According to the dictionary, mysticism is defined as follows: belief characterized by self-delusion or dreamy confusion of thought. What does James Williams say about mysticism? James focuses more on the individual aspect of mysticism. He believes that there are two characteristic outcomes of mysticism. One being optimism and the other being monism. I also think we need to ask the question, “What exactly is a mystical experience? ” A mystical experience is something that a human being experiences in another realm of consciousness. William James seems to have his own take about mystical experiences.
He believes that a person cannot tell anyone else about the experience in full detail so that the other person can understand it. He believes that rational beliefs are experimental and that mystical experiences do not have a high enough status to make a person believe in God. James says that the mystics themselves not only regard their experiences as vertical, but are justified in doing so. James says that a mystical experience breaks down the authority of rational consciousness and opens up consciousness itself to potentially different orders of truth.
It makes a wider world of meanings become possible for a person and it might be necessary for a fuller conception of the truth. He believed that these experiences start from being something small to something larger and that they are felt as unifying states. James suggests that nonmystics have no good reasons for regarding them as delusory, or an experience whose contents neither correspond to nor correctly represent some aspect of reality, also adding to this James says that the mystics themselves not only regard their experiences as vertical, but are justified in doing so.
James said that just because it cannot be proved as true, does not mean its value should decrease. James believed that rather the experience be positive or negative, they both deserved recognition. He suggests that, like our rational states, mystical states encompass both truth and deception, pleasure and pain. William James believed that mystical experiences were categorized under four categories: passivity, ineffability, noetic quality, and transiency. The first two claim this: ineffability: the subject of a mystical experience cannot find words to describe it.
On the other hand, there is the noetic quality: subjects claim that they have experienced revelations, insights into vital truths. The latter two claim this: transiency: they rarely last more than an hour or two at most. Passivity: the subject feels a loss of control, of being in the grasp of a ‘superior power’ James argues that mysticism does not have sufficient warrant for truth claims but is true for those who have had the experience. James ended his study of mysticism and mystical experiences with three conclusions:
1. Mystical states, have the right to be absolutely authoritative over the individuals to whom they come. 2. No authority emanates from them which should make it a duty for those who stand outside of tem to accept their revelations uncritically. 3. They break down the authority of the nonmystical or rationalistic consciousness, based on the understandings and senses alone. It is said that during mystical experiences a person becomes one with the absolute and that we become aware of our oneness.
To accommodate these so called “mystical experiences” they have to happen spontaneously, during religious practices, epilepsy, or even drugs. Mystical experiences can happen anywhere. It is said that they can happen inside or outside of a religious place and even with or within a religious tradition. Mystical experiences are sometimes seen as a component of a religious tradition because it can offer validation of religious belief. People who have had mystical experiences have said that they were powerful and had the right of providing ethical, moral, intellectual and emotional direction.
Thonestly do not believe in mystical experiences. Coming from a devout Christian, I believe that so called “mystical experiences” are just God coming forth to tell you that he is real and that you need to straighten up and get yourself together. This may just be another way for God to scare a person into believing in him, just like if a person almost dies in a car wreck and they start believing in God. I do not think we need mystical experiences to believe that God exists. We should be able to look around and see what God has done for us on this earth.
We should just be able to read his word and believe it all. Why not? It was written for a reason. For all of God’s children to believe in him and the miracles he creates for us all every day. Why do we need to go to another realm, per say, to have a mystical experience, when if we believe in God he can give us a worldly experience instead? We do not need to “leave this earth” to have a mystical experience. Also, what if the so called “mystical experience” is something or someone else altogether?
It could very possibly be the devil trying to show us to do something evil or wrong in the world. I believe that we do not need mystical experiences to believe a fuller conception of the truth and I also think that we do not need them for a wider world of meanings to become possible. I believe that God does need us to experience these mystical things because he is the God and he can show that he exists in other ways. Believing in these experiences prevents us, the world as a whole, from rejecting the possibility of a world beyond our senses.
PUT AS LAST If a person has to truly have a mystical experience to explain it, then how can we understand them if we haven’t not had one? Some people may believe what the person says, but someone with any common sense would just believe that the person had gone insane. How do we know that the person hasn’t just come to just believe in the Lord? He is here and he is trying to tell us that there is still good in this world. This world always seems to look at things scientifically. Why not just set back and be able to enjoy something without having to look deeply into it?
This world is full of too many questions and I believe if we just believed in God’s words, we would not have to worry about have our own “mystical experience. ” As a Christian, I believe that God has spoken to me, but not through a mystical experience, but through other people. We don’t need him to talk to us through mystical experiences because he is walking in the form of other people. Why go to another realm of consciousness when we can stay conscious in this world and experience the same thing if we have God in our hearts.
God can show us that he is with us by putting something in front of our faces in the real world. He does not need us to be unconscious to show us things. He can use other people to that, so there is no need to say there are such things as mystical experiences. I feel that if a person were to have a “mystical experience” that the person may become too attached to wanting to have more of them. Why rely on something that may not even be what a person thinks it is? Becoming too attached to a so called mystical experience could cause a person to go insane.