pain, illness, violence and death of the world, on
the other.
While taking evening courses ln Catholic social teaching
I entered into contact and friendship with Edward A. G.
McTague, a deeply mystical person, with whom I subsequently
founded and developed the avocational project, Mary's Gardens.
This opened up to my soul a perception of the mystical quality
of nature, as a basis for a gentle, affective, piety,
devotion and mysticism, as well as an interest in organic
gardening and farming.
This was augmented by active participation in the
Catholic Liturgical Society and Catholic Art Association.
Further, under the spiritual guidance of Father Thomas Feeney,
Professor of ascetic and mystical theology of St. Charles
Seminary, Philadelphia, I read and assembled a library of
Catholic books, including the works of the major Catholic
mystics.
While once again I was unable to relate from personal
experience to these mystical works, I did gain a familiarity
with them which I was able to draw upon when I unexpectedly
began to experience mystical stirrings within my soul in my
mid-fifties, after intervening years of preoccupation largely
with family, with a career of industrial management and with
social justice concerns.
Also, over this sweep of time, a position for a short
period on the staff of the United Nations Council of
Philadelphia founded by Justice Owen J. Roberts, gave new me a
perspective on international relations. Also, several years
of close association with Father Felix Morlion, O. P., founder
of the Catholic lntercontinental Press and the Pro Deo
University ln Rome, gave me liberating insights regarding news
reporting, issues and trends. Five years as founding
Executive Director, and later Co-Director, of the Wellsprings
Ecumenical Center ln Philadelphia provided extensive
opportunity for inter-religious dialogue and social
cooperation, as did my participation in Metropolitan
Associates of Philadelphia, an organization exploring ways of
applying insights from Harvey Cox's, "The Secular City", to
urban life.
Also, working three years with Marion Metelits as
consultant producers for the un-hosted, un-scripted un-edited
local Philadelphia CBS affiliate TV series, Input, on
religious and social issues, gave me insights into the medium
of television.
I have made this autobiographical summary mindful also of
my own desire when reading the books of others, to know where
the material comes from: the writer's research, idealism, or
concrete experience.
Since the mystically pertinent involvements just
summarized were not understood as such as they occurred, the
contents of chapters of this book on Conversion, the Purgative
Ascent and the Affective Ascent concerning this period are
placed within the matrix of ascetic, mystical life and growth
ln retrospect.
All subsequent chapters are based on a journal kept
concurrently with the experiences of ascetic, mystical growth
they are drawn from.
Throughout the book, as at the times of these experiences, I
have endeavored to follow the counsel of St. Paul: "Do not
stifle the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Trust
everything, retain what is good. Avoid any semblance of evil.
(l Thes. 5:19-22).
A final note: a question arises as to the grammatical
mode ln which this book should be written. I dislike using
the mode "my soul" because in my experiences I have felt a
great rapport with the mystics of all religious traditions,
and am convinced that I am participating, albeit in an
individual way, in a unfolding of universal experience and
calling. On the other hand "the soul" strikes me as too
impersonal and clinical. Therefore I have elected to use the
mode "our soul", to convey a sense of communion with all souls
on spiritual pilgrimage. Similarly, I use the plural pronouns
'we" and "our" in speaking of all modalities and experience,
since we are all "members one of another".
GROWTH MODEL
After experiencing the subtle, spiritual, mystical
journey of soul development and movement from earth to heaven
and back, I felt it imperative to find a way of envisaging the
entire process, in structure and function. On reflection, and
with examination of the reports of other mystics, I have
selected an overall microcosmic model which seems to provide a
consistent intelligible matrix for the more detailed
developments and movements which will be described in the
following chapters.
This model is based on the hypothesis that our physical
body-brain and our subtle soul, residing initially within it,
are surrounded by three concentric subtle envelopes, bodies or
vessels, which I found to be implicit in the Gospel
exhortation: "Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with Thy whole
heart, Thy whole mind, Thy whole soul and Thy whole strength"
First, our vital body, sometimes called the etheric body
or etheric double - a kind of dynamic, subtle, energy matrix
of the physical body-brain, and the seat of our spiritual
strength: sometimes perceived as the aura.
Then our spiritual heart, sometimes called the astral
body, and the seat of spiritual love, virtues and uprightness.
Finally, our mental body, sometimes called mind - as
distinct from the physical brain - the seat of wisdom.
It was my intuition, over an extended period, that our
ascetic, mystical growth as experienced correlates with an
unbinding, softening, growth and flowing of our souls in and
from our vital body, into our spiritual heart, and then into
our mental body; from thence extending to heaven within an
angelically positioned spiritual vessel, cone, vortex or
overshadowing, for flooding with divine light.
This light is then transmitted back to the mundane level
for channeling and instrumentation towards the religious works
of the praise of God, the salvation of souls and the building
of the Peaceable Kingdom through diffraction in the subtle
pneuma of the mental body as wisdom; in the subtle elixirs of
the heart as grace; and in the subtle strength of the vital
body as strength.
"Her soul from earth to Heaven lies,
Like the ladder of the vision,
Where go
to and fro
In ascension and dismission
Star-flecked feet of paradise."
- Francis Thompson, "Scala Jacobi Portaqua Eburnea"
Subsequent chapters will develop this hypothesis in
detail.
In sum, to me these relatively few basic movements and
developments of our soul, and of the subtle bodies and
substances through which it moves, appear to underlie
practically all the descriptions of mystical experiences and
journeys encountered from the major religious traditions, no
matter how complex, difficult or seemingly bizarre they
sometimes were to me in specific content.
As people from different religious traditions who have
been at death's door and then recovered report near-death
experiences characteristic of their respective beliefs and
scriptures (Osis and Haroldson, "At the Hour of Death"), so do
mystical experiences correspond to the traditions of the
people experiencing them. While my own mystical experiences
have corresponded to the Christian tradition, I propose that
in their elements, and in their correspondences with our
subtle members and substances, there is much in them which is
common to and has clear equivalents in other traditions - with
the exception that Christian mystical experiences of the
Trinitarian Godhead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not
granted a similar position in other mystical traditions.
Similarly, I see the other major mystical traditions as,
respectively, containing their own unique emphases which I
believe have a contribution to make to all, and I consider it
providential, for this reason, that the transportation and
communications of the modernizing world are bringing the
various traditions into closer contact and familiarity with
one another, just at the time there is such a pressing need
for a more universal mysticism.
Notwithstanding the basic differences between the major
world religions, they appear indeed to have basic elements in
common in their respective ascetic, mystical experiences.
This is to be expected, if ascetic, mystical development is a
function of a common human nature of physical body, mind and
subtle soul, vital body, spiritual heart, mental body and
spiritual vessel.
Ascetic, mystical development seems to begin in the
various religions with disciplining, mortifying or purging of
the senses, emotions and faculties of our body-mind so that
our soul may be untied, become pliant and rise in our vital
body, to experience further growth through imitation,
meditation and contemplation - leading to an experience of
love, joy, peace and compassion as the soul begins to fill the
spiritual heart.
The major religions appear, further, to share in common a
strengthening of the spiritual heart with virtues as the soul
fills it, and then to experience illumination and wisdom as
the soul flows into the mental body.
Finally, they all appear to share an experience of the
soul rising up the spiritual vessel to the empyrean heaven,
from which they enter into modes of union with the Divinity,
which are experienced as ineffable.
Their respective religious cultural and social
organizations appear to mirror or reflect their modes of
mystical union with the divinity, as a manifestation of the
initially ineffable experience. This appears to be the
explanation for the differences between the social orders of
the various traditions - namely, that differences between
impressions by or participations in God in the major religions
result in differing social orders.
Accordingly, I have arrived at a macrocosmic model to
account, in principle, for the differences between the major
religious traditions. This model proposes that in a primordial
revelation to the human race, to "Adam", the associated
mysticism made possible a glorious, divine illumination of the
rising soul, such that, rising and descending, it was possible
to perceive and "name" all the creatures of the earth in a
munificent and resplendent mirroring of the manifold names and
attributes of God.
The model envisages, further, that this rising and descending
of soul took place through a spiritual vessel or vortex of
total angelic overshadowing, with the various hierarchies of
angels combining to mirror to the soul the manifold attributes
of God, for luminous soul transmission to instrument the
mundane mirroring and naming, so that, with the fall of the
human race, of "Adam and Eve", from favor and grace with God,
through disobedience or other disharmony, there were
introduced darkness of intellect, weakness of will and
disorderly affections, such that the mystical process became
subverted. Instead of seeking to mirror God's attributes on
earth, it incorporated elements of human glorification, and
attempted to rise to heaven on this basis - symbolized as
building the Tower of Babel.
As scripture tell us, the divine response was to
introduce a confusion of tongues and a scattering of peopIes
all over the earth - which also evidently included a confusion
or fragmenting of mysticisms. As envisaged in the model, this
distribution involved a division of the overshadowing angelic
hierarchies among the various religion-cultures such that each
hierarchy mirrored to mystically rising souls only a portion
of the ineffable divine manifold; perhaps somewhat as follows:
Angels - Omnipresence and Indwelling.
Archangels - Resplendence of the Law.
Principalities - Harmoniousness of Order
Powers - Upwards Lifting of Souls
Virtues - Immolative Yearning
Dominations - luminous Impelling
Thrones - Trinitarian praises and Spiritual Indwelling
This would account for different perceptions of mystical
union with God: the spiritual indwelling and vivification of
the tribal religions; shining of God's countenance of Judaism;
the harmony of Taoism; the the Supreme Identity of Hinduism;
the Nirvana of Buddhism, the unity of God of Islam; and the
Trinitarian adoption of Christianity.
Similarly, it would account for the differences in
essential revelation with which the soul emerges from union
with God: the communality of tribal religions; the law of
Israel, the Way Of Taoism, the Vedanta of Hinduism, the
Boddhisvatva of Buddhism, the 2ekr of Islam, and the
Trinitarian Love of Christianity.
It would account, also, for the differences of focus in
the religious and social orders: the oral Elders, Medicine Men
and oral traditions of tribal religions, the Torah and Rabbis
of Judaism, the Law and Emperors of China, the Castes and
Brahmins of India, the Lamas and Monks of Buddhism, the Koran
and Holy Men of Islam, and the Church and Pope of
Christianity.
It can be argued that the character of mystical union
with God in the different traditions is determined by the
differences in tongues at the scriptural, cultural and
linguistic levels, such that there is a self-fulfilling
mysticism.
However, it is difficult to envisage how language could
introduce selectivity into the illumination of soul in the
empyrean realms of the angelic hierarchies and the Godhead. It
seems much more plausible that the scriptures, culture and
language of each tradition are received from and reinforced by
the angelic mode of divine mirroring overshadowing the souls
of that tradition - as Moses was instructed to make all the
things of God's sanctuary according to the pattern shown him
on the mountain (Exodus 26:40), and as the Trinity was
revealed to Mary by the Archangel Gabriel (Luke 1:26-38).
This would appear to be born out by the Canticle of
Moses:
"When the Most High assigned the nations their heritage,
when he parceled out the descendants of NAM,
he set up the boundaries of the peoples
after the number of the sons of God." (Deut. 32:81)
in which the "sons of God" is held to be a reference to the
ministering angels for each people and nation.
lt is my expectation that as peopIes from the different
traditions intermingle and cooperate economically,
politically, and culturally, in love, peace and justice in the
highest calling of each tradition, there will then be a
combining of overshadowing angelic hierarchies, such that
various combined mystical experiences will occur. This
potential has been demonstrated by the intermingling of
Buddhism and Hinduism in India, of Buddhism and Taoism in
China, of Christianity and African churches in Latin America;
and by the development of the Cabala ln Islamic, Judaic and
Christian medieval Europe.
In sum, our composite microcosmic/macrocosmic model calls
for ascetic, mystical growth and movement of soul through the
vital body, spiritual heart, mental body and spiritual vessel
to the empyrean heaven and Godhead, where it is gloriously
illuminative ln accordance with the mirroring angelic
hierarchy; and thence transmits this illumination to the
mundane level for concrete channeling and instrumentation in
social and cultural life.
Mindful, then, that each major mystical tradition has its
own mode of mystical union with God, of initial revelation,
and of consequent social implementation, I now will draw from
my own tradition and experience for the model for this book,
leaving it to those of other traditions to draw their own
parallels.
Thus, our model for the steps of soul growth and movement
is as follows :
- Natural faculty development, for fulfillment of endowed
potential
- Religious conversion, for faith, hope and love
- purgative/affective ascent of soul in the vital body,
for liberation
- Grace descent of the soul in the spiritual heart, for
compassion
- luminous ascent of the soul in the spiritual heart, for
righteousness
- Wisdom descent of the soul into the mental body, for
wisdom
- Soul ascent in the spiritual vessel to heaven and the
godhead, for union
- Charismatic descent of light, grace, truth and power
in the soul to earth, for the doing God's will
- Peaceable ascent of soul to heaven in communion with
other souls, for the building of the Peaceable Kingdom
on earth
- Heavenly descent of Christ in union with the soul and
subtle bodies, for the reign of Christ
- Pleuromic ascent of the soul to heaven,for the building
of the heavenly city.
If it is generally demonstrated that this model, and
variations of it adapted to other traditions, provides a basis
for a universally acknowledged mysticism of soul, vital body,
spiritual heart, mental body, spiritual vessel and angelic
mirrorings of the divine names, attributes and persons - then
the scriptures, mystical writings, modes of union with God,
and religious organizations of the major religion/cultures
will all become equally valued and mutually enriching facets
of one grand activated human potential for instrumenting the
transformation of the world by the Divine love.
CONVERSION
Ascetic, mystical growth requires a desire and a
commitment to develop the subtle, spiritual elements of our
human potential. It therefore requires knowledge of what this
potential is, and also self-knowledge of our own particular
individual state of development so we can foster the next
steps and stages of growth as growth develops.
If our ascetic, mystical growth is to be towards God, we
must also grow in knowledge and love of God and of the way to
God. Since the way to God transcends the scope of natural
knowledge and wisdom developed from our sensory experience and
reason, we must soon rely on faith, revelation and religious
teaching for guidance,
Religious faith, in turn, requires a conversion: and for
there to be a conversion we must have some knowledge of or at
least a rudimentary familiarity with what it is we are
converting to. This knowledge of a faith may come to us
through reading and study, but for it to be real and
embraceable we most usually find it embodied in the life of a
person. Therefore, it, is incumbent on those of us who do
have a religious faith we wish to share with others to let our
faith, or at least the fact of it, be known so that others may
come to know of it in our melieu. We are not to 'hide our
light, under a bushel'.
In addition to a beginning knowledge or familiarity with
a faith, our conversion requires that an impetus or movement
towards this faith be instilled, impressed or otherwise be
placed in our hearts or unconscious, so that we will be
consciously prompted or urged to embrace it. We are attracted
to people, things and ideas when a natural affinity for them
is present in us. To be attracted to a supernatural faith, a
supernatural affinity must somehow be implanted in us.
In terms of our proposed model for subtle correlations to
stages of ascetic, mystical growth, this would be envisaged as
a subtle, spiritual impress on our soul or vital body,
probably at the heart center - corresponding to what St. Paul
describes as being "led by the Spirit of God - a spirit of
adoption through which we cry out 'Abba' (that is, 'Father')."
(Rom. 8;14,15).
From the assumption that there is movement towards a full
realization of order and harmony of life in the universe, we
deduce that God wills the conversion of all of us to steps
moving towards unity, awaiting our necessary knowledge of or
familiarity with faith, to be able to respond to the impetus
of the Spirit of faith with conscious conversion.
However, there is another prerequisite for faith, namely
a loosening, dissolving or rupturing of our previous mental
patterns of life - our psychological life style, profile or
belief structure which we adopted as a result of inclination,
conditioning, training, experience and inquiry - so we will be
open to transformation through faith, when it is spirituality
impressed.
Typically, it is through a strong, traumatic or even
cataclysmic experience, or a series of such experiences, that
such an opening in our belief structure takes place, so that
we become sensitive and receptive to the impress of faith.
Such a supernatural experience may involve fear for survival,
awe at glimpses of power, or a contrite or remorseful sense of
self-limitation, unfulfilled potential, or imperfection, in
relation to Divine love and goodness, in accordance with the
scriptural teaching that "fear of God is the beginning of
wisdom".
However, when we have a strong, traumatic or cataclysmic
experience, prompting us to abandon our previous belief
structure, we will then embrace what appears to us, from our
experience, as the best alternative belief structure available
to us - which is, typically, one we have come to know through
a friend, an organization, or through reading or the
communications media.
This psychological process of conversion has been widely
used by churches, sects, cults and mass therapy organizations
- whether through confrontation with hell fire and brimstone,
with one's own imperfections and untested assumptions, with
some deceptive or hypnotic experience of power or light, or
with some other technique of 'brainwashing", involving group
and psychological pressures, chemicals, drugs, vibrations,
radiations, psychic and magical forces, etc. When the fear,
awe or remorse has been manipulatively induced within this
overtly friendly and supportive context of the organization or
community, then the community and its belief structure are
immediately at hand as the alternative to be embraced.
The process and movement of manipulative brainwashing are
seen as a major social threat by those who seek to create a
better world through the application of rational, scientific
analysis to social and psychological behavior, because they
seem to be generating increasing numbers of religions, sects,
cults and mass therapy societies, of increasing size, whose
members in many cases appear to be placing allegiance to their
own groups, beliefs and leaders above human and civil rights
and the democratic political process, and frequently seek
positions of power and influence in government, industry and
the military, to this end.
I propose that the growing number of conversions, in
secular societies, to organizations and movements using
brainwashing or other mind control techniques is symptomatic
of a loss of appreciation by the prime movers of the great
world religious traditions of the indispensable importance of
actively promoting conversions - particularly as mandated by
Christ, for example, in his instructions to the Apostles to
'go forth and teach all notions, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' ( ).
It is paradoxical that this falling off in the
traditional Apostolate of conversion has come about at the
time when not only the rampant social phenomenon of
conversions by and to sects, cults and mass therapies, but
also the evidence of neurology, brain study and
parapsychology, as well, point to conversion as an integral
part of human growth potential and the life force, - and,
when the need to tap mystically the source of universal love
of the great world religion revelations, to transform the face
of the earth to build the Peaceable Kingdom, has never been
greater.
The over-riding need of the world is for an Apostolate of
conversion generated by an outpouring of the power of
universal love - an Apostolate in which love itself gains the
conversions, and not brainwashing or elitism. And, this in
turn requires an ascetical, mystical reopening of hearts,
minds, souls and strength to the treasuries of divine love.
Secondly, with the acceptance of the potential, need and
fact of the conversion process, there needs to be an
envisaging of the characteristics of faith, and of believing
communities, which would serve the needs of the entire world
for love, peace, unity, truth, justice, equality, freedom,
material sufficiency, well-being, conservation and renewal.
Such characteristics would include:
- A faith which provides a specific doctrinal and
self-disciplinary basis for mystical growth in
holiness to move us to glorify God and to reach out
to all persons in self-giving love.
- A faith which envisages specific developments and
steps whereby the world community of nations and
peoples can move from the present state of injustices,
revolutions, armaments and wars to the Peaceable
Kingdom of love.
- A faith producing leaders of great holiness and love
who contribute to human needs and inspire faith in
others.
- A faith which produces communities or churches of
believers with whom we can share love and fellowship.
- A faith which is inherently universal, all-inclusive
and therefore capable of uniting with other inherently
universal faiths, on the basis of the universal
potential of all persons for growth ln love.
- A faith which has lines of continuity from, and
origins in, one or more of the great historical
religions of the world.
- A faith which respects human rights to freedom from
coercion or surreptitious brainwashing, and to leave
any church, sect or cult one wishes to.
Thirdly, there must be a reconciliation of the existence
of pain, sickness, injustice, conflict, violence and death in
the world, and also a reconciliation of the human shortcomings
of the world religion/cultures, with faith in a loving and
just God.
This is necessary before conversion to belief in such a
God, and religious tradition and/or organization which claims
to be-the repository for the valid revelations of such a God,
can be accepted as reasonable, desirable. Rational, secular
scientific humanism makes a most necessary contribution in
calling religious adherents to 'practice what they preach';
but believers also make a most necessary contribution in
calling humanists to remain open to the possibility of and
conversion to a belief which encompasses resolutions to the
problem of good and evil transcending rationalism.
Rational aIternatives to conversion proposed by those who
are enemies of faith include: reaffirmation and development of
unlimited natural human potential; preventative education to
deter conversion; attempted mass "de-programming" of converts
to pre-conversion psychological states; or cynical acceptance
of and political and economic manipulation of the present
trends of competition among the various cults, sects and mass
therapies in brainwashing - all of which are contrary to the
potential and need for personal ascetic, mystical growth to
manifest the love needed to establish the Peaceable Kingdom.
On the other hand, those of us who, while not believing,
recognize the warrant for a faith and a community of believers
which would have the desired characteristics or marks of
holiness, love, fellowship. universality, unity, justice,
equality and popular continuity, remain open to the conversion
experience which would enable and impel us to embrace such a
faith and community concreteIy.
Such a conversion may not begin as an acceptance of a
faith and a community rationally, but as a spiritual impress
of faith imparting a sense of the goodness of God and of
Creation - which moves us to re-examine how human and
religious imperfections and failings, including our own, can
be reconciled with the love and goodness of God,
The sense of this goodness comes from God's goodness to
us personally, with all our imperfections - which makes us
realize that he is also dealing wlth others personally,
notwithstanding their Imperfections, and, therefore,
notwithstanding the aggregate of these imperfections in their
religious traditions and fellowships.
God's goodness is manifested to us by his offering to us
of opportunities to move towards goodness step by step -
culminating ln the ultimate rising to the total goodness of
the Trinitarian godhead. Thus, it is to the universal
potential for ascetic, mystical life and growth in holiness
that we are to look for testimony to God's goodness and for
the basis of our faith.
The impress of God's goodness on our souls by the Holy
Spirit serves to mirror this goodness through our unconscious
such that in addition to experiencing faith, we also begin to
have knowledge and love of God's attributes, and to experience
a desire to form or transform ourselves spiritually to conform
as closely as possible with these attributes. Thus, the
conversion to faith is at the same time the beginning of love
of God: and is also the impetus which starts us, in love, on
the path of ascetic, mystical, growth. Subsequently, at each
step of growth we experience a still further impress of God's
goodness, love and other attributes, which convert us anew to
pursue in faith each subsequent next step of growth.
At the same time, under God's nurturing providence, life
continues to bring us major experiences, traumas and
catastrophes (or in our weakness or unregeneratedness, we may
bring them upon ourselves) which open us further through fear,
awe, contrition or remorse, to the perception of the impress
of God's goodness and love on our souls. Thus, the
development of nuclear bombs and power, and of genetic
engineering, have led to fears of massive destruction of
contagion; the development of modern, industrial society has
led to the fear of poisoning the environment, of
overdependence on mass production and distribution, and of
depletion and scarcity of resources; and, the rapid spread of
religious, psychological, psychic, electrical and chemical
means of behavior manipulation have led to fears for sanity,
soul and mass control.
My own initial spiritual conversion, from which a number
of these observations about conversion have been drawn
experientially, came from a sort of "do-it-yourself"
open-ended secular brainwashing and de-programing (although
these terms were not current at the time) in an intense
commitment to seek a universal love which would enable me and
others to overcome the divisive barriers of life, in unity,
cooperation and peace.
From a deep Quaker commitment to peace and non-violence I
had become preoccupied with the fact that wars seemed to be
precipitated by alienating religious, cultural, racial and
national allegiances which provided the basis for
dehumanization of and contempt for those of other allegiances,
and also provided the basis for the armaments and conscription
which made it possible for political leaders to wage war.
Examining this psychologically, I saw that such
allegiances were supported by a mental identification of self
in value with nation, and that such an identification was just
one instance of an entire mental habit and value structure of
identification tied up with the emotions and feelings and with
attitudes and perspectives generally.
From this perspective, I then undertook the introspective
self discipline of discerning identifications underlying every
negative, division, alienation, emotion, feeling, attitude or
perspective of any strength which came into consciousness, and
of dissolving the identification. At the same time I willed
to nurture, and strengthen every positive, liberating, uniting
emotion, feeling, attitude or perspective of love,
cooperation, unity and universality, and to generate them
where they were needed but did not exist.
During this period, two important developments occurred
providentially. First, several striking events took place of
such unexpected and startling assistance in circumstances of
physical and then psychological distress, that I was prompted
for the first time to believe in providence and an
all-powerful God, instead of a universe operating according to
certain laws established by a now remote and impersonal
deistic original creating force. Second, the first atomic
bomb was dropped at Hiroshima, which threw me in deep despair
over the potential of human love to overcome such terrible
destructive capability.
However, my sense of a loving God prevailed over this
despair (as described in the Chapter on Intuition and
Insights) so while continuing my efforts in the concrete task
at hand of ferreting out every possible divisive, alienating
identification, I also gained the conviction that there must
be some resolution of the contradiction between one's power
and providence on the one hand, and the forces of
destructiveness let loose in the world, on the other; and that
a loving God would make available an accessible truth source
to show us how to cope with and resolve this contradiction.
But again I despaired, because an examination of the
major world religions seem to show an inconsistency or
out-and-out hypocrisy between their professed beliefs in love
and justice and their involvements in warring allegiances.
Some of my close friends saw their way to resolve this dilemma
by converting to Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism and moving to
countries where they could find and join communities of these
faiths. I could not see that a loving just and providential
God would require the leaving of one's homeland to find a
religious base, so I continued to pursue my quest in the
United States.
But, as I continued to be unable to find a religious base
at hand which met my rational, humanist, criteria, I
intensified still further my soul's outreach for some sort of
direct access to the divine love needed for peace on earth.
By this time I had so extensively eliminated mundane
identifications and attachments that my soul seemed to break
forth from its previous mental prison and flow out into the
vast reaches of the universe - but only to encounter an
overwhelming array of psychic and preternatural forces and
entities - some benign and some highly frightening. The
following poem by Richard Pousette-Dart described my state of
mind at that time:
Such doubts lie all about me in the night
That when I think of them I start to tremble
Till shaking like a leaf in fear,
I lie helpless, filled with forebodings of doom.
So ls my life - wrapped in its own winding: Now sure,
Now strong and bravely laughing;
Now walking through all storms without a tremor -
But 0, when the wide door of death swings open,
What cold, what damp, what howling winds blow in.
Now strong, now weak - all sudden lightening changes
Which no rule can account for -
Mighty thunder calls -
The mystic wideness of the world
- The pounding wind-swept waves and wasted rocks
- The elements which no man's knowledge knows of
Break in upon me, dumb, black, stricken terror "
- Foreboding, c. 1944, (unpublished)
This traumatic, if not catastrophic, experience made me
see that of itself liberation of soul was an inadequate means
of access to the divine love necessary for peace. But at the
same time it mysteriously increased my certainty that such
love existed, and that, since I was not able to find it by
soul outreach from my body, it must be available to me, must
come to me, through a divinely established, widely accessible,
religious community.
After a third successive sleepless night, it occurred to
me that there was only one institutional religion or church
known to me that even claimed, despite its imperfections, the
characteristics I knew must exist somewhere: unity, holiness,
universality, divine establishment, and continuity through the
centuries; namely the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman
Church.
The next day I looked up the address of the nearest
Catholic Church in the telephone book, rang the rectory
doorbell, was welcomed in, and began my catachetical
instruction leading to baptism.
PURGATIVE ASCENT
Following conversion, our soul needs to undertake a path
of purging and purification so that we may bring our lives
into greater conformity with and reflection of God's goodness
and love which have been impressed upon it by the Holy Spirit.
At the beginning of this ascetical, purgative ascent the soul
can be envisaged as residing, subtly, within the envelope of
the vital body. Through whatever links it has with the vital
body it also, we envisage, is over-powered, dominated,
conditioned, determined, imprisoned and bonded by the
faculties and senses of the physical body-brain, with its
emotions, feelings, desires, attachments and stirrings.
This interlocking subordination of the soul to the
physical body-brain through the vital body is held by eastern
religious traditions to be through centers or Shakras of the
vital body, which are widely identified as seven in number:
I - Crown Center - top of Head
2 - Head Center (seat of brain)
3 - Throat Center
4 - Heart Center
5 - Solar Plexus Center
6 - Sacral Center (lower back)
7 - Spinal Center (Base of Spine)
During the purgative period of soul development, it
appears that the lower four centers of the vital body serve as
intermediaries between the soul and the physical body-brain.
The spinal Center, which is held to be related with the
adrenal and other ductless glands, is associated functionally
with the desires, appetites, gratifications, fear, survival
and other basic drives.
The sacral center, related to the central nervous system
through the the ductless glands, is associated functionally
with abstract imaging, thought and mental attachments,
patterns, education, training and conditioning.
The solar plexus center which is held to be related to
the central nervous system through the solar plexus, is
associated functionally with willing and attempted or actual
competition, superiority, dominance, manipulation and control.
The heart center, which is held to be associated with the
spiritual heart or astral body, is related functionally with
movements towards affinity, love, altruism, cooperation,
rapport and empathy. When the movements of the heart center
begin to restrain and replace the urgings of the three lower
centers, a person is said, Biblically, to have a new or
upright heart, or to be an upright or righteous person.
Correspondingly, the stirrings of self-respect and
self-love and of love of God and neighbor have their origin in
the heart center and soul, as do the stirrings of the
spiritual impress of faith and a sense of God's love and
goodness. It is these stirrings which move us to ascetical
yearning, striving, growth and development - as a means of
implementing self-development, love of God and love of
neighbor.
In accordance with the findings of neurological science,
the articulations, ramifications and interlocking of the
central nervous system are highly complex, as are their
interrelations with the glandular systems. There is an
extensive rope of interconnections between the cerebral plexus
and the sacral plexus, and it is clear even superficially that
excitation and control can originate from various points, and
that numerous patterns and functionings of integration are
possible and to be expected - Including the possibility of
spiritual impress from the soul through the centers of the
vital body.
According to the traditional eastern texts and studies of
the Shakras, the soul does not interact through the three
upper centers during the purgative stage of ascetical growth.
Ascetical practice begins with steps to diminish
dominance of behavior by acts of the lower three canters -
through acts of mortification, self-abnegation, purgation and
ferreting - followed by a transforming offsetting, replacement
and integration of their functioning through the heart center.
The basic means for accomplishing this in Christian asceticism
is though the sacrament of penance, confession or
reconciliation, which is a source of actual purging and
strengthening graces which augment the love of God of the
sanctifying grace received at baptism. In this the spinal
center is purged and religiously reformed by the examination
of sins of disobedience against the Ten Commandments and the
law of the Church, followed by acts of contrition, penance and
priestly absolution.
Similarly, the sacral center is purged and religiously
reformed by the examination of sins against the virtues,
especially the capital or cardinal sins; and solar plexus
center by examination of sins against love and the beatitudes.
In Christian religious orders purgative ascetical growth
is fostered, additionally, by the diminishing and formative
effects of following the evangelical counsels - by taking the
religious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, which
relate, respectively, to the sacral, spinal and solar plexus
centers. Thus poverty - material and spiritual - offsets
possessiveness and attachment to things, ideas and
relationships; chastity offsets the sway of the desires and
appetites; and obedience offsets tendencies to willfulness,
superiority and dominance.
Within this general commitment to mortification,
self-abnegation and purging, specific sins, vices and
imperfections are then ferreted out by daily examination of
one's feelings and behavior - generally, and with respect to
particular problem areas at any given time - by oneself, and
with the assistance of a spiritual director and a confessor.
This is accompanied by a loving resolve to curtail sins, vices
and imperfections and to replace them with offsetting virtues
that through this purging of the activities of the lower
centers, the soul may be progressively liberated, mellowed and
strengthened by the nurturing of the heart, in its yearning
for increase in concrete acts of love towards God and
neighbor.
While the purgative ascent necessarily focuses on the
sins. vices and imperfections which must be purged, so that
the yearning of soul to correspond to and to reflect the
impress of the divine love and goodness made on it by the Holy
Spirit at conversion can increasingly be fulfilled, it is
Important to remember that the primary impetus is one of love.
It Is the steady increase of love infused in the soul by
divine grace which moves us to ever greater purification of
our sins, vices and imperfections associated with the lower
centers so that we can indeed respond ever more fully and
perfectly to the promptings of ever-increasing love.
To this end, the religious and liturgical arts and nature
symbolism provide means of fostering love of God and of
purging and transforming the affections, intellect and will .
. . through architecture, sculpture, painting, stained glass
windows, poetry, music, dance, vestments, flowers and other
means.
For example, at first we offset the capital sins by
nurturing the 'opposite' virtues, such that lust is offset by
continence, anger by patience, envy by love, avarice by
generosity, pride by humility, sloth by diligence and gluttony
by moderation,
Then, as the sins are dissolved and expiated by the
purging action of the Holy Spirit, the offsetting virtues,
too, are replaced or transformed through grace, especially by
the sacraments, and through the cardinal virtues of faith,
hope and love, and the moral virtues of justice, prudence,
fortitude and temperance - such that our behavior becomes
primarily the virtuous implementation of love, rather than the
offsetting of sins, vices and imperfections.
It is through its focus on the continuous increase in
love in soul and heart, through the infusion of grace, and the
corresponding expiative purging of the obstacles and blocks to
the operation of love, the action of the Holy Spirit, that
religious asceticism differs from psychological therapy. The
latter is able to relieve and to integrate pent-up drives,
fears and frustrations hy catharsis, rational control,
sublimation or replacement, but it is unable to purge and to
expiate them from existence, or to replace them with the
ever-increasing infusion of supernatural love.
In the process of mortification, self abnigation, purging
and ferreting out of impulses related to the lower three
centers we are not attempting to eliminate their energies -
which provide the principal input and motivation for mundane
personal, economic and personal life, but to conform them to
religious law, virtue, counsel and love.
Thus, Freud, in addressing himself to unconscious
dominance of the spinal center (id) has proposed to release
obsessive fears and drives af erasability related to this
center by bringing them into conscious awaredness and control,
integration and sublimation through the methods of
psychotherapy, dream analysis, etc.. Adler, by addressing
himself to the exaggerated development of solar plexus center
striving for superiority and dominance, often in compensation
for unconscious feelings of inferiority, has striven, through
counseling and analysis - particularly analysis of unconscious
body-language and movements - to make the complexes or "life
style" conscious, in relation to life pressures encountered,
and to modify them rationally in favor of social feeling and
interest, and cooperation - including emphasis on every
individual's imperative to take up the principal tasks of
life: love, work and society,
Rogers' developmental psychology has proposed that a
gentle, sympathetic, nurturing counseling and therapeutic
approach to problems will gradually bring the impulses of the
heart to the forefront, in replacement of spinal center
related drives and solar plexus center related strivings for
superiority and control . . . and especially over the
stultification of exaggerated sacral center related social
norms, stereotypes and prejudices. Ellis has proposed
psychological transformation by purely rational analysis and
control. Skinner's behavior modification, on the other hand,
has introduced the training of sacral center related mental
control through administered spinal center related rewards and
punishments, without attempting to deal consciously and
therapeutically with spinal center and solar plexus center
related over-emphases or dominances.
Of the psychological approaches to growth and development
encountered, Jung has proposed use of psychological therapy
and development through soul liberation and strengthening
which has substantial parallels with the religious ascetical
approach to soul liberation and growth, except that it does
not draw specifically on the infusion of supernatural grace
and spirit. Nor does it pay full attention to the need for
purging and expiation of limitations, blocks and confinements
associated with the lower three centers. As distinct, from
the other psychological approaches just summarized, however,
Jung has examined unconscious factors reflected in sacral
center related images and archetypes which he has discerned as
manifesting the stirrings and movements of the soul - and
which proved most helpful to me in discerning such movements
in my own soul, as mentioned in the first chapter.
In sum, while much benefit can he achieved by removing
psychological repressions, inhibitions and blocks, and by
bringing unconscious factors under increased conscious
control, integration and sublimation, these, are essentially
techniques of rational scientific humanism, which fail to
address the soul's need and yearning for conversion to growth
in openness to, purification through, strengthening in, and
channeling and instrumentation of supernatural love, through
grace and spirit - which in its purgative stage is only a
prelude to the affective stage of growth in a relationship of
personal love of God.
THE AFFECTIVE ASCENT
Through the purging of the three lower centers of the
vital body and their related senses, movements and faculties,
and through the strengthening of the soul and of the heart
center through liberating and sanctifying spirit and grace,
there comes a point in the purgative ascent identified as the
spiritual betrothal of the soul. At this point, the soul has
been sufficiently freed, and the disorderly activities
associated with the three lower centers sufficiently
diminished, offset and replaced, under the gentle governance
of the heart, so that the yearnings, stirrings and movements
of the soul towards God's goodness and love are more vigorous,
more frequent and more conscious.
Ascetical growth now changes from the discursive mode of
growth through self-examination and analysis of sins, defects
and imperfections - with associated steps to mortify,
abnegate. purge and ferret them out, and to offset and replace
them - to an affective mode pervaded by a more strongly
experienced love of God and a desire to continue ever more
closely in this love. There may be some residual purging of
the centers, but now the spiritual growth of the soul is
primarily through further nurturing by grace to follow its
spiritual longings, hungers, stirrings, risings, openings,
yearnings and love in affective ascent within the upper
portions of the vital body - moving towards the culmination of
the purgings of the affective ascent, wherein the pliant,
upwards expanding soul overflows from the top of the vital
body to begin filling the spiritual heart so as to surround
the vital body and then to open the centers into the spiritual
heart, in the grace descent.
In secular psychology, the basic human yearning to move
from the discursive to the affective mode is envisaged as a
move from head to heart, rational to intuitive, prose to
poetry, abstract to symbolic, deductive to inductive, linear
to holistic, differential to integral, left brain to right
brain, cortex to hypothalamus, etc.
With the spiritual betrothal, at the beginning of the
affective ascent, a change in prayer is discerned from 'vocal
prayer' of addressing God in traditional formal prayers such
as the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, Morning Offering, Act of
Contrition and many others, to "mental prayer" emerging more
spontaneously from a sense of a loving, conversational
relationship with God - with Jesus and/or with God the Father.
The affective/mental-prayer stage of ascetical growth is
associated with a "getting in touch" with our awakening and
stirring soul - much as psychologically we get in touch with
and interact with our subconscious. Here, the blocking or
limiting factors are not so much sins, defects and
imperfections, as in the purgative ascent, but mental
distractions introduced through our senses, feelings,
imaginations or subconscious, which turn our attention away
from movements of God's grace in Our souls. What is needed
here is not to "fight" our distractions by consciously
attempting to repress, purge or replace them, but to nurture
the strengthening of our soul in grace, particularly though
the sacraments, so that the distractions begin to fall away
before the more active stirrings of the soul towards God.
In our longing for Christ, we open ourselves to him in a
dilation of heart, and embrace him in spiritual betrothal of
soul when he shows himself to us spiritually. Then, ln love,
we are joyously drawn to imitation, meditation and
contemplation of him as our stirring, mellowing, expanding
soul rises up in our vital body to now activate the throat,
head and crown centers. At the time of spiritual betrothal a
leafing stem of affective love is formed through grace in our
soul and implanted at the base of our vital body to rise up
and burgeon at the lower three centers, and then higher, to
overcome the discursive neurological matrix previously formed
in the body/brain: a stem whose flowers subsequently yield the
fruits of the Spirit at the three lower levels, as they are
irrigated during the grace descent of the soul into the
spiritual heart.
Various writers on mystical asceticism have reported
moving from purgative to affective spiritual growth at
different points. St. John of the Cross provides one of the
most well known examples in his abandoning of the writing of
the purgative "Dark Night of the Soul" after interpreting only
three of the eight stanzas, and moving on to the writing of
the affective "Spiritual Canticle".
ln his introduction to his "Treatise on the Love of God",
St. Francis de Sales gave his readers a choice, as it were,
writing:
"The first four books and some chapters of the rest
might without doubt have been omitted, without
disadvantage to such souls as only seek the practice
of holy love, yet all of it will be profitable unto
them if they behold it with a devout eye; while others
might have been disappointed not to have had the whole
of what belongs to the practise of divine love."
St. Ignatius of Loyola, while organizing his Spiritual
Exercises with conciseness and system, says from the outset of
the affective movement of soul that: "it is not abundance of
knowledge that fills and satisfies the soul, but to feel and
taste the matters interiorly." (Annotations, par. 2).
St. Louis de Montfort likewise proposes an affective
approach from the start, pointing out in "True Devotion to the
Blessed Virgin Mary" that:
"(Consecration to Jesus through Mary) is an easy, sure,
perfect and secure way of attaining union with our Lord
in which union the perfection of a Christian consists.
. . . It is true that we can attain divine union by
other roads, but it is by many more crosses and strange
deaths, and with many more difficulties, which we shall
find it hard to overcome . . . But by the path of Mary,
we pass more gently and more tranquilly."
(lp. Ill )
With origins in the days of pre-printing, pre-literate
popular rural religious traditions, the prayer of meditation
on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary of Mary has been a
widely valued support for imitation of and meditation on
Christ, as have been various seven-meditation rosaries, such s
those of the seven joys and of the seven sorrows of Our Lady.
Religious painting, sculpture and stained glass windows
have been important supports for meditation, and also
contemplation; and religious music, particularly Gregorian
chant, and hymns, have been supports for praise and
contemplation.
With the introduction into the West of mandalas from
eastern religions, as visual supports for meditation and
contemplation, and of mantras as vocal supports, there has
been a renewed appreciation of the importance of the visual
and vocal elements of Christian meditation and contemplation -
particularly of the simpler visual images such as the
Crucifix, Sacred Heart of Jesus, Immaculate Heart of Mary,
Madonna and Child, the saints, rose windows, Our Lady of
Grace, Christ Pantocrator, etc., and the simple repetition of
a word such as "Jesus", of the Hail Marys of the Rosary, of
the Jesus prayer of Eastern Churches, or of the "God come to
my assistance, Lord make haste to help me" from the Psalms and
the Roman Divine Office.
These simple, direct, clear words of grace and are images
of light are most effective as supports for Christian
meditation and contemplation when we permit them to invoke and
quicken a sense of God's love for us as manifested in the
divine Plan of creation, redemption, and eternity in heaven.
With brief or extended meditation on this love, we may then
rise in grace and Spirit to contemplation of and participation
in the interior life of love of the Persons of the Trinity,
mirrored by the Divine Plan; from which we then turn to extend
this love in instrumentation of the Divine Plan through our
prayers and works for our neighbor and the building of the
Peaceable Kingdom on earth.
SOUL
One practical consequence of the affective ascent, for
ascetical growth, is that through the rising of the soul to
the upper three centers of the vital body and its nurturing
through grace of the growth of the flowering stem
affectionately planted in the vital body we are able to enter,
as a consequence of finer soul attunement, into affective,
mental prayer of a loving two-way conversation with God - a
realized sense of God as a loving person, variously Father,
Son and Holy Spirit - who hears us with understanding and
compassion and to whom we can bring our joys, sorrows and
concerns.
It is during this relationship of affective,
conversational, prayer that we begin to have an intuitive
sense of responses, answers and illuminations from God - as
exemplified in the dialogues with Christ, in the "Imitation of
Christ" of Thomas á Kempis, and in the dialogues with the
Father in the "Dialogues of St. Catherine of Siena". When we
begin to enter into this kind of affective, communicating
relationship with God, it is of the utmost importance that we
redouble our self-examinations for humility and spiritual
poverty - avoiding any kind of spiritual pride from our sense
of being in such communication, and avoiding the riches of
dwelling on, attachment to, or enshrining or idolizing any
such communication.
Similarly, we are to practice the spiritual chastity of
avoiding becoming enamored of and desirous of experiencing
God's presence and communications because of any feelings of
pleasure or satisfaction from this. And we must practice the
spiritual obedience of submitting the contents of our sensed
communications to the test of right reason, and to our
spiritual director and counselor, if we have one, in relation
to the revealed scriptures of the Bible and the doctrine and
teaching of the Church.
In the language of the "Canticle of Canticles" and of St.
John of the Cross' "Spiritual Canticle", we find that this is
a time when God communicates with us and remains with our
souls for a period of time, and then absents himself from us -
evidently because we are indeed in need of further perfection
of our spiritual poverty, chastity and obedience. Thus the
very desolation of God's withdrawal and absence quickens us,
in our self-examinations, to the realization that we have
insufficiently practiced spiritual poverty, chastity and
obedience.
In this, we are chastened by the reflection that Jesus
himself was spiritually tempted by Satan: his chastity being
tempted by the offering of a loaf of bread during his fasting;
his poverty being tested by the offering of fame if he were to
make a sensational leap from the walls of the Temple; and and
his obedience being tested by an offer of mundane power over
all the nations if he would be subservient to Satan.
From this ascetical experience and testing, we can infer
that there is a parallel, corollary or harmonic between the
three higher centers of the vital body, now being activated by
our rising soul, and the three lower centers. This has been
spoken of by ascetical writers as a kind of purification of
soul that seems, on another level, to duplicate the
purification of the senses.
However, the three higher centers are also operative in
their own right as centers, respectively, of imitation,
meditation and contemplation - following on the opening of the
fourth, heart center of love, at the mystical betrothal.
Our model for imitation is especially that of Mary's
excellences: her purity, humility, openness, obedience, love,
fruition, and her preservation of these. The emphasis here is
not so much on the purgative side - as with as with the
poverty, chastity and obedience of the purgative ascent - but
rather on the growth in affective love, for which the
purgative has opened the way, yielding fruits of meditation
and contemplation.
The testing, and the need for strict spiritual poverty,
chastity and obedience, as the basis for the excellences of
Mary, and for meditation and contemplation, are of critical
importance, also, with regard to the allurements of false
prophets. In the subtle areas of sensitivity and attunement
to whlch our souls are now beginning to respond during the
affective ascent, they are now open to a possibility of
temptations, or at least distractions, from every kind of
subtle being or entity - all the way from psychic residues of
the dead, such as ghosts, to occult and magical forces, to
demons and to Satan himself.
Our souls are utter 'babes in the woods' in this newly
opened area of subtle contact and communication. We are in no
way to enter into relationships or communications with these
entities - other than to reject them totally, as in the vows
of Baptism, "I reject Satan, and all his pomps, and all his
works" - after tbe manner of Jesus in the desert.
Indeed, faced with the growth of our souls in subtle
receptivity, we would turn away from this entire growth step,
were it not that it is accompanied by a call to closer
knowledge, love and service of God in the building of his
Kingdom and the doing of his will "on earth as it is in
heaven", and that there exist, established means for ascetical
instruction and discernment within the Church.
With this in mind, the following cross reference is
included between chapters of this book and writings of St.
Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and St. Francis de
Sales, based on recourse to these writers for understanding of
ascetic, mystical life and growth as actually experienced:
Chapter
St. Teresa of Avila St. John of the Cross St.Francis de Sales
6.Converslon
TLG,Book II,l3-22
7.Purgatlve
IC Mansion I,2
AMC Chaps I,Il,III
TLG Book VIll,all
Ascent III,I
DNS Chap l
8. Affective
IC Mansion IV,l-3
SC Stanzas 1-ll
TLG Book IX,1-8
Ascent
9. Soul
IC Mansion V,1-4
SC Stanzas 12-18
TLG Book V, all
10. Grace Descent
11. Luminous
IC Mansion VI,I-2
SC Stanzas 19-33
TLG Book X, all
Ascent
XI,I-14
l2 Wisdom
IC Mansion VI, 3-4
SC Stanzas 34-39
TLG Book Xl,15-21
Descent
XI1,all VI,8--l1
13. Soul
IC Mansion VI, 5-11
LFI Stanzas I-3
TLG Book VI, 12-15
Ascent
14. Heavenly
IC Mansion VII, all
LFL Stanza 4
TLG Book Vll, all
Union
Key:
IC - The lnterior Castle
AMC - The Ascent of Mt. Caramel
TLG - Treatise on the Love of God
DNS - The Dark Night of the Soul
SC - The Spiritual Canticle
LFL - The Living Flame of Love (Redaction I)
Subsequent Chapters draw largely on St. Ignatius of
Loyola, St. Paul, Revelations of the Apocalypse, Teilhard de
Chardin and St. Louis de Montfort, with quotations included ln
the text.
It could be said that Mansions V and VII of St. Therese's
The Interior Castle all belong to the spiritual Marriage of
the luminous ascent, as the saint seems to embrace spiritual
marriage and heavenly union simultaneously :
"As our Lord has a dwelling place in heaven, so does
he in the soul - which may be termed another heaven."
(SC, VII, par.1)
However, she also states:
"Although I have only mentioned seven mansions, yet
each one contains some, above, below and around it"
(SC, Epilogue)
With this clarification, the various references are shown
as they proved helpful in clarifying my experience, as
followed in the chapter sequence. From this viewpoint, St.
Teresa can be said to have experienced the wisdom descent,
soul ascent and heavenly union charismatically in conjunction
with the luminous ascent - or all merged into one. St. John
of the Cross, on the other hand, distinguishes between these
two ascents ascetically, in the Prologue to "The Living Flame
of Love":
"Although in the stanzas which we expounded above
(i.e. in "The Spiritual Canticle") we spoke of the most
perfect degree of perfection which a man may attain in
this life, which is transformation in God - these stanzas
treat of a love which is even more complete and perfected
ln this state of transformation."
It is our thesis that the distinction between these two
modes of spiritual marriage in union with God are clarified by
the distinctions between the soul's subtle movements in the
spiritual heart and in the spiritual vessel, even though they
may be merged experientially .
The new precariousness of our soul's exposed situation
after its emergence from the protective envelope of the vital
body also brings us to greater appreciation of some of the
other assurances and safeguards God has provided as our
Heavenly Father, in his providence, as we learn from the
Sacred Scriptures.
First we have Christ's promise to Peter that "the gates
of hell shall not prevail against you", and "whatever you bind
on earth shall be bound in heaven"; and his assurance that:
"Whatsoever you ask in my name shall be given to you". Thus,
we can rely on the holiness of the sacraments as sources of
grace, and on the dogmatic teachings of the Church; and can
proceed with faith and confidence when we make the sign of the
Cross, or pray in Christ's name.
Also, we have Christ's loving act from the Cross of
giving us, in prayer to St. John, his mother as our mother
also - so we can turn in prayer to Mary, whom God gave power
over Satan (Gen ); as well as to our guardian angel, to St.
Michael the Archangel and to St. George.
Finally, we have such assurances and safeguards as the
giving of priestly blessings, the incensing of the altar, the
use of holy water and the use of blest objects and of relics
of the saints.
With heightened appreciation of these divinely endowed
bountiful safeguards and assurances, we are then confirmed in
our freedom to respond to the movements of our soul calling
us to be "simple souls" and "children of God" as we respond to
God's affective promptings. And re-alerted to the "triple
threat" of the world, the flesh and the devil, we constantly
renew our sense of spiritual poverty, chastity and obedience,
and pray the Lord's prayer offered to the Father that he "lead
us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil", in order
that we may press ahead in opening our souls in security to
the fullness of God's love, that we may be effective as his
instruments for overcoming the world.
LUMINOUS DESCENT
With the transfiguring outflow of the soul, at the
fullness of the affective ascent, from the vital body into the
spiritual heart, the countenance becomes smiling and radiant
and the manner, tender, gentle, loving, kind and compassionate
- transformed in a flooding of the heart with grace and light.
This is the state of the gentle mysticism of St Francis of
Assisi, Blessed Henry Suso, Thomas á Kempis and St. Francis de
Sales.
With St. Francis of Assisi we sing hymns to God's love
and munificence in his Creation, and pray that we may be
channels and instruments of God's peace. This is the full
flowering of the state of spiritual betrothal, of the divine
presence in the soul. It is a time of love, goodness,
holiness, light, paradise, hope, grace and enthusiasm that is
all too unappreciated, or dismissed as pious sentimentality,
in our day of cynicism and of psychological reductionism which
neither sees or even believes in the soul.
It is the time of Lauds, the Benedictus, the Gloria, the
Angelus, of the Magnificat and of Christmas, of the infant
Jesus in the manger in the arms of Mary and Joseph, of angels
and shepherds, of the star of Bethlehem and the
astrologer-kings, of Christmas carols, of Silent Night and 0,
Little Town of Bethlehem.
It is a time of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus and of
devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of spiritual
betrothal to Christ. Ascetically it is a time of opening our
senses, faculties and hearts to all the resplendence of the
gentle movement of our soul; a time of nature, of grace, of
spirit, and of loving providence.
Interiorly, it is evidently a time of subtle opening of
the three upper centers of the vital body - the throat center,
the head center and the crown center - so that grace of the
soul from the spiritual heart can flow back into the vitaI
body, bringing the beginnings of the illumination of our
body-brains by our soul.
However, the grace descent is just one step of ascetical
growth, and to rest here, as Peter would have in proposing to
Jesus at his Transfiguration that they should build three
houses - one for Jesus, one for Moses and one for Isaiah - is
to fall into what has been termed "quietism". Our calling and
task are to spread this love and joy in promoting God's
Kingdom of mercy, peace and salvation on earth.
To this end, the opening of our crown center as our soul
flows into our spiritual heart appears to be associated with
the illumination of our head center with grace and of our
throat center with holiness - as rivers of light from our
spiritual heart flow through these openings, augmenting the
grace already in our vital bodies. And, grace flowing through
our heart center causes our hearts to be pierced with
compassion for those burdened with despair, injustice and
sickness.
The Fruits of the Spirit - joy, humility, modesty and
faith: peace, love, kindness and goodness; and patience,
long-suffering, continency and chastity - burgeon from the
flowers of poverty, chastity and obedience blossoming at the
three lower centers of the vital body as they are opened by
the additional grace of the descending soul and grace flowing
through them from the spiritual heart into the vital body.
In retrospect, I now realize that I spent some twenty
years in ascetic, mystical growth in affective love,
imitation, meditation and contemplation, and of welling grace,
while researching, living with and promoting the flower
symbolism of the "Mary Garden", mentioned in the chapter on
Inspiration and Insights. The following are some descriptions
of how, this was perceived at that time:
"As we approach the garden our first sense is of peace
and joy. Beholding it in its entirety with its trees
and shrubs, its plants and flowers, its birds and bees,
in sun and breeze, we are moved to offer praise and
thanksgiving, to the Creator with the overflowing joy
of St. Francis' Hymn to the Sun.
"Approaching closer, we see that the beauty of the garden
has been composed and offered around the image of Mary,
the Mother of God, as a hymn of veneration, in which we
are to join interiorly. Then, considering the
surrounding
flowers as symbols of Mary's immaculate purity, the
beauty
of her holiness and the the splendor of her heavenly
glory, we praise, bless and thank God for his great glory
as magnified in the soul of Mary.
"From the religious meaning of the plants, their
arrangement around the central statue of the Virgin and
Child, and their careful cultivation, visitors
immediately
sense this as a very special kind of garden, a garden of
peace and prayer and love, a garden with a fullness of
meaning and beauty not to be found in the usual herb or
flower garden."
A Garden Full of Aves, The Marianist
Magazine, Dayton, Ohio, 1962
"As we approach the garden our first sense is of peace
and ioy. Beholding it in its entirety with its trees
and shrubs, its plants and flowers, its birds an bees,
in sun and breeze, we are moved to offer praise and
thanksgiving , to the Creator with the overflowing joy
of St. Francis' Hymn to the Sun.
"Approaching closer, we see that the beauty of the
garden has been composed and offered around the image
of Mary, the Mother of God, as a hymn of veneration,
in which we are to join interiorly. Then, considering
the surrounding flowers as symbols of Mary's
immaculate purity, the beauty of her holiness and the
the splendor of her heavenly glory, we praise, bless
and thank God for his great glory as magnified in the
soul of Mary."
"As we enter and walk through the garden,- the
symbolism of the familiar shapes and colors of the
individual flowers lifts our thoughts to meditation on
Our Lady's life and mysteries. Meditating thus, we
are moved to praise God for the privileges and graces
he bestowed on Mary for her chosen role as his mother,
companion and cooperator in the work of human
redemption.
"At the same time we rejoice in Mary's love of God and
her perfect obedience to his will, which serve as the
model and inspiration for our own love and service of
God. Reminded in this way of how pleasing Mary must
be to God, and of his appointment of her as our
heavenly mother and mediatrix, the instrument of his
mercy, we confidently beseech her to pray to him for
us and to make our prayers hers.
"After completing our garden tasks we rest, finally,
in simple contemplation of Mary and Jesus, and of the
mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption. Then,
filled with the peace of Christ, we leave the garden,
praying with St. Francis that we may be made
instruments of that peace: 'where there is hatred
sowing love, where there is injury - pardon, where
there is doubt - faith, where there is despair - hope,
where there is darkness - light, where there is
sadness - joy'."
Mary-Gardening with St. Francis,
Assisi Magazine, Dublin, March, 1961
One of the most moving testimonies to the Mary Garden was
a poem sent to us by Liam Brophy, of Dublin:
Gardens Give Mary Glory
These are the loveliest of her litanies
These gardens where the glad abounding earth
Still gush the Holy Spirit's primal mirth
In endlessly renewed diversities
These from the faithful and fecund soil
Are generations that have called her blest,
These magnify her always without rest
While man's sad cyclic ages still uncoil.
They beat the perfumed air with noiseless sound,
They ring out her renown, freshIy repeat
Her names taught them by men whose pulses beat
With God's great rhythm of the Seasons' round.
Each garden gives her glory, chants her praise
Even in harsh and hostile places where
Men have forgotten gentleness and prayer,
And what still canticles waft through their days.
Who plants a garden builds a carillon
To peal her praises with the pulse of time,
And laud her with earth's loveliest, lasting chime
In bright, unalterable antiphon.
Turning inward, again, to the garden of our soul, we
pray, in the prayer as taught by "Christ The Gardener" as
discerned by Sr. Josepha Mendenez,
"'Lord, Thou knowest both the flowers and the fruits
of my garden . . . Come and teach me how I may grow
what will please Thee most.'
"To one who speaks in this way and has a genuine
desire of showing love, I answer: 'Beloved, if such is
your desire, suffer me to grow them for you. . . let
me deIve and dig in your garden . . . let me clear the
ground of those sinewy roots that obstruct it and
which you have not the strength to pull up . . . Maybe
I shall ask you to give up certain tastes, or
sacrifice something in your character . . . do some
act of charity, of patience, or self-denial . . . or
perhaps prove your love by zeal, obedience or
abnegation: all such deeds help to fertilize the soil
of your soul, which will then be able to produce the
flowers and fruits I look for."
("The Way of Divine Love", p. 275, 276.)
THE LUMINOUS ASCENT
As we are warmed by the love, grace, light, peace and joy
of our soul's overflowing into our spiritual hearts, we in
time come to sense that we are being summoned to an
illuminative strengthening which will enable us to go forth in
the world to promote the spiritual growth of souls and the
building of the Peaceable Kingdom.
In subtle structure and function this is supported by a
further growth of the flowers of grace in our vital bodies,
through the openings in the centers, into our spiritual
hearts, through the illuminative warming and formation of the
Holy Spirit. This further inflorescence is discovered as we
turn our senses inwardly to discern what is occurring as we
become conscious that strengthening is taking place.
In my own experience I discerned, as the growth of this
luminous ascent of inflorescence within the spiritual heart
proceeded, that there were indeed seven further
inflorescences, corresponding to the seven opened centers and
that seven leafed branches of grace in the vital body, which
were supportively associated with strengthening soul growth in
the obediences, virtues, beatitudes, corporeal works of mercy,
apostolic works of mercy, spiritual works of mercy or angelic
praises of God.
The first such inflorescence I myself discerned was at
the solar plexus center, in correlation with a conscious sense
of ascetical growth in the strengthening of the Beatitudes of
poverty of spirit, meekness, mourning, hunger for justice and
holiness, mercy, purity of heart, and peacemaking. In
reflection it seemed to me that the beginning of this stage of
ascetical growth with the Beatitudes was a fitting
"transition" from the love, grace, peace, joy and fruits of
the Spirit of the grace descent, but this may be a personal
circumstance of growth, without warrant of generalization.
Next came a flowering of the sacral center, supportive
of the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, and of the
moral virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.
Then, of the spinal center, associated with what I discerned
as obediences, duties or tasks of life - to God, soul,
kingdom, forgiveness, work, spiritual perfection and the
Church - to the Ten Commandments and the law of the Church, to
Divine and and natural law.
By way of explanation and clarity of the discernment
process involved, I should state that the ascetical growth
associated with the inflorescences was not at all understood
in any sort of comprehensive way at the time. I had a strong
sense, from inward envisionings, that inflorescence was taking
place, and I kept an extensive spiritual journal of
free-flowing, random thoughts; notes from reading or TV
viewing; inspirations; dreams; conversations and life-events.
It was through constant rumination, and by the discernment of
patterns and trends, that it became clear in general outline
what was unfolding, and it was only after subjecting this to
reason that I was finally able to discern internal
consistency, and then the ramification of details, as
presented here - which then focused the light of desire from
the impress of the initial clarity,lucidity and radiance of
illumination.
It seems to