I am currently writing a post on Jesus for the sake of my Jewish friends, and I came across musician Paul Simon’s latest work and how this project was suggested to him in a dream1 he had several years ago, with bits and pieces revealed to him over the following years. After reading several interviews about his approach to producing this album “Seven Psalms,” I also read accounts from him about how he processes his work and writes his songs in general. It may not be completely obvious to him at this point, but it is fairly clear to me that he is having a revealed, mystical experience which is enveloped in music because that is the language he is most familiar with. To what extent this is God revealing Himself or the musician’s own subconscious at work or something else will take time to determine. But I see Paul Simon taking “baby steps” in a faith which, if left unimpeded, will reveal a purpose and come to fruition. It is a mystical experience. One that may very well change his life, or the lives of others. This is how mysticism and faith sometimes go hand in hand.
The role of mysticism in Judaism and Christianity
Judaism and Christianity are both “revealed” religions. They depend on information that can not be deduced or inferred as “natural” religions can be. For example, how do we know about the creation in Genesis, the sequence of events, etc. if people were not alive to witness it when it first began? Who was taking notes when Elijah was in the wilderness, or when Jesus was tempted in perhaps in that very same wilderness, or when Saul was laying in the dirt on the Damascus road, wondering what was happening to him and why he suddenly lost his sight? Why, for that matter, was Zechariah struck dumb as related in Luke, Chapter One? The details and the answers to each and all of these questions (and more) come from divine revelation. Once the revelation is given, however, it is left to scholastics to organize the mystical writings in some cogent fashion for future generations. There is a marriage of necessity between these two groups as Anthony Costello notes:
Scholasticism and Mysticism are not opposed to each other. They should go hand in hand. If theology is treated merely as an affair of the intellect and reason, it is devoid of all living and life-giving warmth; if it lacks clear and precise notions, if there is no method in its treatment, no logical classification, definition, division, it will end in sentimentalism and heresy.”
Anthony Costello calls scolasticism a “tether” to mysticism to keep it from running afield. In other words, mystics play important roles in other religions; religions that Christians would call heretical. This is why in his second espitle to the Corinthians, chapter 11, St. Paul warns:
“For such people are false apostles,deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”
In Galatians 1:8, Paul writes further that “. . .even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!” Indeed, some false religions began with a spirit identifying itself as an angel that deceived many and led them away from the simplicity of the Gospel and the diety of Christ. So, scholastics hold mystics “accountable” in some fashion. And without mystics, there would not be any scholastics because there would not be any religion.
The process
So, mystics are responsible for collecting all of this information about creation, Elijah, Jesus and Saul in the first place. The apostle Peter writes in his second letter “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved (φερόμενοι meaning ‘of the mind,’ ‘to be moved inwardly,’ ‘prompted’) by the Holy Ghost (1:21.)” The apostle Paul, after he had recovered his sight and his wits following his trip to Damascus wrote to Timothy (II TIm 3:16) that all Scripture is θεόπνευστος (God-breathed or inspired by God.) Once mystics have completed their work, it is up to theologians (i.e. scholastics) to interpret what was divined, evaluate it in the context of existing understanding and interpretation of Scripture, and to organize a systematic theology with the information mentioned above. Still, there is tension, however, between those who prophesy and those who do not. Those who do not have this gift are rightfully skeptical whenever someone claims to have a divine revelation. You can’t control what prophets say, and they are often killed for their pronouncements as Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel were. Or, Joan of Ark. Sometimes there are false prophets and we have them today in our churches. Sometimes a person has a supernatural revelation but it is not from God. I’ve read a speech from the late terrorist Osama bin Laden that was clearly inspired (i.e., written so well) that it was well above his “pay grade” (or mine) in it’s elegance and persuasion. It may have come from Lucifer, but it certainly was not from God. All one can do is prayerfully weigh what is said against the whole sense of Scripture, perhaps take into account the person who is offering the message, their character, the context and so on.
A few other remarks before we go on: First of all, mysticism deal with extrasensory events. These events cannot be quantified or measured, though serotonin and endorphins play a role in producing mystical experiences. Writes Reverend Dr. Jeffrey Frantz:
“Mysticism reminds us that our minds, our logic and reasoning can only take us so far. Over the centuries, mystics have used the creativity of poetry, art, music, dance, fiction, story telling, painting, sculpture, and architecture to express this reality that transcends concepts. Mysticism opens the human spirit to the depths of a deeper experience of God.”
The apostle Peter fell into a trance before he met the centurian Cornelius (who himself had a private, mystical revelation.) Augustine heard a voice while sitting in a garden one day. Constantine had a vision, as did Jonathan Edward’s wife Sarah in colonial New England.
Secondly, not every Jewish or Christian mystic’s work is accepted universally as Scripture. In the Old Testament, theologians have the excluded books of Enoch and The Assumption of Moses even though Jude briefly mentions what appears to be quotes from these two books in his letter. Strictly speaking, the fact that Jude does so might mean that what he says was common knowledge back then, and not that he personally endorses these two books as the source of this information. EsdrasIII and IV are also rejected (though Esdras I & II are in the Catholic apocrypha.) In the New Testament, The Gospel of Thomas and The Shepherd were excluded to name just two. The Book of Daniel was almost omitted from the Old Testament by the Jewish Council of Jamnia circa 92-95 C.E. The Shepherd was omitted for the sake of John’s Revelation at the Council of Rome in 382 A.D.
Jews and Christians can be confident that there are no “missing books” to their Scriptures. Protestants (thanks partly to Martin Luther and to which ancient manuscripts are consulted) consider certain works such as what are found in the Jewish scriptures and the Catholic Old Testament as useful for edification, though not possessing the same authority and infalibility as the Word of God, itself does.
What I’ve learned
While not every Christian would agree with me, I see the gift of prophecy working today on a person-to-person basis. But I am very suspicious of self-ordained “prophets” who advertise on the Web. Some of these people inadvertantly confuse what God believes with what they personally believe. If they believe that Joe Biben is a thief and a sleaze, then they think that God sees POTUS that way as well. And, some of these scoundrels use their “spiritual gift” to make money. My belief is that God “prompts” people who serve him with tidbits of useful information now and again that keep them safe, help them make sound career decisions, stregthen or preserve relationships, etc. These prompts might be a verbal message or just a “leading” that most people would chalk up to intuition.
When I had been a Christian for three or four years, I went to a prayer meeting or social gathering one evening and a woman I knew and respected and who was a Catholic charismatic pulled me aside to say she had received a prophecy about me from God. It was only 2-3 sentences long and said to the effect that I had a exceptional future ahead of me in terms of intercessory prayer. Looking back, I would say that she may have been mistaken in tnhinking it was from God. She was very kind, but fifty years later I just don’t see that having happened. However, if I had success or time spent in intercessory prayer, perhaps it was because of a self-fullfilling prophecy. She said it, I believed it, ergo it happened. Don’t I don’t think it did.
William James
American author Ralph Waldo Emerson and British poet Alfred Lord Tennyson have had mystical “moments” in their lives, though one would hardly consider them mystics, and perhaps not even devout Christians. William James, the brother of writer Henry James studied Christian mysticism and wrote an excellent book in the Nineteenth Century called “The Varieties of Religious Experience.” In the book, he lists four hallmarks of a mystical experience:
Ineffability: The content of the experience, indeed, the experience, itself defies description. Words are woefully inadequate.
Noetic quality: There is information presented hither to unknown or the experience, itself, is so moving.
Transiency: The experience may be very brief, but the message or the moment lingers or repeats itself over time.
Passivity: The visionary (mystic) feel captured or subdued throughout the event, as if in the grip of some “higher power.”
I’ve heard a number of interviews with Paul Simon, and each of these four criteria appear to have been met. He had trouble finding the right words to describe what was happening. The experience and subsequent promptings in the early hours of the morning was noetic. Furthermore, years later he refers to it as a significant event in his career, and lastly, he felt compelled to walk through the door once it had been opened (passivity.)
Certainly, it is not inconceivable that when God approaches a person, there would be a physical response from the person. A rapid pulse perhaps, or dry mouth, palpitations, or a sense of disorientation, as chemicals are released from the brain. I’m not by any means finished with this post, but I wanted to lay it our for now. I also would encourage you to listed Jill Bolte Taylor in the Ted Talk video below. She very charismatically describes how she felt, and what she was thinking while she was having a massive stroke. She is a highly trained neuroanatomist who can give us insight into the role our brain plays in mystical experience.
-More to follow-
Footnotes
1“I had a dream on 15 January 2019. And the dream said, ‘You’re working on a piece called Seven Psalms.’ It was so vivid that I woke up and wrote it down, which is not typical of me. Nor do I take instructions from my dreams. But this was a very powerful dream. And it was also the anniversary of my father’s passing, which is probably just a coincidence, if you believe in coincidence, which I do…Maybe three times a week, I would wake up between the hour of 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. with words coming, and I would just write them down,'” Simon told Paul Muldoon and Tom Power in separate interviews.
