NATURE MYSTICISM

         The experience of the nature mystics is of a different order and magnitude; bonding and blending with all things around them; feeling a sense of the Divine within the living world; the calm, joy and peace of Oneness with the eternal–union with the creator through his creation, and the knowing of the divine plan in all things. The feeling is one in which all of nature is felt within the self: sun, moon, forests, oceans, everything; although the more common event is the self merging with all of nature. Here one is joined in an exuberant union with trees, flowers, butterflies, everything living and moving. The feeling of immortality takes hold, and death no longer seems of any consequence; the dance and flow of life are divine and eternal. One now becomes aware of a creation that finds expression in living things.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

         The best examples of nature mysticism can be found in the writings of those that have had these experiences. Many writers may be thought of as mystics as interpreted through their works, although in some rare cases they might even be considered mentally unstable, or even bordering on madness. Authors such as Richard Jefferies, Marcel Proust, Arthur Rimbaud, William Blake, report having visions that transported them to states of intense imagery. Whether these experiences can be counted as mystical, as generally believed, or just wild notions, is an open question. Other authors, such as Tennyson, and Wordsworth, were nature mystics to the extent that they had “waking trances” as Tennyson called them. He says:

         “I have never had any revelations, . . . but a kind of waking trance–this for lack of a better word–I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood, when I have been all alone. This has come upon me through repeating my own name to myself silently, till all at once, as it were out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused state but the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond words–where death was an almost laughable impossibility–the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction, but the only true life. I am ashamed of my feeble description. Have I not said the state is utterly beyond words?” Alfred Lord Tennyson later responded to critics by saying: “By God Almighty, there is no delusion in the matter! It is no nebulous ecstasy, but a state of transcendent wonder, associated with absolute clearness of mind.”

         Because no practice or directed effort is necessary for this type of mysticism, and that the experience usually occurs spontaneously, indicates that it happens more often than might be expected. Since this may come upon anyone, anytime, anyplace, the event likely tends to remain personal and shared with few people, although those with writing skills may be more willing to publish their stories.

Arthur Koestler

         One need not be out of doors, or in the comfort of one’s own home, for Arthur Koestler it was inside a barred cell. Koestler was taken into custody during the Spanish civil war; he often heard prisoners taken from their cells, placed against the cemetary wall, and shot. In this precarious situation, he tells us:

         “I was standing at the recessed window of cell No. 40 and with a piece of iron-spring that I had extracted from the wire mattress, was scratching mathematical formulae on the wall. Mathematics, in particular analytical geometry, had been the favourite hobby of my youth, neglected later on for many years. I was trying to remember how to derive the formula of the hyperbola, and was stumped; then I tried the ellipse and parabola, and to my delight succeeded. Next I went on to recall Euclid’s proof that the number of primes is infinite . . . . Since I had become acquainted with Euclid’s proof at school, it had always filled me with a deep satisfaction that was aesthetic rather than intellectual. Now, as I recalled the method and scratched the symbols on the wall, I felt the same enchantment.”

         “And then, for the first time, I suddenly understood the reason for this enchantment: the scribbled symbols on the wall represented one of the rare cases where a meaningful and comprehensive statement about the infinite is arrived at by precise and finite means. The infinite is a mystical mass shrouded in a haze; and yet it was possible to gain some knowledge of it without losing oneself in treacly ambiguities. The significance of this swept over me like a wave. The wave had originated in an articulate verbal insight; but this evaporated at once, leaving in its wake only a wordless essence, a fragrance of eternity, a quiver of the arrow in the blue. I must have stood there for some minutes, entranced, with a wordless awareness that ‘this is perfect–perfect;’ until I noticed some slight mental discomfort nagging at the back of my mind–some trivial circumstance that marred the perfection of the moment. Then I remember the nature of that irrelevant annoyance: I was, of course, in prison and might be shot. But this was immediately answered by a feeling whose verbal translation would be: So what? Is that all? Have you got nothing more serious to worry about?–an answer so spontaneous, fresh and amused as if the intruding annoyance had been the loss of a collar-stud. Then I was floating on my back in a river of peace, under bridges of silence. It came from nowhere and flowed nowhere. Then there was no river and no I. The I had ceased to exist. . . . .” 

         “What distinguishes this type of experience from the emotional entrancements of music, landscapes or love is that the former has a definitely intellectual, or rather noumenal, content. It is meaningful, though not in verbal terms. Verbal transcriptions that come nearest to it are: the unity and interlocking of everything that exists, an interdependence like that of gravitational fields or communicating vessels. The ‘I’ ceases to exist because it has, by a kind of mental osmosis, established communication with, and been dissolved in, the universal pool. It is this process of dissolution and limitless expansion which is sensed as the ‘oceanic feeling,’ as the draining of all tension, the absolute catharsis, the peace that passeth all understanding. . . . . .”

J. Trevor

         From the autobiography of J. Trevor: “One brilliant Sunday morning, my wife and boys went to the Unitarian Chapel in Macclesfield. I felt it impossible to accompany them–as though to leave the sunshine on the hills, and go down there to the chapel, would be for the time an act of spiritual suicide. And I felt such need for new inspiration and expansion in my life. So, very reluctantly and sadly, I left my wife and boys to go down into the town, while I went further up into the hills with my stick and my dog. In the loveliness of the morning, and the beauty of the hills and valleys, I soon lost my sense of sadness and regret. For nearly an hour I walked along the road to the ‘Cat and Fiddle,’ and then returned. On the way back, suddenly, without warning, I felt that I was in Heaven–an inward state of peace and joy and assurance indescribably intense, accompanied with a sense of being bathed in a warm glow of light, as though this external condition had brought about the internal effect–a feeling of having passed beyond the body, though the scene around me stood out more clearly, and as if nearer to me than before, by reason of the illumination in the midst of which I seemed to be placed. This deep emotion lasted, though with decreasing strength, until I reached home, and for some time after, only gradually passing away.”

         The writer adds that having had farther experiences of a similar sort, he now knows them well. He continues:

         “The spiritual life justifies itself to those who live it; but what can we say to those who do not understand? This, at least, we can say, that it is a life whose experiences are proved real to their possessor, because they remain with him when brought closest into contact with the objective realities of life. Dreams cannot stand this test. We wake from them, to find that they are but dreams. Wanderings of an overwrought brain do not stand this test. These highest experiences that I have had of God’s presence have been rare and brief flashes of consciousness which have compelled me to exclaim with surprise–God is Here!–or conditions of exaltation and insight, less intense, and only gradually passing away. I have severely questioned the worth of these moments. To no soul have I named them, lest I should be building my life and work on mere phantasies of the brain. But I find that, after every questioning and test, they stand out today as the most real experiences of my life, and experiences which have explained and justified and unified all past experiences and all past growth. Indeed, their reality and their far reaching significance are ever becoming more clear and evident. When they came, I was living the fullest, strongest, sanest, deepest life. I was not seeking them. What I was seeking, with resolute determination, was to live more intensely my own life, as against what I knew would be the adverse judgment of the world. It was in the most real seasons that the Real Presence came, and I was aware that I was immersed in the infinite ocean of God.”

Dr. R.M. Bucke

         “I had spent the evening in a great city, with two friends, reading and discussing poetry and philosophy. We parted at midnight. I had a long drive in a hansom to my lodging. My mind, deeply under the influence of the ideas, images, and emotions called up by the reading and talk, was calm and peaceful. I was in a state of quiet, almost passive enjoyment, not actually thinking, but letting ideas, images, and emotions flow of themselves, as it were, through my mind. All at once, without warning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flame-colored cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, an immense conflagration some where close by in that great city; the next, I knew that the fire was within myself. Directly afterward there came upon me a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe. Among other things, I did not merely come to believe, but I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life. It was not a conviction that I would have eternal life, but a consciousness that I possessed eternal life then; I saw that all men are immortal; that the cosmic order is such that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all; that the foundation principle of the world, of all the worlds, is what we call love, and that the happiness of each and all is in the long run absolutely certain. The vision lasted a few seconds and was gone; but the memory of it and the sense of the reality of what it taught has remained during the quarter of a century which has since elapsed. I knew that what the vision showed was true. I had attained to a point of view from which I saw that it must be true. That view, that conviction, I may say that consciousness, has never, even during periods of the deepest depression, been lost.” Of cosmic consciousness, Dr. Bucke says:

         “The prime characteristic of cosmic consciousness is a consciousness of the cosmos, that is, of the life and order of the universe. Along with the consciousness of the cosmos there occurs an intellectual enlightenment which alone would place the individual on a new plane of existence–would make him almost a member of a new species. To this is added a state of moral exaltation, an indescribable feeling of elevation, elation and joyousness, and a quickening of the moral sense, which is fully as striking and more important than is the enhanced intellectual power. With these come, what may be called, a sense of immortality, a consciousness of eternal life, not a conviction that he shall have this, but the consciousness that he has it already.”

Saint Ignatius Loyola

         Loyola was aristocratic by birth, and a soldier as a young man. Brave and daring, his feats of prowess and reputation with the ladies made him popular and well liked. During the defense of the fortress at Pamplona against the French, he sustained wounds that were long in healing. During his convalescence, he asked for books of romance and chivalry, but none could be found. Instead he was brought a collection of books on the life of Christ, and legends of the saints. Ignatius, “much addicted to gambling and dissolute in his dealings with women, contentious and keen about using his sword,” found himself reflecting on the gentle thoughts in his new books. It was to have a lasting effect, and prepared him for his experience by the river Cardoner. Unlike most of the other mystic saints, Loyola wrote very little about his personal experiences; however, we do have one description written in the third person:

         “One day he went out of devotion to a church which stood a little over a mile from Manresa. . . . The road there runs along the river. Occupied with his devotions as he went along, he sat down for awhile facing the river that ran below. As he sat there, the eyes of his understanding began to open. Without having any vision he understood–knew–many matters both spiritual and pertaining to the Faith and to the realm of letters and that with such clearness that they seemed utterly new to him. There is no possibility of setting out in detail everything he then understood. The most that he can say is that he was given so great an enlightening of his mind that, if one were to put together all the helps he has received from God and all the things he has ever learned, they would not be the equal of what he received in that single illumination. He was left with his understanding so enlightened that he seemed to be another man with another mind than the one that was his before.”

         Later Loyola traveled to the Holy Land with a conviction to convert the heathens. Faced with finding himself unprepared, he spent ten years studying grammar, philosophy, and theology. Loyola earned a master’s degree in Paris, and joined a group of young men planning to become missionaries with vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. With these loyal men Loyola spearheaded the formation of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits as they came to be called. The order became the best defense against the protestant reformation, and a major force in the spread of Christianity. Loyola’s most important work: the “Spiritual Exercises,” has been recognized as a vital contribution to the theology of the church.

         Loyola’s personal mystical experience became his spiritual life, reflecting all that he did and became after it. A direct experience of the Godhead flooded Loyola’s intellect with knowledge, and in his later years became of almost constant duration. It was as though his sense faculties were left free, and that only the substance of his being came directly and immediately into union with the Godhead. Call it a master intuition rather than a vision that operated in and became an aspect of his life.