The argument basically went that few if any religions want their apple cart upset by someone having an experience that absolutely transcends, and thus threatens to contradict their scriptures, teachings, dogmas, clergy, teachers, or authorities. So, for instance, you might have an experience of oneness, but upon returning from it, you are challenged to see it in terms of your religion, rather than in the more transcendental terms in which it happened to you. e.g. you experienced a sense of oneness, but you are now to call the sense of oneness, "God's Divine Grace"., etc, etc, etc.
What do you make of such an idea? As I recall now, thirty-five years later, the notion was endorsed to one extent or another by several scholars and such, including Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell.
I spend a fair amount of time questioning the roles religion plays, and its relationship to the mystical in supporting or suppressing it. There are different forms and flavors religion takes that's important to realize before looking at such a question. I put together something a while back which I culled from Ken Wilber's book A Sociable God which I think is useful to realize in a high-level understanding of the uses of the term religion and how it is seen and practiced, that religion is not just one thing. I'll paste that here as it pertains to the discussion:
1. Religion as non-rational engagement:
- Deals with the non-rational aspects of existence such as faith, grace, etc.
2. Religion as meaningful or integrative engagement:
- A functional activity of seeking meaning, truth, integration, stability, etc.
3. Religion as an immortality project:
- A wishful, defensive, compensatory belief in order to assuage anxiety and fear
4. Religion as evolutionary growth:
- A more sophisticated concept that views history and evolution as a process towards self-realization, finding not so much an integration of current levels, but higher structures of truth towards a God-Realized Adaptation.
5. Religion as fixation and regression:
- A standard primitivization theory: religion is childish, illusion, myth.
6. Exoteric religion
- The outward aspects, belief systems to support faith. A non-esoteric religion. A potential predecessor to esoteric religion.
7. Esoteric religion
- The inward aspects of religious practices, either culminating in, or having a goal of mystical experience.
8. Legitimate religion:
- A system which provides meaningful integration of any given worldview or level. A legitimate supporting structure which allows productive functionality on that level, horizontally. The myth systems of the past can be called "legitimate" for their abilities to integrate. A crisis of legitimacy occurs when the symbols fail to integrate. This describes the failure of a myth's legitimacy we saw occur with the emergence of a new level of our conscious minds in the Enlightenment. Civil religion is one example of an attempt to provide legitimacy to this level, following the failure of the old legitimate system.
9. Authentic religion
- The relative degree of actual transformation delivered by a religion or worldview. This is on a vertical scale providing a means of reaching a higher level, as opposed to integrating the present level on a horizontal scale. It provides a means to transformation to higher levels, as opposed to integration of a present one.
So now to the question about the relationship of religion and mysticism. I think the question touches on almost all the points above in the list, but primarily between R6, and R7, exoteric and esoteric. I think all religions have esoteric elements to them, in their symbolisms if nowhere else. Exoteric religion, the outward forms expose someone to what are by nature interior truths, even if in practice that are understood as strictly outside oneself. To teach someone the symbols exterior to themselves can and often does have the effect of giving them a language for their own religious experiences, if and when they have them. Someone in this thread touched on that somewhat earlier.
A good, or healthy religion offers a system whereby the principles of esoteric truths are taught and communicated through exoteric forms. It also would be able to take those who move into the interior spaces in esoteric religious experience, the mystical, and support and guide that process. It also would need to remain fluid and adaptive in order to help translate the symbols of its faith system for both exposure to their meanings, and the realization of their meanings, but to make them relevant to those living in their culture and societies which are always evolving. R8 above, the Legitimate religion allows its symbols to be relevant to the day and age it lives in.
I think what the mistake is that people often make is to look at religion in modern times as out-of-step with culture and society and conclude religion is irrelevant as a system (and that is largely true in the West due to the rapid rise of modernity and postmodernity). Systems take a long time to adapt and are being outpaced by society, which at worst creates these pathological aberrations we call religious fundamentalism, which tend to function largely as R3 in the above list, a defensive posture. But the mainline churches today being more exoteric is due in no small part of the overall dissociation of the humanities and sciences since the Enlightenment.
In their role, they are put out in the wings as a specialized pursuit of the humanities, and as a result they fail to be a legitimate system, integrating the religious life, which includes both the exoteric and the esoteric, into the whole of society which includes the big three of science, morals, and art. If it does not speak to the whole, it fails in its integrative role. It fails to be legitimate. I believe if it fails to be legitimate
horizontally, translating the world for the individuals or the body, it will fail
vertically as well as an authentic religion, helping those seeking interior realization through esoteric practice. To simply open oneself to state experience, to have a Sartori experience without a legitimate framework with which to translate into or with, limits the amount of actual transformation that can occur, which requires
interior realization, supported by
exterior structures.
So to say religion stands in the way of the mystical is not incorrect. But I'm not entirely convinced that a lack of any religious frameworks or structures is legitimate either. Even if those exoteric structures are not found in traditional institutional forms, some form of legitimate religious framework will need to exist. I like the three jewels of Buddhism in this regard, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. That covers both the interior and the exterior. Enlightenment that does not integrate is only partial.
Sorry for the length of all this, but I'm somewhat processing out loud as the topic touches on these thoughts I'm still processing. Hopefully there's something worth discussion in all of this.
) that would allow people to have certain experiences. Not just religions though, ideologies in general. Whether people close up or walk around with a cup filled to the brim, the willingness and ability to openly receive/perceive gets cut off.
