The reasons that people get into trouble with religious experience are universal. It matters not the name of the religion. One of the fundamental truths of spiritual and religious experience, is that because that experience is universal so are the pitfalls. That is all of us, as human beings share similar psychological and physical make up, and the internal language and experience of religion flows from that. The physical and the spiritual are not seperate realms, but are interpolated realms that we experience seperately but which influence on another. Hence, the "realm of dreams", which is experienced most fully in "Vision" or "altered states" is universally available to human beings. And the deceptions which those dreams can give us are also universal. Most of us experience some form of it, some of us are open to experiencing such experiences intensely.
The people who feel them can either be "true prophets" or "false ones." They can either be "holy people" or poseurs. Or both. Those special people who tap into this "realm" systematically are often seen as "prophets." The realm of "Prophesy", where the "Unitary divine"[God/Buddha-BlissRealm/ DharmaRealm/ UniversalMaster] speaks to all of us; is available to everyone who makes sufficient effort. But if it is a realm from which great truths can "boil up" from the unconscious, it is also a realm from which internal evils can flow to the surface from that same unconscious. Thus it is also a realm of deception.
Kabbalists refer to the realm of deception as the "Sitra Accra" or the other side. The paradox is that this realm is effectively interpolated with the same "Heavenly realm" where the Kabbalist mystics go when they dream or tap into visions. And that is why they warn people that one should not put the cart before the horse. Interpreting the letters of the PRDS with their associated hebrew meanings. One should not go flying before one has mastered himself enough to be able to live on the ground. This is why the Jewish Mystics hit on the good combination of their mystics being required to have a secular living and be married. The temptation for mendicants and solitary people to "fly" -- and thus develop highly abstract or abstracted theories and beliefs is just too great. I also believe it is why they told the PaRDeS story I've written about in other places. I guess I'll have to talk about that story now. I come back to that story and that accronym again and again.
Posted by cholte at August 12, 2004 05:59 AMWell, I'm not sure I follow. I don't see prophecy as much related to mysticism at all, certainly not when we use the William James defintion of mysticism. Anyway, putting prophets aside, I think mystics are mostly harmless. Meister Eckhart, St. Francis, St. Theresa, the Sufi masters -- these guys never caused much trouble. It's the bureaucratic types who envy the mystics that cause all the trouble, the Cardinal Ratzingers. But maybe we're talking apples and oranges. - Brian
Posted by: Brian Holly at August 13, 2004 01:15 PMWell, yes, apples and oranges. The mystic tradition arrises out of the interpretation of things that are conveyed in the language of dreams. Prophets traditionally are people who claim to speak the languages of dreams. And of course the word has come to cover a number of different kinds of people. Most Mystics don't "do" prophesy, but some do. Some people who are not "mystics" claim to be prophets.
And "prophesy" is something that is more prevailent than people think. The guy who figured out the structure of the benzene ring did so after an inspired dream of snakes biting each other's tails. The prophets referred to in Bible and other works all were inspired by a combination of dreams and their "truth sense." And then you have to add in other, polluting, motivations.
Posted by: chris holte at August 15, 2004 08:21 AM